<DOC>
[108th Congress House Hearings]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access]
[DOCID: f:85487.wais]
CRISIS ON THE NATIONAL FORESTS: CONTAINING THE THREAT OF WILDLAND FIRE
TO THE ENVIRONMENT AND COMMUNITIES
=======================================================================
OVERSIGHT FIELD HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON FORESTS AND
FOREST HEALTH
of the
COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
Friday, March 7, 2003 in Flagstaff, Arizona
__________
Serial No. 108-5
__________
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://resourcescommittee.house.gov
______
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WASHINGTON : 2003
85-487 PS
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COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES
RICHARD W. POMBO, California, Chairman
NICK J. RAHALL II, West Virginia, Ranking Democrat Member
Don Young, Alaska Dale E. Kildee, Michigan
W.J. ``Billy'' Tauzin, Louisiana Eni F.H. Faleomavaega, American
Jim Saxton, New Jersey Samoa
Elton Gallegly, California Neil Abercrombie, Hawaii
John J. Duncan, Jr., Tennessee Solomon P. Ortiz, Texas
Wayne T. Gilchrest, Maryland Frank Pallone, Jr., New Jersey
Ken Calvert, California Calvin M. Dooley, California
Scott McInnis, Colorado Donna M. Christensen, Virgin
Barbara Cubin, Wyoming Islands
George Radanovich, California Ron Kind, Wisconsin
Walter B. Jones, Jr., North Jay Inslee, Washington
Carolina Grace F. Napolitano, California
Chris Cannon, Utah Tom Udall, New Mexico
John E. Peterson, Pennsylvania Mark Udall, Colorado
Jim Gibbons, Nevada, Anibal Acevedo-Vila, Puerto Rico
Vice Chairman Brad Carson, Oklahoma
Mark E. Souder, Indiana Raul M. Grijalva, Arizona
Greg Walden, Oregon Dennis A. Cardoza, California
Thomas G. Tancredo, Colorado Madeleine Z. Bordallo, Guam
J.D. Hayworth, Arizona George Miller, California
Tom Osborne, Nebraska Edward J. Markey, Massachusetts
Jeff Flake, Arizona Ruben Hinojosa, Texas
Dennis R. Rehberg, Montana Ciro D. Rodriguez, Texas
Rick Renzi, Arizona Joe Baca, California
Tom Cole, Oklahoma Betty McCollum, Minnesota
Stevan Pearce, New Mexico
Rob Bishop, Utah
Devin Nunes, California
VACANCY
Steven J. Ding, Chief of Staff
Lisa Pittman, Chief Counsel
Michael S. Twinchek, Chief Clerk
James H. Zoia, Democrat Staff Director
Jeffrey P. Petrich, Democrat Chief Counsel
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON FORESTS AND FOREST HEALTH
SCOTT McINNIS, Colorado, Chairman
JAY INSLEE, Washington, Ranking Democrat Member
John J. Duncan, Jr., Tennessee Dale E. Kildee, Michigan
Walter B. Jones, Jr., North Tom Udall, New Mexico
Carolina Mark Udall, Colorado
John E. Peterson, Pennsylvania Anibal Acevedo-Vila, Puerto Rico
Thomas G. Tancredo, Colorado Brad Carson, Oklahoma
J.D. Hayworth, Arizona VACANCY
Jeff Flake, Arizona VACANCY
Dennis R. Rehberg, Montana VACANCY
Rick Renzi, Arizona Nick J. Rahall II, West Virginia,
Stevan Pearce, New Mexico ex officio
Richard W. Pombo, California, ex
officio
------
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on March 7, 2003.................................... 1
Statement of Members:
Flake, Hon. Jeff, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Arizona, Prepared statement submitted for the record.... 108
Gibbons, Hon. Jim, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Nevada............................................ 11
Hayworth, Hon. J.D., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Arizona........................................... 12
Prepared statement of.................................... 13
McInnis, Hon. Scott, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Colorado.......................................... 4
Prepared statement of.................................... 6
Pombo, Hon. Richard W., a Representative in Congress from the
State of California........................................ 7
Prepared statement of.................................... 8
Renzi, Hon. Rick, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Arizona................................................. 10
Shadegg, Hon. John, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Arizona........................................... 15
Walden, Hon. Greg, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Oregon............................................ 8
Statement of Witnesses:
Ack, Bradley L., Program Director, Grand Canyon Trust........ 92
Prepared statement of.................................... 94
Cassatt, Sarah, Gardens Manager, The Arboretum at Flagstaff.. 70
Prepared statement of.................................... 72
Covington, W. Wallace, Ph.D., Regents' Professor and Director
of the Ecological Restoration Institute, Northern Arizona
University................................................. 64
Prepared statement of.................................... 65
Donaldson, Hon. Joseph C., Mayor, City of Flagstaff, Arizona. 2
Prepared statement of.................................... 3
Gibson, Kent B., Pulp & Paperworkers Resource Council........ 85
Prepared statement of.................................... 86
Kelley, Hon. Gene, Mayor, City of Show Low, Arizona.......... 29
Prepared statement of.................................... 31
Kolb, Thomas, Ph.D., School of Forestry, Northern Arizona
University................................................. 75
Prepared statement of.................................... 77
Laverty, Lyle, Director, Colorado State Parks, State of
Colorado................................................... 43
Prepared statement of.................................... 45
Massey, Dallas, Chairman, White Mountain Apache Tribe........ 38
Prepared statement of.................................... 40
Moore, Patrick, Ph.D., Chairman and Chief Scientist,
Greenspirit Strategies Ltd................................. 58
Prepared statement of.................................... 60
Rey, Hon. Mark, Under Secretary, Natural Resources and the
Environment, U.S. Department of Agriculture................ 17
Prepared statement of.................................... 23
Watson, Hon. Rebecca W., Assistant Secretary, Land and
Minerals Management, U.S. Department of the Interior....... 20
Prepared statement of.................................... 23
OVERSIGHT FIELD HEARING ON ``CRISIS ON THE NATIONAL FORESTS: CONTAINING
THE THREAT OF WILDLAND FIRE TO THE ENVIRONMENT AND COMMUNITIES''
----------
Friday, March 7, 2003
U.S. House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health
Committee on Resources
Flagstaff, Arizona
----------
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 9:53 a.m., in
the City Council Chambers, City Hall, Flagstaff, Arizona, Hon.
Scott McInnis [Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives McInnis, Pombo, Walden, Renzi,
Gibbons, Hayworth and Shadegg.
Mr. McInnis. You may be seated.
I would like to thank the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the
American Legion, and of course the Boy Scouts. I would also
like to begin the meeting by thanking the community of
Flagstaff. As I said earlier, it is a beautiful community. We
also appreciate the utilization of your City Hall, and I am
particularly pleased--I know we come from different sides on
this issue, but I am particularly pleased at the turnout that
we have today.
It is an issue that is very important to all of us, and the
fact that we have come out like this to participate in it, this
is what it is about, this is why we wanted to bring this
hearing, so that you could see what a hearing that would
otherwise be conducted in Washington, you could witness how we
do this.
With that, Congressman Renzi--and what I would like to do
as we go for our opening comments, I would like each
Congressman, since most of us are from out of this area, to
introduce themselves. But Congressman Renzi, why don't you
introduce our special guests.
Mr. Renzi. Thank you, Congressman, McInnis.
Today, we have with us two very important people from
Washington, D.C., The Honorable Mark Rey, U.S. Department of
Agriculture, Under Secretary for Natural Resources and
Environment; The Honorable Rebecca Watson, U.S. Department of
the Interior; The Honorable Gene Kelley, Mayor of Show Low; and
we are expecting today, Dallas Massey, the Chairman of the
White Mountain Apaches; and of course, from Colorado, your home
state, Lyle Laverty, who is the person in charge of Natural
Resources for Colorado.
So with that, I want to thank you all for coming today.
May I go into my remarks, or would you like to--
Mr. McInnis. Well, first, I want to tell you that one of
the reasons we are down here is just to get Renzi to be quiet.
All he talks about are these forests in this district. We said,
all right, if we come out there, will you be quiet for the rest
of the year?
[Laughter.]
If you do not mind, I would prefer--I would like to start
with your Mayor, if you would like to introduce the Mayor and
let him make some remarks.
Mr. Renzi. I would, yes, thank you very much. Thank you,
Mr. Chair.
I want to thank all the people from Flagstaff and the
surrounding communities who have turned out today, and I
especially want to thank Mayor Joe Donaldson for being a great
host and facilitator of this. And I welcome and would like to
hear your opening remarks, Mr. Mayor.
STATEMENT OF JOSEPH C. DONALDSON, MAYOR,
CITY OF FLAGSTAFF, ARIZONA
Mayor Donaldson. Thank you, Congressman, Mr. Chairman,
members of the Subcommittee, welcome to our community and thank
you for taking the time and effort to visit us. Your presence
here is an honor for our community. As Mayor, I am grateful for
the opportunity to be part of this hearing process.
As evidenced by the ongoing drought, a dramatic increase in
insect populations and the ever-growing threat of catastrophic
wildfire, our forests are in disrepair and have become littered
with untold numbers of dead trees. We are in critical need of a
massive cleanup and tree removal effort that can only be
achieved with technical and financial assistance through the
Federal Government. The Stafford Act has been utilized in many
disasters to assist local governments in debris removal
efforts. We would ask your consideration in initiating this
process to provide Federal assistance to our areas in order to
mitigate a very hazardous condition that threatens both the
lives and personal property throughout the region.
It is also a concern that there are insufficient air
support resources to effectively suppress a wildfire outbreak
in this area. The immediate air response capability on the
Coconino and Kaibab National Forests has been reduced to a
single small capacity helicopter. The availability to obtain
fixed wing tankers, large haul helicopters and lead planes are
non-existent from our local air bases. We urge the Committee to
support this effort and provide the necessary resources to
properly equip the area suppression forces with this vital
firefighting tool.
Your presence in our community is evidence of your interest
in this subject and your commitment to make a positive change.
I would like to acknowledge Congressman Rick Renzi, Congressman
J.D. Hayworth and Congressman John Shadegg for making this
historic visit to Flagstaff possible. Mr. Chairman, and members
of the Subcommittee, you have my pledge as Mayor that we regard
this issue as a partnership, and that we stand ready to move
forward with you.
I again welcome you to our city and offer the services of
our fine staff, if we can be of further assistance to you. I
also encourage you to stay after the hearing to take advantage
of the beauty and history that northern Arizona has to offer.
Thank you and welcome.
[The prepared statement of Mayor Donaldson follows:]
Statement of Joseph C. Donaldson, Mayor, City of Flagstaff
Mr. Chairman, Members of the Sub-Committee:
Welcome to our community, and thank you for taking the time and
effort to visit us. Your presence here is an honor for our community,
and as Mayor, I am grateful for the opportunity to be a part of this
hearing process.
As evidenced by the on-going drought, a dramatic increase in insect
populations, and the ever-growing threat of catastrophic wildfire, our
forests are in disrepair and have become littered with untold numbers
of dead trees. We are in critical need of a massive clean-up and tree
removal effort that can only be achieved with technical and financial
assistance through the Federal Government. The Stafford Act has been
utilized in many disasters to assist local governments in debris
removal efforts. We would ask your consideration in initiating this
process to provide Federal assistance to our rural areas in order to
mitigate a very hazardous condition that threatens both lives and
personal property throughout the region.
It is also a concern that there are insufficient air support
resources to effectively suppress a wildfire outbreak in this area. The
immediate air response capability on the Coconino and Kaibab national
forests has been reduced to a single small capacity helicopter. The
availability to obtain fixed wing tankers, large haul helicopters and
lead planes are non-existent from local air bases. We urge the
Committee to support this effort and provide the necessary resources to
properly equip the area suppression forces with this vital firefighting
tool.
Your presence in our community is evidence of your interest in this
subject and your commitment to make a positive change. I'd like to
acknowledge Congressman Rick Renzi, Congressman JD Hayworth and
Congressman John Shadegg for making this historic hearing in Flagstaff
possible. Mr. Chairman and members of the sub-committee, you have my
pledge as Mayor that we regard this issue as a partnership, and that we
stand ready to move forward with you.
I once again welcome you to our city, and offer the services of our
fine staff if we can be of further assistance to you. I also encourage
you to stay after the hearing to take advantage of the beauty and
history that northern Arizona has to offer.
______
Mr. McInnis. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
I will tell you, members of the Committee, that the Mayor
has told me that he would like us to participate in his green
effort, meaning greenback dollars, he would like us to spend a
few while we are in town.
[Laughter.]
Mr. McInnis. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Let me just very quickly tell you who we have on the
Committee. First of all, as you know, my name is Scott McInnis
and I chair the Subcommittee. The Subcommittee is a
Subcommittee of the whole Committee. The whole Committee is
Chaired by a gentleman named Mr. Pombo, Mr. Pombo is sitting to
my right--this is Mr. Pombo from the State of California. Mr.
Shadegg from the State of Arizona, Mr. Hayworth from the State
of Arizona; Mr. Gibbons from the State of Nevada, Mr. Walden
from the State of Oregon, and of course, Mr. Renzi from your
fine area right here.
