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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Forest Mudslide Study Held Up, Critics Say Agency Denies Intentional Delay; But Environmentalists Say Bad News Is Being Hidden

Environmentalists say the U.S. Forest Service is delaying a study on mudslides, fearing bad publicity about logging roads in the Clearwater National Forest on the eve of U.S. Senate action on road funding.

For two years, the agency has promised to produce a definitive study of the nearly 2,000 landslides on the Clearwater Forest during the winter of 1995-96. The results first were promised in October 1996.

There have been six other delays in producing the final report, environmentalists charge. And now the landslide study won’t surface until mid-October - at the earliest.

The Forest Service says the magnitude of the task, from gathering the information to crunching the numbers, has simply been too overwhelming for a quick turnaround.

“It’s been delayed numerous times simply because they haven’t gotten it done,” said Deanna Riebe of the Clearwater National Forest. Among other things, loading the data on computers has been an enormous task.

The study is being conducted by the Forest Service’s regional office in Missoula, she explained. “It’s been as frustrating for us as anyone, but it’s not under our control.”

But critics say they believe the Forest Service doesn’t like the fact that the data will identify logging roads as a major cause of mudslides. And because the U.S. Senate is considering cutting road construction dollars, the Forest Service is intent upon keeping the study under wraps as long as possible, said Larry McLaud of the Idaho Conservation League.

“The areas where road densities are the highest, mudslide numbers are the highest and with 4,000 miles of roads on the Clearwater, the chances of problems are high,” McLaud said.

“They are going to have to fess up to all of the dirt in the creeks across the forest and that’s going to mess up the timber program,” added Charles Pezeshki, director of the Clearwater Biodiversity Project. “They know this is an embarrassment and they don’t want it trotted out in the Senate debate.”

Winter floods triggered at least some of the landslides beginning in November 1995 on national forest, state and private land across North Idaho. The Clearwater National Forest suffered some of the worst damage, counting hundreds of slides, including one that disgorged 500,000 tons of dirt, rocks and trees.

The Forest Service blamed unstable soils. Environmentalists blamed logging and roads. The regional office of the Forest Service finally agreed to conduct a study.

Two crews have gathered extensive data on what happened on the Clearwater. One looked at the landslides and tried to determine a cause, Riebe said.

The other measured sediment in streams above and below the slides. A supervisory team, including retired Forest Service soil scientist Dale Wilson, Potlatch Corp. hydrologist Terry Cundy and University of Idaho fisheries scientist Mike Falter, is producing the final report.

The report is being edited by the Forest Service in Missoula and will be mailed back to the scientists today for final review, said Olleke RappeDaniels, a Region One spokeswoman. When that’s done, about a week from now, the report will go out to several other scientists for from 15 to 25 days of peer review.

“We are not changing the conclusions,” she said of the charge that the Forest Service is trying to spin the data. “There isn’t any time for reanalysis. We wanted a document the public could understand.”

Environmentalists don’t object to a timber company hydrologist participating, particularly considering Potlatch and the Clearwater Forest share several miles of common boundary and roads. But Clearwater Biodiversity and other groups think they, likewise, should be privy to the development of the report.

“The minute they involved the industry, they have an obligation to share with the public what they are doing,” Pezeshki said. It took three months and the involvement of an attorney to get the Forest Service to provide environmental groups with raw data that turned out to be indiscernible.

There is no guarantee that the final report will be made public in October or that a symposium on the topic scheduled for early November will take place.

If the peer review panel says the conclusions aren’t valid, the public will be best served by further study, Rappe-Daniels said.

Environmentalists aren’t surprised, but say they don’t expect the Forest Service to admit fault.

“We expect them to blame the mudslides on everything but roads and logging,” Pezeshki said. “The only consideration was to find out what closed the roads so they could reopen them and start hauling logs again.”

The Forest Service disagrees. It says it will take the results seriously and do something about them.

“It’s very clear if it shows certain land types are prone to landslides, we will change our road-building practices,” Riebe said.

, DataTimes