[House Hearing, 105 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
OVERSIGHT HEARING ON THE GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE STUDY ON FOREST
HEALTH
=======================================================================
OVERSIGHT HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON FOREST AND FOREST HEALTH
of the
COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 28, 1998, WASHINGTON, DC
__________
Serial No. 105-108
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Resources
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/house
or
Committee address: http://www.house.gov/resources
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
51-714 CC WASHINGTON : 1998
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For sale by the U.S. Government Printing Office
Superintendent of Documents, Congressional Sales Office, Washington, DC 20402
COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES
DON YOUNG, Alaska, Chairman
W.J. (BILLY) TAUZIN, Louisiana GEORGE MILLER, California
JAMES V. HANSEN, Utah EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts
JIM SAXTON, New Jersey NICK J. RAHALL II, West Virginia
ELTON GALLEGLY, California BRUCE F. VENTO, Minnesota
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee DALE E. KILDEE, Michigan
JOEL HEFLEY, Colorado PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon
JOHN T. DOOLITTLE, California ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American
WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland Samoa
KEN CALVERT, California NEIL ABERCROMBIE, Hawaii
RICHARD W. POMBO, California SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas
BARBARA CUBIN, Wyoming OWEN B. PICKETT, Virginia
HELEN CHENOWETH, Idaho FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey
LINDA SMITH, Washington CALVIN M. DOOLEY, California
GEORGE P. RADANOVICH, California CARLOS A. ROMERO-BARCELO, Puerto
WALTER B. JONES, Jr., North Rico
Carolina MAURICE D. HINCHEY, New York
WILLIAM M. (MAC) THORNBERRY, Texas ROBERT A. UNDERWOOD, Guam
JOHN SHADEGG, Arizona SAM FARR, California
JOHN E. ENSIGN, Nevada PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island
ROBERT F. SMITH, Oregon ADAM SMITH, Washington
CHRIS CANNON, Utah WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts
KEVIN BRADY, Texas CHRIS JOHN, Louisiana
JOHN PETERSON, Pennsylvania DONNA CHRISTIAN-GREEN, Virgin
RICK HILL, Montana Islands
BOB SCHAFFER, Colorado RON KIND, Wisconsin
JIM GIBBONS, Nevada LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas
MICHAEL D. CRAPO, Idaho
Lloyd A. Jones, Chief of Staff
Elizabeth Megginson, Chief Counsel
Christine Kennedy, Chief Clerk/Administrator
John Lawrence, Democratic Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Forest and Forest Health
HELEN CHENOWETH, Idaho, Chairman
JAMES V. HANSEN, Utah MAURICE D. HINCHEY, New York
JOHN T. DOOLITTLE, California BRUCE F. VENTO, Minnesota
GEORGE P. RADANOVICH, California DALE E. KILDEE, Michigan
JOHN PETERSON, Pennsylvania ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, Am. Samoa
RICK HILL, Montana ---------- ----------
BOB SCHAFFER, Colorado ---------- ----------
Doug Crandall, Staff Director
Anne Heissenbuttel, Legislative Staff
Jeff Petrich, Minority Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held September 28, 1998.................................. 1
Statements of Members:
Chenoweth, Hon. Helen, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Idaho............................................. 1
Prepared statement of.................................... 2
Briefing Paper........................................... 2
Hansen, Hon. James V., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Utah.............................................. 3
Herger, Hon. Wally, a Representative in Congress from the
State of California, prepared statement of................. 4
Statements of witnesses:
Hill, Barry, Associate Director, Energy, Resources and
Science Issues, General Accounting Office, Washington, DC;
accompanied by Chester Joy, Senior Evaluator, Energy,
Resources and Science Issues, General Accounting Office,
Washington, DC; Ryan Coles, and Ross Campbell.............. 5
Disturbance-Based Ecosystem Approach to Maintaining and
Restoring Freshwater Habitats of Salmon................ 35
Marcellus, Earl, Chelan County Commissioner, Wenatchee,
Washington................................................. 15
Prepared statement of.................................... 32
McDougle, Janice, Associate Deputy Chief for State and
Private Forestry, Forest Service, U.S. Department of
Agriculture, Washington, DC; accompanied by Harry Croft,
Acting Director, Fire and Aviation Management, Forest
Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, DC.... 27
Prepared statement of.................................... 122
Ross, Gordon, Coos County Commissioner, Coquille, Oregon..... 17
Prepared statement of.................................... 33
Sampson, Neil, President, The Sampson Group, Inc.,
Alexandria, Virginia....................................... 18
Prepared statement of.................................... 73
Additional material supplied:
Differences in East and West Forests......................... 124
OVERSIGHT HEARING ON THE GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE STUDY ON FOREST
HEALTH
----------
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 1998
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health,
Committee on Resources,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:07 p.m., in
room 1324, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Helen
Chenoweth (chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding.
STATEMENT OF HON. HELEN CHENOWETH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF IDAHO
Mrs. Chenoweth. The Subcommittee on Forests and Forest
Health will come to order. The Subcommittee is meeting today to
hear testimony on GAO's study on the forests' health.
Under rule 4(g) of the Committee rules, any oral opening
statements at hearings are limited to the chairman and the
Ranking Minority Member. This will allow us to hear from our
witnesses sooner and help members keep to their schedules.
Therefore, if other members have statements, they can be
included in the hearing record under unanimous consent.
The Subcommittee has held countless oversight hearings and
briefings on the subject of the health of our national forests,
and during this time we have learned that forest health
conditions vary greatly across the country. On some national
forests we find dynamic and healthy systems that are highly
resistant to insect and disease epidemics. Those forests are
found mostly in the East and the Northeast.
On other forests we find conditions that the scientists
tell us are far outside of their historic range of variability.
Mostly, we find those conditions in the West where, for
example, stand densities are much higher then they ever have
been. In these areas we have too many trees and shrubs fighting
for limited nutrients and moisture. These weakened forests are
easy targets for insects and disease and then, ultimately, for
unnaturally large hot fires. These conditions are mirrored in
the national timber growth statistics.
According to the Forest Service, the total annual tree
growth of the national forests is about 23 billion board feet.
If you subtract the annual harvest of 3 billion board feet and
the annual mortality of 6 billion board feet, you find that the
net growth rate in our na-
tional forests is an astounding 14 billion board feet each
year. That's an addition every single year of 14 billion board
feet.
In some areas this represents a great success in
reforestation, while in other areas it represents overcrowded
forests that are simply waiting to be burned. These numbers
also show that we are currently harvesting less than 13 percent
of the total growth--just the growth--and only half of what is
dying. We're only harvesting half of the mortality rate. This
is what's causing such a heavy fuel load on our forest floors,
and these numbers are not--and this philosophy is not--
sustainable.
Too much growth can have as serious the consequences as too
little growth and is, in fact, the reason why the total number
and size of fires has dramatically increased in the last few
years and will certainly continue to increase if aggressive
management measures aren't taken.
This is the purpose of today's hearing, to hear the
preliminary findings from the GAO's long-term analysis on
forest health conditions on national forests and to hear from
the Forest Service on their programs and proposals for
addressing serious forest health problems.
[The prepared statement of Mrs. Chenoweth follows:]
Statement of Hon. Helen Chenoweth, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Idaho
This Subcommittee has held countless oversight hearings and
briefings on the subject of the health of our national forests.
During this time we have learned that forest health conditions
vary greatly across the country. On some national forests we
find dynamic and healthy systems that are highly resistant to
insect and disease epidemics. On other forests, we find
conditions that the scientists tell us are far outside of their
historic ranges of variability, where, for example, stand
densities are much higher than they ever have been. In these
areas we have too many trees and shrubs fighting for limited
nutrients and moisture. These weakened forests are easy targets
for insects and disease, and then ultimately for unnaturally
large hot fires. These conditions are mirrored in the national
timber growth statistics:
According to the Forest Service, the total annual tree
growth on the national forests is about 23 billion board feet.
If you subtract the annual harvest of 3 bbf and the annual
mortality of 6 bbf, you find that the net growth on our
national forests is an astounding 14 bbf each year. In some
areas this represents a great success in reforestation, while
in other areas it represents overcrowded forests that are
waiting to burn. These numbers also show that we are currently
harvesting less than 13 percent of total growth and only half
of what is dying. These numbers are not sustainable--too much
growth can have as serious the consequences as too little, and
is, in fact, the reason why the total number and size of fires
has dramatically increased +n the last few years--and will
certainly continue to increase if aggressive management
measures aren't taken.
This is the purpose of today's hearing: to hear the
preliminary findings from the GAO's long-term analysis on
forest health conditions on national forests, and to hear from
the Forest Service on their programs and proposals for
addressing serious forest health problems.
BRIEFING PAPER
GAO Study on Forest Health
September 28, 1998
SUMMARY:
The House Resources Subcommittee on Forests and Forest
Health will hold an oversight hearing on forest health
conditions on national forests and the Forest Service's
programs and plans for dealing with forest health problems.
Particularly, the hearing will focus on the preliminary
findings of a longterm and ongoing Gen-
eral Accounting Office (GAO) study assessing forest health
conditions on national forests.
BACKGROUND AND ANALYSIS:
The Forests and Forest Health Subcommittee has held
numerous oversight hearings concerning the health conditions of
Federal forests. The findings of these hearings have
overwhelmingly shown that forest health problems persist on
many national forests, and Forest Service management activities
to deal with these problems are woefully insufficient. In order
to determine the validity of these findings, the Subcommittee
requested that the GAO analyze forest health problems on
national forests in the Inland West and the Forest Service
units' responses to them. The specific objectives of the
assignment were to answer the following questions:
(1)What is known about the extent and seriousness of
national forest health conditions in the Interior West?
(2)How have different national forests responded to these
conditions?
(3)What factors influence forests' responses and how?
(4)What options might improve effectiveness and efficiency
of responses?
The GAO initiated this study in December of 1997. Although
a final report will not be ready until early in 1999, the GAO
has generated some preliminary findings and will present them
at the hearing.
A recent publication from the American Forests' Forest
Policy Center, titled: Forest Health in the United States,
addresses these same concerns. Authors Neil Sampson and Lester
DeCoster give an overview of forest health conditions and
concerns in a diverse range of forest types and regions across
the country. This important publication is the most up-to-date
and thorough examination of this subject available. Neil
Sampson will be presenting information from this publication at
the hearing.
WITNESSES:
A witness list is attached
STAFF CONTACT:
Doug Crandall, 225-0691
Mrs. Chenoweth. Now, since we don't have the Ranking
Minority Member here, I would like to recognize our Ranking
Majority Member, Mr. Jim Hansen, for any comments that he has.
He has carried this fight, even when he was in the Minority,
with great success, and it's my privilege to have him on the
Committee.
Mr. Hansen.
STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES V. HANSEN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF UTAH
Mr. Hansen. Well, thank you, Madam Chairman. I've read the
GAO report briefly, I have to admit, and I'm somewhat confused
about it. In one case we talk about the idea that we have to
have fires and that fires in the past have been the things that
have mitigated the problems. Having been on this Committee for
18 years and spent a lot of time with forest supervisors, I'm
not quite sure if I understand what we're saying here--
controlled fires.
We have clean water problems, clean air problems that are
staring us in the face. We have fuel loads that are totally
unbelievable in the West now because we're not doing much in
the way of thinning. Our fires that are controlled are somewhat
regulated. The insects that we have in many of the forests are
rampant, and every time a forest supervisor tries to do
something about it he gets a lawsuit from one of these
environmental groups, and now we've killed out, basically, the
Dixie Forest in Utah--it's almost dead, as we can't seem to get
a handle on that. Every time they get one adjudicated another
one hits them between the eyes.
I'll be interested in listening to the GAO, as I've
listened to them many times on reports in various areas,
because it seems to me they outlined every problem. I'm not
sure I saw any solutions, and I guess maybe that's not your
position, but I'm very concerned that no one has yet come up
with some good problems. I've heard the gentlelady from Idaho,
the chairman of the Committee, talk about some fairly decent
solutions, and I'm speaking to generalities because I don't
know what else to do.
