Wednesday, June 29, 2016
Friday, June 17, 2016
Sunday, April 10, 2016
Huge win: JBLM suspends proposal to send helicopters to North Cascades
JBLM suspends proposal to send helicopters to North Cascades
Outdoors advocacy groups challenged Army proposal for high-altitude training
Army looking for more training sites for helicopter units it added during Iraq War
Initial proposal asked for landing zones in Wenatchee, Mount Baker forests
Joint Base Lewis-McChord is putting a controversial helicopter training proposal back in the hangar while it looks for high-altitude sites in the state where its aviation crews can train without disrupting hikers and campers.
Its initial proposal drew strong criticism from outdoors advocates who especially opposed the Army’s selection of a site in a wilderness area near Leavenworth.
The Army received 2,350 written comments about the plan, including a coordinated campaign from small-business owners in Leavenworth who worried that military helicopters would drive away tourists.
The comments factored into the Army’s decision to halt its proposal and look for new locations, according to a JBLM news release issued Thursday.
“The requirements are still there and we’re basically back to looking elsewhere,” base spokesman Joe Piek said.
The base had sought permission to let helicopters touch down at seven mountain locations, with four sites in Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest, two on the eastern edge of Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest and one east of North Cascades National Park.
The proposal included a low-altitude site west of Capitol State Forest.
Until the early 1990s, the Army had permits for helicopter crews to train at high elevations in Gifford Pinchot National Forest and near Mount Baker.
It let the permits expire when the military’s Gulf War drawdown led to a sharp reduction in the number of active-duty aviation units stationed at what then was called Fort Lewis.
Today, the number of helicopters at JBLM is back up to about 140. It gained a Special Operations aviation battalion and a conventional Army aviation brigade during the military’s Iraq War expansion.
The Army wants additional training areas for those units because they compete with each other and with drone pilots for time on ranges at JBLM and at the Army’s Yakima Training Center in Central Washington.
For high-altitude training like the Army wanted to pursue in the North Cascades, pilots must fly to Colorado.
Base officials say those restrictions are among the reason helicopter training is concentrated in the South Sound.
“Currently, JBLM does not have formal off-base training areas and landing zones, nor is JBLM’s airspace adequate to support helicopter aviation training due to limits on the number of aircraft allowed within each training area on base, and scheduling conflicts with other units,” JBLM aviation officials told The News Tribune in February.
The helicopter plan is one of two JBLM training proposals that drew intense public attention last summer. The other one is a test of whether the Army can fire a weapon called the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) at ranges on JBLM.
The rocket proposal also is on hold while the Army prepares its ranges for the weapon’s heavy training rounds. Until then, JBLM’s two HIMARS units will continue to practice at the Yakima training grounds.
Sunday, March 20, 2016
Say No to Dam Building and New Water Rights in the Alpine Lakes - March 30th at the Phinney Center in Seattle
Come show your support for Wilderness values!
PLEASE ATTEND an environmental scoping meeting for water projects affecting the
Alpine Lakes Wilderness.
WHEN: Wednesday, March 30 at 7:00 PM
WHERE: Phinney Center, 6532 Phinney Avenue N, Seattle 98103 (just west of Green Lake)
Two government agencies (State Department of Ecology and Chelan County) are now evaluating
whether to build dams, manipulate water levels, and issue water rights for several lakes in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. Their goal is to extract more water for “new home construction” (a.k.a. suburban
development) in the City of Leavenworth and elsewhere in the Wenatchee Valley.
The Alpine Lakes Wilderness needs YOU! This is serious business: the proposed plan would cost an estimated $65 million, and the state Legislature has allocated $3 million for preliminary analysis.
The Alpine Lakes Wilderness is a wild area many people use and care about. But the project proponents appear oblivious to the presence of wilderness issues, and they would rename the Alpine Lakes as “reservoirs”.
The Alpine Lakes Wilderness is managed by the U.S. Forest Service, which must also prepare an
environmental analysis to ensure protection of wilderness values. Although this federal process has not started, the Forest Service will closely monitor public input at the Ecology/Chelan County meetings.
There are three opportunities to tell the agencies that the Alpine Lakes Wilderness is a shared natural
resource that must be respected and protected.
