Forest Service Chief Defends Columbia Basin Plan

The leaders of the Clinton administration’s land management agencies attending a Wednesday symposium defended some embattled policies affecting millions of acres of public ground.

But representatives from resource industries used former Idaho Gov. Cecil Andrus’ gathering to warn the loss of local control to Washington, D.C., paralyzes mining, logging and grazing.

U.S. Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck and U.S. Bureau of Land Management Director Patrick Shea said the information gleaned in writing the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Plan to oversee 72 million acres will help restore the health of the land and protect dwindling species.

“The project is providing the kind of information and understanding that we need,” Dombeck said during the federal land symposium sponsored by the Andrus Center for Public Policy.

“No one could consider it the absolute best model, but it’s a model that will work and it’s certainly one of the best models that we have to date in solving … resource challenges.”

The Forest Service has learned some important points in its research, such as 40 million acres in the basin are at a high risk to fires, and 60 percent of the best remaining aquatic habitat is in roadless areas, Dombeck said.

“I have a deep commitment to see this process through,” said Shea, who oversees 270 million acres of rangeland.

Last month, the Forest Service announced a moratorium of at least 18 months, which temporarily halts logging and road-building on 33 million acres of national forests now unprotected from commercial activity.

Dombeck said the moratorium will give his agency time to review its road policies. While the average number of logging vehicles using those roads each day is about the same as in 1950 - 15,000 - the number of cars and trucks bringing people to the forests for recreation has increased tenfold to 1.7 million in that time span, he said.

“In the eyes of the American public, Forest Service roads equal logging roads and we’ve got to change that perception,” he said. “We need support to take care of them appropriately, but where we can’t do that the argument is used against us to further hold the road program down.”

Included among the several hundred people in attendance at the conference were government representatives and environmentalists, as well as resource-industry officials who fear the bureaucracy is destroying their livelihood.

“It appears the government is waging a war against us,” said Jim English, president of Idaho Forest Industries. “No politician in Washington, D.C. should be making decisions about jobs here. The forests are not in good shape and the industry isn’t going to take the blame.”