You go into Yellowstone; half the people up there say this
is horrible that the Park Service allowed this to go on. It
cost one lady her job out of Denver. Other people say, ``Hey,
it was the best thing that ever happened. Now new growth can
come about.'' I wish the real experts on this thing would stand
up. The only thing that I've seen when I chaired this Committee
was going into areas that were privately owned, like
Weyerhaeuser, and noticing how healthy their forests were, that
they had beautiful forests, a lot of game in them. They didn't
have any of the fuel load or dead fall and all of these things
that others have.
And with those many sweeping generalities, Madam Chairman,
I look forward to hearing the testimony from the GAO and
others.
Mrs. Chenoweth. Thank you, Mr. Hansen. Mr. Peterson, do you
have any comments?
Mr. Peterson. No, Madam Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Herger follows:]
Statement of Hon. Wally Herger, a Representative in Congress from the
State of California
Madam Chairman, Members of the Subcommittee, I appreciate
this opportunity to testify today regarding the current,
unhealthy state of our National Forests. This issue is
critically important to the district I represent in Northern
California. California's Second Congressional District is home
to all or parts of 11 national forests. The quality of
maintenance and management on these forests has a direct impact
on the quality of life of the people who live and work in my
district and on the safety and protection of private lands
surrounding these forests. When a fire, infestation, or disease
starts on public lands it can easily get out of hand and spread
onto private lands. Maintaining healthy national forests,
therefore, is not only good environmental policy, but it is a
good neighbor policy. Unfortunately, as things now stand, the
U.S. Forest Service is not being a good neighbor.
The Forest Service estimates that more than 40 million
acres of our national forests are currently under a severe
threat of destruction by catastrophic wildfire.
The danger of this threat is particularly strong in forests
in the Western United States. Unlike other forests in other
parts of the country, forests in the West suffer from unusually
high incidents of fire. During hot summer months these forests
receive very little rainfall. Historically, Western forests
were filled with stands of large trees. The forest floors were
less dense and were naturally and regularly thinned by
lightening and native caused fires that would clean out dense
underbrush leaving the big trees to grow bigger. However,
because of decades of well-meaning but aggressive fire
suppression practices, these forests have grown out of hand,
creating an almost overwhelming threat of catastrophic fire.
According to U.S. Forest Service estimates, our national
forests are 82 percent denser than they were in 1928. Thick
undergrowth, combined with increasingly taller layers of
intermediate trees has turned western forests into deadly fire
time bombs. Now when a fire starts, it quickly climbs up the
dense tree growth like a ladder until it tops out at the
uppermost, or crown, level of the forest and races out of
control as a catastrophic fire. Because of their high speed and
intense heat, ``crown fires'' are nothing like the healthy
fires of the past, but these fires have the capacity of leaving
an almost sterile environment in their wake with almost no
vegetation, wildlife, or habitat left behind.
These dangerous conditions, however, are not irreversible.
The forest service can proactively improve forest health.
Regrettably, proactive policies are not being implemented.
Because of mandates from the Forest Service's Washington
offices and directives from the Clinton/Gore Administration,
the forest service suffers from a virtual paralysis. Evidence
of this paralysis can be found in the way the forest service
increasingly uses its trust funds to pay for administration
instead of funding on-the-ground forest health projects and in
the way the agency advocates management by moratorium rather
than managing by sound scientific evidence.
Madam Chairman, this agency must move away from its current
extreme environmental agenda that has set up our national
forests for destruction. We must require the Service to
implement more proactive, on-the-ground programs, like the
Quincy Library Group proposal, that would restore forest health
while providing economic stability for local communities.
I therefore encourage the GAO, the Forest Service and this
Committee to examine the latest science and find ways to
implement programs that will return our forests to a healthier,
more fire resilient condition.
Mrs. Chenoweth. Well, with that, I'd like to introduce the
first panel. Our sole panelist for the first panel is Mr. Barry
Hill, Associate Director, Energy, Resources and Science Issues
with the GAO. And, Mr. Hill, I wonder if you might introduce
the party who is accompanying you at the table.
Mr. Hill. Yes, Madam Chairman. With me today is Chet Joy,
who led the work on this project.
Mrs. Chenoweth. Thank you, Mr. Hill. Mr. Joy, we welcome
you.
And as explained in our first hearing, it is the intention
of the chairman to place all outside witnesses under the oath.
This is a formality of the Committee that is meant to assure
open and honest discussion and should not affect the testimony
given by witnesses. I believe all of the witnesses were
informed of this procedure before appearing here today and that
they have been supplied with a copy of the Committee rules.
So, with that, would you please--both of you--please stand
and raise your hand to the square?
[Witnesses sworn.]
Thank you. Under the Committee rules, witnesses must limit
their oral statements to 5 minutes. However, I will waive the
rules and allow Mr. Hill 10 minutes, because we have been
waiting for this preliminary report for a very, very long time.
His entire statement, of course, will appear in the record.
The chairman now recognizes Mr. Hill to testify.
STATEMENT OF BARRY HILL, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, ENERGY, RESOURCES
AND SCIENCE ISSUES, GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE, WASHINGTON, DC;
ACCOMPANIED BY CHESTER JOY, SENIOR EVALUATOR, ENERGY, RESOURCES
AND SCIENCE ISSUES, GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE, WASHINGTON, DC;
RYAN COLES
Mr. Hill. Thank you, Madam Chairman. May I also say, with
us today is Ryan Coles, here on my left, who also worked on
this project and who, along with Ross Campbell, on our right,
will be helping out with the charts that we brought today.
We're pleased to be here today to discuss our preliminary
observations on the health of the national forests located in
the interior West. If I may, I'd like to briefly summarize my
prepared statement and submit the formal statement for the
record.
Mrs. Chenoweth. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Hill. And before I begin I'd like to kind of begin my
statement with a brief video clip provided to us courtesy of
The Learning Channel, and I think you'll find very interesting.
[Video.]
Madam Chairman, this video clip illustrates what we believe
is the most serious forest health-related problem on national
forests of the interior West: catastrophic wildfires and the
dangers they present when population and catastrophic wildfire
exist together. This afternoon we'll discuss what the problem
is, why it exists, and what is being done about it. Let me
start by discussing what the problem is.
The Forest Service estimated in 1995 that about 39 million
acres, or about a third of these forests, are at high risk of
catastrophic wildfires. Experts have estimated that the window
of opportunity to take action before widespread damage occurs
is only about 10 to 25 years. On the basis of the best
available information, efforts to resolve this problem by the
year 2015, which is the mid-point of that window, may cost as
much as $12 billion or about $725 million per year. However,
the Forest Service's current plans to do so may leave as many
as 10 million acres still at high risk at that time.
The interior West region we are talking about is the dry
inland portion of the Western United States shown on the map to
my left. For those of you who may not be able to clearly see
these exhibits, they're also included as appendixes to our
formal statement.
There are many reasons why national forests in this region
are in their current state. Historically, the region's lower
elevation forests were subject to frequent low-intensity fires,
though occasions of these frequent fire forests, which are
generally dominated by ponderosa pine, are depicted in our next
exhibit to my right. Frequent fire generally kept the trees in
these forests few in number and their undergrowth sparse, as
shown in our next exhibit on the left here, which is a 1909
photograph of a Ponderosa pine stand in the Bitterroot National
Forest in Idaho.
Many past human activities, including some prior to Forest
Service management, eliminated these frequent fires. As a
result, tree stands have become much more dense, as shown in
our next exhibit, which is a photograph taken from the
identical spot in 1989, 80 years later. The most significant
contributor to this increase in tree stand density has been the
agency's decades-old policy of suppressing wildfires.
Our next exhibit on the left shows the change since 1910 in
the number of acres burned annually by wildfires in national
forests, over 90 percent of which occurred in the interior
West. You'll notice that for about 75 years, fire suppression
was very successful.
However, in about 1984 this turned around, and since then
the number of acres burned annually has been increasing. The
reason for this is because the increased stand density caused
changes in the species mix of trees and some increases in
insect and disease infestations, resulting in high
accumulations of fuels for fires. Because of these accumulated
fuels, fires are now much more likely to become large, intense,
and catastrophic wildfires. The increase in the number of large
fires since 1984 and in the number of acres that they burn,
which has more than quadrupled, is shown in our next exhibit,
to my right.
Since 1990, 91 percent of these large fires and 96 percent
of the acres burned were in the interior West. A 1998 estimate
of the locations of forests in the interior West that are at
medium and high risk of such catastrophic wildfires is shown in
the exhibit to my left. Such fires are catastrophic because
they can seriously compromise the agency's ability to sustain
wildlife and fish, clean water, timber, and recreational
opportunities, often for many decades or even for centuries.
Especially troubling are the hazards that these large fires
pose to human health, safety, and property, especially along
the boundaries of forests where population has grown rapidly in
recent years.
Our next exhibit shows the recent population growth in this
so-called wildland urban interface. Areas shown in blue are
counties where the population grew at a faster rate than
average. You'll notice that these areas are often concentrated
around the national forests, which are shown in green.
In addition, as shown in our next two exhibits, the cost to
both prepare for and to fight these increasing numbers of
catastrophic wildfires are also increasing rapidly, largely
because of the higher costs in interface areas. As these
exhibits show, the average cost for fighting fire grew from
$134 million in 1986 to $335 million in 1994, or by about 150
percent. Ninety-five percent of these costs were incurred in
the interior West. Moreover, the costs associated with
preparedness increased from $189 million in 1992 to $326
million in 1997.
It should be clear, Madam Chairman, that there is a very
serious forest health problem in the forests of the interior
West. The Forest Service has taken several steps to address the
situation. Recently, it initiated a forest health monitoring
program. It has also refocused its fire management program to
increase the number of acres on which it undertakes fuels
reduction activities and has restructured its budget to better
ensure that funds are available to carry out this important
work.
The Congress has supported the agency in this task by
increasing funds for fuels reduction and authorizing a multi-
year inter-agency program to better assess problems and
solutions. However, it appears to us that the Forest Service
does not yet have a cohesive strategy for overcoming the
barriers to improving forest health by reducing accumulated
fuels, partly because of a lack of data and partly because its
current efforts are largely devoted to maintaining conditions
on forests currently at low risk of fire.
In addition, methods for reducing fuels can adversely
affect agency achievement of its other stewardship objectives,
such as protecting watersheds and wildlife. Controlled fires
can be used, but there is concern that such fires might get out
of control and about the effects on air quality of the smoke
from these fires. Therefore, mechanical methods, including
timber harvesting, will often be necessary to remove
accumulated fuels.
But this is also problematic, because the Forest Service's
incentives tend to focus efforts on areas that may not present
the greatest fire hazard. Also, timber sale and other
contracting procedures are not designed for removing vast
quantities of materials with little or no commercial value.
In conclusion, Madam Chairman, the increasing number of
uncontrollable and often catastrophic wildfires and the growing
risk to human health, safety, and property, as well as to
resources in the interior West, present difficult policy
decisions for the Forest Service and the Congress:
Does the agency request and does the Congress
appropriate the hundreds of millions of dollars
annually that may be required to fund an aggressive
fuels reduction program? What priorities should be
established? How can the need to reinforce fire into
these frequent fire forests best be reconciled with air
quality standards and other agency stewardship
objectives? What changes in incentives and statutorily
defined contracting procedures will facilitate the
mechanical removal of low-value materials?
These decisions should be based on sound strategy. That
strategy in turn depends on data being gathered under the
Forest Service's and the Department of Interior's joint fire
science program to be conducted over the next decade and
subsequently integrated into individual forest plans and
projects.
However, many experts argue that the agency and Congress
are in a race against time, and that the tinder box that is now
the interior West simply cannot wait that long. Taking
aggressive, strategic actions now would likely cost less than
just allowing nature to take its inevitable course.
Madam Chairman, this concludes my prepared statement. I'd
be pleased to answer any questions that you or other members
may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hill may be found at end of
hearing.]
Mrs. Chenoweth. Thank you, Mr. Hill. That was very good
testimony, and I appreciate it.
At this time the Chair will recognize Mr. Hansen for any
questions he might have.
Mr. Hansen. Mr. Hill, I think you did a very fine job in
explaining the problem that we have here. I really don't know
if you're the one to ask about solutions. You've done it very
well; you've explained it. I wonder about harvesting of timber.
I think Congress has created so many laws that it becomes very
difficult for people to move.
