Forest Service OKs plan for thinning near Hyde Park

Environmental groups consider challenge in court over lack of impact study

more The than Santa 1,800 Fe National acres of forest Forest near plans Hyde to start Park thinning this fall out to reduce fire danger in the area northeast of Santa Fe, the agency announced this week.

A local coalition is considering legal action to try and stop the work because the Forest Service hasn’t prepared a comprehensive environmental study.

Sandy Hurlocker, Española District ranger, approved a final agency decision Wednesday to thin out the 1,840-acre parcel east of Hyde Park Estates. Plans generally call for cutting trees smaller than 16 inches in diameter and burning them on site.

“It’s necessary because conditions in that area are pretty overgrown, pretty thick compared to what conditions have been historically,” Hurlocker said. He said he’s worried about the heightened fire danger in current dry conditions.

Any fire in the thick forest of smaller trees that now crowds the area would likely carry flames into the tops of larger trees, creating a devastating “crown fire.” Such a fire could denude the landscape and lead to future flooding in lower areas, Hurlocker said.

The Hyde Park project area is near Hyde Memorial State Park and is adjacent to the Black Canyon campground. The

project is also close to the Santa Fe Municipal Watershed, where the Forest Service has done similar thinning work in recent years. Reservoirs in the watershed can provide up to 40 percent of the community water supply.

“It serves as another place where fire could get into the watershed,” Hurlocker said of the Hyde Park project area. “So, if we can do some treatments here to reduce that risk, then we’re going to be better off.”

Hurlocker said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has signed off on a finding that the project won’t hurt spotted owls, a federally protected species.

Hurlocker concluded in his decision memo that the Hyde Park project doesn’t require a full environmental study because it would reduce the risk of damage to the forest from insects and diseases. He said there’s not any large-scale insect or tree disease problem in the Hyde Park project area currently but said these issues are occurring nearby.

Work to start thinning the first 300 acres of the Hyde Park project could start this fall, Hurlocker said. He said he expects a contract for that portion of the work will cost about $250,000. It could take up to three years to finish the job.

The Hyde Park project is the first of a series of forest-thinning projects that the Forest Service says will reduce fire danger on 107,000 acres across the Sangre de Cristo mountain range in the coming years. Hurlocker said he expects the agency will sign off on the planned Pacheco Canyon project in the coming months. That 2,500-acre project includes some Tesuque Pueblo lands.

Sam Hitt, a longtime Santa Fe environmentalist, is president of the Santa Fe Forest Coalition, a group that includes several conservation groups and individuals. They maintain that the Forest Service must prepare a comprehensive environmental study examining the cumulative effects of all the planned thinning projects together. Hitt said his group is strongly considering a legal challenge to the Hyde Park project.

“There’s at least six projects that have been discussed, and all those projects are calling for heavy removal of vegetation,” Hitt said. “And that fragments wildlife habitat and prevents movement and ultimately disrupts the migration patterns of game animals like elk and deer, so these are the cumulative impacts or overall impacts that an environmental impact statement would take a hard look at.”

The Forest Service withdrew a similar proposal for the Hyde Park project area more than 10 years ago after environmentalists appealed the lack of detailed analysis.

Hitt said his coalition disagrees with the Forest Service’s conclusion that the Hyde Park project doesn’t require detailed environmental review because trees in the general area are affected by insects and disease.

“I think they’re stretching their authority to charge ahead with this project based on these excuses. It’s just not based on empirical data, sound science or common sense,” Hitt said.

Hitt also said the Hyde Park project would violate the existing Santa Fe National Forest management plan by failing to account for how the project may affect views from the Ski Basin Road.

Hitt said the warming climate is going to make all types of forest more prone to experience large fires in the future. As a result, he said his coalition is warning the Forest Service to focus on reducing the fire danger near homes.

“Even if they do what they say, they’re not going to stop the homes in the Hyde Park area, many of which are quite vulnerable, from burning down in a hot fire,” Hitt said. “Again, I think they have their priorities wrong, and I don’t think they’re taking an accurate look at the conditions that we face, the inevitability of one of these climatedriven fires.”

The Forest Service has been working on the Hyde Park and Pacheco Canyon projects with other groups, including Tesuque Pueblo, The Nature Conservancy, the city of Santa Fe and New Mexico State Forestry.

Together the groups are called the Greater Santa Fe Fireshed Coalition.

Hitt said he and other environmentalists who had appealed the Forest Service’s first proposed project in the Hyde Park area years ago weren’t informed that the agency has started meeting with other groups last year. He said federal law requires such groups considering forest projects to be public.

Asked about criticism that suggests the Forest Service should prepare a comprehensive environmental study examining the effect of its planned forest-thinning projects in the area, Hurlocker responded that his agency has done a lot of analysis of the Hyde Park project area in recent years.

“The risk of some sort of fire getting in there and causing the sort of damage that we don’t want is high right now,” Hurlocker said. “And so, I guess I’d turn it around and say, ‘Why not move on this one and get ‘er done, so that we’ve provided a protection, particularly for the downstream communities and the campground and the park?’ ”