OPENING STATEMENT OF THE HON. SCOTT MCINNIS, A REPRESENTATIVE
IN CONGRESS FROM The STATE OF COLORADO
Mr. McInnis. I will start with my opening remarks, then we
intend to go around and give every member an opportunity for
opening remarks and then we will go to our witnesses.
And to our witnesses, I specifically thank you for making
the effort to come to this community to present some of the
testimony we asked to hear today.
My district is the western area of Colorado. All of us have
large districts, ours is larger than the State of Florida, to
give you an idea of just how big those districts are. All of us
at this table have been touched by fire in one way or another.
I actually have in the audience here my father, who came down
here, my father lived at the foot of Storm King. I was on the
Storm King fire, in fact was in a group that went up and
brought our deceased firemen off that fire after that tragedy.
My father's home was surrounded on three sides this summer in
Glenwood Springs, Colorado by fire up there in Colorado. All of
the fires in Colorado were in my district, so we know what it
is like. We have a lot of sympathy for the horrible fire that
you have suffered down here.
I have been in the U.S. Congress now for six terms and I
will begin with my opening remarks.
I want to tell you that when we focus on healthy forest,
somebody said do you look at the economy, do you look at the
economics of a forest, and I say this Committee does look at
the economics of a forest, the environmental economics of a
forest.
We had a fire in Colorado called the Hayman fire and people
say well, look at the damage to the timber industry. I said in
Colorado, we do not have much timber industry any more. The
real damage of that fire was the damage to our air. We had more
air pollution from that fire than we have all the C20 or
whatever those emissions are from all the vehicles combined for
the entire year in the State of Colorado.
Our watershed will cost the City of Denver--that is where
they get their water--their watershed is so polluted, it looks
like a thick chocolate malt. It will cost them tens and tens
and tens of millions of dollars.
The safety factor obviously is our highest priority, the
human safety factor. But then you take a look at the animals. I
grew up--fortunately for my father's choice, we grew up and
have many, many generations in those mountains and we are
surrounded by animals. It was horrific what happens in these
fires to these animals.
So that is what I consider the economics of a forest, all
of those different issues. And I hope today we have an
opportunity to address this.
I think that is appropriate that the legislative push
begins here in Arizona which was ripped by your fire last year.
Mr. Walden and I know something about these fires. Mr. Walden
had probably the largest fires in the country, or close to it,
and I appreciate you coming all the way from Oregon, Mr.
Walden, to participate today too.
If these unnatural fires and many others like them have
taught us anything, it is that the disastrous status quo on our
national forests and public lands is not acceptable. The status
quo is unacceptable not only because of the massive price that
it has exacted on wildland urban communities and rural
economies, it is also intolerable because of the disastrous
impact these unnatural fires have on our air, water, wildlife
and our forest resources.
My good friend, Lyle Laverty, will highlight this in much
greater detail during his testimony, but the Colorado Hayman
fire, as I said earlier, provides a good example of what I call
that environmental economics.
Of course, these stories are of no surprise to anybody in
this room. In fact, I assume that everybody in this room has
been touched by fire or threatened by fire. And so we want to
take home a message and that is that responsible environmental
stewardship requires that Congress, land managers and affected
communities move aggressively to address these crisis
conditions on our national forests and our public lands.
Managing over-dense forests is the right thing to do, it is the
right thing to do for our safety, it is the right thing to do
for our air, it is the right thing to do for our water and it
is the right thing to do for our wildlife.
But to treat at-risk landscapes on a meaningful and
effective scale, the process that we have seen, bogged down
process, paralysis by analysis is the word that we often see,
and frankly, Congress is guilty of a lot of that, that
presently constrains our Federal managers, the people on the
ground, the people that work it every day from being able to do
their jobs, that is where we have got a severe handicap. It
takes our land managers on average between three to 5 years to
maneuver a thinning project through a tangled morass of Federal
procedures and processes. With communities in harm's way and
our environment at risk, that is wrong.
In the weeks ahead, with cooperation from our Chairman, Mr.
Pombo, and obviously he is a strong supporter of this, we
intend to push legislation in concert with the members on this
dais and any other Republican and Democrat--and I can advise
you this is a very bipartisan effort--to this crisis that would
break the cycle of bureaucracy and empower local forest
managers with the tools needed to restore our nation's forest
lands to a healthy state.
It is with this that I thank Congressman Renzi for inviting
us here today for this important discussion and commend
Chairman Pombo and the others for their leadership on this
critical issue.
Two other points I wish to make. One, some ask us are you
coming to town for a town meeting; this is not a town meeting.
What we wanted to do was--the Chairman actually directed this,
he came to his Subcommittee Chairman and he said I want people
outside of Washington to kind of see, witness what hearings are
like. And so that is why today, people asked if we could take
questions from the public, obviously we have a lot of
enthusiasm demonstrated out there, but unfortunately this is a
hearing where we do not do that, we do not do that in
Washington, we take it from our panel.
The second thing is you will probably note or it might be
noted elsewhere, the members of the panel up here are
Republican. We do not have a boycott going on by the Democratic
side. The logistics of being able to move a Committee out
halfway across the country--and frankly, most of the
Congressional people in the West are Republicans--so it is
tougher to get the Democrats here, but we do not have a boycott
and I can tell you, last year, the two leading advocates in the
U.S. Congress for so-called environmental issues were a
gentleman named Peter DeFazio from the State of Oregon and a
gentleman named George Miller from the State of California.
Those happen to be the two individuals who worked the hardest
with Mr. Walden and myself, Mr. Pombo and our panel, to come to
some legislation. Unfortunately, the day after it was
discovered they were meeting with us, press releases went out
calling them the chainsaw caucus and here, they are the two
leading environmental people. So if either one of them could
have made it here today, they would have been here. There is no
boycott, it is just the circumstances and the logistics that
you happen to have all of one party.
With that, it is my privilege to turn the podium over to
the Chairman of the whole Committee, Mr. Pombo. Mr. Pombo.
[The prepared statement of Mr. McInnis follows:]
Statement of The Honorable Scott McInnis, Chairman, Subcommittee on
Forests and Forest Health
It's a pleasure to be here in Flagstaff, Arizona to initiate this
Committee's full court press to enact legislation to protect our
communities and our air, water, wildlife and forest ecosystems from the
destructive forces of catastrophic wildfire. It's appropriate that this
legislative push begins in Arizona, which was ripped by the record-
setting Rodeo-Chediski fire last summer. Mr. Walden and I know a thing
or two about record-setting wildfires ourselves--last summer's Biscuit
Fire was the largest in Oregon's history, and my home State of Colorado
experienced two wildfires last summer that were bigger and more
destructive than any other in our state's recorded history.
If these unnatural fires and the many others like them have taught
us anything, it is that the disastrous status quo on our national
forests and public lands is not acceptable.
The status quo is unacceptable not only because of the massive
price it has exacted on wildland-urban communities and rural economies.
It's also intolerable because of the disastrous impact of these
unnatural fires on our air, water, wildlife and our forest resources.
My good friend Lyle Laverty will highlight this in much greater detail
during his testimony, but Colorado's Hayman Fire provides a startling
example of the kind of enduring environmental degradation that these
fires cause. The fire dumped massive loads of mud and soot into
Denver's largest supply of drinking water, annihilated several thousand
acres of cathedral-like Ponderosa Pine old growth, and polluted
Colorado's blue skies with carbon heavy black smoke. The fire so
thoroughly polluted Denver air that the young and the elderly were
urged not to go outside, and one asthmatic even died.
Of course, these stories are no surprise to anyone in this room.
The Rodeo-Chediski produced its own environmental horror stories, just
as did the many other fires around this nation.
And so the take home message is this: responsible environmental
stewardship requires that Congress, land managers and affected
communities move aggressively to address these crisis conditions on our
national forests and public lands. Managing over-dense forests is the
right thing to do for our air, water and wildlife.
But to treat at-risk landscapes on a meaningful and effective
scale, the slow-moving process that presently constrains Federal land
managers must be improved. Currently, it takes our land managers on
average between 3 and 5 years to maneuver a thinning project through a
tangled morass of Federal procedures and processes. With communities in
harms way, and our environment at risk, that is plain wrong.
In the weeks ahead, I intend to push legislation, in concert with
the Members on this dais and any other Republican and Democrat
interested in a bipartisan solution to this crisis, that would break
this cycle of bureaucracy and empower local forest managers with the
tools needed to restore the nation's forestlands to a healthy state.
After enduring 2 fire seasons in the last 3 years that match any in
terms of ferocity and wide-ranging destruction, doing nothing is just
not an option. The time for action on the part of Congress is now.
It is with this that I thank Congressman Renzi for inviting us here
today for this important discussion, and commend Chairman Pombo and the
others for their leadership on this critical issue.
______
OPENING STATEMENT OF THE HON. RICHARD POMBO, A REPRESENTATIVE
IN CONGRESS FROM The STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Mr. Pombo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. At the outset, I want
to thank Rick Renzi for hosting all of us here in Flagstaff. In
the time that I have gotten to know Rick, he has shown himself
to be extremely knowledgeable and enthusiastic on the issues,
and we are all looking forward to working with him in the
coming years to solve some of the problems that we have here in
Arizona and throughout the country on forest issues and other
issues that are near and dear to his heart.
I want to also thank the Chairman of the Subcommittee,
Scott McInnis, for chairing this hearing. Scott has become an
expert on forestry issues and I value both his input and his
hard work over the years on this issue.
Ensuring forest health is a top priority for myself and the
many Resource Committee members that are here today. Today is
especially important to me, as it is the first field hearing
that I have attended as Chairman of the full Resources
Committee. It is vitally important for Members of Congress to
get out of Washington, D.C. and visit the local areas the
decisions made in Washington impact. Rick Renzi's district,
home to last year's catastrophic Rodeo-Chediski fire, the
largest in southwest history, is the perfect place to hold this
hearing.
Public lands have undergone drastic changes during the last
century. Large areas of these lands are vulnerable and need our
protection. The number of people visiting our public lands, be
they national parks or forests, increase every year. That is a
good thing. It is important our lands remain open to the public
so that, for example, parents can take their children hiking
through a national park to see the wonders of nature. This
makes it imperative that we do all we can to protect these
lands.
And there is no more devastating event that can happen than
a forest fire. A forest fire destroys everything in its path--
trees, wildlife, personal property and causes devastating
pollution to both the air we breathe and the water we drink.
We all take clean air and clean water for granted. In
reality, however, we remain in a delicate balance. To ensure
that we make the right decisions in protecting our environment,
we need the best science available and local input for the
decisions we make. Congress can help, indeed, Congress has an
obligation to help, but no one knows how to best protect
Arizona forests than the people of Arizona.
We have a responsibility to protect our citizens, our
property and our environment and public lands. When severe fire
threatens, as they do throughout the West every summer, we need
to ensure that we have a plan that will act as an instrument of
assistance, not an instrument adding fuel to an already raging
fire.
Mr. McInnis, I want to thank you again for coming to
Arizona to see this situation firsthand. I am confident that we
can enact a sensible policy that will protect our forests and I
welcome the testimony of all of our witnesses today.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Pombo follows:]
Statement of The Honorable Richard Pombo, Chairman,
Committee on Resources
Good morning. Thank Rick Renzi for hosting all of us here in
Flagstaff. In the time I have gotten to know Rick, he has shown himself
to be a fine man who knows the issues well. He will be a terrific
Congressman.
Thank you also to Scott McInnis for chairing this hearing. Scott is
proficient on forestry issues and I value both his input and hard work.
Ensuring forest health is a top priority for me and the many
Resources Committee members here today. Today is especially important
to me as it is the first field hearing I have attended as Chairman of
the Resources Committee.
It is vitally important for Members of Congress to get out of
Washington, D.C. and visit the local areas that decisions in Washington
impact. Rick Renzi's district, home to last year's catastrophic Rodeo-
Chediski fire, the largest in Southwest history, is the perfect place
to hold this hearing.
Public lands have undergone drastic changes during the last
century. Large areas of these lands are vulnerable and need our
protection. The number of people visiting our public lands, be they
national parks or forests, increase every year. This is a good thing.
It is important our lands remain open to the public so that, for
example, parents can take their children hiking through a national park
to see the wonders of nature.
It is imperative that we do all we can to protect these lands. And
there is no more devastating event that can happen that a forest fire.
A forest fire destroys everything in its path--trees, wildlife,
personal property, and causes devastating pollution to both the air we
breathe and the water we drink.
We all take clean water and clean air for granted. In reality,
however, we remain in a delicate balance. We must protect our
environment, we need the best science available and local input for the
decisions we make. Congress can help, indeed, Congress has an
obligation to help, but no one knows how to best protect Arizona
forests than those people living in and near the forests of Arizona.
We have a responsibility to protect our citizens, our property and
our environment and public lands. When severe fires threaten--as they
do throughout the West every summer--we need to ensure that we have a
plan that will act as an instrument of assistance, not an instrument
adding fuel to an already raging fire.