For example, the Clean Air Act; we could do more controlled
burning, but we worry about that. The Endangered Species Act;
people are of the opinion that if we go in and take out some
forests, we'll disrupt some species at some place. The Clean
Water Act; we also find that problem. We find that like our
country just above us--Canada, as you know, for a short time
they outlawed grazing, and then they found out that all those
grasses were not taken down by a certain amount of slaughter
animals and actually paid people in Montana and the Dakotas to
take their sheep and cattle up there to keep their grasses
down.
As I mentioned earlier, the spruce beetle creates a
devastating thing. Years ago the Forest Service testified that
it was $8.40 a tree--I imagined that's changed since then--to
spray them, but they would have to do a tree twice a week for 3
or 4 months, which became impossible. So the Forest supervisor
said, well what they ought to do is go in and harvest that
heavily infested area and then the strong trees on the
periphery would make it.
So I, with all those obstructions staring us in the face
and the tools that are used being somewhat hampered, I guess it
comes down to the idea that we just say, ``What do you say if
we just let Mother Nature do it? Let her rip.'' And I think
that's what the environmental communities are basically saying
is, just let Mother Nature do it, and we'll just take whatever
happens. Am I reading this wrong?
Mr. Hill. No. I think that you very adequately characterize
the heart of the issue. There's a very, very serious problem,
particularly in the interior West in terms of the conditions of
the forests. I'm not sure allowing Mother Nature to take its
course is a good solution to this problem. The fact is, the
forests that are in the interior West are no longer natural
forests. They have been shaped, they have been made into the
condition they have been made into by human activity over the
years.
If they were natural, you could say let nature take its
course, but the current condition they are in, if you allow so-
called nature to take its course and to have these fires burn,
they will be catastrophic fires, and they will have serious and
significant adverse impacts to the forests, to the wildlife, to
the human habitat and housing and residents that live around
the forests. It's--I guess the analogy is it's kind of like
we've pushed a boulder down a hillside and it's picking up
speed toward a village below. Do we say, let gravity take its
course? That's certainly a choice, but I'm not sure it's a good
choice right now, not one that's acceptable in terms of the
consequences that you'd pay.
Mr. Hansen. You know, Mr. Hill, the longer I listen to
these debates, of which I've listened to hundreds of hours of
them, it seems to come down to two schools of thought. One is
the let Mother Nature do it thought: let's just take whatever
happens. And the other one comes down to the management
thought. Let's say man has a stewardship to take care of the
ground, which a lot of people believe, and I subscribe to that
theory. But you get down to it, and the trouble with the let
nature take its course thing is it is detrimental to
everything.
For example, years ago we had some Forest Service people in
here, and then we had a lot of land grant college professors
here. And one person brought up the statement, and he said,
``Look at the north slope of the Uinta mountains. It's just a
beautiful green carpet. Leave it alone. Don't go in and manage
it.'' The fellow from Utah State University, who was the expert
on it, he said, ``However, we have an infestation of pine
beetle, and if we don't go in and spray or cut those out,'' he
said, ``it will have a devastating effect.''
The chairman of the committee then asked the question,
``What would be the devastating effect?'' He said, ``That
beautiful green carpet that you fly over will soon be dead. I
have a series of pictures of the Dixie, for example, when it
was green, then red, then grey, then dead because we didn't do
anything.'' And he said, ``I will guarantee everybody in this
room''--and this place was packed--``that that will be a dead
forest in a relatively short time.''
He went on to say, ``I further guarantee that there will be
a fire.'' He said, ``There is no way on God's earth''--direct
quote--``that you can't prevent a fire, whether it's a careless
cigarette, it's a lightening strike, or by other means--a
campfire.'' He said, ``I will further guarantee there will then
be a flood.'' And he said, ``to bring back that beautiful green
carpet that we've elected not to manage--we let Mother Nature
do it; we're not going to do it--that it will take 50 to 60 or
70 years, if we're lucky, to bring it back in that green carpet
that this gentleman, who wanted to let Mother Nature do it, was
subscribing to that theory.
So, this quandary never ends. Which way do we want to do
it? And I think the Committee--and, of course, I can't speak
for other members, but I think we've come down on the idea that
we can adequately manage the public lands of America, but we
have all of these conflicting things coming at us, like the
Endangered Species Act and the Clean Air Act, and it just, in
effect, ties the hands of our Forest supervisors and our BLM
managers to the point they're almost throwing up their hands in
despair and say, ``Well, what do I do?''
You take Hugh Thompson--been in this business for years and
years. He's the Forest supervisor of the Dixie, 67 years old,
or so, should retire. They keep asking to keep him on, and he
says, ``I wish we would have some scientists around here
instead of people that have the burning in their bosom without
any scientific knowledge.''
And then it really disturbs me when the Forest Service kind
of quietly says to our Forest supervisors in the West, ``Well,
let the environmental community win a few.'' And if I could put
them under oath--I think I someday will do that--and get the
exact quotes and who it came from, because that is the way this
administration likes to look at it. Excuse the last part, Madam
Chairman, but that part irritates the heck out of me, because I
don't care what the administration is. We should do what is
right for the--all of us who are in America, and take care of
it.
I didn't mean to throw all of those things up at you, Mr.
Hill. I appreciate your very interesting report, and I think
you've outlined it very well. I just wish I knew the answer to
all these things. I'll turn to wiser heads than me for that,
I'm sure.
Mrs. Chenoweth. Thank you, Mr. Hansen. The Chair now
recognizes Mr. Peterson, the gentleman from Pennsylvania.
Mr. Peterson. Thank you. I'd like to thank the gentleman,
Mr. Hill, for his precise comments. You talked about 39 million
acres, you talked about low-volume a lot of the wood is--I mean
low-value wood. What is the potential market for that? Can it
be used for pulp, for paper mills? Can it be--is there any
potential market for low-value wood? I'm from the East, where
that's what we do with it.
Mr. Joy. Yes, Mr. Peterson, there are in fact some uses for
some of it, but there is a large amount of it in the interior
West that, A, is of extremely low value, and B, is very far
from markets. There are a lot of transportation costs that you
don't have in the State of Pennsylvania that they have to deal
with.
There are also other uses for it, aside from pulp, like
biomass burning and things like that, and ethanol. However,
that's at the edge of the market right now. That's going up and
down, so there's nothing reliable for much of this material. I
think it's fair to say, there's not any consistent or secure
market for any long period of time that anybody wants to make a
long-term investment in.
Mr. Peterson. But would--now I've watched in the West and
the East, where we have oriented strand board plants now; we
have fiber board plants of different kinds, which is a huge
growing market, and that's basically sawdust and chips
depending on which board they're making.
Mr. Joy. The best way, Congressman Peterson, I can answer
it is, on September 30 of last year, I believe it was,
Secretary of Interior Babbitt was here speaking on this subject
and about a lot of their concerns about it, and he pointed to a
Mescalero Indian reservation that was producing a whole bunch
of materials for a biomass ulilization plant in Arizona. That
plant in Arizona is closed--Stone Container. So, it's an up and
down thing, so that's it's difficult to have a long,
consistent----
Mr. Peterson. Well, I guess what I was going to get to is
if you're going to have someone invest in that part of the
country to utilize the low-value wood--and there are ways to do
that--you'd have to guarantee them a continual supply
ongoingly, and with the lawsuits we face and the
preservationists who want it to lay there for the insects, I
mean, how do we prepare, how do we get a marketplace that would
make it feasible to remove this low quality, dying----
Mr. Joy. That was not something that we looked at in this
phase. First of all, these are just preliminary observations
without any conclusions or recommendations. It's an issue which
we raise as a problem at this point, but we haven't thoroughly
analyzed it yet.
Mr. Peterson. Yes, I understand. I know you weren't----
Mr. Joy. I don't know if it would necessarily----
Mr. Peterson. But would it make some sense from your----
Mr. Hill. Mr. Peterson, you know, I believe a lot of this
is dependent upon the specific location, the geographical area
of where this timber would be. So it's hard to give any
generalities. Certainly, I think the Forest Service and the
other land management agencies need to explore doing more of
this, and they need to provide more incentives, if necessary,
for commercial companies to come in and do this type of work.
Even if it's not economically feasible, it might be a good
investment in some areas to do something like this.
Mr. Peterson. But if you're looking for ways to dispose of
it to prevent fires, it would seem like you would have to
develop a market, and could that be part of your
recommendation, that there be some effort at the Forest Service
level to develop a market for low-quality wood products and
where they would guarantee a certain supply out of a region so
that--you know, these are huge investments. These plants----
Mr. Hill. Right.
Mr. Peterson [continuing]. Even the small ones are $100
million, so you're talking about a large investment, but they
do consume a lot of low quality wood product that has no value
otherwise.
Mr. Hill. That's something the Forest Service should be
considering as it develops whatever strategies it's developing
to deal with the problem, certainly.
Mr. Peterson. You certainly can't cut it and haul it for
any great distance. I mean, it just isn't feasible, the cost of
hauling, I'm sure, in that area. OK, I was----
Mr. Hill. You know, the analogy here would almost be like
when this country started to first recycle materials. It wasn't
always economically feasible, and we basically developed market
over the years so that now we do have a much better recycling
program than we did 10 or 15 years ago. Maybe a similar effort
would be warranted here. Maybe it's not economically feasible
right now, but something that we need to explore just in terms
of helping the situation and resolving the problem in the
future.
Mr. Peterson. Thank you.
Mrs. Chenoweth. Thank you, Mr. Peterson. Mr. Hill, I do
want to say that for the record, the two associates that you
brought with you----
Mr. Hill. Yes.
Mrs. Chenoweth [continuing]. that helped with the posters,
I wonder if before you leave you could give their full names to
the court reporter before you leave.
Mr. Hill. OK.
Mrs. Chenoweth. And the spelling and so forth, because I
don't think she caught it.
Mr. Hill. Sure.
Mrs. Chenoweth. You mentioned in your testimony, and of
course you showed us on the poster, that there were some areas
that were absolutely red catastrophic, some others that were
not so bad--other forest areas in the inland West--that were
depicted in orange. In your studies, have you found out why the
Forest Service has not just gotten in to the red areas and
gotten something done? Have they--I mean, that's a sizable
chunk there. Why aren't----
Mr. Joy. Madam Chairman, I think----
Mrs. Chenoweth. Why aren't they prioritizing their work and
focusing on those catastrophic areas?
Mr. Hill. That's a good question, and I may say that the
Forest Service has been basically ramping up their program
recently. A lot of their effort has been directed to the
southeast area of the country, which doesn't have a problem,
largely because that's where their attention has been for many
years now. Their planning in the next few years----
Mrs. Chenoweth. Let me ask you before you proceed, and I
don't mean to interrupt you----
Mr. Hill. Sure.
Mrs. Chenoweth [continuing]. But isn't the Southeast mostly
private forest though? I mean, there aren't huge blocks of
national forest in the Southeast.
Mr. Joy. Madam Chairman, that's correct. The majority of
the Forest Service's holdings are, in fact, in the dry interior
West here compared to there. However, this discussion was held
about 60 or 70 years ago in probably a room like this over the
issue of the Southeast, and the Southeast began a program many
years ago that has maintained those forests, which are also
short interval fire ones, but has maintained them in much safer
fuel conditions. If the Forest Service discontinues that
program, they will be faced with a similar problem.
The Forest Service is just now approaching this issue here,
and in terms of going to the worst spots, central to what one
of the big difficulties is, this is not prepared by the Forest
Service. This is prepared by an outside analysis firm, an
analytic, professional group. The Forest Service has a series
of different maps in the forests we visited. Some of them have
done this kind of analysis, others have not. So not all of them
can say right now where their problems are or code their
forests yet.
The Forest Service has a program, this Joint Fire Science
Program, whose initial studies the results--some of the results
in conjunction with this, will be out this December. It is our
understanding they're going to have some sort of a fuel loading
mapping at that time, but they don't have it yet.
Mrs. Chenoweth. Thank you, Mr. Joy. Mr. Hill.
Mr. Hill. Yes. What I was going to say is I think the
Forest Service realizes the severity of the problem now.
Hopefully, it's not too little, too late. And they have--they
are proposing to increase the amount of acres that they will be
reducing the fuels--the accumulated fuels--from about a half-a-
million a year up to 3 million acres a year by the year 2000,
and then they plan to sustain that level of removal over the
next 15 to 20 years. Most of that increase will occur in the
interior West. That's where they are going to be focusing the
greatest amount of increase in the removal of those accumulated
fuels.
