Monday, July 8, 2019
CLEARING AND BURNING PROJECTS APPEALED
Conservation groups appeal Hyde Park and Pacheco Canyon decision to 10th Circuit
Contact: Sam Hitt, 505-577-2944, sam@wildwatershed.org
SANTA FE—Conservation groups are appealing a federal judge’s decision allowing the Forest
Service to clear and burn most trees on nearly 7 square miles of national forests above Santa Fe.
In the appeal filed Monday to the the 10th Circuit Appeals Court in Denver, Wild Watershed and
the Multiple Chemical Sensitivities Task Force, together with two individual plaintiffs, charge
that federal District Court Judge James Parker erred in his June 3 ruling approving the Hyde Park
and Pacheco Canyon projects. The groups want the projects halted until the agency prepares a
comprehensive environmental study as part of a much larger program to “change forest
conditions” on over 150 square miles of national forest adjacent to Santa Fe and nearby
communities.
“These projects are the first of what could become the most extensive ever slash and burn
forestry near Santa Fe” said Sam Hitt, founder of Wild Watershed and President of the Santa Fe
Forest Coalition, “vast stretches of roadless forest eligible for Wilderness could be turned into
moonscapes while Trump is in the White House.”
The groups allege that the Santa Fe National Forest failed to analyze the cumulative and indirect
impacts of clearing and burning in the forests near Hyde Memorial State Park and surrounding
Pacheco Canyon to the north. Unfortunately, Judge Parker agreed with U.S. attorneys who
alleged that Congress had exempted the Forest Service from it duty to analyze these impacts
when it attached an amendment aimed at speeding up logging to the must-pass Farm Bill in
2014.
This claim flies in the face of repeated Forest Service public assurances that it would comply
with all environmental laws when it approved projects using the expedited authority of the Farm
Bill amendment, including the National Environmental Policy Act that requires a comprehensive
analysis and public disclosure of all impacts.
In addition, the Farm Bill amendment requires that projects maximize the retention of old growth
and large trees and use the best available science to maintain and restore ecological integrity.
Both projects recommend clearing 65 percent of the trees over 9 inches in diameter in mixed
conifer forests and up to 90 percent of trees in ponderosa pine forests—followed by prescribed
burns that could result in the mortality of 30 percent of the remaining larger trees—actions
inconsistent with old growth protection and restoration of ecological integrity.
More disturbing is the apparent management bias of the Forest Service in favor of maintaining
younger forests by clearing and burning every 10 to 15 years. This never allows the necessary
“decadence” of mature and old growth forests to develop that provides critical habitat for many
species and helps stabilize the climate.
Preserving Southwestern forests and wildlife