Mr. McInnis, I want to thank you again for coming to Arizona to see
the situation firsthand. I am confident that we can enact a sensible
policy that will protect our forests, and I welcome the testimony of
our witnesses.
Thank you.
______
Mr. McInnis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Walden--and if you would preface your remarks with a
brief introduction.
OPENING STATEMENT OF THE HON. GREG WALDEN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OREGON
Mr. Walden. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I am Greg
Walden, I represent the people of eastern Oregon, about 72,000
square miles, everything from the Cascade Mountains to Idaho,
from Washington to the great State of Nevada and California and
then almost over to the Oregon coast.
Part of my district and that area of Oregon I share with
Congressman DeFazio went up in smoke last summer, over 500,000
acres, half a million acres in the Sour Biscuit fire were
consumed, not only at the costs we heard from you, Mr.
Chairman, in terms of its impact on the wildlife and the
habitat for the endangered spotted owl, but also in terms of
air quality. In fact, we were supposed to have the hundredth
celebration of Crater Lake National Park and it was so smoky
that day that you could not even see the lake from the rim as
the smoke came over. It also cost taxpayers more than $150
million to extinguish that fire, and really it was the rains
that came this fall that put it out.
I believe my State of Oregon was second only to Alaska in
the amount of acres burned by forest fires last year. President
Bush took note of the fires that were raging in Oregon, came to
my district, along with your Governor Hall and Governor Marx
and our Governor Kulongoski, we toured the Squires Peak fire.
It is an area that burned very recently, but they had been
doing forest health work up in the Squires Peak area. The same
people who were doing the forest health improvement work ended
up being on the fire lines.
And as we stood and talked to the firefighters in their
yellow suits, they made it clear they needed help, they wanted
our help to be able to get in and do the work, because they saw
first-hand the fires and where they had raged and how hot they
had burned where the forests had not been treated versus where
it had.
I do not know about most people, but being a native
Oregonian, I like my trees green, not black. I want a health
environment and a healthy forest. That is why Congressman
Shadegg and Congressman McInnis and others from my state of
both parties have worked very hard on this issue.
And I want to thank Congressman Renzi for encouraging us to
come here and the fine people of this community and this state
for turning out today. And I look forward to hearing the
testimony of our witnesses.
As the President said in the meeting we had with elected
officials from around the West, he said, you know, whatever it
is we have been doing has not worked. We need to figure out a
way to make it work for the future of our states and our
forests.
And whatever side of the issue you find yourself on, let us
try and reach some common ground that is good for our forests,
that means our communities are not subject to catastrophic run-
away wildfire that threatens not only habitat but lives and
homes. These are our forests and we can do a better job of
managing them.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. McInnis. Thank you, Mr. Walden.
And I might add that Mr. Walden's district probably had the
most fatalities of firemen coming out of your district. Most of
the men and women we lost on Storm King were out of your
district and we lost I think six of them out of your district
just down the road from my house in a horrible traffic
accident.
Mr. Walden. Yes, indeed.
Mr. McInnis. When we were trying to transport them.
Mr. Renzi, thank you very much again for encouraging us;
thank you for the warmth of your community. You may proceed.
OPENING STATEMENT OF THE HON. RICK RENZI, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ARIZONA
Mr. Renzi. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to begin this morning by thanking the people of
Flagstaff and the surrounding communities for coming out,
taking time away from your families and your businesses to
share and learn as we hear the testimony from these experts and
from the community.
I also want to begin by thanking humbly my colleagues who
have taken time away from their own districts, their own needs,
their own cries in the hearts of their constituents to come to
Flagstaff and to hold a Congressional hearing here in
Flagstaff. In the words of our Chair, Subcommittee Chair, Mr.
McInnis, we are bringing Washington to the people. So many
people do not have the opportunity to go to Washington and hear
a full Congressional hearing, and I thought it would be a great
time, and particularly seeing the young people this morning
during our pledge, turn out and be able to see first-hand a
Congressional hearing, particularly given the critical nature
and the times that we are facing here in the West.
I think it is also appropriate that we bring these
discussions of forest health and our environment here to
Flagstaff, given the fact that we are the home of Northern
Arizona University and the School of Forestry, which is the
origins of some of the best scientific contributions that we
have seen to our forest health and management plans in recent
years.
I would echo the comments of Congressman Walden, in that
this is our environment. We cannot control the weather or the
winds or the rains, but we can control the policies as it
governs the trees, the undergrowth, the dog hair thickets, the
bark beetles, and we can work together to find a way to live in
a holistic approach to our lands and our public property.
I would be remiss not to point out that Chairman Pombo, our
new Chairman of the full Resources Committee, has been kind
enough to fund this and make sure that we all come here
together and to thank him also for his great leadership. Thank
you, Mr. Pombo.
[Disturbance from the audience.]
Mr. McInnis. May we have them removed?
Let me make this very clear to every one of you sitting out
there. You are entitled to those kind of comments, but not
inside this room. We are trying to conduct in a very
professional fashion a meeting for the benefit of everyone. One
more outburst like this, you will be immediately removed from
this room and you will not be allowed to participate.
[Comment from the audience.]
Mr. McInnis. Take him out. Please have him removed.
[Pause.]
Mr. McInnis. At least they sing in rhythm.
Thank you folks for voluntarily removing yourselves. At
least they did not chain themselves to the rail or something.
For the rest of us, we really are trying to have a
constructive meeting and I think we will. We expected something
like this. I can tell you though, I am very, very proud of our
nation and I am certain that even these individuals, should we
initiate action over there, we will all support our troops. So
I do not think that is any indication of lack of support for
our troops.
But now, let us back to the agenda.
Under protocol--I must apologize to the next member, he is
the Vice Chairman of the whole Committee, and under protocol,
he should have been recognized right after our Chairman. So I
do apologize to the gentleman from Nevada. I would like to
introduce and ask him to introduce himself--Mr. Gibbons from
the State of Nevada.
OPENING STATEMENT OF THE HON. JIM GIBBONS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEVADA
Mr. Gibbons. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and indeed
I was glad that you did sequence the speakers the way that you
had, it gave me a chance to think about and listen to my other
colleagues out there; also to listen to some of the members in
the audience who have just left the room. And I would like to
remind all of us that this is exactly what democracy is about--
what we are doing right here today.
There is no doubt about it, Mr. Chairman--and let me
introduce myself before I begin my comments. I am Jim Gibbons
from the Second Congressional District of Nevada. The Second
Congressional District of Nevada is fortunate to touch on all
five states in the western area. That includes California,
Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Arizona and Nevada as well occupies about
110,000 square miles. We had a very mild fire season last year.
Compared to other seasons when we have burned over two million
acres, we burned only 90,000 acres last year.
But I think it is clear to all of us on this Committee and
it is clear to those in the audience that we all have--those of
us in Washington, those of us on this Committee, those of you
in the audience, a moral obligation to protect your forests and
to protect your air quality and your water quality as well.
Having lived my entire life in the great State of Nevada, I
have witnessed countless wildfires that have begun in forests
that looked just like the forests that you have outside this
community, that I thought were very pretty until I got close
and saw the infestation of bark beetle in those trees. Those
forest fires in Nevada that raged through forests that looked
very similar to yours ran faster than the wild horses we have
in our state, and they destroyed not only the prized forests
that all of us love and wish to visit and enjoy; they destroyed
wildlife and everything in their path, whether that path
included critical habitat, endangered species, wild animals and
human lives.
And so our obligation, of course, goes to the fundamental
issue of what can we do, what must we do for that moral
obligation to protect our forests and the result of that
habitat.
And if the absolute destruction of forests and brushland
and private property is not catastrophic enough, as you ladies
and gentlemen have already heard, just consider the air
pollution that rises from one of these fires and the effects on
human health for years could have individuals affected by air
pollution and water pollution from these forest fires. And as I
said, with no vegetation to hold the soil in place, thousands
of tons of sediment have been dumped into our streams and lakes
and have greatly reduced the high water quality that our state
enjoys and I am sure every state that suffers these wildfires
enjoys as well.
This year is probably going to be even worse than last
year. Many of us, including those in Nevada, have seen record
warm temperatures, diminished snowfall; in fact, in some areas
of Nevada, we have about 39 percent of the average snow pack in
place that we need for a year, 13 percent of the average
precipitation has fallen, that we anticipate. And our
reservoirs are holding right now 8 percent of their capacity.
I am not here to give you a weather report, I think these
statistics are of great concern to you, to everyone. We are in
an ongoing drought condition and it is going to dramatically
increase the risk, the speed at which these catastrophic fires
will occur.
And Mr. Chairman, with that, I would like to just ask that
my full recorded statement be entered into the record and I
will yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. McInnis. So ordered. Thank you, Mr. Gibbons.
Mr. McInnis. I would add that the good news from my dear
friends down river, Arizona and Nevada, it is snowing heavy in
those Colorado mountains, we are going to have a good snow year
up there.
The gentleman from Arizona--I will just tell you, I am the
first one in the gym every morning and Mr. Hayworth is the
second. So for about 15 minutes, I get to work out without
hearing about the State of Arizona. But for the next 45, that
is all I hear about.
Mr. Hayworth.
[Laughter.]
OPENING STATEMENT OF THE HON. J.D. HAYWORTH, A REPRESENTATIVE
IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ARIZONA
Mr. Hayworth. Well, Mr. Chairman, I thank you, and to so
many friends and neighbors who join us this morning, we offer a
hearty welcome, as well as to our Congressional colleagues from
the West.
And I can assure you in the same vociferous fashion, I
believe for better, Congressman Renzi will not remain quiet
about this issue and we are pleased that we are here in the new
First Congressional District, formerly the Sixth Congressional
District that I had the honor to represent for the better part
of a decade. I would like to thank Congressman Renzi, and it
really is impressive early in the first term to use the powers
of persuasion to have the full Committee Chair and our
Subcommittee Chair and our colleagues join us here, bringing
Washington to the people.
I want to thank the Committee for all those who will join
us with testimony and welcome the first panel. I would also
like to thank the Committee for inviting our Governor to
testify. It is unfortunate that Governor Napolitano could not
clear her schedule and join us today. I believe it is very
important to hear her perspective because there is such Federal
interaction--we are dealing with Federally controlled lands in
this situation and it is a role primarily taken on by the
Federal Government. And I think my colleagues from around the
West would have welcomed hearing her perspective first-hand
since we serve on the Forest and Forest Health Subcommittee.
Now a member of her staff informed me earlier this morning that
she will submit written testimony for the record and I know we
all welcome her written testimony.
I would also like to thank the Governor's staff for
extending a personal invitation to me this morning for the
Forest Symposium Monday in Prescott. I will clear my schedule
and be there in attendance because I believe it is important to
listen to everyone and all perspectives on this issue and the
challenges we confront, as we saw first-hand last year, with
the Rodeo-Chediski fire, are too important to leave to partisan
politics.
As we looked at what happened, and we welcome and look
forward to the testimony of my friends Gene Kelley, the Mayor
of Show Low and my friend Dallas Massey from the White Mountain
Apache Tribe. They can tell you first-hand what transpired
there, but friends, I think this is so important because no
longer is catastrophic fire an abstraction.
If there is any silver lining to the pyro-cumulus clouds
that envelop northern Arizona, it is the fact that now we
understand first-hand the consequences of catastrophic fire.
I have been struck over the years as we have worked on
these issues and tried to build consensus for effective sound
science and effective forest management--our good friend that
will testify later, Professor Wally Covington, from here at
Northern Arizona University, said something to me that has just
stuck with me through the years, and that is conditions are
such that the City of Flagstaff, in a horrible conflagration,
could be reminiscent of the City of Dresden in World War II.
The firestorms of Dresden could be visited on a place like
Flagstaff, Arizona. And indeed, without the inexplicable rise
in humidity, as Mayor Kelley and I were talking about earlier
today, that we can only attribute to divine providence, the
City of Show Low would have been consumed last summer. This is
not an abstraction, this is a genuine problem.
As my friend from Oregon pointed out, the President of the
United States is reorienting us to a task that transcends party
by its very necessity.
I thank you again for holding this hearing in Flagstaff and
again look forward to the testimony of those who join us. Thank
you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hayworth follows:]
Statement of The Honorable J.D. Hayworth, a Representative in Congress
from the State of Arizona
The Chairman.
Thank you for holding this hearing here in beautiful Flagstaff. I
am also grateful to Congressman Rick Renzi for requesting this hearing
and for bringing the House Committee on Resources to Arizona today.
Forest conditions across the country have gone from bad to worse.
Communities, wildlife, and our environment are at greater risk now than
ever before in Arizona and across much of the West. Simply stated, our
forests are in a treacherous condition and are perfectly suited for
catastrophic wildfire. Flagstaff has, for the most part, so far dodged
the bullet. But the communities southeast of here are more than a
little aware of the dangerous state of the forest.