Mrs. Chenoweth. Well, Mr. Hill, even given the figures you
just now gave me, your testimony reflects the fact that there
may still be 10 million acres left at high risk. How did you
come up with those figures, and is that true?
Mr. Hill. Well, based on our rough estimates--and I do say
rough estimates because there is not a lot of precise data on
this--but based on the estimates that are available from the
Forest Service and from other experts we've talked to, the
estimate is that there are 39 million acres that need the
accumulated fuel needs to be removed and dealt with. Most of
that's in the interior West. If you look at their numbers, if
they're going to increase 3 million acres removal by the year
2000, 1 million of which will continue to be outside that
interior West area, so with 2 million being devoted to the
interior West over a 15 to 16-year period, you can see that's
about 10 million acres short of dealing with the entire
situation.
And may I say, the problem is even more complex because,
quite frankly, they don't really have a good feel right now for
where those high risk areas are and where the removals need to
be done, and they're trying to get that data, but it's going to
take them a while to get it. And certainly as they're
continuing to study that and to get the data, the problem
actually gets worse because more accumulated fuel is piling up
all the time.
Mrs. Chenoweth. And this will cost about $12 billion?
Mr. Hill. Based on our estimate, we're talking an
investment of $12 billion to remove this fuel.
Mrs. Chenoweth. What was our budget?
[Confers with staff.]
Mr. Hill. And that's based on an average cost of removal of
$320 an acre times, basically, the 39 million acres.
Mrs. Chenoweth. I see.
Mr. Joy. Madam Chairman, if I could just expand to one
thing, a point on that, and that is that it may be that the
Forest Service doesn't have to do all the 39 million or
whatever the acreage might be, if they can develop some
strategic method for prioritizing it so that they can still
protect the towns, et cetera.
The difficulty is, though, until you do have such a
strategy, there's really no grounds for just ruling out and
ignoring one acre or another. But it is possible they could do
less than all of it, but they'll have to be strategic about it,
and that's the plan that's not there quite yet.
Mrs. Chenoweth. And thank you, Mr. Joy, and I really
don't--I'm not real optimistic when we have a roadless
moratorium in place, where it's very difficult to get to the
areas that need to be taken care of.
I see my time is up, and, as you know, I have a lot more
questions to ask you, and I want to thank you very, very much
for your very valuable testimony.
And Mr. Hill, I understand that through the winter you'll
be continuing to work on this, on my question of about 2 years
ago, how we prioritize the forests with regards to which is the
worst and which is the best in listing how our forest
conditions are in terms of forest health today. So I understand
that you'll be giving us a final report late winter. Is that
correct?
Mr. Hill. That's correct. We're hoping to get it done by
late winter, and we're hoping that the work we're going to be
doing now is really going to be focusing more on what are the
solutions. I mean, we've got a good feel, I think, for what the
problem is now and the complexity of it. Now we need to flush
out a little bit more just what are some feasible solutions for
dealing with this.
Mrs. Chenoweth. Well, I want to thank you very much for
your valuable testimony. We will be presenting more questions
to you in writing, and as you know, the record remains open for
a certain period of time, and we'll look forward to receiving
those answers. I also want to thank you very much for the
visuals that you had. Let me commend you on that video, too.
That was gripping.
So, with that I will dismiss this panel----
Mr. Hill. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Mrs. Chenoweth [continuing]. And we'll recognize the second
panel. Our second panel consists of Mr. Neil Sampson. He's
president of the Sampson Group, Inc. in Alexandria, Virginia;
Mr. Gordon Ross of Coos County in Coos Bay. He's County
Commissioner in Coquille, Oregon, and Earl Marcellus, Chelan
county commissioner of Wenatchee, Washington. And I also would
like to recognize Congressman Doc Hastings, who will be joining
our panel. Congressman Hastings, we'll go out of order and ask
you to introduce Commissioner Marcellus.
Mr. Hastings. Well, Madam Chairman, thank you very much for
giving me this opportunity. I wanted to take some time and come
over and introduce to you one of my constituents, Commissioner
Earl Marcellus, from Chelan County in Wenatchee. Earl
represents--he is a commissioner in a county that I think in
excess of 75 percent of the land is owned by the Federal
Government, and a big part of that, obviously, is the Forest
Service, so that alone, I think, should qualify him as far as
his remarks are concerned as knowing the subject.
Prior to his getting into public service, he was a forester
by trade, and so he has an understanding from the standpoint of
working in the forest and with the forest lands as having some
knowledge on this. So, I just wanted to take some time here
today, and thank you for allowing me to introduce my colleague,
Earl Marcellus. He represents the area in Chelan County. And by
the way, we divide our counties into districts, and his
district is the most heavily forested of the districts in
Chelan County, and I think he represents his constituents very,
very well, and I'm pleased to be here to introduce you to him.
Mr. Marcellus. Thank you, if I may, Madam Chair, on that
warm welcome here in Washington, DC. I appreciate it. I'm
honored to have you introduce me, Doctor--Doc.
Mrs. Chenoweth. Thank you, Congressman, and panel, with
that, I'd like to recognize Commissioner Marcellus for his
testimony.
Well, wait a minute. Before we do that, we need to
administer the oath, and I wonder if you might stand and raise
your hand to the square.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mrs. Chenoweth. Mr. Marcellus.
STATEMENT OF EARL MARCELLUS, CHELAN COUNTY COMMISSIONER,
WENATCHEE, WASHINGTON
Mr. Marcellus. Thank you. I am Chelan County Commissioner,
Earl Marcellus, and on behalf of our three-member board, I want
to thank you for this opportunity to discuss our forest health
problems and suggest solutions.
First, a few facts about Chelan County. The eastern border
follows the Columbia River where the arid environment creates
rangeland conditions. The western border extends to the crest
of the Cascade Mountain range, where forest type ranges from
Douglas fir to late successional hemlock/cedar species.
Our population is approximately 63,000, and the ownership
of our land base is only--less than 12 percent is privately
owned, and more than 88 percent controlled by government
entities, primarily the U.S. Forest Service.
With due respect to the Congressmen who will hear and read
my testimony, I would like to make a tongue-in-cheek, but
pointed statement. It appears that the perception of many from
the Potomac is that the U.S. Forest Service and BLM are doing
an excellent scientifically based job of managing our national
forests in the Western States. That perception, however, is
just as incorrect as the perception of those in the western
States who believe that Washington, DC is the workfree drug
place of America.
The fact of the matter is, a crisis was brewing in the
early 1990's because the health of our forests was in decline,
and no active legitimate effort by the U.S. Forest Service was
being made to harvest the timber that was dead and dying from
insects, disease, and drought. Then, in late July 1994, that
brewing crisis blew up into an absolute disaster when a
lightning storm moved through our county.
Seventy million dollars later, the fires were suppressed,
but only after the loss of 200,000 acres of valuable watershed,
wildlife habi-
tat, and approximately 1 billion board feet of timber. To date,
rehabilitation costs have surpassed $20 million, yet less than
10 percent of the burned timber was ever salvaged on Federal
lands, resulting in the needless loss of revenue and resource
utilization.
These losses do not take into account the tremendous
personal and financial hardships experienced by the citizens
and businesses throughout our county because of highway
closures, and the smoke-filled air keeping the tourists from
visiting, as well as the loss of homes and other properties by
our citizens.
The tragic fact is the following two avoidable contributors
led to much of these devastating losses. One, the U.S. Forest
Service obviously had a let-it-burn policy, at least for the
first 3 days during which time the initial manageable fires
turned into dangerous project fires with no budget constraints.
Two, the U.S. Forest Service has abandoned the proven
scientifically based traditional forest management practices
that in the past have controlled forest health problems through
early treatment of insects, diseases, and overstocking.
When the Forest Service supervisors and district managers
are challenged about their management practices, they avoid
discussing the merits of the issue and simply state they are
following the laws established by Congress. I appeal to you to
review the current laws and policies which are having a
devastating effect on the health of our forests, as well as our
communities, and then establish laws and allow only regulatory
policy that is based on sound, verifiable, peer-reviewed
scientific data. Congress must weigh lightly and guardedly the
environmental rhetoric and computer modeling, which too often
simply reflects the bias of a bureaucrat at the keyboard.
Specifically, Congress should consider at a minimum the
following points. One, grant the U.S. Forest Service the
authority to begin prompt removal of dead or dying trees of all
species and all sizes, not just the small trees. Two, require
the Forest Service and BLM to designate forest health emergency
in high-risk areas and apply necessary remedial management
activities. Three, provide for expedited processes for
complying with environmental activities, laws, and regulations.
Four, limit judicial review and prohibit frivolous appeals,
and, five, require pro-active management activities aimed at
enhancing forest health to be included in the planning process
of the U.S. Forest Service.
In closing, I would say I am aware that those in Congress
who agree with my assessment of the Forest Health problems and
their solutions will meet with opposition from fellow
Congressmen and the current administration. However, the
signers of the Declaration of Independence faced much greater
opposition when they mutually pledged to each other their
lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. I sincerely
believe we must look backward if we are going to move forward
in salvaging not only our forests, but our beloved republic.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Marcellus may be found at
end of hearing.]
Mrs. Chenoweth. Thank you very much, Commissioner. That was
outstanding.
And I'm very pleased now to recognize Commissioner Gordon
Ross, from Coos County in Oregon. I think Coos County, and Coos
Bay, especially, vies for one of the most beautiful places in
the world. With that, Commissioner Ross.
STATEMENT OF GORDON ROSS, COOS COUNTY COMMISSIONER, COQUILLE,
OREGON
Mr. Ross. Thank you, Chairman Chenoweth, members of the
panel. And thank you for those kind words about Coos County; we
like to say a lot of nice things about it.
The area that I want to be speaking to you about today is
the area that Mr. Hill did not speak about, and that is the
Douglas fir region. It was the white area up in the Pacific
Northwest that wasn't included in his talk, but it was formed
by catastrophic events, catastrophic fire.
Douglas fir trees will not grow in the open; they're not
shade tolerant. And so every acre of the Pacific Northwest has
a catastrophic fire history, and because the people who formed
the FEMAT report--didn't know as much about that history as
others, we shaped a Northwest forest plan that will re-enact
those historical events if we don't do something to change it.
Fortunately, I bring to you an answer for our problem, and
I've put it into your packet, and I would like to submit it
into the record now, along with my written testimony, the
``Disturbance-Based Ecosystem Approach to Maintaining and
Restoring Freshwater Habitats of Salmon.'' This has been
developed with Oregon State University, the U.S. Forest
Service, Gordon Reeves from the Forest Service being the lead
scientist on this, and I've, along with that, made a pictorial
for you of pictures of these disturbances, both the fires, and
the results of those fires in history, and the floods and
landslides which play a part in the rejuvenating of our
streams.
Coos County has done more timber harvesting than any county
in Oregon, perpetually since 1855 when the first two mills were
established on Coos Bay. San Francisco was the market, and Coos
Bay Douglas fir built San Francisco and rebuilt it after the
fire and earthquake of 1906.
Today, we continue to harvest more timber than any other
county in Oregon, and at the same time we have more Coho salmon
in our streams in Coos County than any county in Oregon. As a
matter of fact, we have more Coho salmon in our streams in Coos
County than all the other 35 counties put together.
Now this was kind of an anomaly to me until the development
of this research on disturbance-based ecosystems, because this
explains why the landslides and why the storm events following
the fire or following the logging, if you may, will rejuvenate
these streams with spawning gravel and large woody debris. And
I would really like for you to look through the pictorial here
because it gives you an opportunity to see what history has
done.
On part one you'll see a fire map of just Coos County, but
the entire Douglas fir region has a fire history. The next page
is a forester's explanation of that. And then you'll see, on
page 3, a forest where a fire has not touched it for 350 years,
its very few Douglas fir trees standing; it will eventually be
a shade-tolerant species.
If you turn the page, on the next two pages you'll see
pictures--two pages--will be pictures of the countryside of
1868 that burned 300,000 acres. These are the kinds of fires
that formed the Douglas fir region. On an unnumbered page,
after page 5, a picture of two stands of Douglas fir timber.
The stand in the background grew after the fire of 1868. It was
planted by God. The foreground was planted by man, and there
isn't a penny's worth of difference between either one of them,
and environmentalists can get just as lost in either one, and
we'd have to send the cops out to find them.
