Scientific integrity and facts

Dear Alan:

It is often said that everyone is entitled to their own opinion but not their own set of facts. That is not the case in government where there is a rich history of political appointees ordering up their own facts by manipulating the documentary record and deep-sixing discordant facts.

This right was reinforced by the Roberts Supreme Court which ruled in 2006 – Justice Samuel Alito’s first swing vote – that government employees have no (as in zero) First Amendment free speech rights when acting within their scope of duty because, the court reasoned, the government owns their speech. 

As a result, during the Bush presidency technical reports on everything from climate change to drilling in the Arctic refuge were rewritten to support the Bush/Cheney agenda. This was done because there was no rule against it.  That is beginning to change.

Like a volcanic island rising from the seabed, a new body of science law is fitfully evolving.  PEER has played a pioneering role in helping adopt and apply new scientific integrity rulesprohibiting political manipulation of technical works and declaring transparency in scientific matters for all federal employees, contractors and grantees.  These new rules vary from agency to agency, are uneven, incomplete and poorly enforced – but it is a start.

PEER is now preparing a campaign to strengthen and broaden these rules to ensure that every federal science program shields researchers from political interference and prevents alteration or suppression of their work products.  One arm of this effort is our new web law center to help embattled scientists. It serves as a hub to our new nationalAlliance for the Legal Protection of Science. 

The stakes could not be higher.

From global climate change to nanotechnology, the economic and political implications of environmental research have never been greater.  For that reason, so too are the pressures to quash off-message findings and those who create them. 

By conferring legal status on scientific work-products and those who create them we can reform the way decisions in public service are made. By arming scientists and technical specialists with the ability to indelibly embed inconvenient facts in the record, we force political appointees to confront what they would prefer buried. 

PEER is founded on the notion that the key agents of reform are those within who intimately know whether change is real or merely rhetorical.  Please help us do this work.

Sincerely,

Jeff Ruch

Executive DirectorP.S. Watch the NBC Nightly News report on the dangers of synthetic turf and tire crumb featuring University of Washington goalie coach Amy Griffin, who came to PEER to ask for our help in elevating the profile of this story and inducing agencies to begin doing meaningful risk assessments of a product they formerly claimed was safe.
P.P.S.  Meanwhile, in Malibu, the schools have finally promised to remove any toxic PCB contamination above federal limits – the catch is that they refuse to look for it.
P.P.P.S. Across the country at Florida’s Canaveral National Seashore, the Park Service once again shows that it stirs to action only when exposed as corrupt.
The two-year-old investigative report PEER unearthed quotes the park superintendent blaming all Canaveral’s problems, including her $800/month work cell phone bills, on a “small group of White Caucasians” who have the misfortune to work under her.

Now poachers going after ancient Coast Redwoods

This is a law enforcement issue, yes. But it's also indicative of just how some people view Wild Nature - as nothing more than a simple "resource." I always hated the language on Pennsylvania's "conservation" license plate, which asks passersby to "conserve wild resources" Nature is not a simple "resource," something to be harvested for human good and then trashed with other throwaways.
Read about the poaching of California's redwoods.

How much is enough?

Whenever I come across another land-changing human activity, I rethink the question asked of passersby at one National Park Service site in the West.

I pondered quietly to myself upon seeing the sign of white lettering on a brown background posted along one heavily trafficked interpretive trail at Bandelier National Monument. The park is adjacent to Los Alamos National Laboratory and it’s a two-hour drive or so to Santa Fe, the capital city of New Mexico. You can learn about Bandelier at http://www.nps.gov/band/index.htm

A brief National Park Service intro: “Bandelier National Monument protects more than 33,000 acres of rugged but beautiful canyon and mesa country as well as evidence of a human presence here going back over 11,000 years.  Petroglyphs, dwellings carved into the soft rock cliffs, and standing masonry walls pay tribute to the early days of a culture that still survives in the surrounding communities.”

Here’s what the sign asks passersby to consider: “Park managers at Bandelier and elsewhere are working to preserve biological diversity in our national parks. But national parks make up only 3 percent of the United States. Even Bandelier’s 33,000 acres are only 3 percent of the surrounding Jemez Mountain Range. Outside national parks, more and more land is being modified by human activities.