The Rodeo-Chediski fire devastated the lives of thousands of people
who lived on the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest. Although we aren't
going to point fingers, one can hardly help but wonder how bad last
summer's cataclysmic fire would have been, had the forest been in a
condition of fire sustainability. But decades of mismanagement and,
frankly, under-management, left the forest in a state where a small
fire turned into the firestorm of the century. Dense forestland quickly
went up in flames. Devastating crown fires ravaged the land for two
weeks. The fire was so large and so intense that it jumped roads, it
jumped rivers, it spread over tens of thousands of acres each day. It
killed wildlife, including threatened and endangered species. It
wreaked havoc on the watershed. It burned nearly 500 structures, many
of them private homes. The smoke and debris was so heavy and
widespread, it formed its own weather system. This is NOT the type of
fire you see in a healthy forest.
The fact is, healthy forests can sustain small fires. In fact,
small fires are beneficial to a healthy forest because they
periodically clear underbrush and small-diameter timber. As we
tragically learned last summer, our forests are not in a healthy state.
For years, our forests have been poorly managed. In fact, for the
most part, our forests simply have NOT been managed. Additionally,
lawsuits brought by environmental extremists have tied our hands and
kept us from employing sound science and proven principles of forest
management. There are some that would have us believe that a hands-off
approach is natural, and that we must not actively manage our forests.
These are the same people who believe that the forests should not be
touched at all--not by naturalists, not by recreationists, not by
picnicking families, not by anybody. That is ridiculous. I firmly
believe that we should enjoy our forests, and that this can be done in
a responsible way. The fact is, if we don't act to protect our forests,
there may one day be no forests left. Simply put, we have a moral
obligation to protect these valuable resources so that our children may
have the opportunity to enjoy nature as we have.
I have reviewed the President's Healthy Forests Initiative. This
plan will allow for an environmentally-friendly, common-sense approach
to protecting and conserving our forests. The plan will not only save
lives and forestland, but it will save each American taxpayer money.
The damage from the Rodeo-Chediski fire was nearly $60 million. The
Forest Service spent more than $40 million fighting this fire. And what
is the value of endangered species that were killed?
The Healthy Forests Initiative addresses the need for hazardous
fuels reduction. Investments in fuels reduction saves so much more
money spent on fire suppression. The bill will reform the appeals
process, which is completely broken. It makes conservation of
forestland a priority, and will allow for long-term forest health. This
initiative will keep environmental extremists from holding our forests
hostage. In fact, the Healthy Forests Initiative will bring us to a new
age of practicing not ``elitist environmentalism,'' but ``enlightened
environmentalism.''
Again, I am grateful for the opportunity to revisit my friends here
in Flagstaff, and again want to thank Resources Committee Chairman
Pombo, Forests and Forest Health Subcommittee Chairman McInnis, and my
colleague, Congressman Renzi for bringing us here to address this
important issue.
______
Mr. McInnis. Thank you, Mr. Hayworth.
The audience might note that Mr. Shadegg is well-dressed--
he has a reputation for being one of the best dressed Members
of Congress and I can tell you how that happened, because
before we come to Arizona, he tells all the rest of us, don't
wear a tie down there, they will not like it.
[Laughter.]
Mr. McInnis. He walks in at the very last--so once again,
he takes best dressed of Arizona.
With all seriousness, Mr. Shadegg, I have appreciated very
much working with you and your experience in the forests and so
on and your help. And you may proceed with a brief
introduction. Thank you.
OPENING STATEMENT OF THE HON. JOHN SHADEGG, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ARIZONA
Mr. Shadegg. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, I
appreciate that. I thought all you guys would be in suits.
I want to start by complimenting Congressman Rick Renzi, my
colleague. It is no mean feat to bring about what he has done
this early in the year and this early in his very first term.
Of course, if you know Rick, you know that he's pretty intense
on a lot of issues and I am not surprised he has been
successful.
I also want to say a few words complimenting both the full
Committee Chairman and the Subcommittee Chairman. The reality
is Rick was in part successful in getting this hearing because
of his intensity, but he was also successful because these two
gentlemen care a lot about this issue. They understand the
issue, they are from the West, they have forests in their
district, they have been working on this issue for a long time
and it is a compliment to us that they care so much about this
issue and that they would accede to this demand because they
care.
I am kind of an interloper here and I need to thank both
the full Chairman and the Subcommittee Chairman. I no longer
have the privilege of serving on the Resources Committee or the
Forest Health Subcommittee, that was taken away from me
sometime ago, I do not get to serve on this Committee.
Nonetheless, I am, as many of you know, a native Arizonan, I
have camped and hiked many of the forests of Arizona, my family
has a summer home in Prescott and these issues mean a lot to me
and so I have remained involved in them after leaving the
Committee.
As my colleague, Greg Walden, pointed out, last year, we
spent--Mr. McInnis and Mr. Walden and I and others--spent
countless hours trying to find a middle ground on this issue
and I want to echo my colleague Mr. Walden's words on that
issue. It is vitally important, no matter where you come from
on this issue, no matter how strongly perhaps you believe we
should not be moving forward with thinning our forests and
restoring them to health or how strongly you believe that we
should, we absolutely must come to common ground on that issue,
it is essential for the forests of this nation and for the
communities which border those forests. And I will tell you,
last year following the devastating fires here in Arizona, but
also the devastating fires elsewhere around the country, the
Chairman of this Subcommittee threw himself into that effort
and we did meet for countless hours with George Miller and
Peter DeFazio. The good news is that Mr. DeFazio has forests in
his district and he understands the problem and he has the
respect of George Miller and so he is able to bring Mr. Miller,
who has no forests, has an urban district, around and make some
progress.
This is an absolutely critical issue, not only for Arizona
and for northern Arizona, but for the entire nation. We are
fortunate to have had such great experts working on this
problem.
I want to briefly enlighten you as to how difficult it is
for some of our witnesses. We have many great witnesses here
and I want to thank all of them for their testimony today, but
I want to particularly thank Mark Rey, the Under Secretary of
the Department of Agriculture, who has worked on this issue and
given great testimony before the full Committee and the
Subcommittee, and I want to point out the difficult life he
lives with.
Last year, when the Interior appropriations bill was going
forward, I made an effort to add $23 million for forest fire
fighting to the bill. I went onto the floor, I offered the
amendment during the appropriations process, I argued for it
vigorously. One of my colleagues stood up and said absolutely
not, we did not need that extra $23 million, this was an
outrage and it should not pass.
In yesterday's Washington Post, that same member who argued
we did not need that $23 million is attacking the U.S. Forest
Service for not having enough money in its budget for forest
fire fighting.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Shadegg. Welcome to the wonders of Washington, D.C.
Mark, I applaud you for your efforts. It is an outrage that
we have left this year, the Forest Service some $300 million
sort in fire fighting funds and I will continue to fight to get
resources for fire fighting.
I want to conclude by simply talking a little bit about the
resource we have here in northern Arizona. The Ecological
Restoration Institute at NAU is a tremendous resource for this
nation on this issue. And in preparing for today's hearing, I
was reading through some of their materials that I think are
worth including. I presume they were written by Dr. Wally
Covington, the Director of the Institute, but they deserve to
be thought about by everyone.
He begins by pointing out that there is a parallel between
the work they have done, the research they have done at the
Ecological Restoration Institute, working with the BLM, the
Forest Service, the Arizona Game & Fish and others, in the
nature of clinical trials. But he says this, ``The results of
these clinical trials are so impressive that it is unethical
for us not to enlarge our restoration efforts to protect entire
landscapes and human communities embedded within them.''
He goes on to say that often in our personal lives, someone
says someone ought to do something about that problem, and then
he raises this question, ``Who is that someone? It is us, it is
our generation and the time to act is now.''
Those words by Dr. Covington and his staff, I think set the
tone for this hearing. It is us and the time to act is now.
With that, I yield back the balance of my time, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. McInnis. Thank you, Mr. Shadegg. Mr. Shadegg, I do want
to publicly acknowledge your effort. It was really a great
group, we had a lot of fun--Miller and DeFazio, we really did.
Mr. Shadegg. We came very close.
Mr. McInnis. On a lot of issues, this is not a group that
we usually mesh together, but on this issue, we came together
pretty strongly, so that was pretty neat.
We are now going to--first of all, members, thank you for
your opening statements. We are going to move to our witnesses
now. I want you to know, witnesses, we have another party that
I have not introduced, but I am going to introduce. Her name is
Betty Crocker and she, you only hear her through a little
timer. What we are trying to do--she does not say much but a
little bing once in awhile, and what we are trying to do is
attempt to limit your testimony, if you would respect us, to 5
minutes. We have this timed such that if we can keep it to 5
minutes for every witness, that then allows us some time to ask
questions of the panel, then bring the other panel up and go
through the same kind of thing.
So let me briefly introduce the entire panel--The Honorable
Mark Rey, who is the Under Secretary, U.S. Department of
Agriculture; The Honorable Rebecca Watson with the U.S.
Department of the Interior; The Honorable Gene Kelley, the
Mayor of Show Low, out there in Arizona, I am looking forward
to your testimony, considering the year you have had; Mr.
Dallas Massey with the White Mountain Apache Tribe and Mr. Lyle
Laverty, a long time friend of mind, long time forest employee,
now with the Colorado Department of Parks.
Mr. Rey, why don't we start with you. You may proceed.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE MARK REY, UNDER SECRETARY, NATURAL
RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Mr. Rey. Thank you. On behalf of the United States
Departments of Agriculture and Interior, we want to express
what a pleasure it is to be here today to enjoy the hospitality
of Congressman Renzi and the citizens of Flagstaff, and also to
acknowledge the leadership of yourself, Mr. Chairman, full
Committee Chairman Pombo, and the balance of the Committee on
this issue.
As we are working together as one, we will have one
statement for both departments and both Secretary Watson and I
will summarize our statements.
In my summary, I would like to do basically four quick
things for you--one, review the 2002 fire season; two, talk
about our 2002 rehabilitation and restoration work; three, talk
about safety, community preparedness and fire fighting cost
issues that were raised as a consequence of the 2002 season,
and then four, tell you a little bit about what the outlook is
for 2003.
In 2002, 7.2 million acres burned nationwide. We had fires
in every one of the 50 states.
Mr. McInnis. Excuse me, Mr. Rey, what was the number?
Mr. Rey. 7.2 million acres.
Mr. McInnis. Thank you.
Mr. Rey. And there were fires in every one of the 50 United
States, so this is not a regional issue. The Federal Government
expended $1.6 billion in extinguishing that fires, that makes
2002 the second worst year in history in terms of acreage
consumed or recent history in terms of acreage consumed, and
the most expensive year in recent history and probably all of
history in terms of expenditures.
We spent 62 days at preparedness level five, that is our
highest level of fire preparedness. That is, by comparison, 22
more days than we spent at preparedness level five than we did
in the year 2000.
Nevertheless, as a consequence of the assistance Congress
provided in 2000 and the development of the National Fire Plan
and the inter-governmental coordination that resulted, over 99
percent of the wildfires were stopped during initial attack. In
addition to our efforts and those of our cooperating state and
local governments, we received assistance in firefighting from
the U.S. Army, from firefighters from Canada, Australia and New
Zealand, as we have reciprocal agreements with firefighters
from those countries, and some of our firefighters are in
Australia today as we speak.
You have already recounted the environmental and economic
effects of the 2002 fires, so I will not elaborate on what is
already in our testimony.
With regard to the restoration and rehabilitation work, the
majority of the work that remains to be done is needed to
respond to the effects of the largest six to eight wildfires.
Through our burned area emergency rehabilitation program, the
Department of Agriculture has already invested $72 million and
the Department of the Interior has spent $78.1 million in
emergency restoration work in the areas that were affected.
The Interior Department and the Forest Service have
carryover in Fiscal Year 2003 budget resources that provide
another $50 million for continued restoration work, with more
that will be available from other accounts as we get further
along in developing our final long-term restoration and
recovery plans for the largest fires.
A season like 2002 raised, inevitably, a number of safety,
community preparedness and cost concerns. For instance, we have
done a review of our aircraft program and have enacted new
safety standards for contract firefighters. I believe that by
the time we conclude the review of the aircraft program, we
will have sufficient air attack resources available as the fire
season commences here in the southwest where it usually begins.
In addition, we have assisted over 11,000 communities in
prevention and provided over 5000 rural and volunteer fire
departments with training or equipment. And while no one would
call New York City either rural or remote, you should know that
last month we signed a memorandum of agreement with the Fire
Department of New York City to train them in the incident
command system. As part of their training, some of New York's
firefighters will be participating with us this summer in
firefighting efforts in the wildland area here in the West.
Probably you will be able to recognize them by their accents, I
would guess.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Rey. Costs of a year like 2002 are extraordinary, with
impacts on programs from which funds were borrowed. We thank
the Congress for providing us a repayment of those funds in the
2003 Omnibus Appropriations Act.
Those costs also spurred an inter-agency accountability
team to review expenditures on large fires and establish new
contract containment procedures and clarify financial
management provisions.
Now let me close by talking a little bit about 2003 and I
will illustrate this with a map, if someone will hold the map
for me.
Mr. McInnis. Mr. Rey, let me tell you, I have just been
advised of a complication we have and that is that we have a
fixed camera. So unfortunately, you are not on camera and since
we are trying to do this for the community, we really want to
do that. So if you would not mind moving to the podium with the
map and then wrap up your testimony--you have to move to the
podium itself.
