Free Republic

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — With fires raging across the state, the USDA Forest Service is closing all 20 million acres of California’s national forests to public access for two weeks beginning Tuesday. In an announcement Monday, the Forest Service said the closure will extend through at least Sept. 17. This closure starts at noon Tuesday. Those caught entering Forest Service lands — including developed campgrounds, hiking trails and recreation sites — face fines of up to $5,000 for violating the order. The announcement extends a closure that was already in place for the Forest Service’s nine national forests in Northern California.

Authorities confirmed a man who allegedly started "several" fires in the San Bernardino National Forest was in custody Monday evening. Suspect in the Arson 🔥 in twin peaks area is in custody. No longer a danger to the public. SNIP He was described as a white male with long blond hair

Dozens of resorts with permits to operate on national forests have bought or acquired rights to use nearby bodies of water for snowmaking. The Forest Service had adopted a clause that said those resorts had to transfer their water rights to the federal government ... After the National Ski Areas Association sued, a judge ruled last year that the agency violated procedure in not seeking public comment before adopting the clause. The agency now plans open houses April 16 in Lakewood, Colo., on April 17 in Salt Lake City, and April 18 in Lake Tahoe, Calif., to get input.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Authorities say a Florida man faces federal misdemeanor charges after witnesses reported seeing him wandering around a national forest campground naked and armed with a pistol. Joseph Alfieri is charged in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City with being publicly nude and causing annoyance.

SAN FRANCISCO—A federal judge has tossed out the federal government's plans to open vast tracts of forests in Southern California to new road building. U.S. District Court Judge Marilyn Hall Patel ruled Wednesday that the U.S. Forest Service failed to adequately consider the effects the new plan would have on the landscape and wildlife in the Angeles, Los Padres, Cleveland and San Bernardino national forests. Los Padres is the principal home of the California condor.

David Lee Metzler, 19 years old, and Heidi Lynn Childs, 19 years old, both of Lynchburg, VA were found by a passerby this morning at approximately 8:00 a.m. in the area of Caldwell Fields off of Craig’s Creek Road in Montgomery County. Both were deceased when they were found. The preliminary investigation revealed that both victims had gunshot wounds. Both were Virginia Tech students living off campus.

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration says it will defend a 2001 rule imposed by President Bill Clinton that blocked road construction and other development on tens of million acres of remote national forests. The administration's decision was contained in court papers filed Thursday in a case in Wyoming that could help settle the fate of remote federal forests. The administration is siding with environmentalists in the case.

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack gave his personal approval for a 381-acre clear-cut in America's largest stand of temperate rain forest. Not cool, President Obama. Not cool at all. The Obama administration has approved the sale of timber from the Tongass National Forest in Alaska. The 17-million acre forest is the largest stand of continuous temperate rain forest in the U.S. and contains a lot of old-growth trees. It's basically a snapshot of what the world looked like before we rolled heavy onto the scene. The U.S. Forest Service gave the green light for the sale after approval from Secretary...

The U.S. Forest Service will announce a "timeout" on new road-building and other development in designated roadless areas of national forests today, sources say, prolonging a seesaw battle over a policy first announced in the waning days of the Clinton administration. The Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which former President Clinton issued shortly before leaving office in 2001, protects nearly 60 million acres of national forest land from logging and other development, largely in Western states. It has faced a protracted court battle that pitted conservation groups against the timber industry and several of those states. The Bush administration let the...

GRANTS PASS, Ore. — The Obama administration's pick to be the new undersecretary of Agriculture in charge of the U.S. Forest Service has surprised conservation groups. The White House announced late Tuesday that Mississippi state conservationist Homer Lee Wilkes, a 28-year veteran of the federal Natural Resources Conservation Service, is being nominated as the new undersecretary of Agriculture for natural resources and environment. Andy Stahl of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics says Wilkes is the first person in at least 30 years to be tapped for the job without any background in forest policy, indicating the Obama administration has...

A jury sentenced a Lakeview man to 10 years in prison for growing nearly 7,500 marijuana plants. Andrew Stever, 40, was sentenced on Monday after a three-day trial in the Federal District Court in Medford.Ten years is the mandatory minimum sentence for anyone convicted of growing 1,000 or more pot plants. In July 2007, officers from several local, state and federal agencies found 7,459 plants growing on Stever's Lakeview property, which bordered Forest Service land. Two men fled the scene, leaving behind personal property and three firearms, according to the U.S. attorney's office in Portland. Physical evidence and testimony linked...

