Copyright 2000 Federal News Service, Inc.
Federal News Service
July 26, 2000, Wednesday
SECTION: PREPARED TESTIMONY
LENGTH: 2587 words
HEADLINE:
PREPARED STATEMENT OF JAMES R. FURNISH DEPUTY CHIEF, NATIONAL FOREST SYSTEM
FOREST SERVICE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
BEFORE THE
SENATE COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES SUBCOMMITTEE
ON FORESTS AND PUBLIC LANDS MANAGEMENT
SUBJECT - FOREST SERVICE
ROADLESS AREA CONSERVATION PROPOSAL
BODY:
MISTER CHAIRMAN AND MEMBERS OF THE
COMMITTEE:
Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the Forest Service
Roadless Area Conservation proposal. As you know, the objective
of the proposal is to conserve and enhance the important social and ecological
values of roadless areas within the National Forest System. As
more and more private land, forests, open space, wetlands and farmland are
developed and converted to urban us:s, roadless areas have
become increasingly important to Americans and their children.
On May
10, 2000, we published a proposed rule outlining a Forest Service proposed
accompanied by a draft environmental impact statement (DEIS). The proposal would
conserve roadless areas by generally prohibiting new road
construction in inventoried roadless areas of the National
Forest System. It would also require local managers to evaluate and consider
roadless area characteristics in the context of overall
multiple-use objectives during the revision of individual forest plans. Under
the proposal, a final decision about conserving roadless areas
on the Tongass National Forest would be postponed until a planned review of the
revised forest plan in 2004. Along with the preferred alternative the agency is
considering a ran ge. of alternatives, including taking no action. The Forest
Service's roadless proposal would eliminate the greatest threats to these
critical areas at the national level and then allow local managers to
consideradditional protections in the future. This balanced approach is based on
our belief that several inventories, a decade of forest plan revisions,
Congressional appropriation debates, and litigation have failed to resolve the
question of roadless area management. Our objective is to
address the issues that merit national attention while leaving all others to
local forest planning.
The public, state and local governments, and
Congress have all been active participants in the debate over roadless
areas. In January 1998, the agency 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 in certain unroaded
areas. This led to the current "interim rule" that temporarily suspended road
construction and reconstruction in unroaded areas while we developed a long-term
road management policy. The agency, received more than 120,000 public comments
on these efforts, the majority of which called for permanent protection of
roadless areas.
As President Clinton emphasized during
his announcement in October 1999, the American people increasingly recognize the
inextricable link between the quality of their lives and the health of the lands
and waters that surround them. Although roadless areas
represent less than one percent of the American landmass, they serve: as a
reservoir of rare and vanishing resources.
Roadless
areas provide clean drinking water, habitat for fish and wildlife,
abundant: hunting and fishing, recreation opportunities, and reference areas for
research. In the face of growing sprawl and urbanization, these values have
increased importance. Between 1992 and 1997, nearly 16 million acres of forest,
farms, and open space were converted to urban or other uses. Roadless
areas act as a barrier against noxious invasive plant and animal
species and as strongholds for native fish populations. They 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. 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. These effects can be particularly acute
in high elevation, erosion-prone roadless areas.
- 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. The agency also has
a road reconstructionand maintenance backlog of approximately
$8.4 billion, and it receives only about 20 percent of the
annual funding needed to maintain its road system up to safety and environmental
standards.
For too long, others, such as litigants and interest groups,
have controlled the debate over long-term management of roadless
areas. It is time to involve the American people directly. Our
objective is not to supplant the local forest planning process. Rather, we seek
to resolve those parts of the roadless area issue that are
national in scope. As a result, the local planning process will become less
costly, less controversial, and more effective.
