Forest and Rangeland
Health | Southwest Forest Health and Wildfire
Prevention Act | Lower Colorado River Multi-Species
Conservation Program Act | Sierra Vista Subwatershed
Feasibility Study Act | Las Cienegas Enhancement
and Saguaro National Park Boundary Adjustment Act | Petrified
Forest National Park Expansion | Yavapai Land
Exchange | Clean Water | Other
Environmental Initiatives
I
am a strong advocate of the prudent use of our natural resources;
the thoughtful conservation of our national historic, cultural
and natural treasures; and the restoration of forest health in
Arizona. By putting these principles into practice we can protect
Arizona’s environment and improve our quality of life.
One of my top priorities continues to be restoring
the health of Arizona’s forests, which include the largest
stands of ponderosa pine in the world.
Regrettably, as a result of decades of well-intentioned,
but unwise, fire-suppression practices and forest-management policies,
our forests have become overgrown, packed with dense underbrush
and numerous small trees that deny older, larger trees the water
and nutrients to continue to grow. The dense growth also weakens
the forest, making trees more susceptible to insect and disease
damage, and more prone to devastating, high-intensity “crown
fires,” which can melt soils, destroy wildlife habitat,
and disrupt watershed functions. As we have seen far too often
in recent years, such fires can also threaten human lives and
property.
Effective science-based restoration will help restore
the health of our forests and return them to their pre-settlement,
park-like state, where low intensity fires can regularly clear
the forest floor of debris and permit trees to grow to great size.
I support the promising techniques that the U.S. Forest Service
and Northern Arizona University are utilizing to improve the health
of Arizona's national forests.
President Bush’s Healthy Forests Initiative,
launched in 2002, helped streamline the federal regulatory process
to expedite the application of these important restoration techniques.
Congress, too, has built on that initiative, passing the Healthy
Forest Restoration Act in late 2003. The President’s initiative
and the congressional legislation have enabled the Secretaries
of Agriculture and the Interior to work more productively with
state and local leaders to plan and conduct science-based forest
restoration projects.
Unfortunately, key components of the Healthy Forests
Initiative are now in jeopardy due to lawsuits, one of which,
Summers v. Earth Island Institute, will be decided by the U.S.
Supreme Court later this year.
While certain parts of Healthy Forests must await
the resolution of the lawsuits before proceeding, collaboration
among groups concerned about forest health can continue apart
from that federal initiative.
One way groups can collaborate is through stewardship
contracts. Stewardship contracts are multi-year contracts that
allow the Forest Service to use the woody biomass from forest
thinning and restoration work to offset some or all of the costs
of the work.
Stewardship contracts are yielding results in the
White Mountains of Arizona. In 2004, the Forest Service awarded
the White Mountain Stewardship 10-year contract to Future Forest
LLC, a partnership of local businesses. This contract is designed
to restore forest health, support local economies and encourage
investment in biomass utilization by focusing on the ecological
needs of the area and guaranteeing for the contract term a supply
of wood to the contractor. Since implementation of the contract,
the cost of forest restoration treatments has been reduced significantly,
from $1,100 per acre to approximately $550 per acre, and treatments
of larger areas are now possible. Additionally, the commercial
utilization of the woody biomass generated from forest treatments
supports more than 13 businesses and hundreds of local full-time
jobs.
Despite the successes relating to stewardship contracting,
the Forest Service, which is responsible for stewardship contracts,
is not utilizing this tool to its fullest potential. Last year,
I introduced legislation (S. 2442) that would fix a technical
problem that has kept the Forest Service from implementing more
contracts.
The Southwest Forest Health and Wildfire Prevention
Act, which I sponsored and which became law in 2004, created three
institutes to promote the use of adaptive ecosystem management
techniques and work with land managers to design and implement
science-based forest-restoration treatments. That measure will
help produce the science to do effective restoration, using the
applied research approach of the institute model employed at the
Ecological Restoration Institute at Northern Arizona University.
To learn more about the implementation of the Act, visit: http://www.fs.fed.us/r3/partnerships/institutes/index.shtml.
This year, I secured $2 million for the ERI to continue
this important work. In addition, President Bush proposes funding
for the Institutes in his fiscal year 2009 budget.