[Laughter.]
Page 6 shows the growth in 1930, the cruise of marketable
timber in Coos County. You'll notice that almost 92 percent was
Douglas fir, 2 percent Port Orford cedar, 2.9 spruce, 2.1
hemlock, and so forth. This shows that initially, at the time
of settlement, these timbered areas were predominately Douglas
fir.
Now we go into part 2, and on page 7 you'll notice a slide
of a whole mountainside coming down. Page 7-A are excerpts out
of the newspapers back in February of 1890, which is the last
time we had slides that where everything that could slide did
slide.
Then later we had--in 1995 this piece of information was
published and has been out for peer review, and I'm speaking
again of the research material. And in 1996 God gave us a
divine demonstration back there--17 inches of rain--and so
pages 10, 11, and 12 show salmon spawning in gravel held in
check by debris slides of that time--these pictures on December
10, just 3 weeks afterwards. And gravel that had never been
there in my lifetime--it had been bedrock since the days of the
logging splash dams--and so we understand the rejuvenation
then, the process of this.
What this gives us is an opportunity now, with the new
information under and within the confines of the Northwest
Forest Plan, to start doing active management again in these
riparian areas of the intermittent streams, and, again, add to
the ability of the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land
Management to get the red ink out of their budget and also do
something for streams and for forest management that is
positive.
I'm sorry that I've run out of time, Madame Chair.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Ross may be found at end of
hearing.]
Mrs. Chenoweth. Well, it was very, very interesting
testimony, and thank you very much for these very interesting
reports. I will study them in-depth.
With that, the Chair is pleased to recognize Mr. Neil
Sampson.
STATEMENT OF NEIL SAMPSON, PRESIDENT, THE SAMPSON GROUP, INC.,
ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA
Mr. Sampson. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I come before the
Committee today with mixed feelings. In 1992 I testified as
follows: ``It's time to get beyond business as usual on many of
the forests in the Inland West because the risks of major
environmental economic and social disaster are growing, and the
actions taken so far are not even beginning to keep up with the
worsening situation.''
You know, that statement stands today. I don't know whether
to feel decent because we had it right then or to feel bad
because we haven't done a whole lot with that information. The
study that was reviewed today by GAO doesn't add a lot to what
we knew in 1992. It puts detail on; I hope it adds credibility.
And I hope it gets some action, because since the day I gave
that statement we've burned about 12 million acres in the
inland West, and spent about $2 billion. On the Boise National
Forest where I was doing most of the work to research this
situation, we've burned about 300,000 acres, about 25 percent
of the Ponderosa pine forest. We've burned it at heats that
suggest that those soils are damaged to the extent that the
chances of that forest coming back are fairly slim in a lot of
places. So it doesn't give us any great pleasure to come here 6
years later and say we're still not getting at it.
On another aspect, in line with the questions that were
being asked earlier by Mr. Peterson, I gave copies of ``Forest
Health in the United States'' to the Committee members. And I
wanted to call your attention to the fact that we wrote that
booklet about forest health in general across the United
States.
We identified six factors that we think are changing the
underlying structural dynamics and ecological processes in
America's forests. They include this dramatically altered fire
regime in many places that we've talked about, landscape-level
structural simplification, often brought about by efforts to
preserve existing forest conditions; forest fragmentation,
which is often brought about by the fact that there's more of
us dividing up the area among ourselves; introduction of exotic
species that crowd out natives; changes in atmospheric, water,
and soil chemistry that affect the growth and competition of
forest species, and unusually high animal populations, which
while they be native, like deer or elk, are really changing the
biological dynamics in these systems.
Now I don't have time to discuss those today, and it's not
the primary point of the hearing, but I wanted to leave you
with a couple of points. First of all, these changes are
affecting forests in all parts of America today, and the long-
term effects are not known. What we know is that the forests of
tomorrow are going to reflect the effect of these pressures,
whether they're good or bad.
The other thing is the changes are not happening in
isolation. The gentleman from Pennsylvania asked the question
about the forests in his area. They are seeing fragmentation,
chemical alteration, exotics, and animal irruptings, all
happening at the same time. They're not happening one at a
time; they're all happening together. Some of the most
unnatural forests in America are growing in the State of
Pennsylvania today, and that's not cause for comfort.
The other thing is that, as far as we can tell, most of
these changes, and the ecological effects, are probably
unprecedented. We don't have any sense that this kind of thing
has happened before. The forests of today are not a replica of
history, and the ones of tomorrow are not going to follow that
pattern either.
There's a policy message in here that I'd like to leave
with the Congress. First of all, ignorance about this isn't
comforting. We don't know a lot about how this is happening,
and the only way we're going to learn is a vastly increased
level of forest ecological research, both public and private,
to understand the current dynamics and the potential changes
that are affecting these forests.
And the second message is the one you discussed earlier: it
is my position that increased management, not just watching and
waiting, offers the best opportunity to help these forests cope
with these kinds of stresses. We caused the stresses. With 270
million Americans, we continue to cause them today, and it's
irresponsible to sit back and watch what happens accidentally
from those kinds of things, in my judgment.
I'd like to turn now to those fire-dependent forests of the
Inland West that we've talked about so many times. We can
return those to fire-tolerant conditions, but it's not easy and
in many places it's not cheap. I'm going to talk today, as most
people do, about the Ponderosa pine forests. We're going to
skip over 45 million acres of Pinyon-Juniper forests, Mr.
Hansen, which is one of the biggest problems in your State and
others in the Southwest, because the lack of markets there are
almost absolute in terms of that particular product.
But in the Ponderosa pine forests, people have been
demonstrating that there are effective ecological restoration
approaches that are positive and that can be done. The problem
is, these are not traditional timber harvests and they
shouldn't be confused with them. They're very different. As a
result of doing it differently a lot of valuable trees are left
in the woods because you're trying to restore the structures
that the forests need, and a lot of not very valuable stuff is
taken out. And as a result, the economics of this operation are
often really limited.
But Congress can address some of those problems. Let me
give you some ideas. The reason these projections are not
economic is the three reasons that I've identified. The first
is the material has very little market value. It's either too
small or crooked or defective to be used in today's industry.
Much of it should be viewed as a challenge of safe disposal--
how to get it out of there at the least possible cost. One of
the ways to do that is to encourage and support the
establishment of biomass-based energy production. We've talked
about that before, and there's plenty of record to support the
idea.
The second reason the costs are high is because getting
small material out of the woods is expensive. It's a lot more
expensive than getting big material out of the woods, and
there's not much Congress can do about that. It's always going
to be costlier to handle small material, but obviously if we
want the Forest Service to deal with it, we can change our
attitude about below-cost operations because that's what's
going to have to happen.
But the third thing is that the costs are driven needlessly
high by policies that have been designed for big timber--big
log timber harvests. These policies were designed to harvest
the timber in Mr. Ross's district, and they are well-fitted to
there. But the Forest Service needs to change its policies and
practices, to get away from cruising and stumpage sales and
log-scaling and other administrative practices designed for big
log? They need to go to more use of outside contractors, use
weight measurements instead of scaling, adopt end-results
performance measures, and carry out multi-year planning to
assure people of a long enough supply of material that they can
actually invest in treatment facilities.
I see the time is up. I'm going to close by saying that we
need to also evaluate the costs of not treating these places.
It was testified that treatment cost could be $350 average. I
think that's awfully high. We're seeing treatment in prescribed
fire in the range of $10 to $12 an acre, and treatment by
mechanical thinning that's ranging from $165 an acre profit to
$165 an acre loss, depending on the different situations
involved.
But even if we lost $250 an acre, the costs of the
wildfires that we're seeing now run in the $1,500 to $2,000
range, and in places like Buffalo Creek, Colorado, which I've
discussed in my written testimony, they're going to be digging
mud out of those water reservoirs for we don't know how many
years. It's costing them somewhere between half-a-million to $1
million a year. That's the rate the water users of Denver are
paying for that fire. So, let's talk about the costs of not
doing something, as well as the costs of doing things when we
think about the economics of this.
I thank you for your time and would be happy to answer any
questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Sampson may be found at end
of hearing.]
Mrs. Chenoweth. Thank you very much, Mr. Sampson, for your
valuable testimony.
The Chair recognizes Mr. Hansen for his questioning.
Mr. Hansen. Madam Chairman, I really don't have any
questions for this group. I think it was very interesting to
listen to, and I was glancing through their statements as we
went through here. Frankly, I'd say I agree with many of these
things; I just don't know how you implement them. The four
points that the one gentleman brought up were excellent. How to
do these things is always the problem. It's how to get it done,
you know, and that becomes some very heavy legislative
roadblocks.
I would like to come back for the last testimony. I have to
be on the floor in 6 minutes, so I'll try and get right back,
but thank you for the time, and I thank the gentlemen for their
testimony.
Mrs. Chenoweth. Thank you, Mr. Hansen. The Chair recognizes
the gentleman from Washington, Mr. Hastings.
Mr. Hastings. I just have two questions I want to followup
with to Earl Marcellus. You made five points as to what your
suggestions would be. I want to specifically talk about points
three and four. Point three, ``provide for expedited process
for complying with environmental activities, laws, and
regulations,'' and four, ``limit judicial review and prohibit
frivolous appeals.''
I made the assumption that you came to both of these
conclusions and suggestions both from being in the private
sector and probably, more recently, in the public sector as
commissioner. If I'm right on that, let me know, but give me an
idea in either case of how you arrived at that and maybe some
real-life examples that lead you to these conclusions.
Mr. Marcellus. Well, let me just use, maybe, an analogous
example. We've got hundreds of miles of hiking trails in our
county into the beautiful Cascade Mountains, and last year the
Forest Service was totally unable to open these trails in the
wilderness area portions with hand equipment. They spent tens
of thousands of dollars doing an environmental assessment as to
whether they should allow chainsaws to go in and open these
trails, and in the private sector and in the good old days with
the Forest Service, we would have moved in and just gotten the
job done.
There's just simply too many regulatory hoops for the
Forest Service to jump through to get the job done. And like I
said in my testimony, they tend to give ``We the people'' the
answer, ``Well, it's Congress' fault. We're just simply
following the laws established by Congress and by the
regulatory agencies that you have oversight.''
Mr. Hastings. Let me just followup then. After the burn in
1994, only about 10 percent--or maybe it was a little big
higher--of that was salvageable, or was salvaged, I should say.
What do you--I mean, are the reasons for that which you
describe here by examples in three and four?
Mr. Marcellus. Well, let me use that question to state a
quote. It goes as follows: ``He has erected a multitude of new
offices and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people
and eat out their substance.'' Does that not sound like the
regulatory bureaucracy that we have today? That quote comes
directly out of the Declaration of Independence, and it just
seems that we have come full circle in allowing what I like to
refer to as a fourth branch of government to evolve in this
country--the regulatory agencies--and the Forest Service's
hands are bound.
And I have to be very frank and honest with you today. It
appears to me and many others that many of those who have the
green agenda have gone to work for the Forest Service, and a
lot of the good timber people and the people who really know
how to fight fires have become so frustrated that they have
voluntarily retired or taken early retirement. It's really most
unfortunate.
Mr. Hastings. Well, the last thing I would say is, to
briefly corroborate what you're saying, I had a town hall
meeting up--not in your county, but in Okanogan County right
above that, and I heard essentially the same thing from retired
members of the Forest Service that led to the same conclusions
that you came to. I think that that--I think, Madam Chairman,
that is happening.
Thank you very much for allowing me to sit here.
Mrs. Chenoweth. Thank you, Mr. Hastings. Mr. Ross, did I
understand you to say in your testimony--I either read it or I
heard you say--that your county manages some forest lands?
Mr. Ross. Yes, our county manages 15,000 acres of forest
land, and we do it and we return a profit to the taxpayer. In
fact, 93 percent of our timber sale value is returned to the
taxpayer in the form of county services. We operate our forest
on 7 percent. Only the Federal Government can be given
timberland and lose money managing it.
Mrs. Chenoweth. Can you explain again what the
opportunities are to apply the new research that you were
talking about? First, I'd like for you to tell us in more
detail how landslides can really help the fisheries, and then
I'd like you to address how this new research, in light of the
Northwest Forest Plan and the President's record of decision,
how this applies.