PUBLIC INVOLVEMENT
The Forest Service is conducting an unprecedented public outreach effort
to solicit public comments on the roadless area conservation
proposal. The initial opportunity for public involvement began on October 19,
1999, with the publication in the Federal Register of the Notice of Intent (NOI)
to prepare an environmental impact statement. Release of the NOI initiated a
public scoping period that continued through issuance of the draft environmental
impact statement and proposed rule. During this scoping period the Forest
Service held more than 185 public meetings across the country and received over
500,000 comments.
On May 9, 2000, the agency started the just concluded
public comment period on the proposed rule and draft environmental impact
statement. The agency held an additional 424 meetings, including at least two
meetings on every national forest across the country-one to explain the proposal
and one to hear public comments. In total, the ForeSt Service has held more than
600 meetings on this proposal. The agency has posted its draft environmental
impact statement and maps on the Internet and has distributed over 43,000 copies
of the DEIS, almost 6,000 CD versions of the DEIS, and over 50,000 copies of the
DEIS summary to interested individuals, local governments, and other agencies.
In addition, the agency also distributed copies of the DEIS to over 10,000
public libraries across the country.
I think this speaks to the national
significance and public concern over this issue. Our goal is to ensure that the
American people understand what is being proposed and to hear what they think
about our proposal, so that we can make the best decision possible about the
future management of these lands.
STATUS OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
STATEMENT As mentioned earlier, the agency published a draft environmental
impact statement (DEIS) and proposed rule for public review on May 10, 2000. The
Forest Service accepted comment on those documents through July 17, 2000. The
DEiS outlines specific action alternatives along with a no action alternative to
provide a detailed basis for discussion with the public about how
roadless areas could be managed in the future.
The
alternatives examine a range of prohibitions in inventoried roadless
areas such as limitations on road construction and timber harvest in
unroaded portions of inventoried roadless areas. National
prohibitions of certain activities, such as road construction and
reconstruction, could affect from 43 to 54 million acres of inventoried
roadless areas. Roughly 38 percent of these areas are already
in management designations that do not allow for road construction.
The
DEIS also contains a range of procedural alternatives which would require the
evaluation and consideration of roadless area characteristics
and values through land management planning or during project planning.
In addition, there am a range of alternatives unique to the Tongass
National Forest. Along with these specific Tongass alternatives, the prohibition
and procedural alternatives that address the rest of the National Forest System
could also be applied to the Tongass National Forest. The agency may choose to
combine portions of the prohibition, procedural, and Tongass alternatives in the
final role.
Under all prohibition alternatives, roads may still be built
in inventoried roadless areas: 1) to protect public health and
safety in cases of imminent threat of flood, fire, or other catastrophic event,
that without intervention, would cause loss of life or property; 2) when needed
to comply with other federal laws; 3) when needed pursuant to reserved or
outstanding rights or as provided for statute or treaty; or 4) when road
alignment is needed to prevent irreparable resource damage that cannot be
prevented by road maintenance.
After the Close of the comment period,
the agency will analyze the comments, refine and improve the analysis of
effects, and issue a final EIS and rule later this year.
ENVIRONMENTAL
EFFECTS
The draft environmental impact statement addresses the
environmental, social and economic effects of the prohibitions, procedural, and
Tongass alternatives. All proposed action alternatives would have positive
environmental impacts including: protecting habitat for threatened and
endangered species, protecting watersheds for public drinking water and aquatic
habitat for fish, reducing the risk of invasive species, and protecting habitat
for wildlife. Some of the key social and economic concerns are effects on public
access, timber harvest, fire suppression, and fire hazard reduction.
Access
This proposal will not block access to national forests
and grasslands. It will not close any existing authorized roads. In 1997, 860
million national forest visitors took advantage of more than 23,000 recreation
facilities and hundreds of thousands of miles of forest roads, trails, and
scenic byways. The roadless area rulemaking will also not block
legal access to private or state land or affect other valid existing fights. All
proposed alternatives would ensure that decisions about road closures and off
highway vehicles would continue to be made at the local level.
