Copyright 1999 Federal News Service, Inc.
Federal News Service
NOVEMBER 3, 1999, WEDNESDAY
SECTION: IN THE NEWS
LENGTH:
1235 words
HEADLINE: PREPARED TESTIMONY OF
MIKE
DOMBECK
CHIEF
FOREST SERVICE
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
BEFORE THE HOUSE RESOURCES COMMITTEE
SUBJECT -
REGARDING THE PROMULGATION OF REGULATIONS
CONCERNING ROADLESS
AREAS WITHIN THE NATIONAL FOREST SYSTEM
BODY:
MISTER CHAIRMAN AND MEMBERS OF THE COMMITTEE:
Thank you for the
opportunity to discuss Forest Service efforts to develop longterm protections
for the important social and ecological values of roadless
areas within the National Forest System. As you know, on October 19,
1999, we published a Notice of Intent in the Federal Register that outlined a
two part process to: 1) limit certain development activities such as road
construction in inventoried roadless areas and 2) identify the
values that make roadless areas of all sizes ecologically and
socially important. At the direction of the President of the United States, the
Forest Service has begun a public dialogue. We have no proposal yet. There is no
preferred alternative. We have begun a very open and public dialogue with the
American people about how they want their remaining, unfragmented, public lands
to be managed.
Mr. Chairman, although we formally began our process on
October 13, 1999, with the President's visit to the spectacular Little River
roadless area on the George Washington National Forest, this is
not an issue that just came up recently.
Roadless areas are
controversial, in part, because of their important social and ecological values.
Roadless areas provide clean water, habitat for wildlife, food
for hunters, and amazing recreational opportunities. They act as a barrier
against noxious invasive plant and animal species and as strongholds for native
fish populations. Roadless areas serve as reference areas for
research and often provide vital habitat and migration routes for numerous
wildlife species and are particularly important for those requiring large home
ranges. Many roadless areas also act as ecological anchors
allowing nearby federal, state, and private lands to be developed for economic
purposes. Indeed, roadless areas are critically important for
the long-term ecological sustainability of the nation's forests.
In recent
years, the public has rightfully questioned whether the Forest Service should
build new roads into controversial roadless areas when the
agency has difficulty maintaining its existing road system. The current national
forest road system includes 380,000 miles of roads, enough to circle the globe
more than 15 times. The agency currently has a road reconstruction and
maintenance backlog of approximately $8.4 billion and it receives only about 20
percent of the annual funding needed to maintain the safety and environmental
condition of its road system.
Almost two years ago, during my first
Appropriations season as Chief, I watched as the House of Representatives came
within a single vote of cutting $42 million out of Forest Service roads budget
because of these issues.
On January 28, 1998, I initiated a process to
consider changes in how the Forest Service road system is developed, used,
maintained, and funded and to suspend temporarily road construction and
reconstruction in certain unroaded areas. This effort lead to the current
"interim rule", that has temporarily suspended road construction and
reconstruction in unroaded areas. The agency has received more than 80,000
public comments on these efforts, the majority of which called for a permanent
halt to road building in roadless areas.
In response to
these comments and the President's October directive, the agency is following a
two track process: the first dealing with roadless areas and
the second dealing with the existing Forest Service road system.
The Forest
Service published a Notice of Intent on October 19, 1999, to initiate the
scoping process whereby the Forest Service solicits public comment on the nature
and scope of the environmental, social and economic issues related to
roadless areas. The public has been asked to provide comments
by December 20, 1999. The agency is planning to publish a draft environmental
impact statement (EIS) and proposed rule for public review in the spring of
2000. The final EIS and final rule will be published in the fall of 2000.
In
terms of the Forest Service's existing road network, the Forest Service will
also publish a proposed long-term roads policy in the next several weeks that
will enable the agency to better manage the roads it already has.
Indeed, as
we work on the rulemaking process for roadless areas, we will
continue to work on the long term roads management policy. There will be some
overlap as we pursue these two separate but closely related actions.
Because
both of these processes are so important to the American people and local
communities, we will be holding a series of public meetings across the country,
including public meetings on every National Forest that has inventoried
roadless areas.Background
Roadless areas
have been an issue for public land management for a long time. They became a
national issue when the agency conducted the Roadless Area
Review and Evaluation (RARE) almost 30 years ago, following passage of the
Wilderness Act. Immediate criticism of the study prompted a lawsuit regarding
the study's comprehensiveness. Thus began the cycle of controversy and
litigation that took us through the RARE II process in the late 1970's and
through 20 years of forest plans and project implementation.
For too long,
others, such as the court system and interest groups, have controlled the debate
over long-term management of roadless areas. The President's
direction puts this issue squarely back where it belongs, into the hands of the
American people and the resource professionals of the Forest Service.
The
Forest Service already has over 380,000 miles of classified roads yet, we
receive less than 20% of the funding needed to maintain them to safety and
environmental standards. As a result, our backlog of reconstruction and
maintenance now exceeds $8.4 billion.
Road construction may increase the
risk of erosion, landslides, and slope failure, endangering the health of
watersheds that provide drinking water to local communities and critical habitat
for fish and wildlife. Development in these roadless areas can
allow entry of invasive plants and animals that threaten the health of native
species, increase human-caused wildfire, disrupt habitat connectivity, and
otherwise compromise the attributes that make these sensitive areas socially
valuable and ecologically important.
People have also expressed concerns
about losing the potential economic values some of the roadless
areas could provide through timber harvest and mineral development.
Other concerns revolve around limiting treatments that may improve the health of
the forests and reduce the accumulation of hazardous fuels. For all these
reasons, it is important that we hear from the public about the value and
importance they place on these areas.
SUMMARY
As the impacts of
population expansion and land development spread out across the American
landscape, the last vestiges of wildness, the roadless areas,
hang in the balance. We do not want these lands to become museum pieces. We do
not want to block people's access to the forests they love. Where else in the
world can you find 192 million acres without a single no trespassing sign? Our
objective is to ensure that our grandchildren will be able to marvel and wonder
at the land legacy we hold in trust today.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my
statement. I would be happy to answer any questions you and Members of the
Committee may have.
END
LOAD-DATE: November 4,
1999