Fall 2006. Tongass whistleblower interrogated. Commercial farmers lease public land in Tennessee. Goodbye, Forrest.
Photos courtesy Glen Ith
TONGASS WHISTLEBLOWER DISCIPLINED
When Tongass National Forest wildlife biologist Glen Ith joined with Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics to sue his bosses over illegal logging roads, he thought the U.S. Forest Service would thank him for ensuring that the nation’s laws were followed. But instead, after federal district court Judge John W. Sedwick ruled in Ith’s favor, temporarily stopping the road–building, the Forest Service launched a misconduct investigation against Ith.
Ith is the first Forest Service employee in history to win a preliminary injunction in court against logging. He is also the first employee to win two administrative appeals, having stopped the Overlook and Scott Peak sales on the Tongass.
When Ith first learned of the illegal road–building, he told his bosses that unless they put a stop to it, he would seek help from FSEEE. His supervisor told him to stay away from FSEEE or there would be trouble. After Ith revealed photographs of the illegal road construction, his supervisor warned him that the Forest Service was investigating misconduct charges against him. That turned out to be a bluff.
The real thing happened six months later, after Ith won his preliminary injunction from the judge and after he signed a fundraising letter on FSEEE’s behalf seeking donations from our members to help cover the lawsuit costs. Federal ethics rules allow employees, on their own time, to solicit contributions for charitable causes, as long as they don’t give the impression that the government supports the fundraising. There’s no ambiguity about Ith’s letter to FSEEE members—it says he is suing his government employer.
Nonetheless, the Forest Service used the fundraising letter as a pretext to launch its misconduct investigation. Ith was interrogated by a Forest Service investigator, who was flown to Alaska from Montana for the mission. The hours–long questioning was wide–ranging, and started off with the warning that if he didn’t answer, he would be fired immediately.
Ith remains undeterred. He and FSEEE have added First Amendment claims to their environmental lawsuit. Once again, the Forest Service is shooting itself in the foot as it tries to silence its messenger and ignore the message.—Andy Stahl
FARMING BETWEEN THE LAKES
Soybean farms on our national forests? When whistleblowers Paul Schaefer and Daphne Sewing called us with their concerns about the new forest plan for the Land Between The Lakes National Recreation Area in western Kentucky, we were surprised to learn that more than 4,000 acres within the recreation area were being farmed by industrial, large–scale corn and soybean farmers under the guise of creating food for wildlife.
Schaefer, a forest planner, and Sewing, an environmental educator, moved from the West to work on the Land Between The Lakes National Recreation Area when Congress transferred management of the area from the Tennessee Valley Authority to the U.S. Forest Service in 1998. Land Between The Lakes, a 170,000–acre inland peninsula, was created in 1966, when dams were completed on the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers. The area had previously been designated for recreational tourism by the Kennedy administration in 1963.
Schaefer and Sewing hoped that their involvement with this new unit of the Forest Service would help ensure that the largest block of contiguous forest between the Appalachians and the Rockies would be managed to realize the goals for which it was established: to provide public recreational opportunities; to conserve fish and wildlife and their habitat; to provide for diversity of native and desirable nonnative plants and animals; to provide opportunities for hunting and fishing; and to offer environmental education.
When the time came to write a new land management plan for the Land Between The Lakes, Schaefer and Sewing worked hard to incorporate the best available science into wildlife protection standards. The existing plan called for ten–foot buffers around streams, but Schaefer found recent research by University of Missouri professor Ray Semlitsch indicating that midwestern reptiles and amphibians require buffers of 300–500 feet. In response to this information, the supervisor for the Land Between The Lakes decided to phase in optional 100–foot buffers. Schaefer and Sewing appealed the plan, hoping that review by the chief of the Forest Service would force the agency to consider larger stream buffers. When the chief rejected their appeal, Schaefer and Sewing called Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics.
It turns out that, unlike many national forests, the major activity damaging the riparian areas on the Land Between The Lakes was not logging or grazing, but industrial farming. The Forest Service leases thousands of acres to farmers, who plow the acreage annually, damaging wildlife habitat and increasing erosion, and use large quantities of toxic pesticides. Most of the farmland is in the fertile bottoms along streamsides, land that was worked by Appalachian farmers until they were evicted to make room for the National Recreation Area.
The Forest Service has replaced the small farmers with industrial farm operators who lease acreage at a nominal charge of ten dollars per lease for the use of the lands. In official documents, the Forest Service describes these contracts as “wildlife habitat improvement” because the farmers are required to leave some grain behind in the fields for turkeys and deer to fatten on before the fall hunting season. The Forest Service has never written an environmental impact statement to document what harms occur as a result of this farming, nor has it sought public comment about the appropriateness of farming on national forests.
In June 2006, FSEEE filed suit to require the Forest Service to write an environmental impact statement, consult with the public over its farming practices and implement more substantial riparian buffers. With millions of acres of private land in the Midwest already devoted to corn and soybean farming, the Forest Service should get out of the farming business, and focus on its mission of preserving and protecting our national forests.—Forrest Fleishman
GOODBYE, FORREST
Forrest Fleischman, policy advocate at Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics for the past two years, has been awarded a Fulbright grant to study in India. His focus will be biodiversity protection and political empowerment in the Kerala agroecosystems of India. During his tenure at FSEEE, he worked on many forest conservation projects. He reviewed and commented on every new draft Forest Plan nationwide and dozens of draft Environmental Impact Statements. He also identified and retained scientific experts on threatened or endangered species, tree mortality, insect epidemics, invasive species and predator damage management, in addition to researching, planning and educating the public on the best way to ensure future old–growth development. He led FSEEE’s effort to educate Congress about the truth behind the proposed sale of national forest land, and he coordinated a group of representatives from Northwest forest conservation groups to streamline strategies and efforts to protect old–growth forests. We’ll miss his enthusiasm, creative ideas and excellent work. We wish him all the best in his new endeavor.—Kay Crider