Kentucky Heartwood
  • Home
  • News and Events
    • Newsletters
    • Forest Blog
    • Music Festival 2022 >
      • Music Festival Pics
    • Past Events >
      • Stonecoal hike
      • Hemlock volunteer days
      • Red Hickory and Herbal Medicine Hike
      • Red Hickory Hike April '22
      • Music Festival 2021
      • Bat Meter Deployment Field Trip 2021
      • Virtual Membership Meeting 2021
      • The Three R's with Davis Mounger
      • White fringeless orchid mural
  • Forest Watch
    • FOIA
    • Jellico >
      • ORG COMMENTS
    • South Redbird Project
    • Blackwater (Cave Run Lake)
    • Red River Gorge
    • Pine Creek Forest Restoration Project
    • Greenwood
    • Pisgah Bay Project
    • Climax & Little Egypt >
      • Crooked Creek Photos 2011
      • Crooked Creek Photos 2010
    • Upper Rock Creek Logging >
      • Rock Creek Hike, November 2009
  • Issues
  • Donate
    • ANNUAL REPORT 2022
  • CONTACT
    • Volunteer
    • SUBSCRIBE
  • Links
  • About
    • Council & Staff

Kentucky Heartwood

We need forests we can get lost in; trees that make us gape; streams we can drink from. 
​Wild places sustain and define us; ​we, in turn, must protect them.

Kentucky Resources Council files FOIA appeal on behalf of Kentucky Heartwood

10/28/2021

0 Comments

 
With the help of the Kentucky Resources Council, Kentucky Heartwood (KHW) filed an appeal challenging the Forest Service's decision on August 17, 2021 to deny KHW a fee waiver request for the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) regarding the Blackwater Landscape Analysis. The Forest Servie is charging Kentucky Heartwood, and by proxy its membership, $3,734.36 to release the FOIA. Information that could lead to a better understanding of Blackwater is literally being held hostage by the Forest Service. 

​You may ask, “Why bother the Forest Service with a FOIA request? Isn’t it on the project page?” Non-profit organizations submit FOIA requests to federal agencies in order to gain the full picture of how a project is put together. Standard project pages curated by the Forest Service do not include critical pieces of information helpful for understanding the impacts of a project nor all of the components that led to decision. In FOIA requests, it is common to ask for all communications, specialists reports, silvicultural stand exams, other field surveys, mapping information such as Global Information Systems files, and proof of consultation with other federal agencies. 

In return for the FOIA, nonprofit organizations agree to share information gleaned from FOIA requests. Kentucky Heartwood fulfills this requirement by posting information about FOIAs to our forest blog, newsletters, e-blasts, social media accounts, and a FOIA webpage where citizens may request documents. It is our express goal to make sure citizens know what is happening on federal lands.

Given the ways Kentucky Heartwood keeps citizens informed, it was curious that the Forest Service denied a fee waiver for the Blackwater Landscape Analysis. The organization’s executive director jumped through the Forest Service’s hoops by submitting a detailed FOIA request, cooperated in a “clarification call” where she articulated our request in detail, reviewed “perfected” documents, and dropped any requests where the Forest Service claimed they had no record of topics on file (like roads) or information that was provided the day before the objection call for Blackwater in March 2021. 

The Forest Service's determination letter claimed:

“The basis for this denial involves comments made by you during a telephone
conversation with forest staff on July 14, 2021. During this call you indicated the
purpose for requesting this information was to, “be able to walk the ground to
recreate your work and double check your findings.” Based on this comment and the current ongoing engagement between the Forest Service and the public involving the collection of new and review of existing data as the project is implemented, it appears you intend to use this information for internal purposes only.
This does not meet the fee waiver criteria set forth by the USDA FOIA Regulations."
Picture
In this justification, the Forest Service is essentially attacking the very right we have as citizens to request FOIAs in order to field check for mature forests and old growth, rare and listed species, possible restoration areas, possible road locations, and other ecological characteristics inside of a project area. The Forest Service is not infallible, and we've documented and reported their errors before. 