“Has enough land been set aside to preserve the wildlife and natural plant communities of our nation?”

The short answer, given the number of plant and animal species listed as threatened or endangered – both at the federal and state level – is no, not enough has been set aside.

The values of our natural heritage, also called biological diversity of “biodiversity,” are “legion,” the Park Service states on its Web site.

Those include: “The value of nature for its own sake, a source of wonder and enjoyment; the value of learning about the workings of nature in places largely free of human influence, for comparison with landscapes dominated by humans; the survival value of multitudes of wild species that flourish as natural systems helping regulate climate, air quality, and cycles of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, mineral elements, and water—all fundamental to life on Earth.”

Many conservationists also are quick to exclaim the “economic value of plants and animals, and their potential as sources of food, medicine, and industrial products. Parks protect the species and their communities that underlie these values—serving if necessary as reservoirs of seed stock for restoring species lost elsewhere.”

But as that trailside message Bandelier asks of passing hikers points out, our natural heritage is not limited to what’s found and monitored inside the boundaries of national parks or wildlife refuges or in units of the National Wilderness Preservation System or Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.

It’s also found on the land that highway planners seek to level for a new road.

It also lives and breathes on land that will be consumed by a sprawl subdivision, thanks to the access provided by the new road.

It’s also found the forested hill over yonder – habitat that’ll be turned into an island of same when its connector to other nearby natural lands is built on.

“When most people hear the term ‘endangered species,’ they think of manatees, grizzly bears, whales, and other charismatic species. If these animals don’t live in your area, you might think there is nothing you can do to help endangered species,” states a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service fact sheet titled “What you can do to help wildlife and plants.”

(You can read and learn from the fact sheet at http://www.fws.gov/asheville/pdfs/What_You_Can_Do.pdf).

I would add this first step: To ensure the future of your own region’s natural heritage, tell your local, county, state and federal leaders that it’s time – now – to start preserving natural lands, not calling their destruction “progress.”

Why Redwood burl poaching is so destructive

The demise of the Coast Redwood trees continues, now due to nighttime poaching, as this article notes.

During federal shutdown last fall, Utah's funding aid for national parks paid off

That's the theme of this feature from the Salt Lake Tribune. I fear the bigwigs who run the show in Utah will use these findings to bolster their claim that Utah, not the National Park Service, is better suited to run parks like Bryce Canyon, Arches and Zion. Not so, of course, but Utah is, in fact, led by Republicans.

Poll shows most Westerners like federal control of public lands

Too bad this article doesn't also explore the attitudes of folks in the East, especially here in New England. In any case, though, the poll's findings are a stick-in-the-mud to some wacko Western politicians, including the governor of Utah.

Crater Lake NP a showplace for mountain pine beetles

That's because the Whitebark Pine, a signature tree of the national park's landscape, is the beetles' target. Yes, Crater Lake is hardly alone in seeing its whitebark pines fall to the killing beetles' lifestyle. And armchair naturalists have got to remember, please, that the beetles' presence does not stop at the park boundary or even at Oregon's boundaries with Idaho, California and Washington. Read about Crater Lake here.

Awful legislation would have heavy toll on Cape Hatteras

From National Audubon:
Next week, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will vote on a suite of public lands bills, including two that Audubon strongly opposes. S 486 would overturn protections for shorebirds and sea turtles on Cape Hatteras National Seashore, and S 340, a bill to allow logging in the last remaining ancient forests of the Tongass. 

S 486 would overturn a multi-year public process that resulted in balanced provisions that protect endangered shorebirds and sea turtles while preserving the economic health of the community. In 2012, the first year of management under the Final Rule, visitation to the Seashore increased, tourism set record highs, and wildlife on the Seashore continued to rebound. The rule only closes beaches during nesting season for endangered shorebirds like Piping Plovers and endangered sea turtles. Once the young birds have learned to fly, the areas are re-opened. Areas are closed for sea turtle nests only in the few days immediately preceding the expected hatch date. 

The bill would overturn the public process and allow for off road vehicle traffic year round with no protection for birds or other wildlife. Audubon strongly opposes the legislation and continues to press for a balanced approach that protects birds, wildlife and the National Seashore experience.

The Wakopa Trail

The two Dakotas are among the few states I have not set foot in. Perhaps I will remedy that. Here's an overview of the Wakopa Trail in North Dakota.

