U.S. Congressman from Montana, Greg Gianforte, held an Interior Energy and Environment field hearing in Hamilton last week to take comment from three scheduled witnesses concerning wildfire management and response for the congressional record.
Although the meeting was open to the public and the meeting room was packed, no public comment was being accepted at the meeting other than from the three scheduled witnesses. This was made clear from the very beginning when former Ravalli County Commissioner James Rokosch abruptly stepped forward from the audience at the outset of the meeting and asked Gianforte if the public would have a chance to comment on the record.
“I would like to ask you if you ever intend to actually hold a public hearing to listen to the members of the public who would like to provide you input on management of fire issues and management of public resources like Wilderness Study Areas and to truly have an opportunity for the public to give you the substantive public input. Do you ever intend to hold a public hearing?”
Gianforte responded, saying, “I appreciate you being here and I would love to meet with you, but this is a congressional hearing for an official investigation into the management of wildfires. I would love to take your input, we get hundreds, even thousands of input from citizens every single week and I meet with every citizen I can. But today we are here as an official congressional hearing. I appreciate your being here and I would love to meet with you at a later time.”
At that point Rokosch and several others left the meeting room and joined other people who were congregating out front. The windows in the meeting were shut at one point due to the chanting from the protesters outside, as they repeated loudly: “Listen to the public.”
Gianforte did meet with some of the protesters after the meeting. One of those people, Marilyn Wolff, told the Bitterroot Star later, “The impromptu exchange that occurred between Rep. Gianforte and Ravalli County residents regarding his wilderness study area legislation was no public meeting, as Gianforte tried to characterize it. We asked him again and again when he was planning on holding a proper public meeting, and he refused to answer the question, again showing disdain for Montanans who want a say on public lands.”
The three witnesses invited to give testimony at the hearing were Shawna Legarza, Director of Fire and Aviation Management for the U.S. Forest Service; retired forester and former National Director of NEPA and NW Regional Director of Timber Management and now private consultant Richard Stem, and Ravalli County Commissioner Jeff Burrows.
Gianforte said the hearing was being held to “discuss the growing threat of wildfires to health, the environment, to local economies and to public safety.” He said national inter-agency figures show that 10 million acres burned in 2017, which included the 680,000 acres of Forest Service land that burned in Montana. He said nationally 12,306 structures burned, 8,365 were residences. He said 2017 was the most expensive year on record for wildfire suppression costs.
“I know the Bitterroot Valley was particularly affected and that’s why I wanted to hold this briefing here in Hamilton,” said Gianforte.
Legarza said that she has been a wildland firefighter for her entire 30-year career and that the key to understanding and dealing with wildfire was the “Fire Triangle,” the intersection of the three elements governing fire behavior – fuels, weather, and topography.
She said that right now they had 28,000 people mobilized around the country fighting wildfires, all coordinated from top to bottom including federal, state and local firefighters connected by a sophisticated network of communication leading to impressive coordination of efforts.
Stem addressed what he considered the most pressing issue, “What do we do?” First, he said, active and wise fire management can make a difference by building a more resilient forest.
“Just standing by and putting fires out is not acceptable,” he said.
He called for an “out-of-box” approach that would implement some large scale and quick paced restoration. He said the road blocks to such a solution are the lack of personnel capacity due to shrinking budgets, and the 40-year-old, outdated, Council of Environmental Quality regulations that implement National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
Commissioner Burrows said we are all aware of the devastating impacts of wildfires on the economy, and the public health and safety, but he wanted to concentrate on the positive. He praised the efforts of the local collaborative group of citizens that he said is working independently with the Forest Service as an autonomous group.
He said he supports the efforts to streamline NEPA and” remove some of the red tape.” He called NEPA a “litigation driven approach that has forced the Forest Service into exhaustive NEPA analysis.”
“In Ravalli County,” he said, “the cumbersome NEPA process has actually resulted in portions of timber projects burning before the analysis could be finished.” He said local forest officials need more “flexibility” in using the “Categorical Exclusions.” He said current guidelines were “too restrictive and narrow in scope.”
He ended on a high note concerning the county’s current relationship with local Forest Service officials, praising the process of regular meetings they have established with local government and thanking the Forest Supervisor and District Rangers for engaging with the local government the way they have.