And then for other witnesses while we are doing this,
unfortunately, that will also necessitate you giving your
testimony from the podium, versus from your seat. So in
sequence, if you would go up there.
And then one final thing, when we ask questions by the
Committee here, if all of you would stand at podium, then you
can take the question there. And the only reason I do this--I
really want the community to get a full picture of what we are
doing here.
Mr. Rey, you may conclude with your remarks.
Mr. Rey. The absence of my visage will not diminish the
quality of the hearing, I am sure.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Rey. 2003 is stacking up to be another very difficult
year. It looks a little bit better in the southwest, but a
little bit more difficult in the northern and central Rockies
and in the northern Great Lakes.
The areas in red hatches are areas where we believe that
there will be above-average potential for wildfires. The areas
in the green are where we believe there will be below average
potential for wildfires.
There is some good news and there is bad news in this map.
Some of the good news is that we will be able to do a lot of
our prescribed burning program on national forests in this part
of the country because we will have--
Mr. McInnis. Mr. Rey, if you will--again, sorry to
interrupt you, but I think this is very important. If you would
describe the geographical locations on the map since most of
the audience cannot see the map. If you would say down in the
Florida area or so on.
Mr. Rey. Right, down in the southeastern United States from
Texas through the Florida panhandle and up into North Carolina.
So there, we will have below average potential for wildfire.
Also, some good news is that the situation in the southwest
is mixed. New Mexico has been very wet in the last month,
Arizona is improving. It may be that our fire season will start
later in 2003 than it did in 2002.
Now on to the bad news and that is that the northern
Rockies--Montana, northern Idaho, Wyoming, eastern Oregon--are
looking at above-average potential for wildfires. So that means
that our fire season in 2002 which ended relatively early, will
probably extend into September and maybe even early October if
these trends continue.
These are crude scale maps, they are based upon snowpack,
stream flows, precipitation and fuel moistures, and they will
change as the year changes and unfolds. But this is what it
looks like at this point in time.
As Mr. Shadegg said, this is a difficult task with a lot of
problems associated with it that are daunting in their
magnitude.
I know when the President asked me to take this job, I said
a quiet prayer and said I hope that if I do this that I will be
able to serve in a time of budget surpluses and above-average
rainfall. And I am 0 for 2.
Thank you very much.
Mr. McInnis. Mr. Rey, you will note I let you go beyond the
5 minutes, that is because I want to treat you with kid gloves
so we get your airplanes out here. Get them fixed, get them in
the air.
Ms. Watson, The Honorable Rebecca Watson, U.S. Department
of the Interior. You may proceed.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE REBECCA W. WATSON, ASSISTANT
SECRETARY, LAND AND MINERAL MANAGEMENT, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE
INTERIOR
Ms. Watson. Thank you, I am very glad to be here. Good
morning to both Chairmen and members of the Committee. I am the
Assistant Secretary from the Department of the Interior. One of
the bureaus I administer is the Bureau of Land Management.
I am here today to talk about the Healthy Forests
Initiative and my role for the Department there as spokesperson
for the four bureaus in our Department that have concerns about
wildland fire. They are the National Park Service, the Fish &
Wildlife Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs and Bureau of Land
Management.
Interior has different lands, different missions than the
Forest Service does. We have the parks, we have wildlife
refuges and we also have more range and grass and woodland
landscapes than we do timber.
I come from western Montana and I lived through the fires
of 2000, so I share some of the experiences that members of the
Committee discussed today. I know the catastrophic effects that
can come from wildfire and that my state is still living with.
I want to talk a little bit about catastrophic fires and
the local communities here in Arizona. The Rodeo-Chediski fire
inflicted tremendous resource and economic impacts on the White
Mountain Apache Tribe. The fire killed about 60 percent of the
tribe's timber, resulting in a loss of investment and adversely
affecting long-term local employment opportunities in a
community that desperately needs its timber program.
Rehabilitation, restoration and salvage costs for the
Tribe's assets are high and they are vitally needed. I want to
announce today that as of this morning, I talked to the Budget
Office of Department of Interior; we are aware of the Tribe's
need for an additional $5 million for restoration and
stabilization, and we will provide that money. We have
reprogrammed the money and will provide that to the Tribe, so I
am pleased to announce that to the Chairman today.
Mr. McInnis. Now you get an extra minute for that.
[Laughter.]
Ms. Watson. Good.
I quickly want to just show some pictures before I get into
the Healthy Forests Initiative and what we have done in the
Administration, just to set the stage. It is a simple problem
to describe, but it is complex to implement, which is why we
are here.
This first picture is from my State of Montana, it is the
area where the fires of 2000 occurred. You see here what the
forests looked like in the 1880's and 1890's. This is what the
forests looked like in 1980, same cabin, densely covered with
trees. This is the forest--
Mr. McInnis. Rebecca, could you lift it up so we can get it
on camera too, I want the community to see it. Thank you.
Ms. Watson. This is the forest in the year 2000. The cabin
had been removed previously but the trees are now all black.
And that is what the problem is, over-dense forests.
It is just like any plant that you are familiar with,
plants need three things, they need sun, they need water and
they need soil nutrients. When you have 1000 trees competing
for those same resources versus the 50 that in historic times
were on these lands, it is not surprising the trees are thin,
disease-prone, insect-prone and go up in flames.
This is a picture from the Squires Fire in Oregon that we
heard about earlier. This is what wildfire looks like in an
untreated forest, it flames up and crowns.
Here is an example of what the forest looks like, the
results, after a fire like that. This is from Rodeo-Chediski,
these are black trees that result in an unthinned forest and
fire.
Again, we go back to the Squires Fire, this is an area that
had been treated. You see the fire dropping down to the ground,
clearing out the understory, not going up to the trees' crowns.
The last picture, again back to Rodeo-Chediski, this is an
example of a thinned forest after the fire, and you see green
trees, you see big trees remaining, mid-sized trees, and this
is what the forest looked like.
The last picture is one that is also up on the wall and it
is particularly revealing. It is a satellite image from the
Department of the Interior's USGS and it shows four green spots
across there. You can see them here, here, here and over there.
And those are areas that were treated. The red is what was not
treated and was burned in the Rodeo-Chediski fire. And I think
that is a compelling picture of what we are talking about in
the Healthy Forests Initiative.
The foundation for the Healthy Forests Initiative is the
10-Year Comprehensive Strategy and Implementation Plan that
will reduce risks of wildfire. And what makes that plan
unique--and you in Congress have voted a resolution in support
of it--is that it is a collaborative effort between states,
counties, Federal agencies and Tribes. Part of our
implementation of that is a recent agreement we just signed
between these entities to agree to a collaborative process to
prioritize and select fuels treatment projects. So it is
reaching out, it is not the Federal Government in isolation
deciding what projects should be done. We work together with
counties and states and interested parties to prioritize
projects for treatment.
Another step that we have done pursuant to the President's
directive is issuing two guidance documents to expedite
Endangered Species Act consultation. As you know, this problem
is large. The process can slow us down, as the Chairman
mentioned, process predicament. What we want to do here is meet
the legal requirements of the Endangered Species Act, but do it
in a smarter, more efficient way, so we issued two guidance
documents last fall to do that.
The Department of Interior and Forest Service have also
proposed an expedited use of the National Environmental Policy
Act, or NEPA. And here we have proposed two categorical
exclusions that can be used for hazardous fuel reduction. I
want to make it clear to you and the members of the public that
these are narrowly crafted categorical exclusions. Categorical
exclusions are a tool recognized by NEPA and these categorical
exclusions provide that they cannot be used in wilderness
areas, no herbicides or pesticides can be used, you can have no
new roads and there are no timber harvests unless hazardous
fuel reduction is the primary purpose. So, this is not an
expedited means to do timber harvests; it is something entirely
different.
Mr. McInnis. Rebecca, would you mind--excuse me again--just
very briefly for the benefit of our audience, describe what a
categorical exclusion is--very briefly.
Ms. Watson. Sure. The National Environmental Policy Act
requires Federal agencies to take a hard look at the
environmental consequences of any action they take, and you can
meet those requirements by either preparing an environmental
impact statement, which is a long, lengthy document; an
environmental assessment, which is a shorter document; or a
categorical exclusion. With categorical exclusions are is you
take a look at the same actions that have been done repeatedly.
If you see there are no environmental impacts, it repeatedly
comes back saying no, there is no impact, you do not need to
prepare an environmental impact statement, then you can have a
categorical exclusion. And you look at not just the individual
impact, but the cumulative effects. So these are actions that
have been done so many times that we know that they do not have
a significant environmental impact and so they are
categorically excluded or have a permit to go under NEPA.
Mr. McInnis. Thank you.
Ms. Watson. Another administrative action that we have done
for those cases where a categorical exclusion is not
appropriate is an environmental assessment document. The
Council on Environmental Quality, part of the White House, has
proposed a model environmental assessment. What it is trying to
test is, can we get back to the original intent of NEPA, to
have a focus document that people in the public can read and
understand and meaningfully participate in. So we have 15
projects around the country, Forest Service and BLM, and those
projects are designed to test whether or not a 20 to 35-page
environmental assessment will disclose impacts rather than what
we have seen in both agencies, environmental assessments
getting up to 300 pages and longer.
In addition, both agencies have proposed changes to their
administrative appeals processes. We want to expedite those, by
placing those appeals to the front of the line. It still, of
course, provides for public participation through that appeals
process, but we want to expedite the process and recognize the
emergency that our public lands are under.
We think these administrative proposals will facilitate
treatment of these lands. The problem is enormous, some 190
million acres of public land at risk of catastrophic wildfire.
Resources are limited, especially at this time in our country's
history. So we need to find tools to address this problem.
These administrative tools are part of that solution. I want to
take this opportunity to thank Congress for a very important
tool we just received through the Omnibus Appropriations Act,
which is stewardship contracting. We at Department of the
Interior have now received this authority for the first time
for the Bureau of Land Management, and it has been extended for
the Forest Service. We want to thank Congress for that, we
think it is going to be very important and also want to assure
the public that we are going to implement stewardship contract
authority with their input. We are already reaching out to the
Governors, to the counties and to other interested members of
the public on how to craft the guidance surrounding our use of
stewardship contracting.
Finally, I want to just mention legislation briefly. The
President endorsed legislation at the end of August and the
President's proposed 2004 budget sent forward proposals
designed to accomplish timely and efficient implementation.
We look forward to working with this Committee in a
bipartisan fashion, as you fashion Healthy Forests Initiative
legislation. So thank you.
Mr. McInnis. Thank you, Rebecca. I appreciate the substance
of your comments. I would add that Mr. Renzi will probably
mosey on over to your desk and look for a check to present to
the tribe there.
[Laughter.]
Mr. McInnis. He has been on that. Thank you very much.
Next, I would like to introduce The Honorable Gene Kelley,
the Mayor of Show Low. Thank you, Mayor, for coming over, we
appreciate it; thank you for letting us in your area. I know
you had a trying summer. You may proceed.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Rey and Ms. Watson follows:]
Statement of Mark Rey, Under Secretary, Natural Resources and the
Environment, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and Rebecca Watson,
Assistant Secretary, Land and Minerals Management, U.S. Department of
the Interior
Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, thank you for the
opportunity to meet with you today. Since the Department of the
Interior and the Department of Agriculture work closely together in
fire management and in implementing the National Fire Plan, it is
appropriate to use one statement to talk about the 2002 wildland fire
season, and discuss our work on the National Fire Plan and the
President's Healthy Forest Initiative. President Bush's proposed
Healthy Forests Initiative is based upon a common-sense approach to
reducing the threat of catastrophic wildfires by restoring forest and
rangeland health. Our goal is to ensure the long-term safety and health
of communities and natural resources in our care. Our responsibility is
to ensure the long-term health of our forests and rangelands for the
use, benefit and enjoyment of our citizens and for generations to come.
But first, we would like to congratulate you, Chairman Pombo, on
assuming the leadership of the Resources Committee. We also want to
thank you, Chairman McInnis, for your aggressive attention to the
issue. We look forward to working with you and the Committee. As we
move into the 2003 fire season, fighting wildland fires is only one
aspect of the work we must do to protect communities; we must also
reduce the amount of hazardous fuels, and restore healthy ecosystems to
protect communities and our natural resources.
NATIONAL FIRE PLAN
With the fire adapted ecosystems of North America, we have the
challenging task of reducing fuels and the vulnerability of our
communities to wildfire while restoring the health of our forests and
rangelands. This challenge is national and long term in scope. Of the
three factors that most influence wildland fire behavior--weather,
topography, and fuel- land managers can effectively impact only fuel.
