Copyright 1999 The Seattle Times Company
The
Seattle Times
October 10, 1999, Sunday Final Edition
SECTION: LOCAL NEWS; Pg. B1
LENGTH: 695 words
HEADLINE:
CLINTON IS EXPECTED TO PUSH FOR PRESERVING ROADLESS FOREST LANDS
BYLINE: LYNDA V. MAPES; SEATTLE TIMES STAFF REPORTER
BODY:
Washington environmentalists are hoping
nearly 4 million acres of roadless areas in national forests of
Oregon and Washington will remain so forever under a major conservation effort
expected to be unveiled by the Clinton administration this week.
President Clinton is expected to announce an initiative to protect from
commercial development up to 40 million acres of national forests across the
country.
According to published reports, that change will come through a
directive to the U.S. Forest Service to conduct environmental analysis on how
best to preserve the roadless or undeveloped areas the agency manages in 35
states.
One result could be restrictions on further road building,
commercial development, mining or logging. In the Northwest, conservationists
are especially hopeful for better protection of roadless areas.
National
forests in the Northwest were excluded from a road-building moratorium announced
by the Forest Service in February. The 18-month ban was to allow the agency time
to inventory logging roads totaling 373,000 miles, eight times the length of the
nation's interstate highway system.
The Northwest's national forests
were exempt from the moratorium because scientific information about them was
gathered during the compilation of the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan, which governs
logging in federal forests west of the Cascades.
About 99,382 miles of
logging roads switch back across national forests in Washington and Oregon.
Roads are highly destructive to natural ecosystems: They can fragment
wildlife habitat, bleed sediment into salmon streams and serve as transportation
corridors for noxious weeds that can crowd out native grasses crucial for
wildlife.
Those who favor preserving more roadless areas say that as the
Northwest economy turns from mining and logging to service and high-technology
jobs, land-use policies should change, too.
"People aren't moving to
Washington and Oregon to be lumberjacks anymore," said Ken Rait of Heritage
Forests Campaign, an environmental group based in Washington, D.C. "The public
wants outstanding recreation opportunities roadless areas provide. They want
fish and wildlife habitat, and clean drinking water."
The
fastest-growing source of income in the Northwest today is investment income -
pensions, retirement funds, stock options and more, according to Alan Durning,
executive director of Northwest Environment Watch, a think tank in Seattle.
Service and high-tech industries are the region's economic base now, not
only in urban areas, but in most rural areas too, Durning said.
"Environmental quality is a selling point for attracting talented,
educated workers," Durning said.
But groups hoping for continued access
to or development of national forests, from logging and mining interests to
motorized-recreation groups and cattle ranchers, are opposed to further
restrictions.
Some said roping off America's public lands will instead
mean mining and timber development in places with fewer land-use protections.
"All this does is export whatever pollution these people are worried
about to other countries," said Chuck Cushman of the American Land Rights
Association in Battle Ground, Clark County, a group aimed at protecting property
rights.
"There is a disconnect. People think milk comes in cartons and
lumber from lumberyards. They are three generations away from understanding how
things are produced."
Adrena Cook, public-lands director of the Blue
Ribbon Coalition in Pocatello, Idaho, representing motorized recreationists,
said a national land-use policy doesn't make sense.
"This needs to be
addressed on a local, site-specific basis," Cook said. "It concerns me they
think a nationwide, top-down policy would work."
Mining interests also
worry the amount of land available for their industry will be further reduced.
"It seems every time we turn around, this administration is doing
something that says we don't want mining," said Laura Skaer executive director
of the Northwest Mining Association in Spokane.
Lynda Mapes'
phone message number is 206-464-2736. Her e-mail address is
lmapes@seattletimes.com
LOAD-DATE: October 11, 1999
