Ground Truth Blog
Boundary Waters Wilderness Protected From Copper Mining for 20 Years
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland signed a mineral withdrawal order protecting the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Superior National Forest from sulfide-ore copper mining. Sulfide-ore copper mining generates waste rock full of sulfates, which, when exposed to...
Biden Administration Restores Tongass Protections
The Department of Agriculture finalized protections for the Tongass National Forest in Alaska, the world’s largest intact temperate rainforest. The final rule, announced Jan. 25, repeals the Trump Administration's 2020 Alaska Roadless Rule, restoring protections to...
Forest Service Admits Fire Retardant Use Violates Clean Water Act
Declines to reduce usage of the chemical pollutant The preliminary response to FSEEE’s fire retardant lawsuit acknowledges that the Forest Service is acting illegally but then “denies each and every allegation of the [FSEEE] Complaint.” The FSEEE lawsuit alleges...
Collaboratives are a Failed Experiment
“If you don’t have a seat at the table, you’re probably on the menu.” — Elizabeth Warren It is no coincidence that the rise of collaborative groups described in Christopher Ketcham’s guest essay followed the demise of the Forest Service’s logging-at-all-costs era....
Excerpted from ‘This Land’
When Congress passed the 2009 Omnibus Public Land Management Act, one of Barack Obama’s major public lands initiatives, it included a provision for a new program of management of national forests that promised “collaborative, science-based ecosystem restoration” of...
The Peshtigo Firestorm
On the night of October 8, 1871, in Peshtigo, Wisconsin, “all hell rode into town on the back of a wind.” In two hours, the Peshtigo Fire decimated a swath of forest 10 miles wide by 40 miles long and obliterated the towns of Peshtigo and Brussels in northeastern...
Mining Proposal Threatens Okefenokee
If approved, a proposal to mine titanium and zirconium in southern Georgia will threaten the integrity of the Okefenokee Swamp, designated a Wetland of International Importance through the Ramsar Convention. Ninety percent of the massive wetland lies within the...
Oregon High Court Rejects Timber Lawsuit
The Oregon Supreme Court rejected an appeal in a $1 billion lawsuit that sought to define the “greatest permanent value” of forests as timber revenue. The 13 counties that brought the lawsuit gave forestland to the state in the 1930s and ’40s. Oregon manages the land...
Urge Your U.S. Senators to Support HR 803 and Protect Wilderness
Please call both of your U.S. Senators today and urge them to support the Protecting America’s Wilderness and Public Lands Act, HR 803, which the House of Representatives has passed. We have an important window of opportunity to protect new national forest wilderness...
Forest Service Completes Prescribed Fire Review
After the Forest Service ignited a prescribed fire that became the largest wildfire in New Mexico history, Chief Randy Moore ordered a national review of the agency’s prescribed fire program. Published this fall, the review identifies 52 recommendations. Seven...
Phos-Chek in Sespe Creek Draws Attention to FSEEE Lawsuit
Alex Wilson, reporting for VC Reporter, recently covered our lawsuit against the Forest Service challenging its use of aerial fire retardant. He writes, "When environmental activist Andy Stahl heard that last month’s battle to extinguish the Howard Fire in the rugged...
Jet Fuel From Wood
Writing for Greenwire, Marc Heller reports that Enviva, the world’s largest wood pellet producer, has inked a deal to turn forest products into aviation fuel. The deal will send up to 750,000 metric tons of “forest thinnings” to a new production facility to be built...