Since the severe 2000 wildland fire season, Congress has funded the
National Fire Plan for Federal agencies to work on a long-term program
to reduce fire risk and restore healthy fire-adapted ecosystems in the
Nation's forests and rangelands. Federal agency field units, States,
Tribes, and other partners have been busy, putting into action the
concepts of the National Fire Plan. Bipartisan Congressional support
provided the funding necessary in 2002 for 17,400 Federal fire
employees and thousands of contract fire personnel to prevent, detect,
and suppress wildland fires, treat hazardous fuels, and provide
leadership for the organizations. In 2002, despite the severe drought,
the Forest Service and the Department of the Interior accomplished a
total of 2.2 million acres of hazardous fuels reduction; of that,
almost 1 million acres were in the wildland urban interface. This is
168,000 acres more than 2001. We also reduced hazardous fuels on
slightly more than 1million additional acres through wildland fire use.
For 2003, we anticipate treating 2.5 million acres of hazardous fuels
of which 1.1 million acres are in the wildland urban interface.
Recently, the Forest Service, Department of the Interior, National
Association of State Foresters and National Association of Counties
agreed to a collaborative process to identify fuels treatments. In
order to more expeditiously protect communities and improve forest and
rangeland health, the parties agreed to coordinate this process across
ownerships and jurisdictions.
2002 FIRE SEASON
The 2002 wildland fire season was intense, difficult, and historic.
Long-term drought over most of the West contributed to an earlier and
very severe fire season. Of the 7.2 million acres burned in 2002, only
a few wildfires were the large, uncontrolled fires seen on television.
These were the fires that burned in and around wildland-urban interface
areas requiring extensive evacuations of communities, subdivisions, and
ranches. Fire activity was intensified by unfavorable weather
conditions and in many situations posed a safety threat to firefighters
and members of the public.
When we realized the potential severity of the 2002 wildland fire
season, we hired seasonal firefighters early and we staged firefighting
crews and equipment in locations where they could be mobilized quickly
and effectively. Federal wildland fire agencies had enhanced initial
attack capabilities in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Montana, and
Nevada by pre-positioning resources ranging from air tankers, to hand
crews, to engines in strategic locations. Although several fires were
devastatingly large, the additional resources made a difference in
reducing the size of many of the fires. Without the added National Fire
Plan support, our response would not have been as strong. Initial
attack suppression activities were highly successful, as about 98% of
2002 wildfires were stopped during initial attack. We sustained 62 days
of Preparedness Level 5, our highest level of activity; 22 days longer
than the 2000 wildland fire season, another record year. Modular
Airbourne Firefighting System military C-130 aircraft were based in
Colorado, Utah, Washington, Idaho, and California and dropped more than
1.6 million gallons of fire retardant on wildfires burning on these
areas. One battalion from the U.S. Army, Task Force Destroyer (1/5 FA
1st Battalion, 5th Regiment) Fort Riley, Kansas was also assigned for
30 days. International firefighting assistance was provided by Canada,
Australia, and New Zealand. These international resources provided a
total of thirty-nine 20-person hand crews and 131 overhead or
management personnel assisted in fire suppression activities across the
West.
ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS OF WILDFIRE
For most of the twentieth century, all wildland fires were thought
to be bad. As a result, fires were suppressed as soon as possible to
reduce their negative effect. Aggressive fire suppression was effective
but had an unintended consequence. The frequency and intensity of
wildfires appears to have increased due to the buildup of fuels such as
dead and dying trees and dense growth of flammable vegetation. Fire
exclusion resulted in woody species encroachment into shrublands and
grasslands, altered wildlife diversity and populations through habitat
modification, and increased disease and insect infestations. This build
up of fuel coupled with other factors like drought have raised
increasing concerns about the overall wildland condition and
particularly the health of the forest and rangelands.
These conditions of increased fuel and severe drought have resulted
in increasingly large and severe wildland fires. Damage to watersheds,
wildlife habitat, air quality, erosion, and old-growth forests are the
undesirable effects of large and severe fires. These fires are costly
and increasingly difficult to control.
However, where the natural fire return interval has been maintained
through prescribed burning or where the buildup of fuels, such as thick
understory and dense trees, have been thinned by environmentally sound
forest management practices, these wildfires can be beneficial. This is
particularly so in plant communities that have historically experienced
frequent low severity fires such as ponderosa pine. Low intensity fires
generally leave the soil intact, recycle nutrients, and stimulate the
regeneration of many beneficial plant species. These fires often create
a patchy mosaic on the landscape, increasing the overall biological
diversity or health of the area.
2002 REHABILITATION AND RESTORATION
Rehabilitation and restoration are critical parts of responding to
the aftermath of wildfire. These efforts focus on lands unlikely to
recover quickly and naturally from wildfire. Rehabilitation activities
generally take several years and include reforestation, watershed
restoration, road and trail rehabilitation, noxious weed control, and
fish and wildlife habitat restoration. Native plants and trees are used
whenever possible.
The majority of the work needed to be accomplished for Fiscal Year
2003 results from the negative fire effects such as erosion,
sedimentation, downstream flooding, and spread of noxious weeds, from
the Rodeo/Chediski, Hayman, McNally, Biscuit, and Tiller Fires of 2002.
Some of the previous commitments we have made for rehabilitation work
resulting from fires of 2000 include the watershed and road work
provided for in the Bitterroot Settlement agreement and completing the
reforestation efforts that are already underway with the nurseries.
Through Burned Area Emergency Rehabilitation (BAER) Plans in 2002,
$72 million was authorized for immediate emergency stabilization after
fires. This post-fire work focuses on preventing additional damage to
the land, and minimizing threats to life or property resulting from the
effects of fire. This work typically begins before the fire is
completely contained and is generally accomplished within the first
year after the fire. The longer rehabilitation efforts follow this
emergency stabilization work.
Like the Forest Service, the Department of the Interior experienced
a demanding workload for stabilizing and rehabilitating burned areas
after wildfires. Interior made $78.5 million available for emergency
stabilization and burned area rehabilitation last year, with $15
million carrying over to continue stabilization efforts this year. The
carryover from Fiscal Year 2002 plus the Fiscal Year 2003 appropriation
will provide the Department with $35 million for emergency
stabilization and rehabilitation in Fiscal Year 2003. This funding has
been targeted to priority projects to protect public health and safety,
protect municipal water supplies, threatened and endangered species
habitat, and prevent invasive plant establishment.
SAFETY
We thank you and your Committee for your support of the men and
women who make up our firefighting corps. Our firefighters do an
impressive job under adverse conditions and they deserve our thanks and
admiration. Firefighting is a high risk, high consequence activity.
Following the Thirty-Mile Fire tragedy in July 2001, where four
firefighters lost their lives, we reexamined our safety programs and
made a number of improvements. Through training and reinforcement, we
are emphasizing management of firefighter fatigue, use of the 10
Standard Fire Orders and the 18 Watch Out situations. We have revamped
our training to include findings and lessons learned from the
Thirtymile incident. Firefighter briefings now include standard
components that address planned suppression operations, hazards and
risks, critical fuels and weather conditions, and other crucial
information. We have an improved fire shelter which is used as a ``last
resort'' tool and a key component of fire fighter safety equipment.
Despite our efforts, there were 23 fire-related Federal, states, or
volunteer fatalities in the 2002 wildland fire season. Over half the
fatalities were contractors to Federal agencies; most of the fatalities
were the result of vehicle accidents, some attributed to fatigue.
Therefore, we are including in Fiscal Year 2003 contracts Federal
firefighter work-rest guidelines to minimize fatigue for contracted
firefighters and support personnel. Six fatalities resulted from 3
aviation accidents. The Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management
commissioned an aviation blue-ribbon panel that surveyed the aviation
program and made factual findings. Based on the findings, the Forest
Service made several changes to the aviation program, including
extensive inspections of airtankers as well as grounding other aircraft
until air worthiness can be assured. In addition, Sandia Lab in
Albuquerque is developing increased aircraft safety criteria for Forest
Service contracted aircraft.
WHAT COMMUNITIES CAN DO
More than 2,000 structures were lost to wildfires last year. Of the
structures destroyed, 835 were primary residences, 46 were commercial
properties, and 1,500 were outbuildings. Communities can help
themselves to prevent this sort of loss in the future. Indeed, with our
State Forester partners through the State Fire Assistance program, we
assisted over 11,000 communities by developing local projects on fire
prevention, fire suppression, hazard mitigation, and creating FIREWISE
communities. In 2002, both Departments helped over 5,000 rural and
volunteer fire departments by providing training, protective fire
clothing, and firefighting equipment through the Volunteer and Rural
Fire Assistance programs. Additional efforts will promote partnerships,
community action plans, and projects where communities can themselves
reduce fuel hazards, improve building codes, and create fire resistant
landscapes.
National fire prevention teams were activated throughout the year
in many Western states where fire danger was extreme. Teams were
dispatched for month-long assignments to assist local resources in
assessing human-caused fire starts. Once assessments are complete,
these trained fire prevention professionals prepare a site-specific
strategy of unique fire prevention solutions for the area. Fire
prevention teams were placed in Salt Lake City, UT, Santa Fe, NM,
Custer, SD, Seattle, WA, Sequoia National Forest, CA, and Colorado
Springs and Durango, CO.
In addition, citizens can take action through the FIREWISE program,
which helps people who live or vacation in fire-prone areas educate
themselves about wildland fire protection. Homeowners can learn how to
protect their homes with a survivable space and how to landscape their
yard with fire resistant materials. A consortium of wildland fire
agencies that include the Forest Service, the Department of the
Interior, and the National Association of State Foresters sponsors the
program.
COSTS
There is no question that fighting these fires was expensive--the
total cost for both Departments was almost $1.6 billion. The Forest
Service transferred approximately $1 billion from other accounts to
fund fire suppression costs. We want to thank Congress for acting upon
the Administration's request and repayment. $636 million was
appropriated in the Fiscal Year 2003 Omnibus Appropriations Act. Every
effort will be made to repay these as quickly as possible. The Forest
Service has established a priority process to repay the accounts from
which funds were transferred, and every effort will be made to repay
these in a timely fashion.
Interior also had emergency wildfire response costs that exceeded
funding available within the fire management appropriation by more than
$250 million last year. The Secretary transferred $240 million from the
construction and land acquisition accounts of the land management
bureaus and BIA to cover most of the additional costs for emergency
suppression and stabilization. The fire program also reprogrammed $14
million intended for fire facility maintenance and construction and
hazardous fuels reduction projects.
Recent criticism of how the Forest Service and the Department of
the Interior spend funds to suppress wildfire is of great concern to
the Departments and the agencies. In response to criticisms that
occurred during this past fire season, Forest Service Chief Dale
Bosworth in cooperation with Interior agencies promptly dispatched an
accountability team to review specific expenses and policies that may
have contributed to unnecessary expenditures on large fires. As a
result of this and other interagency efforts, new procedures have been
established that will focus on cost containment strategies in
suppressing wildfire and eliminating unnecessary expenses; establish
clearer financial management accountability of incident commanders and
line officers; and provide for improved controls and incentives for
suppression costs.
Additionally, the Forest Service and the Department of the Interior
will fully implement performance measures in cooperation with the
Department of the Interior that reflect the level of risk reduced by
treatments as part of the interagency effort to increase accountability
of Federal wildland fire management efforts.
In implementing these performance measures, it is important to
emphasize that firefighter safety and the protection of communities
will not be compromised. As we focus on an efficient wildland
firefighting organization, we must not lose sight of the fact that fire
suppression often is an expensive operation where major costs will be
most substantially reduced by accomplishing the goals of the
President's Healthy Forests Initiative and the National Fire Plan.
2003 SEASONAL WILDLAND FIRE OUTLOOK
At this time, our experts at the National Interagency Coordination
Center (NICC) in Boise, Idaho, indicate that long term drought persists
and is expected to intensify over much of the interior West. Mountain
snow pack and precipitation remains below average for most of the
western states with the exception of northern and central California.
The outlook for February through April calls for above normal
temperatures and below normal precipitation over the Pacific Northwest,
Northern Rockies, portions of the Great Lakes, and the Ohio River
Valley. Unless the weather patterns provide relief, 2003 has the
potential for an above normal fire season in these areas, especially in
the interior West.
Drought conditions and dense vegetation increase the risk of
wildfires that burn longer, faster, and more intensely. We know that
fire historically played a positive role in sustaining ecological
stability. Where appropriate, we will manage wildland fire use as
prescribed in land and resource management plans. However, because of
the degraded condition of many forests and grasslands, use of fire for
forest management has become much more complex. It requires scientific
support and new tools to help plan, implement and monitor fire
management activities. One of these tools is the President's Healthy
Forest Initiative.
THE PRESIDENT'S HEALTHY FOREST INITIATIVE
In May 2002, working with the Western Governors' Association and a
broad cross-section of interests including county commissioners, state
foresters, tribal officials and other stakeholders, we reached
consensus on a 10-Year Comprehensive Strategy and Implementation Plan
to reduce fire risks to communities and the environment. The plan sets
forth the blueprint for making communities and the environment safer
from destructive wildfires. The plan calls for active forest management
focusing on hazardous fuels reduction both in the wildland-urban
interface and across the broader landscape. Active forest management
includes: thinning trees from over-dense stands that produce commercial
or pre-commercial products, biomass removal and utilization, and
prescribed fire and other fuels reduction tools. We want to thank you,
Chairman Pombo, Chairman McInnis, and the members of the House of
Representatives, for initiating and passing House Concurrent Resolution
352 endorsing the Collaborative 10-Year Strategy.
