Deanna Meyer, a small organic farmer in Sedalia, Douglas County whose property abuts the Pike National Forest, is sounding the alarm about a massive “emergency” logging scheme that studies show will increase the risk of wildfire burning down her home.
“The proposed North South Vegetation Management Project is making my farm, my family, and my neighbors even more vulnerable to fire,” Meyer says.
The U.S. Forest Service’s “North South Vegetation Management” project features scientifically-contested “wildfire fuel reduction” logging over 116,600 acres of public forest in the Front Range mountains of Jefferson and Douglas Counties, 18,500 acres of which falls inside protected Colorado Roadless Areas, with clearcuts up to 40 acres.
In 2002 and 2010, the Meyer farm contracted with the U.S. Forest Service to log its private forests after assurances that the tree cutting would protect the family’s home and outbuildings from wildfire. Two decades later, the logged forest consists of dry wood chips, log piles, and invasive weeds, which peer-reviewed studies conclude are far more likely to burn hot and spread flames than cooler, moister, denser forests.
“My family agreed to ‘thin’ our forests because the Forest Service promised us that would protect both our home and the forest,” Meyer says. “Now I know my home is in far more danger due to the elimination of windbreaks and the presence of flammable invasive weeds and massive log and mulch piles left behind from this logging.”
Notes from a November 30, 2023 Forest Service meeting obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request reveal that the South Platte Ranger District seeks to rush the “North South Vegetation Management” logging through on an expedited time-frame by exploiting a controversial “emergency action” authorization invoked by U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, as laid out under Section 40807 of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021.
This so-called “emergency” logging skirts the objection period of what’s known as the “predecisional administrative review process,” a legal challenge used by environmental advocates to pause or stop destructive projects, while bypassing alternative actions required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
The November notes also reveal that the Forest Service intends to avoid “analyzing effects on private land” in order to speed the logging through in 2024.
Tellingly, meeting minutes from August 23 reveal that the Forest Service only chose to notify some local residents within the project area, instead of all who may be impacted. Since no Colorado media outlets have reported on these developments, many vulnerable forest-edge residents are unaware of the April to September comment period and will likely only learn about the logging once road building and tree cutting is set to begin in fall/winter of 2024.
Many independent studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals, including by scientists from CU Boulder, conclude that not only won’t logging stop large wildfires, tree-cutting can make them burn hotter and spread faster by opening forests to sunlight and wind.
Even a U.S. Forest Service study admitted that, during 2010’s Fourmile Canyon Fire outside Boulder, thinned forests “burned more severely than neighboring areas where the fuels were not treated.” An entire body of science corroborates these findings.
Indeed, the whole premise of logging to create “historical conditions” of parklike forests due to “overgrown” stands and “unusual” high-severity wildfire has been repeatedly debunked by numerous studies. Contrary to the industry/agency narrative, this science finds that western forests—including across Colorado—prior to fire suppression did grow densely and did experience high-severity wildfire.
The scientific consensus, including from the U.S. Forest Service’s Rocky Mountain Research Station Fire Sciences Laboratory, is that hardening homes—measures such as installing non-flammable roofs and maintaining defensible space 15-60 feet around structures—can save the vast majority from the most intense wildfires. Yet while billions of taxpayer dollars are spent on logging, only a tiny fraction of that is directed towards home hardening grants for communities.
Eco-Integrity Alliance 