Oregon's Owyhees: Deserving of Permanent Protection

The Sierra Club recently hosted over two dozen excited activists at the annual Owyhee Rendezvous, a camping and service trip in the heart of Oregon’s remote Owyhee Canyonlands.  The region’s bighorn sheep and time spent recovering hiking trails from off-road vehicle abuse were terrific reminders of the region’s value and needs. 

Adjacent to wilderness in Idaho, the Oregon portion of the Owyhees is no less stunning, geologically magnificent, and culturally rich than its eastern neighbor--certainly a landscape deserving permanent protection. The Owyhees are home to bighorn sheep, sage grouse and a wide array of raptors and song birds. The area is one of the best strongholds for dwindling populations of sage grouse. The severe, challenging landscape that makes up the Owyhee Canyonlands contains uplands that provide amazing vistas of the deep, rugged river canyons and opportunities for solitude and quiet contemplation seldom found in hectic lives. The canyons themselves provide many climbs that challenge even the most experienced hiker. 

Timber Giant Gets Off Cheap

Editor's note: the Sierra Club is concerned that extensive clearcutting in the Sierra Nevada puts our forests, wildlife, homes and watersheds at greater risk of severe, damaging wildfires. Clearcutting replaces complex, diverse forests with dense, highly flammable tree plantations. These tree farms are like standing matchsticks. Fires, such as the Moonlight Fire discussed in the blog by campaign partner Environmental Protection Information Center below, are often sparked by logging equipment.  

Sierra Pacific Industries (SPI), the largest landowner in the state of California settled a lawsuit for negligently causing a fire in 2007 that burned over 65,000 acres, including public lands in the Plumas National Forest.  The Moonlight Fire started on Labor Day, September 3, 2007, near Westwood in Lassen County. It was a hot, dry “red flag” day indicating a high risk of fire danger. According to the authorities, SPI’s contractor caused the fire as result of negligent logging operations on SPI’s lands southeast of Mountain Meadows Reservoir.   

Shell: A Series of Broken Promises Spells Trouble for the Arctic

By Dan Ritzman 

“We recognize that industry's license to operate in the offshore is predicated on being able to operate in a safe, environmentally sound manner. Shell's commitment to those basic principles is unwavering. Our Alaska Exploration Plans and Oil Spill Response Plans will continually be guided by our extensive Arctic expertise, solid scientific understanding of the environment and world-class capabilities," said Pete Slaiby, VP Alaska.

For months, maybe years, this is the basic message we have heard from the Shell Oil public relations machine -- trust us, we are doing everything we can possibly do to make sure we are not polluting the environment and that we will be ready to clean up our oil spills in the Arctic Ocean. Recent events seem to tell a different story as Shell breaks promise after promise on drilling safety.

New Legislation Threatens American Jobs and Forests

If there’s one thing the Sierra Club and the timber industry can agree on, it’s that our natural resources have precious value. The U.S. forest products industry employs nearly 900,000 men and women and produces approximately $175 billion in products annually. But the value of our forests extends far beyond monetary value; forests also help regulate the global climate and are home to hundreds of indigenous communities that depend on the forests for physical and cultural survival. And while some wish to exploit the precious value of our forests, the century-old Lacey Act has helped protect our forests and workers from illegal logging. 

But, this vital protection is under attack by Representatives Blackburn (TN), Bono-Mack (CA), and Cooper (TN) who want to gut the Lacey Act with a new bill, H.R. 3210.  If they are successful, this bill would only benefit illegal loggers and allow them to loot our forests with little accountability or repercussions.

Sage Grouse: Investing in a Shared Future

Photo courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service

I was born and raised on the East Coast.  I make my life here and it is where I will spend the rest of my days.  I’ve been lucky enough to visit the wild reaches of our nation, from Yellowstone to the Arctic, the Sierra Nevada to the Cascades, and I appreciate the need to keep them wild.  For me however, landscapes where people are part of the natural fabric – the fields and woodlands of our nation – will always resonate with me the loudest because they have the warmth of home.

Maybe that is why of all the Western landscapes I have visited, the one I am the most drawn to is the vast Sagebrush Sea.  Stretching from the Western Dakotas, across the Rockies to the Eastern edge of the Sierras and Columbia River Drainage, it  is a land where family ranches support world class big game populations like elk and mule deer; a place where renewable energy development exists side-by-side with pronghorn ; a region that helps feed America, that lights our cities and powers our manufacturing; where jobs are being created while at the same time supporting over 1500 species of plants and animals, many of them found nowhere else in the world. A region where balance is crucial to maintaining the land’s productivity and abundance.

Over the last several decades, the balance so crucial to America’s Sagebrush Sea has begun to be lost. Poorly planned development, unsustainable land use practices, the spread of invasive species and catastrophic wildfire have caused the Sagebrush Sea to shrink as much as 50%. The proverbial “canary in the coal mine” of this loss is the Greater Sage Grouse, now a candidate for listing under the Endangered Species Act.