In order for the 10-Year Implementation Plan to succeed, the Forest
Service and Interior agencies must be able to implement critical fuels
reduction and restoration projects associated with the plan goals in a
timely manner. Often, however, the agencies are constrained by
procedural requirements and litigation that delay actual on-the-ground
implementation. As we testified last September, the three factors most
contributing to project delay are: 1) excessive analysis; 2)
ineffective public involvement; and 3) management inefficiencies. We
have reached a point where we must change to allow agencies to
implement management decisions to achieve healthy forests and
rangelands.
On August 22, 2002, President Bush announced Healthy Forests: An
Initiative for Wildfire Prevention and Stronger Communities. The
Healthy Forest Initiative would implement core components of the 10-
Year Implementation Plan, enhancing and facilitating the work and
collaboration agreed to in that document.
The President's initiative directs us, together with Council on
Environmental Quality Chairman Connaughton, to: improve procedures for
collaborative selection and implementation of fuels treatments and
forest and rangeland restoration projects; reduce the number of
overlapping environmental reviews; develop guidance for weighing the
short-term risks against the long-term benefits of fuels treatment and
restoration projects; and develop guidance to ensure consistent NEPA
procedures for fuels treatment activities and restoration activities.
We will report today on several actions the Secretaries have taken to
accomplish these objectives.
ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS
The USDA Forest Service and the Department of Interior have
proposed two categorical exclusions that can be utilized across
jurisdictional boundaries by Federal agencies engaged in hazardous fuel
reduction and post-wildfire resource and infrastructure rehabilitation.
These two categorical exclusions were based on an analysis of over
3,000 hazardous fuel reduction and post-wildfire restoration projects.
Our analysis of these activities has shown that these types of narrowly
defined actions have not resulted in individually or cumulatively
significant environmental impacts, and therefore, may be conducted
without preparation of an environmental assessment or environmental
impact statement. We expect to publish final categorical exclusions
later this year.
A categorical exclusion may not always be the appropriate level of
analysis; each project is different and some may not meet the criteria
for use of a CE. Therefore, CEQ Chairman, Jim L. Connaughton, has
issued guidance which clarifies the policy on the preparation of
environmental assessments for fuels treatments. The clarification
addresses the purpose and content of a model Environmental Assessment
for fuels treatments. The guidance is being applied initially to ten
Interior and five Forest Service projects to test the adequacy of the
model EA to address the impacts typically found in fuels treatment
projects. Process lessons learned in developing these projects will be
shared widely throughout all agencies for application to additional
projects.
The Forest Service has proposed revising its implementing
regulations under the Appeals Reform Act. Proposed changes are designed
to encourage early and meaningful public participation in project
planning, rather than focusing the public on review of a completed EA
and on appeal of a decision after it has been made. The proposal gives
the line officer discretion over the timing of the 30-day notice and
comment period, rather than requiring that it take place after the
environmental assessment is complete. There would also be limitations
on appeals based on early project involvement and on raising new issues
that had not previously been raised. A final policy is expected to be
published later this year.
The Department of the Interior's Office of Hearings and Appeals
(OHA) and the BLM are proposing a series of changes to their
administrative rules, to streamline their appeals process for hazardous
fuels treatment projects. Interior wants to ensure that appeals from
decisions involving either forest or rangeland health are resolved
quickly without depriving the public of the right to participate in the
administrative process. Frequently, delaying a project can be the same
as stopping a project. The proposed rules would require OHA to resolve
any appeal involving forest or rangeland health within sixty days from
the filing of all paperwork from the parties. Forest and rangeland
health appeals will not be subject to any different standards than
other types of appeals. Under this proposal, they must simply be
handled first. The proposed rules also contain a number of technical
changes that will allow OHA to do its job more efficiently and apply
rules more consistently.
The Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration issued a joint guidance memo on Endangered
Species Act Section 7 consultation in October, 2002. It emphasizes the
use of programmatic interagency consultation under the Endangered
Species Act for Healthy Forests Initiative projects. It also emphasizes
the grouping of multiple projects into one consultation. These agencies
also issued joint guidance in December, 2002 providing direction on how
to fully consider and balance potential short- and long-term beneficial
and adverse impacts to endangered species when evaluating proposed
Healthy Forests Initiative projects.
In addition to these Healthy Forests Initiative actions, the Forest
Service has proposed the addition of three new timber harvest
categorical exclusions (CEs) to its authorities. Projects would include
limited timber harvesting of live trees, salvage harvests, and
sanitation of dead and dying trees for insect and disease control.
Projects of this nature occur routinely as part of managing National
Forest System lands.
LEGISLATIVE ACTIONS
In August, 2002, the Administration endorsed legislation to
implement the Healthy Forest Initiative. Recently, the Congress passed
the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2003 [PL 108-7]. Section 323 of the
Act contains stewardship contracting language that includes the Bureau
of Land Management and extends authority through Fiscal Year 2013 for
the Forest Service to enter into long-term stewardship contracts with
the private sector, non-profit organizations, local communities, and
other entities. Long-term contracts provide contractors the opportunity
to invest in equipment and infrastructure needed to productively use
material generated from forest thinning to make forest products or to
produce energy. The stewardship contracting provision does not provide
any authority to enter into long-term contacts that the Forest Service
did not already have under the National Forest Management Act. The
Departments are currently developing public involvement methods and are
working with the state Governors, counties and interested parties to
develop procedures to implement the Act.
As the Committee knows, the President's budget included proposals
for the Healthy Forest Initiative. We thank the Committee for their
bipartisan efforts to pass Healthy Forest legislation in the last
Congress. We look forward to working with your Committee to develop
Healthy Forest legislation and pledge our cooperation.
SUMMARY
With the outlook for an upcoming severe fire season, the five
Federal land-managing agencies and our partners at the State and local
level are doing all that we can to be prepared. Safety of firefighters
and communities is our first priority. With the fire adapted ecosystems
of North America, we have the challenging task of reducing fuels and
the vulnerability of our communities to wildfire while restoring the
health of our forests and rangelands. This challenge is national and
long term in scope. The 10-Year Implementation Plan and the Wildland
Fire Leadership Council will continue to foster cooperation and
communication among Federal agencies, States, local governments,
Tribes, and interested groups and citizens. With your continued help,
all the agencies can accomplish robust performance-based programs for
the nation's forests and rangelands, and do so in full collaboration
with state governments, communities, Congress and the American people.
We look forward to working with you in implementing the agency's
programs and would be happy to answer any questions.
______
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE EUGENE KELLEY, MAYOR, SHOW LOW,
ARIZONA
Mr. Kelley. The thank you should come from me to you. Mr.
Chairman, members of the Subcommittee, I do thank you for the
opportunity to testify before you today.
Last year, the Rodeo-Chediski fire was something that none
of us ever want to see repeated. The fire experts from the Type
1 team told us on Saturday that our city would surely overburn,
all fire science said that was what was going to happen. We
evacuated the city and on Sunday, we were spared the most
certain forecast, by the intervention of our good Lord
providing us with 48 percent humidity and most favorable winds
that took the fire out of the crown of the trees and put it on
the ground. Please do not misunderstand me, we also owe our
gratitude to over 5000 firefighters that were able to jump this
fire and within hours have it under control within less than
one quarter mile of our city limits and our homes.
As the Mayor of Show Low, I am most grateful that Show Low
was spared the devastation. I know that I speak for our entire
community when I express my sincere condolences to our
neighboring communities who experienced great losses. I express
our collective gratitude to everyone involved in suppressing
this fire. I especially thank those in the Forest Service and
the White Mountain Apache Tribe for the countless acres of
their land that was thinned prior to the fire. We believe that
this effort ultimately protected Show Low. In particular, Rick
Lupe's team and dedicated fire crew deserves a lot of credit
for saving Show Low and our neighboring communities. We are
forever in their debt.
The City of Show Low has been concerned for years that what
happened last summer was a possibility. we have worked hard and
long in an effort to prepare our community for the possibility
of such a disaster. For years before the Rodeo-Chediski fire,
we have been involved in forest health issues and focused on
the need to thin our forests to restore them to their natural,
pre-settlement state.
Since the fire, we have embarked upon a number of thinning
projects on city property in an attempt to set an example for
private property owners. It is our believe we will have
completed before peak of fire season the thinning of all city-
owned and controlled property within our city limits.
In addition, Show Low's City 4 Television has done a number
of programs on the importance of protecting our homes and
businesses from the threat of wildfire with firewise
landscaping.
We have coordinated with the University of Arizona
Cooperative Extension, the Northern Arizona University School
of Forestry and the Ecological Restoration Institute. These
groups developed and implemented the Blue Ridge Demonstration
Project, 17,000 acres of forest land adjacent to the
communities of Pinetop-Lakeside, our neighbors to the south.
This project has demonstrated that all the interested parties
can work productively together. A special debt of gratitude is
owed Senator Jon Kyl, who was responsible for directing a
significant amount of funding toward this project.
Currently there is an area south of Show Low and east of
Highway 60 that has been designated as most critical to the
protection of Show Low and much of the White Mountains. This
area must be treated if we are to be protected and our
communities from the forest fire possibilities. We have been
informed by our friends at the Forest Service that money for
the project will not be available to put work forces on the
ground until May or June. If they start the project in May or
June, they may well be shut down because they are a threat of
ignition. Trying to be creative, thinking outside the box,
using some common sense, the City Council of Show Low recently
unanimously voted to lend the Federal Government $300,000 to
facilitate that thinning project on approximately 600 to 1000
acres of forest land. Unfortunately, the Federal Government has
no mechanism in place to be able to take advantage of our
offer.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Kelley. We were only going to charge interest at the
rate of zero, and expected the money to be paid back when they
were funded this year. We find this to be a very frustrating
catch-22. We continue to pursue the project through political
means and today's hearing is part of that process. I do have a
pleasant ending. In just a moment, I will share it with you.
We have had much success convincing homeowners and business
owners of the importance of saving the forests in our community
by cleaning up their own property. The Show Low Council has
passed two resolutions in support of forest health and fire
protection, landscaping within our community, and we are in the
process of preparing an ordinance that would address those
issues.
I was here prepared to recommend to this Committee go back
to Washington and develop a mechanism to handle this little
catch-22 to possibly save Show Low, Pinetop-Lakeside and many
key parts of the reservation. I do not need to ask you to do
that, because moments before this hearing began, Secretary Rey
informed me that the problem had been solved internally and
within 2 weeks the money would be in the Show Low area to let
the contract and the prediction then would be the project will
be completed before peak fire season.
Therefore, I change my recommendation specifically to you
and ask that you go back to Washington and put into place a
mechanism that will cause our forests to be managed by good,
scientifically proven methods that we know work, and to stop
forest management by lawsuit that oftentimes it appears
represents less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the people of
this country's interest. Therefore, that is my challenge to
you, gentlemen.
Thank you for your time.
Mr. McInnis. Thank you, Mayor, I appreciate that. And Mr.
Rey, once again, thank you for your assistance in the
difficulty that we had with Show Low.
I would also like to highlight one of the Mayor's comments,
and that was the thousands of firefighters that came to our
assistance. As you know, a lot of these people are young,
vibrant people and they were of great assistance. And today, if
you see a Forest Service employee, BLM, Parks or local fire
department--we have several people in the crowd--pat them on
the back, we appreciate the good job you did last year.
[The prepared statement of Mayor Kelley follows:]
Statement of The Honorable Gene Kelley, Mayor, City of Show Low,
Arizona
Last year's Rodeo-Chediski fire was something that none of us ever
want to see repeated. As the Mayor of Show Low I am most grateful that
Show Low was spared the devastation. I know that I speak for our entire
community when I express my sincerest condolences to our neighboring
communities who experienced great losses. I express our collective
gratitude to everyone involved in the suppression of this fire. A
special thanks goes to the Forest Service and the White Mountain Apache
Tribe for the countless acres of their land that was thinned prior to
the fire. We believe that this effort ultimately protected Show Low. In
particular, Rick Lupe and his dedicated crew deserve a lot of the
credit for saving Show Low and our neighboring communities. We are
forever in their debt.
The City of Show Low has been concerned for years that what
happened last summer was a possibility. We have worked hard and long in
an effort to prepare our community for the possibility of such a
disaster. For years before the Rodeo-Chediski fire we have been
involved in forest health issues that focused on the need to thin our
forests to restore them to their natural state.
During the winter and spring prior to the fire, the City of Show
Low was very heavily involved in Navajo County efforts aimed at
preparing our collective communities for the possibility of a
catastrophic wildfire. The City of Show Low developed a ``Surviving a
wildfire...are you prepared?'' Brochure that we believe led to a very
effective evacuation of Show Low once that became necessary. In
addition, the City was involved in many efforts aimed at preparing our
residents for the very real possibility of a wildfire. The City of Show
Low sponsored a community fire preparedness forum in the spring of
2002. It was well received by the community and helped us spread the
message of the importance of preparedness. That forum aired live on
City 4 Television, our city-sponsored cable station.