Mr. Ross. Thank you, Madam Chair. This research has
described--or, it has been research looking at the evolution of
our streams, and the streams that within the last four or five
decades have had major catastrophic events, major landslides,
have ade-
quate spawning gravel and large, woody debris to hold that
gravel in place. The ones where it's been hundreds of years are
the ones that maybe look the most pleasant to the eye, but are
actually the most barren of fish and fish habitat.
Now the opportunity lies within the Northwest Forest Plan's
intermittent stream buffers, those buffers that Jerry Franklin
said the lizard people put in, that got doubled in size when
they got to Washington and then enacted into almost stone when
the record of decision was handed down by Judge Dwyer.
However, even in the record of decision, it shows that
those were interim buffers until the watershed analysis could
be done. Those are the buffers that when we got right out on
the landscape, we found they overlapped. It just took away from
the matrix areas where the active forestry was to be practiced
and buffered it from anything happening.
So the opportunity now, since the watershed analysis has
been done, is to apply this new technology--or, rather, this
new research and the technology that this will lead to--to
harvesting and doing active management in those buffered areas
as we can enter into them and then, finally, over the whole
landscape as the new decadeal plan is developed. I think it's a
great opportunity to apply science, a science that has been
peer-reviewed, and I will be presenting this at 11 o'clock on
Thursday to Mike Dombeck.
Mrs. Chenoweth. Gosh, that's very interesting. I'd like to
ask Mr. Sampson, What impact is the current Forest Service
emphasis on prescribed fire likely to have, in your opinion?
Mr. Sampson. Well, they're certainly ramping-up their
efforts in prescribed fire, and they're doing it over a lot
broader area and a lot more cheaply. The problem that I think
you're going to see was touched on briefly by the GAO. Because
the target is acres, the incentives are to go get what you can
get, rather than what's really the highest priority.
And because the tool is prescribed fire, some of the
highest priority areas are really dangerous to get. They're too
close to habitation, there are too many houses around--it's
just too difficult. They're in highly populated areas, and the
smoke problem is very real and very much of a restriction.
So the problem with going at the large situation that
exists with prescribed fire as the main approach is that it
tends to lead you away from the highest priority and most
dangerous and difficult areas.
Mrs. Chenoweth. How important are the current restrictions
on smoke and air pollution?
Mr. Sampson. Well, they have not stopped very much yet, it
doesn't appear.
Mrs. Chenoweth. No.
Mr. Sampson. We can't find a lot of evidence yet that they
have limited the use of prescribed fire. When you find what
limits prescribed fire in the West today, you'll find a lack of
staff trained in the techniques. You'll find a limited number
of days in a year when you can safely burn anything, between
when it's too dry to be safe and too wet to do it at all, and
you'll find these large areas involved.
Smoke is important. There are very real health hazards
caused by smoke, and in those populated areas it's going to get
worse and worse. But, so far pollution regulations haven't
stopped very much because most of the burning has been back
away from that populated area.
Mrs. Chenoweth. Mr. Sampson, your four points that you
concluded your testimony are very, very good, but the fact is,
is it not true that actually getting in and mechanically
cleaning up the understory and the fuel load and thinning out
actually can still have a value in the marketplace, whereby
prescribed burning, really, simply costs the taxpayers money?
What is your opinion on that?
Mr. Sampson. Well, I don't think you should put them at
opposite poles like that. I think each are appropriate in their
own place. The problem with the products that need to be taken
out is very local. In Cascade, Idaho, there's a new mill that
takes material down to a 4-inch top, positions it with
computers, and economically produces lumber out of 4-inch
material. That changes the definition of a saw log dramatically
from what we've seen in many other areas. But what can happen
in that mill in Cascade can't happen anywhere else in that
region because they're the only ones that have invested in
that.
I was in Colorado yesterday doing a project where there's
no industry left at all, so nothing is a saw log. It doesn't
matter what its size or quality. There's no such thing as
commercial timber opportunity of any kind when there's no
industry left to take it out of the woods and do something with
it.
So, this is very localized in nature. In a lot of these
communities, people are making really fine use of this small
stuff. We've got trees out there 5 inches in diameter that are
125 years old. They've been suppressed; they're sitting there
at 5 and 6 inches. They are some of the highest quality wood
for beams and other products that is available. We've just got
to get them into that kind of use.
So, there's a lot of opportunity. It's almost all non-
traditional. We've got to deal with it by weight instead of
scaling, because if you try to scale one of these forests
that's full of 4-inch, 5-inch and 6-inch stems, with 1,200 of
them to the acre, you just go crazy with your costs. There are
ways to do it, but we've got to get away from the traditional
timber harvest mentality and go to a forest restoration
mentality, administratively. That was the point I was trying to
get at.
Mrs. Chenoweth. Well, let me take another run at this.
Mr. Sampson. OK.
Mrs. Chenoweth. Prescribed fire--does that add anything to
the timber fund?
Mr. Sampson. It really does. You've got forests out there,
Madam Chairman, that were maintained historically by fire and
that need fire once in a while. That prescribed fire might be
slash burning after a mechanical treatment. It might be
prescribed fire before or after treatment; that's not the case.
You don't have anything else in your tool kit that recycles
nutrients and that provides the kind of ecological impact that
fire does, and so putting fire back in that landscape safely is
a really important part of this that shouldn't just be done as
an either/or--we're either going to do this or that. We need to
do a lot of all of that.
Mrs. Chenoweth. Now with prescribed burning, is what you're
telling the Committee that in the long run, given that there
will be some sort of mechanical harvesting of some sort down
the pike in the long run, then that later on adds to the timber
fund?
Mr. Sampson. It's both now and later. There's a huge bulge
of material out there now----
Mrs. Chenoweth. Right.
Mr. Sampson [continuing]. from 50 to 75 years, and a lot of
that has to come out before prescribed fire can be re-
introduced. But in the long run, a management regime that does
not totally exclude fire is probably going to create healthier
and more productive forests, than one that tries to totally
exclude it.
Mrs. Chenoweth. Let me take my third run at this. Within a
period of 10 years' prescribed fire, would that add to the
treasury in the timber fund?
Mr. Sampson. No.
Mrs. Chenoweth. OK.
Mr. Sampson. Not in the short term. It won't in the short
term, and in the short term the bulge of material that's on
much of that land, as we've said earlier, precludes using
prescribed fire in many areas.
Mrs. Chenoweth. But with a change in policy within 10
years--if, you know, given that the marketplace has changed and
given the fact that some mills are going down to the 4-inch
diameter, given the fact that even in Idaho, and I'm sure many
of the agricultural States, they're not now talking about
timbers made out of straw. Given the fact that the market will
respond to the demand that's out there, if we went in with
mechanical means we could then begin to buildup the timber
fund--not with straw, but with the small stuff, as well as the
larger diameter timber. So that was my original question.
Mr. Sampson. Well, I honestly have to tell you that for the
Congress to think that it's going to build a timber fund with a
lot of these projects--I'm not as optimistic about that as I
believe your position is. What I think you're doing is reducing
the damage accounts greatly and, hopefully, bringing the timber
fund into it neutrally. I think you could make enough money to
pay for the treatment. I don't think we're going to get rich--
--
Mrs. Chenoweth. OK; so this answer that you've just given
me is based on your second premise, that to go in and restore
the land will be expensive, and we're going to have to re-order
our thinking with regards to below-cost timber sales.
Mr. Sampson. But in the long run, that's the pathway back
to healthy forests in that region.
Mrs. Chenoweth. I think so. Very good. Thank you, Mr.
Sampson. Mr. Marcellus?
Mr. Marcellus. Yes, Madam Chairman, if I may add to the
answer of Mr. Sampson in light of your question of prescribed
burning, I think he made it fairly clear that prescribed
burning can be after harvesting operations to burn the slash,
which was a historical management tool of the Forest Service
and private industry. And I think what you were asking, if
prescribed burning was done without harvest, would that give a
return to the coffers? And in the short term, no; it's costly
to go out there and do that sort of thing.
But if it's done successfully--and I'm not a proponent of
prescribed burning when there is the opportunity to get out
there and do it mechanically or cost-effectively by manpower
and do the thinning of the overstocked stands. I wish I'd have
brought a little pine section that I cutoff of a tree that I
thinned out on my own home just outside of my house, years ago,
and it was a Ponderosa pine tree which isn't known to respond
that well to release.
And that's what we're talking about, is getting in there
and dealing with the overstocked stands to give more room for
growth, more ability to get moisture and nutrients. And it will
bring a return because your trees that are left behind are more
insect-resistant and fire-resistant, and they will grow faster
and will get more growth per acre in 20 years or more return.
So we do have some--but I think in our county and throughout
the West, there are stands that are in great need of
traditional management practices that have been cast away that
will generate returns today.
Mrs. Chenoweth. Very interesting. I have two bills out
there that we're hoping, somehow, will be successful, and
they've addressed what Mr. Sampson and all three of you,
actually, have talked about--the Hazardous Fuels Reduction Act,
which cleans up the area between the urban wildland interface,
and the video that we saw GAO show, my bill would directly
address that.
We saw catastrophic fires in Florida this year affecting
people's homes. We lost homes--thank goodness we didn't lose
any lives, but the year before that we lost a large number of
homes and some lives in California because we have not
addressed that urban-rural interface, and we must do so.
And then the NEPA parody bill, which will target certain
forests that are in dire shape, and hopefully will be able to
give the Forest Service a tool to get in and start working on
those areas, which, by the way, every single one of them is a
red area that was shown on Mr. Hill's poster boards.
So with that, I've learned a lot from you, and I want to
thank all three of you for being here. Two of you have come a
long way. And it's always a privilege to be able to hear Mr.
Sampson, and I appreciate this book, the ``Forest Health in the
United States'' by R. Neil Sampson and Lester DeCoster. I've
read it once and am going to look forward to reading it again.
Thank you very much.
And with that, this panel is excused.
Mrs. Chenoweth. The Chair now recognizes Janice McDougle as
the next panelist. Ms. McDougle has faced this Committee many,
many times, and she is the Associate Deputy Chief for State and
Private Forestry, Forest Service, U.S. Department of
Agriculture in Washington, DC, and she is accompanied by Mr.
Harry Croft, Acting Director, Fire and Aviation Management of
Forest Service, USDA in Washington, DC.
So, Ms. McDougle, I wonder if you could take one of the
center seats, maybe over on the other--that's good. Good, and
now I wonder if you could both stand and raise your hand to the
square.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Ms. McDougle, please proceed.
STATEMENT OF JANICE McDOUGLE, ASSOCIATE DEPUTY CHIEF FOR STATE
AND PRIVATE FORESTRY, FOREST SERVICE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
AGRICULTURE, WASHINGTON, DC; ACCOMPANIED BY HARRY CROFT, ACTING
DIRECTOR, FIRE AND AVIATION MANAGEMENT, FOREST SERVICE, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, WASHINGTON, DC
Ms. McDougle. Good afternoon, Madam Chairman, members of
the Subcommittee. I appreciate the opportunity to join you to
discuss forest health and to hear the GAO's preliminary
observations concerning forest health and fuels. The Forest
Service is looking forward to working with GAO to identify ways
to continually improve forest health conditions.
We estimate that approximately 39 million acres of National
Forest System lands, primarily in the inland West and the
Atlantic coastal States are at high risk from damaging, high-
intensity wildland fire. Many of these stands are dense and
over-crowded, with high mortality rates due to bark beetle or
other insect outbreaks. It is important that the public
understand that fire is part of a natural ecological cycle, and
over a long enough period, all forests will eventually burn.
The exclusion of wildland fire for the last 100 years has
had a profound influence on the composition and structure of
natural fuel conditions and the function of those ecosystems
where frequent and low-intensity fires historically occurred.
These conditions are contributing to the growing severity of
the fire situation throughout the country. Unless we address
these changed conditions, the fire severity situation will
continue to grow, threatening the health of watersheds and
larger ecosystems.
In addition to changes in natural hazardous fuels,
demographic changes of people moving from urban areas to rural
areas have resulted in an increasingly complex mix of people,
infrastructure, and forests, which is known as the wildland
urban interface.
Throughout the United States, it is more and more common to
see homes and other types of structures being built in wildland
environments. Because of their location, these structures are
extremely vulnerable to fire, should a wildland fire occur in
the surrounding area. The trend is resulting in a volatile
situation that must be addressed.
This is as much a forest health concern as a fuels concern.
