Ground Truth Blog
More Trouble for Trump’s Interior Department
A half dozen officials in President Trump’s Department of the Interior are under investigation for possible ethics violations, according to a Washington Post article published this week. All are accused of engaging with former employers or clients in their official...
Endangered Species Act Protections Sought for Salamander
A rare salamander that occupies a unique niche in the Pacific Northwest will likely have its day in court to decide whether it merits protection under the Endangered Species Act. The Siskiyou Mountains salamander depends on damp, deep-forest talus slopes. It survives...
Photo Retake Project Documents Long-Term Changes
Sometimes a great deal of insight about how landscapes change over time can be gained through relatively low-tech approaches. A “repeat photography” project on Wyoming’s Bridger-Teton National Forest offers a case in point. Half a century ago, George Gruell, a...
Ex-Lobbyist Bernhardt New Interior Department Chief
David Bernhardt, a former lobbyist for the oil and gas industry who has drawn intense criticism for alleged conflicts of interest during his stint as a top official in the Trump administration’s Department of the Interior, was confirmed as permanent Secretary of the...
Group Sues Over Drilling Near Mount St. Helens
A conservation group is suing the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management for approving a Canadian company’s request to explore for gold and other minerals just outside the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument in Washington’s Cascade Mountains. In...
Controversial Utah Ski Expansion On Hold—For Now
The owners of a small Utah ski area have apparently withdrawn a request for a Forest Service permit that would clear the way for a major expansion into a roadless area of the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest. Last year, Mountain Capital Partners, owners of the...
Agency Agrees to Reduce Virginia Logging Plans
The Forest Service has scaled back a proposed logging project in a scenic area of the Jefferson National Forest in Virginia, earning praise from conservationists. Agency officials initially proposed logging nearly 1,500 acres around High Knob and Pickem Mountain, in a...
Agency Approves Plan for Arizona Copper Mine
The Forest Service has approved a Canadian firm’s plan of operations for a nearly $2 billion open-pit copper mine in the Santa Rita Mountains of southern Arizona. Toronto-based Hudbay Minerals Inc. plans to extract 112,000 tons of copper from the mine, as well as...
Judge Blocks Drilling Over Climate Concerns
In a ruling that could reverberate across federally managed lands, a U.S. district court judge on Monday found that the Bureau of Land Management must take climate change into account when deciding whether to approve leases for oil and gas drilling. U.S. District...
BLM Considers Burning Man Expansion
The Bureau of Land Management is considering a request to allow 20,000 more people to attend the Burning Man celebration in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert each year. Currently, 80,000 people are permitted to attend the event. In a draft environmental impact statement...
West Virginia Hydro Project Rejected
The Forest Service has rejected a proposal to build a $1.2 billion hydroelectric facility in the mountains of West Virginia, saying the project would harm rare species and degrade federally protected wetlands. FreedomWorks LLC, based in Harpers Ferry, wants to build...
It’s Official: Devil’s Staircase Protected as Wilderness
President Trump signed into law today a multifaceted public lands bill that at long last creates the Devil’s Staircase Wilderness Area in the rugged mountains of southwest Oregon’s Coast Range, a designation FSEEE has sought for more than a decade. Yesterday, FSEEE...