Kentucky Heartwood has always shared information about our field work, hosted field trips, and informed citizens and federal agencies of issues or opportunities for better protection. This is not new nor some underhanded use of information for “internal purposes.”

The other concerning issue is that the Forest Service is claiming that at the time of our FOIA they were still in the process of “ongoing engagement between the Forest Service and the public involving the collection of new and review of existing data as the project is implemented…”  The agency had not signed their Blackwater decision at the time of FOIA request. However, the Freedom of Information Act legislation does not include any specific language about when a FOIA may be submitted during the project creation process or risk paying fees. 

This claim may actually bolster our larger concern that the Forest Service never wanted pre-decisional transparency about their plans for Blackwater. Not the location of roads, “restoration” sites, or specific areas where logging will occur.  Post-decisional virtual show-and-tell presentations advertised on social media with this information certainly does not fulfill that public involvement process either. 

Finally, it is important to note that the Forest Service recently fulfilled a large FOIA request for the South Redbird “Wildlife Enhancement” Project also on the Daniel Boone National Forest, which is a part of the Southern Region (R8). We asked for the exact same components for other projects. We went through a “clarification call”, and after a long wait, the Forest Service released that FOIA without charging a fee. What is so different about the Blackwater FOIA that they need to charge us?

To combat these bogus claims and fees, Ashley Wilmes, attorney and new executive director of the Kentucky Resources Council, filed an appeal on your behalf. With years of experience in FOIA claims and lawsuits, we are confident the Forest Service will back down and fulfill their legal obligations under the Freedom of Information Act. 

We are grateful for the Kentucky Resources Council's assistance. 
​

If you are involved in federal lands protection work, please consider this as a warning. The Forest Service in Region 8 may be moving more and more in this direction. ​
0 Comments

    Archives

    November 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    May 2021
    March 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    April 2020
    February 2020
    December 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    July 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    December 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    December 2015
    May 2014
    February 2014
    November 2013
    February 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    February 2012
    October 2011
    August 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    February 2010
    November 2009
    August 2009
    July 2009
    May 2009
    April 2009

    Categories

    All
    Adventure Tourism
    Bats
    Big South Fork
    Coal
    Comment Letters
    Dance
    Daniel Boone Nf
    Dbnf
    Division Of Forestry
    Event
    Film
    Forest Council
    Forest Plan
    Forest Resource Assessment
    Fundraiser
    Great Places
    Greenwood
    Health
    Heartwood
    Hemlock Woolly Adelgid
    Horses
    Invasive Plants
    Landfill
    Litigation
    Logging
    Mountaintop Removal
    Natural Bridge
    Pipeline
    Redbird
    Robinson Forest
    Rock Creek
    State Nature Preserves
    Thanks
    Website
    White Nose Syndrome
    Ymca

    RSS Feed

  • Home
  • News and Events
    • Newsletters
    • Forest Blog
    • Music Festival 2022 >
      • Music Festival Pics
    • Past Events >
      • Stonecoal hike
      • Hemlock volunteer days
      • Red Hickory and Herbal Medicine Hike
      • Red Hickory Hike April '22
      • Music Festival 2021
      • Bat Meter Deployment Field Trip 2021
      • Virtual Membership Meeting 2021
      • The Three R's with Davis Mounger
      • White fringeless orchid mural
  • Forest Watch
    • FOIA
    • Jellico >
      • ORG COMMENTS
    • South Redbird Project
    • Blackwater (Cave Run Lake)
    • Red River Gorge
    • Pine Creek Forest Restoration Project
    • Greenwood
    • Pisgah Bay Project
    • Climax & Little Egypt >
      • Crooked Creek Photos 2011
      • Crooked Creek Photos 2010
    • Upper Rock Creek Logging >
      • Rock Creek Hike, November 2009
  • Issues
  • Donate
    • ANNUAL REPORT 2022
  • CONTACT
    • Volunteer
    • SUBSCRIBE
  • Links
  • About
    • Council & Staff