Does Environmental Group Owe Carbon Offset?

Critics are saying that my 3rd-annual installment on cheat grass could be the summer’s runaway blockbuster! However, the acclaim is not universal.

Ed Partridge notes at Part of the Plan that it got a thumbs-down review from Heidi McIntosh.

One minor point I made (actually in a comment to this post) was that extreme environmental groups have sued to stop reseeding efforts (native grasses for flammable non-native grasses) after fires. I mentioned the Southern Utah Wilderness Association. Ed asked SUWA’s conservation director, Heidi McIntosh, about my claim. Heidi said:

SUWA has never filed a lawsuit to stop reseeding. Period. Urquhart has his facts wrong…

It’s so easy to throw baseless claims like this around; a throwaway reference to “lawsuits by extreme environmentalists” is red meat for those antagonistic to wilderness protection and an easy sell for Mr. Urquhart. But, to state the obvious, spreading false information undercuts the ability to have an intelligent public discussion and to generate sound policy to address these important issues.

Never. Period. Urquhart . . . wrong. Baseless claims. Red Meat. Easy sell. Spreading false information.

A casual reader might think that I’m a bad man. But, my faithful readers know that the words “Urquhart” and “wrong” are an awkward fit in the same sentence – except for something like “Heidi McIntosh is wrong to question Urquhart’s steel trap memory.”

The Bureau of Land Management (the federal agency that manages most federal land in Utah) has a nifty little document discussing the devastating Utah fires of 1996 and attempts to chain and reseed the burned areas to fight cheat grass. (Warning: if you haven’t read BLM’s 1996 Fire Season Case Study, I might spoil the ending for you). BLM says:

On March 19, 1997 the Southern Paiute Consortium and the Kanosh Band of Southern Paiutes sued BLM in Federal Court to stop further chaining, SUWA also filed an appeal with IBLA to stop BLM from further chaining. [editor’s note: hmm, I'd be very curious to know whose signature was on that legal document]

A ten day Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) was issued March 22, against BLM by a Federal Judge in Salt Lake City. All further chaining operations then ceased. In testimony before the Judge, BLM had indicated that the window of opportunity for successful rehabilitation would soon be lost if they were forced to suspend operations. The TRO meant that BLM had to issue suspension notices to several chaining contractors. At the end of the ten day TRO, BLM informed the Judge that the opportunity to conduct further successful operations was indeed lost. Given the late date, it was felt that seedlings would not sufficiently establish prior to the onset of the late spring and summer dry period. About 30,100 acres of chaining projects were not completed as a result of the suspension in operations.

Urquhart wrong? C’mon!

No doubt, fire-promoting cheat grass took over the area where the lawsuits stopped the reseeding efforts. If those areas burned this past week, does SUWA owe the world lots of carbon offsets?