The real
threat to access on the national forests is our inability to maintain the
existing transportation/infrastructure--with a growing 58.4 billion backlog. In
fact, the agency loses more than 1000 miles of road a year to passenger car
travel because it cannot afford to maintain them to safety and environmental
standards. By not building controversial roads into roadless
areas, the agency would be able to invest more in maintaining existing
roads and improving access to the national forests and grasslands.
Timber Harvest Effects
Prohibiting road construction in
inventoried roadless areas, except for those on the Tongass
National Forest, is estimated to result in a 2 percent reduction in the proposed
timber offered for harvest from national forest lands. If the Tongass National
Forest is included, then there would be an estimated 5 percent reduction in the
limber offered for harvest from national forest lands.
For the past 5
years less than 4 percent of the agency's timber harvest has been from
inventoried roadless areas. Our data indicates less than 5
percent of our 5 year projected timber volume is dependent on road construction
in inventoried roadless areas. In addition, eighty percent of
our national forests estimate that less than 5 percent of their prospective
timber volume is dependent on new road construction in inventoried
roadless areas. Certainly, given their important values and the
controversy generated, the quantity of timber coming from roadless
areas m recent years has steadily declined.
Although conserving
roadless areas is not likely to have significant national
effects, there may be some adverse effects in certain local communities near
national forests that plan significant road building in inventoried
roadless areas. These effects are analyzed in the draft
environmental impact statement.
The proposed rule would have no effect
on our ability to suppress wildfires. In fact, using crews dropped from
helicopters and airplanes, the Forest Service controls an estimated 98 percent
of all fires in roadless areas while they are still considered
small. Under this proposal, roads may continue to be built to suppress fire if
there is an imminent threat to public health and safety. It is also unlikely
that the proposed rule would affect the Forest Service's overall ability to
treat National Forest System lands for forest health purposes given that most of
these areas are already a low priority for fire hazard reduction.
The
analysis in the DEIS indicates that the degree of overlap between areas that the
agency has identified as having a high risk from wildfires and inventor/ed
roadless areas is small, only 3 million acres of the estimated
24 million. Part of the reason can be attributed to many inventoried
roadless areas being at higher elevations that are typically
wetter and cooler, not adjacent to communities, and not influenced by past
management activities. Many fire ecologists believe that unroaded areas have
less potential for larger, higher intensity, more severe forest fires than
roaded areas. This conclusion is based on several factors; fire suppression has
been focused more in roaded than unroaded areas allowing more fuels to
accumulate in the roaded areas. Also, in some areas, past logging practices have
left many acres with additional dead and down woody material on the ground.
Timber stands are generally more dense in roaded than unroaded areas,
particularly m logged areas that have regenerated. These regenerated stands are
often highly susceptible to forest fire damage.
The Forest Service
initial fire risk mapping efforts identified up to 24 million acre., of National
Forest System land at high risk and 32 million at moderate risk. The priorities
for treating these areas will bc to focus on human communities atrisk, species
at risk, and watersheds at risk. In particular, priorities will focus on
protection of life and property, usually not a problem for roadless
areas, but rather more important for the wildland/urban interface where
roads are more plentiful. It is important to note that at recent funding levels,
the Forest Service has had only sufficient resources to treat 1.4 million acres
pcr year to reduce wildfire risk. At this level of funding, it would take over
15 years to treat just the high risk areas in already roaded parts of the
national forests.
Thirty years of local planning efforts, wilderness
debates, appeals, lawsuits, and injunctions have not solved the issue of
long-term management of some 54 million acres of roadless areas
in our National Forest. System. As a result, the Forest Service is continuing
the process to determine how the American people want these lands managed.
We believe the proposal provides a balanced approach to protect the
national significance of roadless areas while also giving local
managers the flexibility to consider the values of these areas in the larger
context of multiple use management. It also carefully addresses issues that are
important to the American people like fire, access, environmental effects and
effects on communities. We look forward to hearing what the people have to say
about the proposal and are actively seeking their input.
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: July 28, 2000 
