What is happening to the forests?
While we have been focused on making it through a pandemic, grappling with a stalled economy and increasing crime, and simply trying to get back on our feet, the Forest Service has been continuing with the analysis and planning of two large-scale Santa Fe National Forest cutting/burning projects.
During the past few weeks, two wildfires have broken out in New Mexico from prescribed burns. One is the Hermits Peak Fire in the Santa Fe National Forest, caused by spot fires from winds during the Las Dispensas prescribed burn, 12 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The other wildfire is the Overflow Fire, an outgrowth of a Bureau of Land Management prescribed burn that was being carried out southwest of Roswell. One has to strongly question why the Forest Service and BLM believe it’s reasonable to set fires in our forests during the unpredictable spring winds.
Meanwhile, the corrected draft environmental assessment for the 79-square-mile Santa Fe Mountains Project has been released. The Forest Service’s draft project decision is a “finding of no significant impact.” That means they consider removing the vast majority of trees over 18,000 acres and repeatedly burning 38,000 acres of the nearby Santa Fe National Forest will have no avoidable significant impacts on our forest, nor on our health. This finding means they do not intend to do further analysis or complete an environmental impact statement for the project.
This decision seems truly stunning. We see the extensive ecological damage to our forest from past fuel treatments, and the recent fires have demonstrated once again that prescribed burns in our dry forests can be very dangerous. We all experience, to one degree or another, and some severely, the detrimental health impacts of the ever-increasing amounts of prescribed burn smoke.
The 45-day objection period for the Santa Fe Mountains Project has begun and will conclude May 12. Only those who
have written comments during one of the two comment periods have official standing to submit an objection, but you can object anyway, by simply emailing the Southwest Regional Forest Service and telling them what you think of this project, at objections-southwestern-regional-office@usda. gov. Also, contact our federal and state representatives, county commissioners and city councilors, and ask them to voice an objection to this project decision. The decision will be finalized after this objection period.
The draft environmental assessment for the 200-squaremile Encino Vista Project is scheduled for release in mid- to late May. This proposed project will involve cutting and burning of vast tracts of forest to the northwest of Los Alamos. The widespread prescribed burns would cause substantial air quality and health impacts.
The Forest Service is moving toward implementation of the
Santa Fe National Forest projects without considering science that shows these treatments are unlikely to be beneficial in the cost-benefit analysis and could be ecologically harmful to our forest. Newer forest ecology research shows forests that are denser and have not burned for a long period of time, burn either equally or less intensely than treated forests. These projects are moving forward without genuinely considering the well-known impacts of prescribed burn smoke on our health. The agency is also largely ignoring comments from the public, which overwhelmingly oppose the projects as currently planned.
It’s time to speak up now. The impacts of these large-scale and aggressive cutting and burning projects are much more than significant, they’re life-altering to the forest and to us. Let’s stand for life.