Ground Truth
Bitterroot National Forest Officials to Consider Allowing Bicycles in Wilderness Study Areas
Forest Service officials in Montana have opened a 45-day objection period regarding a proposal to close about 63 miles of trails in the Bitterroot National Forest to mountain bikes. The trails are located in two wilderness study areas—places being considered for...
Plan Would Limit Target Shooting in Colorado
A draft decision released yesterday would prohibit recreational target shooting on 225,574 acres on the Arapaho & Roosevelt National Forests in Colorado. The report follows a five-year process in which Forest Service officials worked with representatives from...
Judge: Forest Service Must Reconsider Elk-Feeding Program
Forest Service officials in Wyoming must reexamine their decision to let state wildlife officials feed elk on the Bridger-Teton National Forest in the wintertime, according to a federal judge’s ruling. U.S. District Judge Nancy Freudenthal ruled on Friday that...
Trump Administration Continues Efforts to Expand Drilling and Mining on Public Lands
Bureau of Land Management officials this week auctioned off 134,000 acres in Utah for potential oil and gas drilling, including tracts near Canyonlands National Park and Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, as the Trump administration continued its efforts to expand...
Operation Goat Lift Begins
An operation to remove non-native mountain goats from the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state gets under way today. More than 700 goats live in the Olympic Mountains, descended from a handful released there by hunters nearly a century ago. Their numbers are...
Feds Clear Way for Mineral Exploration Near Boundary Waters
The Trump administration today rejected a proposed 20-year ban on mining in the watershed of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, clearing the way for mineral exploration on the Superior National Forest in northern Minnesota. The decision allows mining companies...
Forest Service Approves First Phase of Montana Mine
A plan to dig a copper and silver mine beneath the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness in northwest Montana took a step forward this week when Forest Service officials granted permission for the first phase of the project. On Monday, Kootenai National Forest Supervisor Chris...
FSEEE Featured on Public Radio Program
FSEEE Executive Director Andy Stahl was interviewed this morning on a public radio news program focusing on the use of fire retardant to fight wildfires. It’s a subject FSEEE knows quite a bit about. Several years ago, we won a pair of lawsuits that placed limits on...
Devil’s Staircase: A Place Like No Other
FSEEE has long championed protecting the spectacular Devil’s Staircase in Oregon’s Coast Range as a designated wilderness area. For a first-person account of a trip to the rugged region—and its signature feature, a naturally terraced waterfall surrounded by old-growth...
Major Expansion Planned for Nevada Ski Area
A major expansion of a ski area on national forest land just 50 miles outside of Las Vegas is now out for public review. The owners of the Lee Canyon ski area, on the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, want to build a bevy of year-round recreational attractions,...
OR-7 a Dad—Again
A trailblazing wolf that has made the Cascade Mountains of southern Oregon his own is a father once again. Yesterday, federal wildlife biologists released a video showing a trio of pups cavorting on a remote forest road. OR-7 was the seventh wolf to be fitted with a...
Judges Revoke Atlantic Coast Pipeline Permits
Another week, another victory for opponents of pipelines in the Appalachian Mountains. On Monday, a three-judge panel invalidated two key permits for the 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline on grounds that they would violate the Endangered Species Act and run afoul of...
FSEEE Featured in Public Radio Report on Wildfires
Former FSEEE board member Rich Fairbanks is quoted extensively in an in-depth Oregon Public Broadcasting report that examines the disconnect between politics and the best science regarding wildfires. Fairbanks, a retired Forest Service employee and firefighter, took...
Op-ed Slams Forestry Provisions in House Farm Bill
For a clear-eyed analysis of the threats to our national forests posed by disastrous provisions in the House version of the 2018 Farm Bill, check out this op-ed, published today on the news website, The Hill. The piece is penned by Jerry Franklin and Norm Christensen,...
Judges Rule Against Pipeline
Prospects for a new natural gas pipeline that would span a 3.6-mile stretch of the Jefferson National Forest in Virginia are unclear after a three-judge panel ruled on Friday in favor of activists who hope to stop the project. Construction has begun on the 303-mile...
DeFazio Introduces Bill to Protect Devil’s Staircase
A big thumbs up to Oregon Rep. Peter DeFazio, who yesterday introduced legislation that would protect one of the most remote slices of the state’s coastal mountains from logging, mining and other development. DeFazio’s bill would designate more than 30,000 acres of...
FSEEE Weighs In on Ski Funding Proposal
FSEEE Executive Director Andy Stahl is quoted extensively in a report published today on the Wyoming-based news website, WyoFile. The article is about proposed legislation in Congress that would require the Forest Service to invest a portion of fees collected from ski...
Trump Administration Launches Endangered Species Act Rollback
The Trump administration yesterday proposed a major overhaul of the Endangered Species Act, outlining regulatory revisions that could clear the way for drilling, logging and other industrial activities in areas that provide key habitat for rare plants and animals. A...
Major Expansion of Utah Ski Area Proposed
The owners of a small ski area in Utah have grand plans for a major expansion into a wild corner of the Wasatch Range. The proposal includes construction of a 4.3-mile gondola that would rank as one of the longest in the world. Mountain Capital Partners, which owns...
BLM Delays Offering Oil and Gas Leases in Colorado
Officials with the Bureau of Land Management will consult with the Navajo Nation before moving forward with plans to open more than 18,000 acres to oil and gas drilling in Colorado. The agency had planned to offer the tracts, which are on the doorstep of Great Sand...
Trump Pardons Imprisoned Oregon Ranchers
President Trump today pardoned two Oregon ranchers whose imprisonment sparked the 2016 armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. Dwight Hammond and his son, Steven, were sentenced to a mandatory minimum prison term of five years after a 2012 arson...