We are addressing this problem at the most fundamental level.
We have embarked on an aggressive program to use fire in a more
natural ecological role to reduce fuels hazards and to help
protect forest ecosystems from the ravages of high-intensity
fires and epidemics by insect attacks.
Other tools we are using to improve ecosystem conditions
include timber sales, thinning, and other fuel reduction
methods, including mechanical treatments. However, we will not
treat, nor is it practical to treat, all of the affected
acreage.
Therefore, we are prioritizing areas to be treated first,
to address those areas of greatest risk and potential for
damage, such as wildland urban interface areas, critical
watersheds, and sensitive wildlife habitats. This strategy will
focus available funds and capabilities where they will have the
most effect. We are creating a management environment that
encourages the treatment of those priority areas through budget
allocation and direction to local managers.
To help understand the nature of the issues, we are
currently implementing the Joint Fire Science Plan as provided
in the Conference Committee report for the 1998 Interior
Appropriations Act. The four principal purposes of the plan are
to complete a national program for fuels inventory and mapping,
evaluation of fuels treatment, scheduling of treatments,
monitoring and evaluation. Projects have already been
identified and grants and contracts issued to help us better
manage the hazardous fuel reductions program.
Clearly, the challenges we face in improving forest health
and reducing fire risk are great. By restoring fire to its
natural role in ecosystems, we can improve the health of our
Nation's forests, while at the same time reducing their
susceptibility to catastrophic fire.
Thank you, Madam Chairman. I have summarized my remarks,
and we will enter into the full record our testimony. I'm
prepared to answer any questions that you may have at this
time.
[The prepared statement of Ms. McDougle may be found at end
of hearing.]
Mrs. Chenoweth. Thank you, Ms. McDougle. The GAO, in their
testimony, indicated that the agency lacks a strategic plan
that will deal with these critical acres that he indicated on
his poster board. You indicated that you will focus first on
certain critical watershed areas, urban-rural wildlands
interface, and certain wildlife habitat areas, especially for
critical wildlife habitat.
Does that comport with what Mr. Hill said, in terms of the
fact that there are 10 million acres left with absolutely no
plan whatsoever or no long or short range plan to do anything
with those acres?
Ms. McDougle. Well, I thought the remarks were interesting
in that it was suggested that we have a national plan for
addressing these issues, and I'm not sure that we believe that
that is indeed required. Our efforts in this regard are not
just the Forest Service's; they are all the land management
agencies who have collectively decided what the priorities are.
Our activities in terms of reducing fuels--it's not done
out of the Washington office. It's not done nationally; it's
done by the units, and as they aggregate, we can tell how much
that they feel they are capable of getting done in any given
year, and it's an estimate. Sometimes they do more, like this
year. I think we exceeded our targets during this Fiscal Year,
and so these are estimates that are field-driven. And in terms
of how they're going to go about doing it, these are also their
calls, based on--on the ground conditions.
Mrs. Chenoweth. Well, given that we're talking about 39
million acres that are in a very, very, very serious
catastrophic condition--39 million acres. You'll agree to that,
right?
Ms. McDougle. That's the best estimate we have, and we are
validating those numbers right now.
Mrs. Chenoweth. OK. That's about one-third of the entire
base of our national forests. How did it happen that the agency
let one-third of its entire resource get into this kind of
condition?
Ms. McDougle. Like I said, it's taken over 100 years for
this to happen, and it's going to take some time to do it. And
as Mr. Sampson said earlier in his testimony, it isn't any one
thing. It isn't totally within the agency's control, and,
frankly, it hasn't been a priority in Congress. The priority
has been focused on the timber program, and this hasn't been
one of those issues that has been a priority on the Hill.
We did--just to get the fuels program some attention--
request and receive for the 1998 appropriation a specific
budget identify for fuels because we weren't able to get--we
weren't able to build a program. We received support from the
Congress in 1998, and as best I can tell, we will in 1999. We
spent $50 million in 1998, and we requested in the President's
budget $65 million. This is an evolving effort of the Forest
Service to focus attention on the fuels issue.
Mrs. Chenoweth. Now the President asked for $65 million
specifically for what?
Ms. McDougle. Fuels.
Mrs. Chenoweth. Fuels. In what way?
Ms. McDougle. Well, for fuels management, and in terms of
strictly devoted to reducing the fuels. You know, the methods
are not--there are a whole array of tools to be used, but they
all go toward reducing the fuels.
Mrs. Chenoweth. I think I probably share with you the fact
that we can't go back and can't keep asking ourselves, ``Why?''
We have a difference in opinion as to why 39 million acres are
in a situation that is considered code red. But I want you to
know, Ms. McDougle, Congress is concerned, and there is a lot
of expression of concern on the Hill.
I get the stuffing kicked out of me, and other western
Members get the stuffing kicked out of them, because we're not
seeing a return to the timber account. And the environmental
organizations and their publications are replete with the fact
that we can't manage sufficiently to do anything but have low-
cost timber sales.
So, yes, you need to know at your level and at every level
that Congress is very concerned and very concerned that we're
able to return money back to our timber account. Nobody is more
uncomfortable with the fact that we are having below-cost
timber sales while we're seeing a deterioration in the forest
system itself than I am.
So, what can you provide the Committee in terms of maps and
tables indicating the current fuel loads on national forests,
by State and by watershed, and the levels of risk of
catastrophic fire that they face in relation to some explained
scales of risk and hazards to resources and to people? I'd like
for you to be able to do that.
And, furthermore, I wanted to ask you--you mentioned the
fact that you're still involved in mapping. Isn't a lot of the
mapping being done by aircraft or by satellite, in terms of the
intensity of fuels in the forest?
Ms. McDougle. We're doing GIS modeling. Regarding when will
the maps be available, I think I mentioned to you at a previous
hearing that we will have our Fire: Forests at Risk map
available this fall. I learned Friday that we should have it
early November. We have a map, and our people are currently
validating a map--a new map that shows the wildland urban
interface areas that are of great concern, and we're updating
our insect and disease map.
So I think that in the next month or two, we will have a
pretty darned good picture of all of these issues to make some
assumptions from, especially in terms of focusing priorities on
work.
Mrs. Chenoweth. When you prepare projects to improve forest
conditions, such as timber sales, thinnings, mechanical field
treatments, and/or prescribed burning, what types of
environmental analyses are required?
Mr. Croft. Madam Chairman?
Mrs. Chenoweth. Yes.
Mr. Croft. I think that would be based on the complexity of
the project at hand. I don't know first-hand knowledge of
perhaps what you are referring to. At one time--I have been in
the field for years. I've done timber sales, I've done
thinnings, and I've fought fire. I just want you to understand
that. When I first started out, I could do an EA for a 20
million board feet timber sale. Today you require an EIS. It
clearly has changed in terms of what's required.
On fuels projects, it's all depending on where you are and
what the probable impacts are. In the southeast, you could do a
categoric exclusion for a 1,000-acre prescribed fire. If you're
in the Northwest, it may be only 20 acres, so it depends on the
nature of the project and the probable impacts of that project.
Mrs. Chenoweth. Interesting. Well, Ms. McDougle or Mr.
Croft, I've seen a proposal establishing an arbitrary acreage
limit for thinnings and other activities that require an EIS,
based on which eco-region the project is located in, so if it's
located in the southeast it might have another arbitrary
requirement than in the Northwest. It appears that the proposal
would greatly increase the number of EIS's required for such
vegetation management proposals, and given the catastrophic
conditions that we have out there, I'm very concerned about
that. Would one of you address that?
Mr. Croft. I think you might be referring to the draft
regulations?
Mrs. Chenoweth. Yes, the draft regulations.
Mr. Croft. I've only just seen those, and I just have seen
them and have not had that chance to look at them. I know at
first glance we did have some concerns, and we are talking with
the land management planning people right now about those
concerns, I think for the same reasons.
Mrs. Chenoweth. Thank you. I would very much appreciate
your staying in close touch with my staff on this. I'm very
concerned about it, given the catastrophic situations that we
have. I do think the National Forest Management Act does allow
for the supervisor to be able to use his own experience and
discretion in making those decisions, and I don't want to take
that away from him. So, I would appreciate your focus on this.
As you know, I have a lot more questions, but my time has
expired, and I will excuse you right now, but I will be
submitting more questions for you to answer. And this record
will remain open for 5--or for 10 working days, should you wish
to supplement your testimony with anything. And I would
appreciate your answering our questions within 30 days--30
calendar days.
[The information referred to may be found at end of
hearing.]
Mrs. Chenoweth. So with that, again, I want to thank the
panels for being here and for your valuable testimony, and with
that, this hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:45 p.m., the Subcommittee adjourned
subject to the call of the Chair.]
[Additional material submitted for the record follows.]
Statement of Earl L. Marcellus, Chelan County Courthouse, Wenatchee,
Washington
Dear Committee members:
I am Chelan County Commissioner Earl Marcellus and on
behalf of our three member board I want to thank you for this
opportunity to discuss our forest health problems and suggest
solutions.
First a few facts about Chelan County:
The eastern border follows the Columbia River where
the arid environment creates rangeland conditions.
The western border extends to the crest of the Cascade
Mountain range where the forest type ranges from Douglas fir to
late successional hemlock/cedar species.
Population--63,000
Percent ``ownership''
--less than 12 percent privately owned
--88+ percent controlled by government (primarily the U.S.
Forest Service).
Obviously Chelan County is a rural, timber dependent
county.
With due respect to the Congressmen who will hear and/or read my
testimony I would like to make a tongue in cheek but pointed statement.
It appears that the perception of many from the Potomac is that the
U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management (B.L.M.) are doing an
excellent, scientifically based job of managing our national forests in
the Western states. That perception, however, is just as incorrect as
the perception of those in the western states who believe Washington,
DC is the ``workfree drug place of America.''
The fact of the matter is, a crisis was brewing in the early 1990's
because the health of our forests were in decline and no active,
legitimate effort was being made by the U.S. Forest Service to harvest
the timber that was dead and dying from insects, disease, and drought.
Then, in late July 1994 that brewing crisis blew up into an absolute
disaster when a lightning storm moved through our county.
Seventy (70) million dollars later the fires were suppressed but
only after the loss of 200 thousand acres of valuable watershed and
wildlife habitat and approximately 1 billion board feet of timber. To
date, rehabilitation costs have surpassed 20 million dollars yet less
than 10 percent of the burned timber was ever salvaged on Federal lands
resulting in the needless loss of revenue and resource utilization.
These losses do not take into account the tremendous personal and
financial hardships experienced by the citizens and businesses
throughout our county because of highway closures and the smoke filled
air keeping tourists from visiting as well as the loss of homes and
other properties by our citizens.
The tragic fact is the following two avoidable contributors led to
much of these devastating losses:
1. The U.S. Forest Service obviously had a ``let burn
policy,'' at least for the first 3 days during which time the
initial manageable fires turned into dangerous project size
fires (no budget constraints).
2. The U.S. Forest Service has abandoned the proven,
scientifically based, traditional forest management practices
that in the past have controlled forest health problems through
early treatment of insects, diseases and overstocking.
When the Forest Service supervisors and district rangers are
challenged about their management practices they avoid discussing the
merits of the issues and simply state they are following the laws
established by Congress. I appeal to you to review the current laws and
policies which are having a devastating effect on the health of our
forests as well as our communities. And then establish laws and allow
only regulatory policy that is based on sound, verifiable, peer-
reviewed science. Congress must weigh lightly and guardedly the
environmental rhetoric and computer modeling which too often simply
reflects the bias of the bureaucrat at the keyboard.
Specifically, Congress should consider at a minimum the following
points:
1. Grant the U.S. Forest Service the authority to begin the
prompt removal of dead or dying trees of all species and sizes
(not just the small trees).
2. Require the Forest Service and B.L.M. to designate forest
health emergency and high-risk areas and apply necessary
remedial management activities.
3. Provide for expedited processes for complying with
environmental activities, laws and regulations.
4. Limit judicial review and prohibit frivolous appeals.
5. Require proactive management activities aimed at enhancing
forest health be included in the planning process of the U.S.
Forest Service.
I am aware that those in Congress who agree with my assessment of
forest health problems and their solutions will meet with opposition
from fellow Congressmen and the current administration. However, the
signers of the Declaration of Independence faced much greater
opposition when they mutually pledged to each other their lives, their
fortunes, and their sacred honor. I sincerely believe we must look
backwards if we are going to move forward in salvaging not only our
forests but our beloved Republic.
