Steve,
I heartily agree with the SWR FOIA actions taken. I have personally written to
Jesse Juen and Donna Hummel at BLM expressing my concerns with their actions
toward cavers and specifically the closures and impact on recreational cavers.
I encourage every caver out there to send e-mail messages to Jesse Juen at
jj...@blm.gov and express their opinions and outrage at the actions that BLM NM
has taken to keep the caves closed.
Ken
Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass - It's about dancing in the
rain.
From: gypca...@comcast.net
Date: Thu, 22 May 2014 13:51:50 -0600
To: s...@caver.net
Subject: [SWR] Background on the FOIA request to BLM
All, On Tuesday, May 20, 2014, our SWR Vice-Chair, Jim Evatt notified the
membership in the SWR, through the SWR mailing list, that a Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA) request had been filed by the SWR for information
related to the BLM's management of the threat of White Nose Syndrome (WNS).
This act, arguably the most significant act taken by the SWR for a generation,
is the result of a string of events over the last several years. I want to
give the membership some of the background that led up to this request. As
most everyone knows, WNS is a debilitating condition that has affected
hibernating bats, primarily in the eastern United States and Canada, causing
very high mortality rates in the bat colonies from the fungus that causes it.
(P. destructans). The first evidence of WNS came from Howe Caverns, a
commercial cave in New York, in 2007. An initial thought was that perhaps a
caver from Europe possibly brought this fungus to the United States by visiting
the cave with clothes that were contaminated with the fungus. As more and more
evidence accumulated of the devastating effects of WNS to bats, the US Fish and
Wlldlife Service developed guidelines for the various cave management agencies
to use regarding the potential spread of WNS. These guidelines included
recommendations to close caves and abandoned mines to human entry because of
the possibility that humans may be a significant vector to the transmission of
the condition. In January of 2011, the NM BLM published a Federal Register
Notice of Temporary Closure of 28 caves in New Mexico known to have significant
bat populations, probably as a direct result of a report of an infected bat in
the neighboring state of Oklahoma. That Temporary Closure was for 2 years
only and expired in January of 2013. At the 2012 Winter Tech, Ms. Marikay
Ramsey (BLM bat biologist) announced the intent of the BLM to renew the
closure. In January of 2013, at a special meeting in Albuquerque, Jim Goodbar,
National BLM Cave Program lead, again discussed that intent, and also
mentioned that 3 of the caves previously closed would be re-opened. The BLM
revealed that it was delegating the management of caving activities under the
threat of WNS to a state-wide Cave Management Team. Cavers waited for
the announcement that the Temporary Closure was being renewed, or that a new
Temporary Closure was being instituted. This didn't happen (and hasn't
happened to date). Instead, the BLM merely said that the caves are "closed".
Cavers inquiring about the "closure" were told that BLM didn't need to have a
Federal Register Temporary Closure because the cave specialists could merely
refuse to issue permits. This management plan, if it can be called that,
for the BLM caves that were previously closed by Federal Register Notice
persisted for another year, as cavers became increasingly dissatisfied with how
the caves were being managed. Meanwhile more research was being done on WNS;
research that demonstrated that bats were very good at transmitting WNS from
one to another, but that humans ere not very good at spreading the fungus. In
fact, we know of no credible evidence that WNS has been spread from one cave to
another by humans. At the spring SWR regional on April 12, 2014 there was a
significant discussion of the BLM's continuing stand that they could close the
caves by just saying they are closed and what to do about it. One idea was to
ask for permits for some of the closed caves in order to bring the issue to the
forefront. This was done by several folks, including Dave Belski and Stephen
Fleming, who both requested recreational permits to Fort Stanton Cave. Both
were denied. On May 6, 2014 the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife
Conservation announced that the previous report of a WNS bat in Oklahoma was a
false report, and that no WNS infected bats had been detected in New Mexico.
On May 9, BLM's Chief of Communications issued this statement to the SWR
mailing list:
BLM New Mexico White-Nose Syndrome Closure Strategy UpdateMay 2014 BLM New
Mexico is evaluating the new information released by the National Wildlife
Health Center about the Woodward County, Oklahoma bat originally tested in 2010
being now reclassified as negative forPseudogymnoascus (formerly Geomyces)
destructans and White-nose syndrome (WNS). At this time, we are sustaining our
WNS cave and abandoned mine closure strategy. The BLM’s team of biologists,
cave specialists, and managers will work internally, as well as with our NM
interagency partners, to consider the new Oklahoma findings. The BLM is the
responsible party for managing hundreds of New Mexico caves and abandoned mines
and their resources. We will continue to do so by using the best available
science and by following laws, regulations, and national BLM guidance to
minimize risk and impacts to these resources. Moving forward, we will
consider WNS’s significant movement westward in the past four years, the number
of caves open for recreation vs. those closed on public lands in New Mexico
(about 1,000 open to 25 closed), and the fact that even our closed caves have
managed access for scientific and administrative purposes. We will proceed
thoughtfully and scientifically to determine the future of our WNS strategy.
We are committed to keeping cavers and the general public advised of any
changes to our policy.
Many cavers, including myself, sent e-mails to various responsible
folks in BLM management encouraging a dialog on the topic of the continuing
management of these caves. To my knowledge NONE of those e-mails were
responded to, not even by a courtesy reply.
Meanwhile, cavers and SWR members Dave Belski and Stephen Fleming
considered their options regarding the denial of their recreational permit
requests. They were formulating a response that would attempt to elicit the
reasons why these caves were closed. As they formulated the questions, it
became obvious that what was really necessary was a FOIA request. Fleming, a
retired BLM law enforcement officer, wrote the request, initially as his own
request as a private citizen. After getting the majority of the request
written, he shared it with others, including me. After reading the request, I
realized that this FOIA request reflects the interests and concerns of the
caving community at large and should be a request of the caving community. I
petitioned the SWR leadership, the executive committee of Peg Sorensen (chair),
Jim Evatt (vice-chair), Dave Belski (secretary) and Blake Jordan (treasurer) to
name Fleming as a special representative of the SWR and allow him to file this
FOIA request on behalf of the SWR. They agreed that this was in the best
interests of the region and named him the Federal Liaison. On Monday morning,
May 18 the FOIA request on behalf of the SWR was filed with the BLM's FOIA
coordinator at the state office, with copies to several BLM management folks.
As I said earlier, this is probably the most significant action taken
by the SWR in this generation. It is an action not taken lightly, and is not
intended to discredit or demean the cave management efforts of the BLM, but to
bring those efforts to the light of day so that all may understand how
decisions were made. If the scientific evidence exists that closure of the
caves is effective in preventing the spread of WNS then we want to see it. If
the evidence exists that WNS is moving rapidly towards New Mexico, we want to
see it. This should be an opportunity to clean the slate of recent
cave management practices by the BLM in New Mexico. When the evidence is there
for us to examine, can we proceed with a plan, incorporating the scientific
evidence now available, that appropriately protects our bats, but also provides
appropriate access to the caves that the BLM has closed? I encourage everyone
to comment and/or voice your concerns or approval of the action that the SWR
leadership has taken. They have done this on your behalf. If you agree with
it, let them that they have done the right thing.
Steve Peerman
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you
didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, Sail away from
the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream.
Discover." attributed to Mark Twain, but no record exists of his having
written this.
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