The Seattle public meeting on March 30, 7 PM, at Phinney Center (see info above).
A Leavenworth public meeting on April 20, 2016, 4-8 PM, at Leavenworth Fire Hall.
A public comment deadline of May 11, 2016. Comments go to mike.kaputa@co.chelan.wa.us
More information, including environmental documents, can be found on the agency websites:
http://www.co.chelan.wa.us/natural-resources/pages/icicle-work-group
http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/wr/cwp/icicle.html
For critical analysis, see the NAIADS blog: https://naiads.wordpress.com/
Get involved in protecting your Wilderness! Contact Alpine Lakes Protection Society (ALPS) at:
Tuesday, March 8, 2016
S. Fork Stillaguamish River valley to be subjected to "landscape scale thinning" unless you write!
Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the forest ....
A 65,000 acre “Project Area,” of which 6,750 acres are to be thinned in the S. Fk. Stilly drainage! This is the popular west side of the Mountain Loop Scenic Byway, just east of Granite Falls, an hour's drive from Seattle, and a very popular recreational area.
We urge you to send your comments to MBS opposing this project immediately. You might note that “Vegetation Management” = logging.
A 65,000 acre “Project Area,” of which 6,750 acres are to be thinned in the S. Fk. Stilly drainage! This is the popular west side of the Mountain Loop Scenic Byway, just east of Granite Falls, an hour's drive from Seattle, and a very popular recreational area.
We urge you to send your comments to MBS opposing this project immediately. You might note that “Vegetation Management” = logging.
The Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest (MBS) is beginning the environmental analysis for the South Fork Stillaguamish Vegetation Project. This project proposes a landscape scale thinning of second-growth stands within the S.F. of the Stillaguamish River drainage, including Canyon Creek. You are invited to review the proposed project and provide comment on what issues the analysis should address.
This vegetation management project is located on the Darrington Ranger District, east of Granite Falls in Snohomish County, Washington. The project would thin second-growth timber stands within the S.F. Stillaguamish River drainage to promote forest stand structure that would serve as habitat for old-growth associated species and maintain and enhance Riparian Reserve conditions.
Additional information on the proposed project is posted on the Forest web site S.F. Stillaguamish Vegetation Management Project: http://www.fs.usda.gov/project/?project=48837In compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) 36 CFR 220.4(e)(1), USFS is initiating scoping for the project, and is soliciting your input on the proposal and the identification of potential environmental issues associated with the proposed action. Scoping comments will be considered in the environmental analysis, and may be used to modify the proposed action, develop alternatives, identify mitigation measures or analyze environmental consequences. Currently, the project analysis is proposed to be documented in an Environmental Assessment (EA) to be released following the scoping process.
Your scoping comments will be most useful if received by April 4, 2016. Emailed comments are encouraged to be sent to: comments-pacificnorthwest-mtbaker-snoqualmie-darrington@ fs.fed.usComments may also be submitted at the Darrington Ranger Station, mailed to:
Attn: S.F. Stillaguamish Vegetation Project
Darrington Ranger District
1405 Emens Ave. N.
Darrington, WA 98241
Darrington Ranger District office hours for submitting oral, telephone, or hand-delivered comments are 8:00 am to 4:30 pm Monday through Friday, excluding holidays. Comments may also be faxed to (360) 436-1309. For further information, please contact Phyllis Reed at (360) 436-2332.
Comments received in response to this invitation, including names and addresses of those who comment, will be part of the Project Record and available for public review. We appreciate your continued interest in the management of the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest.
Friday, February 26, 2016
The Winter 2016 issue of The Wild Cascades is coming soon!
Members will see their copies arrive in a week or so. Not a member? JOIN US!
Military “incursions” threaten all northwest
Yakima Plan update
Revising the Northwest Forest Plan
NCCC responds to “Darrington Collaborative” proposals
Remembering Wolf Bauer
In Memoriam: Margaret Miller
UnSustainable roads
Corvid’s eye
Cascade Rambles: RIP Queen of the Middle Fork
Murray receives Alpine Lakes recognition
Varying views on grizzlies: responses to McGuire
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
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