______
Statement of Gordon Ross, Commissioner for Coos County, Oregon
Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you on the issue
of forest health in the Northwest. I am especially thankful to
have the opportunity to extol the virtues of the Douglas Fir
Region where we have some of the most productive forest land
and anadromous streams in the world and particularly Coos
County, where we have consistently, since 1855, harvested more
timber than any county in Oregon and at the same time have more
Coho salmon than all other counties combined. This to me was an
anomaly until the work on ``Disturbance Based Ecosystems'' was
published in the fall of 1995 and then God gave us a divine
demonstration on November 18, 1996 and we all saw first hand
the part that slides play in rejuvenating our streams with
spawning gravel and large woody debris. I wish to share with
you two things today. #1, the science and #2 the opportunity it
presents.
(1) Both the Douglas Fir forests of the region and the
anadromous streams are ecosystems based in disturbances, mainly
fire and flood.
Gifford Pinchot, after three years on the Olympic Peninsula
stated ``I have not seen a Douglas Fir seedling growing under
the canopy or an opening that was not filled with them.'' Fire
was the principle stand replacement event in nature. While its
frequency varied, recent research by Bob Zybach indicates a
frequency greater than formerly believed. The fact that an
early cruise of marketable timber in Coos County shows 92
percent to be Douglas Fir and only 8 percent shade tolerant
species backs up this research. I must comment, the meager
amount of regeneration harvest embodied in the N.W.F.P. will
result in a much different mosaic than existed in pre-
settlement times.
The flood events that followed the fires will still occur
but with passive management they will be less dynamic in their
restoration of our streams. In short, active management is
needed to replicate the disturbances that shaped the Douglas
Fir region. With active management, disturbances can be
located, timed and controlled to maximize the beneficial
impacts on our streams, while minimizing any adverse effects. A
happy by-product of this approach is utilization of our timber
resources in a way that supports our local communities.
(2) What are the opportunities this newly articulated science
provides under the N.W.F.P. and R.O.D?
(A) In the short term the opportunities lie in the management
on the matrix lands within the buffers of the intermittent
streams. The current buffers were intended by the N.W.F.P. to
be temporary until watershed analyses were completed. Many of
the watershed analyses are now complete. The opportunities
exist within these buffers for regeneration harvest that would
leave large debris that could eventually enhance a fish-bearing
stream. The opportunity to leave standing timber that could
reach those streams or leave down wood on a harvest unit for
that purpose could far better reproduce natural events than
passive no touch management. In many cases the large woody
debris could be placed in or near streams to speed up natural
processes. This approach could be gradually implemented now,
without disrupting the N.W.F.P., indeed consistent with the
N.W.F.P. expectation that managers would gradually move back
into the buffers once watershed review was complete. The BLM
resource management plan periodic reviews scheduled for the
next two years provide the perfect opportunity to move in this
direction.
(B) The long-range opportunity is to apply this science in
the next decadal plan across the entire Federal landscape. The
timetable is right to begin this historic and scientific
approach and extend these principles into the first decadal
plan of the 21st century. A new decadal plan is due in 2004. I
urge the Federal managers to begin the process now, so we have
orderly plan development rather than the slap-dash, hurry-up
process that gave us the N.W.F.P.
This information can and must be a turning point in the way
Congress and the American consumer view commodity production in the
forests of the Northwest. The political decisions that have been made
about logging have hinged around the debate over environmental
protection vs. commodity production. We have tried to balance, as it
were, these issues on a giant set of steelyards, placing on the right
side the commodity benefits, jobs, revenues and resources while on the
left side clean air, clean water, fish and wildlife resources. We have
seen the balance go heavier to the right as the threat of job losses in
our rural communities in the Northwest materialized, as revenues
dropped for essential services and as the cost of housing rose across
America and our balance of trade was adversely impacted by imports.
One by one through science and best management practices, we have
also seen the shifting of the other issue from one side to the other.
Most wildlife that the average person knows or cares about are
benefited by the openings and temporary meadows brought about by a
regulated harvest. Last year it was established before this Committee
that our air: that the amount of oxygen released into the atmosphere,
the amount of carbon fixed in wood fiber by the forest is enhanced by
the harvest of mature timber and manufacture of durable goods and the
re-growing of new timber stands.
I submit to you, ladies and gentlemen, until this new science on
disturbance based ecosystems has been presented the only issue left on
the other side of the fulcrum is the health of our streams and our
trout and salmon runs and this is no small issue. This issue also
embodies the issues of jobs, revenues and resources. But today, I
submit to you that the health of not only our forests but also our
streams and their runs of salmon and trout and the jobs and food supply
connected with those runs will, over the long run, be benefited by
commodity production after careful watershed analysis are completed.
Today I submit this report into the Congressional record and
subsequently into the Library of Congress for the benefit of those
decision makers that hold in their hand the destiny of the Northwest,
the health of its forests and streams and to a large degree, the
availability of affordable housing in America.
I wish you to note this report was published in 1995, it has been
published in scientific journals and has been out for scientific peer
review for three years. It is not premature to use this information as
a basis for decision making.
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.001
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.002
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.003
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.004
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.005
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.006
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.007
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.008
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.009
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.010
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.011
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.012
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.013
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.014
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.015
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.016
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.017
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.018
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.019
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.020
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.021
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.022
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.023
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.024
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.025
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.026
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.027
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.028
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.029
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.030
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.031
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.032
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.033
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.034
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.035
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.036
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.037
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.038
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.039
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.040
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.041
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.042
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.043
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.044
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.045
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.046
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.047
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.048
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.049
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.050
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.051
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.052
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.053
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.054
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.055
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.056
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.057
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.058
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.059
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.060
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.061
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.062
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.063
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.064
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.065
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.066
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.067
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.068
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.069
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.070
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.071
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.072
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.073
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.074
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.075
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.076
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.077
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.078
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.079
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.080
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.081
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.082
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.083
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.084
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.085
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.086
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.087
Statement of Janice McDougle, Associate Deputy Chief, State and Private
Forestry, United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service
MADAM CHAIRMAN AND MEMBERS OF THE SUBCOMMITTEE:
I am Janice McDougle, Associate Deputy Chief for State and
Private Forestry responsible for forest health, fire and
aviation, and cooperative forestry programs. Thank you for the
opportunity to join you to discuss forest health and to hear
the General Accounting Office's (GAO) preliminary observations
concerning forest health and fuels.
It is our understanding that the GAO report will focus on
the health of the nation's forests as it relates to fuel
conditions and risk of damage from catastrophic wildland fire.
The Forest Service is looking forward to working with GAO to
identify ways to continually improve forest health conditions.
Wildland Conditions--What is the Nature of the Problem?
We estimate that approximately 39 million acres of National
Forest System lands, primarily in the inland West and the
Atlantic coastal states, are at high risk from damaging, high-
intensity, wildland fire. Many of these stands are dense and
over-crowded with high mortality rates due to bark beetle or
other insect outbreaks. For instance, in eastern Oregon and
Washington, forest inventories show that mortality has been
above average over the past decade on all forest ownerships.
It is important that the public understands that fire is
part of a natural, ecological cycle and, over a long enough
period, all forests will eventually burn. The exclusion of
wildland fire for the last 100 years has had a profound
influence on the composition and structure of natural fuel
conditions, and the function of those ecosystems where frequent
and low-intensity fires historically occurred. These conditions
are contributing to the growing severity of the fire situation
throughout the country. Unless we address these changed
conditions, the fire severity situation will continue to grow,
threatening the health of watersheds and larger ecosystems.
In addition to changes in natural hazardous fuels,
demographic changes of people moving from urban areas to rural
areas have resulted in an increasingly complex mix of people,
infrastructure and forests, which is known as the wildland
urban interface. Throughout the United States it is more and
more common to see homes and other types of structures being
built in wildland environments. Because of their location,
these structures are extremely vulnerable to fire should a
wildland fire occur in the surrounding area. This trend is
resulting in a volatile situation that must be addressed.
Management Direction--What are We Doing?
This is as much a forest health concern as a fuels
condition. We are addressing this problem at the most
fundamental level. We have embarked on an aggressive program to
use fire in a more natural ecological role to reduce hazardous
fuels and to help protect forest ecosystems from the ravages of
high-intensity fires and epidemic insect attacks. Other tools
we are using to improve ecosystem conditions include timber
sales, thinning, and other fuel reduction methods, including
mechanical treatments. However, we will not treat, nor is it
practical to treat, all of the affected acreage. Therefore, we
are prioritizing the areas to be treated first, to address
those areas of greatest risk and potential for damage such as,
wildland urban interface areas, critical watersheds, and
sensitive wildlife habitats. This strategy will focus available
funds and capabilities where they will have the most effect. We
are creating a management environment that encourages the
treatment of those priority areas through budget allocation and
direction to local managers.
To help better understand the nature of the issues, we are
currently implementing the Joint Fire Science Plan as provided
in the Conference Committee report for the 1998 Interior
Appropriations Act. The four principal purposes of the plan are
to complete a national program for:
Fuels Inventory and Mapping
Evaluation of Fuels Treatment
Scheduling of Treatments
Monitoring and Evaluation
Projects have already been identified and grants and contracts
issued to help us better manage the hazardous fuel reduction program.
We appreciate Congressional support for expanding our fuels
treatment program. During FY 1998, the Forest Service will have treated
more than 1.2 million acres. By 2005, we plan to treat at least 3.0
million acres annually. Treatments will continue to focus on high
hazard areas and those which pose significant risk to highly valued
resources, public and firefighter safety and wildland urban interface
areas.
This program expansion has received Congressional support both in
terms of increased appropriations and a budget structure that moved
hazardous fuel reduction activities from Preparedness and Fire Use to
Fire Operations. This allows flexibility in funding hazardous fuel
activities to address more effectively the health of NFS lands without
detracting from the capability to prevent forest fires and take prompt
action on supressing wildfires. The Federal Fire Policy, also, has
given both the Forest Service and the Department of the Interior
greater flexibility to manage wildland fire to benefit resources,
particularly using prescribed fire.
Management Needs--Challenges
As the hazard fuels reduction program expands, we are facing many
challenges that may reduce our ability to use cost effective prescribed
fire. Examples of these challenges include public acceptance and
understanding of prescribed fire practices, smoke management issues,
and concerns for homes and structures in the wildland urban interface.
Also, costs to treat the highest priority areas, such as highly valued
resource areas and wildland urban interface zones, will be higher than
current national fuel treatment costs per acre. This is because some of
these areas will require multiple treatments, such as combinations of
mechanical treatments and fire to be safely and effectively executed.
Other internal challenges to accomplishment of hazard fuel reduction
goals include maintenance and development of skills, training,
personnel and contracting authorities to support adequately the
program.
Summary
Clearly, the challenges we face in improving forest health and
reducing fire risk are great. By restoring fire to its natural role in
ecosystems, we can improve the health of our nation's forests while, at
the same time, reducing their susceptibility to catastrophic fire.
Through improved collaboration among cooperating Federal agencies and
State and local entities we can maximize the effectiveness and
efficiency of our fuels treatment and fire fighting efforts insuring
that resources are better utilized.
We cannot lose sight of the fact that the current situation
developed over many decades. Any solution requires significant time and
commitment. The Chief is changing accountability within the agency to
assure that the performance measures of District Rangers and Forest
Supervisors are directly related to the conditions of the forests they
manage. We are working to assure that there is a comprehensive
inventory of conditions and strategic ``plan of attack,'' and we are
working to insure that all stakeholders are partners in our efforts. We
believe that we have the ability and capability to move towards
improved forest health and reduced fire risk in critical areas of
concern to the public.
Thank you, Madam Chairman, and I welcome any questions the
Subcommittee may have.
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.090
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.091
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.092
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.093
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.094
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.095
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.096
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.097
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.098
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.099
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.100
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.101
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.102
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.103
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.104
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.105
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.106
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.107
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.108
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.109
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.110
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.111
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.112
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.113
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.114
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.115
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.116
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.117
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.118
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.119
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.120
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.121
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.122
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.123
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.124
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.125
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.126
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.127
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.128
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.129
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.130
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.131
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.132
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.133
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.134
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.135
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.136
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1714.137