Sierra Club Challenges Shell’s Oil Spill Response Plans

The Sierra Club, as part of a coalition of conservation groups, took legal action today challenging the adequacy of Shell Oil’s oil spill response plans for the Polar Bear Seas.  Even as Shell’s drill ships head to these Arctic Seas there remains no proven way to clean up an oil spill in the icy and dangerous waters. 

Behind Shell’s empty promise of safety is an oil spill response plan that relies on unbelievable assumptions, includes equipment that has never been tested in Arctic conditions, and ignores the very real possibility that a spill could continue through the winter.  Imagine if a blowout like what happened in the Gulf of Mexico happened in the Arctic Ocean during late September; as winter sea ice begins to form any attempts at stopping the spill, containing the oil, or cleaning up the coasts have to stop until the next summer.  This unspeakable disaster could become a horrifying reality.

The last test of spill response equipment in the Arctic was declared a “failure.”  Today, more than a decade later, Shell is still relying on much of the same failed equipment. The company touts its new Arctic containment system but it isn’t even included in the spill response plan, nor has it been proven to work in the Arctic.

In its plan the company says it will clean up more than 90% of any oil spilled. Given that less than 10% of spilled oil was recovered after the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster it is hard to believe that a cleanup with inadequate equipment amid icebergs, high seas, and extreme weather will do better.  Cleanup efforts could be shut down for months if a late season oil spill were to take place—a possibility Shell is not prepared for.

Throw in the lack of knowledge about how drilling or chemical dispersants will affect Arctic wildlife and natural systems and it is clear that Shell cannot drill safely in the Arctic’s Beaufort and Chukchi Seas.

Join us in working to protect the Arctic! 

 

Grand Canyon Aircraft Noise Continues

The Grand Canyon National Park will stay noisy from air tours, thanks to last minute secret maneuvers during passage of a federal transportation funding bill by Congress before their July Fourth recess.

The compromise legislation includes several anti-environmental measures pushed by Republican leadership in the House, but this provision was in neither the Senate nor House version before final negotiations started. The provision is very similar to legislation introduced earlier earlier this year by Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) and endorsed by Arizona's Senators McCain and Kyl.

Ironically, this came immediately before the National Park Service was prepared to issue final recommendations on reducing air tour noise over the Grand Canyon. This followed years of agency noise studies costing $6 million and after gathering almost 30,000 public comments.

Photo courtesy of National Park Service

The Park Service plan was expected to extend quiet hours in the morning and evening, move air tour routes away from popular beaches, trails, and overlooks during certain seasons, and limit air tour numbers in the future.

"Congress locked into place the noise we have today at Grand Canyon," said Rob Smith, Senior Organizing Manager for the Sierra Club in Phoenix, Arizona. "They stopped the Park Service from protecting the natural quiet of our premier national park."

The law is now changed to allow half the park to have unlimited aircraft noise, and allow the rest of the park to hear air tour noise 25% of the time throughout the day. Plus air tour numbers can increase without limit into the future.

"President Teddy Roosevelt set aside this special place to protect its naturalness for future generations, but commercial interests dominated this time," said Smith. "The Grand Canyon should not sound like an airport."

 

Looking Out to Sea from the Arctic Refuge

There is nothing like staring out to the Arctic Ocean while standing within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.  The vast and rugged peaks of the Brooks Range bow down to the Arctic Ocean in a long, rolling plain.  The wild landscape surrounds you and the blue ocean stretches over the horizon.  Today I look at the ocean and wonder, “What will happen now?”

Great Outdoors America Week in Washington, DC

Last week, nearly one hundred volunteers joined Sierra Club's Mission Outdoors and Resilient Habitats campaigns, including sixty youth from Baltimore County, in our nation’s Capitol for Great Outdoors America Week. Volunteer activists met with the administration and their elected leaders to talk about protecting our public lands and providing more opportunities for Americans to connect with the great outdoors.

Volunteers called on congress to support a clean public lands package and to fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

During the week, Mission Outdoors and the Outdoors Alliance for Kids hosted a congressional briefing on military kids, families, veterans and the outdoors. The Honorable Jo-Ellen Darcy, Assistant Secretary of the Army (Civil Works) participated in the panel moderated by Mission Outdoors' Stacy Bare. Participants shared the unique challenges military families and veterans face and discussed innovative programs to encourage our nation's heroes to explore and enjoy our public lands.

Mission Outdoors also hosted sixty youth organized by Baltimore Inner City Outings Chair Nicole Veltre and another dozen youth from Outdoors Nation to present a Great Outdoors America Champion awards to EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson and Representative John Sarbanes for their leadership connecting America with the outdoors (see the photo with Administrator Jackson and Rep. Sarbanes above). Rep. Sarbanes even tweeted about his meeting later on, and included a photo.

All in all, it was a very successful and very fun week.

-- Kristina Ortez, Sierra Club Mission Outdoors