PORTERVILLE, Calif. — National forests and parks — long popular with Mexican marijuana-growing cartels — have become home to some of the most polluted pockets of wilderness in America because of the toxic chemicals needed to eke lucrative harvests from rocky mountainsides, federal officials said. The grow sites have taken hold from the West Coast's Cascade Mountains, as well as on federal lands in Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia.

Mexican marijuana cartels use pesticides, herbicides that pollute US parks, forests National forests and parks — long popular with Mexican marijuana-growing cartels — have become home to some of the most polluted pockets of wilderness in America because of the toxic chemicals needed to eke lucrative harvests from rocky mountainsides, federal officials said. The grow sites have taken hold from the West Coast's Cascade Mountains, as well as on federal lands in Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia. Seven hundred grow sites were discovered on U.S. Forest Service land in California alone in 2007 and 2008 — and authorities say the...

...developers are looking to build more than 100 wind turbines taller than the Statue of Liberty, side by side, on 18 miles of the George Washington National Forest. FreedomWorks, a company with projects in four states, wants to generate electricity for the power-hungry Washington area and beyond, despite concerns about disturbing wildlife, spoiling untouched lands and creating noise and light pollution. As the United States searches for ways to lessen its dependency on foreign oil, wind energy is getting a second look in states such as Virginia that had not embraced it. The national push, along with new state financial...

Authorities say it's the biggest pot bust in Cocke County in the last five years, maybe more. Around 10 a.m. Monday, helicopter pilots spotted hundreds of thousands of marijuana plants growing in the Cherokee National Forest in Cocke County. They alerted officers on the ground, and the crew trekked more than a mile into the forest from Interstate 40, where they came upon what they call a DTO, or drug trafficking organization. "They just live in it, move in, grow, and that's all they're there to do is grow marijuana," Special Agent Jason Poore said of the growers. Poore is...

A last-minute change in the federal energy bill discourages the use of wood chips, tree limbs and other wood waste from national forests in the production of ethanol, according to a forest industry spokesman. The surprise provision makes no sense, says Aaron Everett, a spokesman for the Black Hills Forest Resource Association. The energy bill passed by Congress and signed by the president earlier this month requires an increase in the amount of ethanol produced from renewable biomass materials such as grasses and wood waste. The bill requires 21 billion gallons of ethanol to be produced from biomass, including cellulosic...

SHOOTING TAKES HIT: Public shooting opportunities in national forests are disappearing, and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill Ritter proposes to do something about it. Ritter says several previously isolated forest shooting ranges have been shut down because of homebuilding nearby, and shooters have been forced into dispersed shooting activities. Now the Forest Service is considering closing down some dispersed-shooting areas because of development and increased non-shooting recreational use. Ritter says he would make recreational shooting improvements a priority if he is elected governor. He wants Colorado to take the lead in establishing more shooting ranges, beginning with a pilot program he...

Gov. Schwarzenegger recently escalated a battle of words with federal officials over how to manage the remaining wilderness areas in Southern California's national forests. In an August letter to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Schwarzenegger accused the federal government of not doing enough to make sure wilderness in the San Bernardino, Cleveland, Angeles and Los Padres national forests is protected from road construction. The state and environmental groups want more restrictions on forest roads than are outlined in new forest management plans, 10- to 15-year master plans for land use in the forests. Schwarzenegger charged the federal government with not...

Goal of cutting is to reduce fire danger, salvage timber and regrow forest. Removing beetle infected pine trees will help new and healthy pine trees grow. It will also promote the growth of aspen, which are naturally fire resistant. By clearing out these trees, they’re prevented from falling on the ground, which not only adds to the fire danger, but also hampers growth of new trees. Dead trees also obstruct movement of large animals such as deer and elk. The dead trees left behind shed their needles and branches and then fall to the forest floor. The pines, filled with...

Southern Appalachian Multiple Use Council P.O. Box 1377 Clyde, NC 28721 828-627-3333 NEWS RELEASE For immediate release June 25, 2007 Contact: Steve Henson, Executive Director Southern Appalachian Multiple-Use Council, 828-627-3333 Environmentalists Lose Court Battle to Stop Timber Harvesting in Eastern National Forests Clyde NC – In a summary judgment ruling last week Federal Chief Judge Sandra Beckwith (Southern District Ohio) found that the US Fish & Wildlife Service (USF&WS) and the US Forest Service (USFS) had properly followed federal law and biological assessments in planning and implementing forest management practices on several eastern national forests including the Pisgah National Forest...