Favorite places and Wild Nature - some words for keeeping them

This is the column I wrote several weeks ago for publication in a Sunday edition of the Standard-Speaker, Hazleton, Pa. Old amigos know that's where I worked as a daily journalist for a decade-and-a-half while also finishing a 26-year career as an Air Force officer. Read on and remember well your own favorite places. And also fight for their protection from "growth" and economic this-and-that.

Hunters kill 250 Bison moving out of Yellowstone

The existence of "political" boundaries - like the line between this town and that one - mean nothing to North American wildlife. Mammals like American Bison are guided by their ecological needs, not whether the ground they set foot on is private ranch land, national forest land, national park land, etc. The failure of those in power to recognize this basic bit of ecology is a national disgrace. As is the killing of even one of the genetically pure American Bison that are Yellowstone National Park ambassadors. Oh, and "harvesting" is the same as "killing." Read about the latest slaughter of Bison.

Chainsaw trade group goes after feds over spotted owl habitat

These "trade" associations are, more often than not, simply chambers of commerce with a fancy moniker. Their very name is crafted, they believe, to spread fear - in this case in the hearts of wildlife conservationists. The Northern Spotted Owl debacle has now been with us for 2.5 decades, give or take a year. And still, the trade associations talk behind their chainsaws as they try and rationalize the logging of old-growth (aka "ancient") trees and the species that depend on them. Ironically, it is the Barred Owl that wins with the logging of the ancients. It's still a debacle.

Elwha advdvocacy update

My longtime friend Mark Gretch is on the staff of the Wild Fish Conservancy. Wild Fish Conservancy, the Conservation Angler, the Federation of Fly Fishers Steelhead Committee, and the Wild Steelhead Coalition filed suit on February 9, 2012, against the Olympic National Park, NOAA Fisheries Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and representatives of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe (LEKT) for ignoring best available science and violating the Endangered Species Act (ESA).  The suit alleges that by permitting, funding, and operating the Elwha Hatchery, the defendants threaten the recovery of Chinook salmon, native steelhead, and killer whales.  State and federal agency scientists, along with the independent Hatchery Scientific Review Group (HSRG), pointed out that the current plan gives no measurable goals for wild fish recovery, provides no timetable for ceasing the hatchery production, and that wild fish recovery is going to be hampered by the implementation of the Elwha hatchery plan.
You can read the entire release from the Conservancy right here.

The timber sale described in this article isn't about meeting a public need. No sir. It's about corporate profit, and the taking of old-growth trees that Wild Nature planted tens of thousands of years ago. Here is a classic example of Wild Nature being seen only a as a "resource," a resource that can be plundered and harvested. The cry of "let this happen because it will generate jobs" is a smokescreen for the permanent taking of a forest. Damn.

Canceling our national parks over budget debacle

That's the basis picture being tossed out for public consumption by the Coalition of National Park Service Retires. Battle reenactments at Gettysburg? Forget it. The same at Colonial National Historical Park? Nah. Teaching park visitors about their legacy of special wild places? Who cares, especially not House Speaker John Boehner and Sen. Mitch McConnell. Read an op-ed piece on this quagmire.

NM legislation demands title to public lands in state

This is the same kind of crap tried by Utah "lawmakers." Never mind that federal public lands in New Mexico and all the other states, too, are owned, in part, by all taxpaying Americans, like me in Vermont. The parochial grandstanding of state-level politicians when it comes to public land is astounding.

Roadkill in Saguaro National Park

As is always the case when carcasses are collected on highway shoulders, the wildlife whose lives are terrestrial are the most numerous victims of the roadkill machine - the motor vehicle. The report discussed in this article focuses on Saguaro National Park, whose two units straddle Tucson, Ariz.

Decaying management at Yellowstone, other NPS units

That is the sad message of the research paper found at this link. It has been many decades (4.5 years?) since the Gregory family motored to the park from our then home in Pocatello, Idaho. I remember there being cars, many cars.

Park Service leadership appears infected with a case of Disney-envy

I point you to this essay on my friend Ted Williams's blog. Whatever happened to conservation and messages to the public like the one I found on the sign you see in the picture (photographed at Bandelier National Monument, N.M.).