Forest Service Blasted From All Sides Nearly Everybody At Hearing Critical Of Agency’s Operation
The U.S. Forest Service was slashed and burned by virtually everyone during a congressional subcommittee hearing on whether the agency is responsive to the public.
Nearly all of the 24 people who testified Wednesday before U.S. Sen. Larry Craig in Grangeville - from every side - were critical of its operations.
Craig, R-Idaho, called the meeting to focus on communities that depend on the national forests.
Regional Forester Dale Bosworth said that while there are no statutory requirements to maintain community stability, several laws allow the Agriculture secretary to consider their economies in making resource decisions.
Forest plans shall provide, as far as feasible, an even flow of federal timber for communities’ employment, he said.
Craig questioned Boswell about how successful the Forest Service is in providing that flow.
“We need to come up with volumes that people can go to the bank on,” he replied.
The senator said one reason for the hearing is Congress is questioning whether management of public lands would be better handled by states.
He said he is troubled by the lack of salvage timber sales on the national forests following last summer’s devastating fires.
Salvage sales on private and state lands are already taking place, Craig said, and those lands probably will be healthier than federal lands where nothing is being done.
U.S. Rep. Helen Chenoweth, who also attended, warned about the agency’s failure to sell off what she claims is an abundance of burned or diseased trees.
“Thirty-five billion board feet of diseased timber is standing and we can’t get it off the forest … because of the extreme positions people are taking,” she said.
Susan Borowicz, principal of the Elk City school, said since a shift reduction at the Shearer Lumber Co. sawmill a few years ago, working families have been replaced by those on welfare.
“It is important that the Forest Service realize that decisions they make on the timber supply affects the education of our children,” Borowicz said, “as well as the population make-up of our community.”
Jerry Klemm of the Pulp and Paperworkers Resource Council blasted the agency’s failure to fulfill its timber sale quotas.”The forest plans are so much waste paper,” Klemm said.
Despite the fact that “allowable sale quantities” were set below the biological potential for each of the forests, the Forest Service has sold just a fraction of those quantities, he said.
“While this has been frustrating to those of us who depend on the forest products industry to support our families, we have been even more frustrated by the agency’s lack of concern for the hardship they are creating.”