Last year, I reintroduced the Lower Colorado River
Multi-Species Conservation Program (MSCP) Act. Cosponsored by
Senators Ensign, Feinstein, and Reid, the bill would authorize
appropriations for the federal government’s share of the
cost of a comprehensive, cooperative effort among 50 federal and
non-federal entities in Arizona, California, and Nevada to protect
and maintain wildlife habitat along the Colorado River. The bill
would also provide assurances to the affected water and power
agencies of the three states that their river operations may continue
as long as they comply with the conservation program.
In August 2007, Senator McCain and I introduced
the Sierra Vista Subwatershed Feasibility Study Act. The bill
would authorize the Secretary of the Interior to study ways to
add to the water supply in the Sierra Vista Subwatershed, which
is home to Fort Huachuca, the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation
Area (SPRNCA), and nearly 76,000 residents in southern Arizona.
SPRNCA, which protects nearly 43 miles of the San Pedro River,
serves as a principal passage for the migration of approximately
four million birds. It also provides crucial habitat for 100 species
of birds, 81 species of mammals, 43 species of reptiles and amphibians,
and two threatened species of native fish.
Because SPRNCA and the Fort could be negatively
affected by declining water levels in the area, the Bureau of
Reclamation concluded that augmenting the local water supply may
be necessary. The feasibility study authorized under this bill
is the next step in the process of determining how to best address
the water challenges facing the Sierra Vista Subwatershed.
In 2007, Senator McCain and I introduced the Las
Cienegas Enhancement and Saguaro National Park Boundary Adjustment
Act. This bill directs a land exchange that would add approximately
2,300 acres to the Las Cienegas National Conservation Area and
160 acres to Saguaro National Park. For more information about
the bill, click here
to read my introductory remarks (pdf, 102K)
In 2005, I received the National Parks Conservation
Association’s “National Parks Achievement Award”
for my role in securing the enactment of the Petrified Forest
National Park Expansion Act. The measure, which President Bush
signed into law, expands the park to include an additional 120,000
acres of checker-boarded federal, state, and private lands to
protect against theft of petrified wood and fossils, pot hunting,
vandalism to petroglyph sites, and the environmental degradation
caused by mineral exploration.
In 2005, the President signed into law the Northern
Arizona Land Exchange and Verde River Basin Partnership Act, commonly
known as the Yavapai Land Exchange. That measure, which I sponsored
along with Senator McCain, was supported by the Nature Conservancy,
the Central Arizona Land Trust, and the Arizona Antelope Foundation,
among others. It will preserve nearly 25,000 ecologically significant
acres in the headwaters of the Verde to protect the watershed,
safeguard wildlife habitat, and provide outdoor recreation for
future generations. Under the exchange, a 110 square-mile-area
in the Prescott National Forest near the existing Juniper Mesa
Wilderness will be consolidated under Forest Service ownership
to preserve it in its natural state and prevent its subdivision
and development. The new boundaries will also include the largest
stand of privately owned ponderosa pine forest along with one
of Arizona’s last untouched antelope valleys.
The existing formula for allocating federal wastewater
infrastructure funds under the Clean Water Act is outdated and
fails to account for population trends and needs today. As a result,
the formula fails to allocate federal dollars fairly. Arizona
is the second-fastest growing state in the nation, but it ranks
dead last among the states in terms of the allocation of federal
dollars for clean water needs.
I am working to change that formula, but in the
meantime I have requested funding outside the formula to ensure
that Arizona receives a fairer share. I requested funds according
to the need to achieve compliance with federal Clean Water Act
mandates, community involvement, and the state’s water quality
priorities. Here are some of the recent wastewater treatment projects
I obtained funding for:
- $300,000 for Bullhead City (Fiscal Year 2008)
- $1.5 million for Lake Havasu City (Fiscal Year
2006)
- $1 million for City of Avondale (Fiscal Year
2006)
- $800,000 for City of Safford (Fiscal Year 2006)
Some of the other initiatives that I’ve helped
to pass include: appropriations for the Yuma National Heritage
Area, the Yuma East Wetlands, the expansion of Saguaro National
Park, and the federal acquisition of other environmentally sensitive
lands for preservation purposes, as well as legislation to expand
the boundaries of Walnut Canyon National Monument.