Prior to the fire the City had begun some projects to remove dead
trees on City property in an attempt to mitigate the bark beetle
problem and in the process reduce the fire danger. Since the fire, we
have embarked upon a number of thinning projects on City property in an
attempt to set the example for private property owners.
In addition, City 4 Television has done a number of programs on the
importance of protecting our homes and businesses from the threats of
wildfire with firewise landscaping. One program in particular
documented the effect that firewise landscaping had on a home in
Timberland Acres, one of the areas hit hardest by the fire. By
following the simple guidelines provided by the Firewise program, a
family was able to save their home while the homes of their neighbors
were lost.
We have coordinated with University of Arizona Cooperative
Extension, the Northern Arizona University School of Forestry, and the
Ecological Restoration Institute. Six years ago we were a partner in
the formation of the White Mountain Natural Resources working group, to
bring together all interested parties involved in the natural resources
debate and identify workable solutions to forest health concerns in
both the community forest and the Apache Sitgreaves National Forest.
The group developed and implemented the Blue Ridge Demonstration
Project on 17,000 acres of forest service land adjacent to the
community of Pinetop-Lakeside. This project has demonstrated that all
the interested parties can work together productively. To date 5000 of
the 17,000 acres have been effectively treated. The treatments
implemented south and west of Show Low, that enabled firefighters to
keep the Rodeo-Chediski Fire out of Show Low, Pinetop-Lakeside, and
beyond, were modeled after these successful treatments conducted on the
Blue Ridge Demonstration Project. A special debt of gratitude is owed
Senator Jon Kyl who was responsible for directing a significant amount
of funding towards the this project.
Another very positive result of the Natural Resource Working Group
and the Blue Ridge Demonstration Project has been the designation of
the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest as a County Partnership
Restoration (CPR) Program pilot forest. Funding for this pilot is in
the current National Fire Plan. This program includes the local
communities as partners in the forest restoration and management,
planning and implementation process.
There is an area south of Show Low that has been designated as an
area critical to the protection of Show Low and much of the White
Mountains. That area must be treated if we are to protect our
communities and forests from another catastrophic fire. We have been
informed by our friends at the Forest Service that money for that
project will not be available until May or June. If they can't start
that project until the funding is available in May or June there is a
good chance they will have to shut the project down (if they ever get
started) because of the onset of the fire season. In response to that
news the Show Low City Council recently voted unanimously to lend the
Federal Government $300,000 to facilitate that thinning project on
approximately 600--1000 acres of Forest Service land. Unfortunately,
the Federal Government has no mechanism in place to be able to take
advantage of our offer. We find this to be a very frustrating catch-22
situation. We continue to pursue this project through political means
and today's hearing is part of that process.
We have had much success convincing homeowners and business owners
of the importance of saving the forests in our own communities by
cleaning up their own property. The Show Low City Council has passed
two resolutions in support of forest health and fire protective
landscaping within our community. We are in the process of preparing an
ordinance that would address those issues. Now, we need your support in
making it possible for the Forest Service to have the necessary funds
available for critical projects on public lands like this one.
I would recommend that this Committee go back to Washington D.C.
and develop a mechanism to implement the solution that we have
outlined. Find a way to break the impasse now. We need your support in
giving us the opportunity to make a difference in our own community and
throughout the White Mountains. Words cannot express how important and
essential this project is to protecting our communities.
______
[Attachments to Mr. Kelley's statement follow:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5487.001
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5487.002
CITY OF SHOW LOW
STAFF SUMMARY REPORT
DATE: May 30, 2002
TO: Mayor and City Council
FROM: Ed Muder, Planning and Zoning Director
AGENDA TITLE: LCONSIDERATION OF RESOLUTION NO. 954--ADOPTING A TREE
POLICY
RECOMMENDATION
Staff recommends that the City Council MOVE to adopt Resolution No.
954.
BACKGROUND
Over the past several months the White Mountain Community Forest
Task Force, comprised of members from the communities of Pinetop-
Lakeside and Show Low, Navajo County, real estate and insurance
industry representatives, the University of Arizona Cooperative
Extension Service, and a community forester recently hired by Show Low,
Pinetop-Lakeside, and Navajo County, met with the goal of developing a
tree policy. The final draft of the proposed policy was completed March
22, 2002 with the intention that Pinetop-Lakeside, Show Low and Navajo
County would present the draft to their respective boards and councils
for consideration.
Attached is Resolution No. 954 which would have the effect of
adopting the tree policy recommended by the task force. The policy
would serve as a guide for the adoption of ordinances relating to tree
management and maintenance. The communities and Navajo County are
proposing to work together in developing ordinances that would be
consistent throughout all of the forested areas in Navajo County.
Attachments
CITY OF SHOW LOW RESOLUTION NO. 954
a resolution of the mayor and council of the city of show low, arizona
adopting a tree policy as recommended by the white mountain community
forest task force
RECITALS:
WHEREAS, the most significant reasons that people are attracted to the
White Mountains of Arizona are the mountains, forests, lakes
and streams, moderate summer climate and rural setting; and
WHEREAS, most people living in this area value these attractions and
have strong convictions regarding their conservation; and
WHEREAS the current biomass accumulation and fuel ladder development
present an increased potential for catastrophic crown fires;
and
WHEREAS, fires of this nature would have a tremendous negative effect
on those very attractions for which people live or vacation
here; and
WHEREAS, recent fires in the Ponderosa pine forest in the Southwest and
elsewhere have put a tremendous financial burden on the Nation
Forest Service and taxpayers; and
WHEREAS, for these reasons, the White Mountain Community Forest Task
Force strongly recommends that the attached Tree Policy be
adopted and that the communities of Show Low and Pinetop-
Lakeside, and Navajo County, work together to develop
consistent ordinances based on these guidelines.
ENACTMENTS:
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Mayor and Council of the City
of Show Low, Arizona hereby adopts the attached Tree Policy,
recommended by the White Mountain Community Forest Task Force,
be adopted and that the communities of Show Low and Pinetop-
Lakeside, and Navajo County, work together to develop
consistent ordinances based on these guidelines
PASSED AND ADOPTED this 4th day of June, 2002, by the Mayor and Council
of the City of Show Low, Arizona.
/signed/ Gene Kelley, Mayor
ATTEST:
/signed/ Elizabeth A. Burke, City Clerk
APPROVED AS TO FORM:
/signed/ Michael J. Brown, City Attorney
TREE POLICY DRAFT--March 22, 2002
updated march 29, april 9 and may 5, 2002
People are attracted to the White Mountains of Arizona for a
variety of reasons. The most significant of these include the
mountains, forests, lakes and streams, moderate summer climate and
rural setting. Most people living in this area value these attractions
and have strong convictions regarding their conservation. History tells
us that many dramatic changes have occurred in the Ponderosa pine
forest ecosystem over the past 120 years. The current biomass
accumulation and fuel ladder development present an increased potential
for catastrophic crown fires. Fires of this nature would have a
tremendous negative effect on those very attractions for which people
live or vacation here. Recent fires in the Ponderosa pine forest in the
Southwest and elsewhere have put a tremendous financial burden on the
National Forest Service and taxpayers.
For these reasons, the White Mountain Community Forest Task Force
strongly recommends that the following goals be considered for adoption
of consistent ordinances by the communities of Show Low and Pinetop-
Lakeside and Navajo County. The communities should further work
together on an ongoing basis.
Maintenance
A. LThe urban forest environment shall be maintained in an
ecologically sound condition with particular emphasis on forest health,
wildlife habitat, and wildfire prevention by implementing policies and
programs to reduce the risk of a catastrophic urban wildfire. A
community forester or other designated individual shall have general
oversight over the maintenance of trees by promoting tree health and
determining the elimination of fuel laddering whenever possible. Tree
maintenance may include pruning, fertilizing, watering, insect and
disease control, removal or thinning or other tree care activities.
Maintenance may be accomplished by the resident, personnel of the
municipal and county government or by contract with commercial tree
care companies.
B. LMaintenance of optimal levels of age and species diversity will
be established to help stabilize the urban forest by buffering it from
pest and disease infestations. Representatives of low-growing species
(junipers, etc.) shall be retained but pruned to eliminate existing
fuel laddering. Attempts should be made to keep representatives of all
layers and age classes currently present in the overstory.
C. LGood community forest management practices shall be established
with a clear set of priorities and a long-range plan. Record-keeping on
costs and types of operations performed is recommended. Activities such
as planning, ordinance enforcement, research, public outreach and
education shall be tracked.
D. LWhen requested, the community forester or other designated
individual shall provide information to owners of private property
regarding all aspects of tree care, including the latest techniques and
procedures currently being practiced.
E. LCommunity response mechanisms shall be developed to eliminate
conditions that threaten forest health, including disease, infestation
and excessive fuel loading.
Conservation
A. LConservation of the urban forest structure and natural
resources shall be promoted by protecting existing healthy tree
resources.
B. LBasic performance standards shall be set for the amount of tree
canopy to be retained or achieved.
C. LA master plan for tree planting, protection and removal shall
be developed.
Tree Management Standards
A. LUrban forest management and enforcement shall be the
responsibility of the community forester or other individual. This
manager shall coordinate all activities that affect urban trees and
specify cooperation between departments and agencies.
B. LUrban forest management guidelines and ``best management
practices'' for residential and commercial property shall be developed.
1. LTree hazards such as diseased, insect-infested and/or dead
trees shall be removed.
2. LProper pruning, thinning and removal, fertilizing, watering,
etc., shall be accomplished annually with the goal to achieve fuel
reduction and tree health.
3. LProper care of existing trees in commercial development areas
shall be enforced.
4. LThe review process prior to development will include assessment
of impacts to trees, grading considerations, footing and foundation
design and structure design.
5. LTree planting, maintenance and removal guidelines as specified
by the International Society of Arboriculture shall be followed.
6. LUrban forest interface should be based on firewise concepts
where private property and commercial property are analyzed by either:
1) LCanopy cover,
2) LBiomass per unit area, or
3) LBasal area.
7. LThe construction of houses, decks and/or buildings around
existing trees on private/commercial property shall be strongly
discouraged.
8. LStandards and procedures for certification and/or licensure of
individuals and businesses engaged in commercial tree removal and
maintenance shall be established.
9. LStandards for tree maintenance and care shall be established
with International Society of Arboriculture guidelines by each
community entity (Show Low, Pinetop-Lakeside and Navajo County).
Enforcement
A. LA legal basis for enforcement of required tree management
standards shall be established.
Education
A. LA tree board, commission/committee shall be established by each
entity. It is recommended that its membership be comprised of a
representative from each of the following: fire districts, universities
and Master Gardeners. Duties for this group shall be established by
each entity.
B. LThe community forester shall assist the community and agencies
of the municipal government through public education to create and
maintain a healthy and firewise community forest. The community
forester shall also provide information and public relations to
citizens and groups in the City regarding trees. The forester shall
gather information and publish reports as needed about community forest
vegetative and tree resources. The community forester shall work with
municipal departments and agencies to improve agencies' understanding
of trees and tree problems. The community forester shall meet regularly
with the tree board.
C. LAssistance and education for citizens performing tree
maintenance shall be provided through the University of Arizona Master
Gardener program under the direction of the community forester.
______
CITY OF SHOW LOW RESOLUTION NO. R2003-09
a resolution of the mayor and council of the city of show low, arizona
adopting a fire-safe community forest management policy
RECITALS:
WHEREAS, Show Low is at risk from wildfire from both within and
without the community; and
WHEREAS, during the Rodeo-Chediski Fire of last summer, a portion
of the forest that surrounds our community did burn; and
WHEREAS, Show Low continues to be a great risk from another
wildfire if the forest within and without the community is left in its
present condition.
ENACTMENTS:
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Mayor and Council of the
City of Show Low, Arizona hereby adopts the attached Fire-safe
Community Forest Management Policy and the City of Show Low pledges to
continue to work with the surrounding communities and government
agencies to develop consistent ordinances that will protect the White
Mountains from the threat of catastrophic wildfire.
PASSED AND ADOPTED this 18th day of February, 2003 by the Mayor and
Council of the City of Show Low, Arizona.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Gene Kelley
Mayor
ATTEST:
------------------------------------------------------------------
Ann Kurasaki, City Clerk
APPROVED AS TO FORM:
------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael J. Brown, City Attorney
FIRE-SAFE COMMUNITY FOREST MANAGEMENT POLICY
The City of Show Low agrees to:
A. LRecognize that the responsibility for all structural and
landscape protection within the community begins with the individual
home or business owner and initial developer, progresses to the local
property owners associations or home owner associations, and finally
rests with City government which has the charge to provide for the
safety and well being of all citizens within the community.
B. LAddress the issue of property owner and homeowner association
restrictions and prohibitions concerning the removal of trees. These
agreements should be structured so that property owners will be
encouraged to remove vegetation, not for the purpose of clear cutting
but for the purpose of attractively protecting homes and businesses
from the threat of wildfire.
C. LProvide for the elimination of any current policies within City
government that limit the ability of any property owner to remove
vegetation without incurring sanctions.
D. LEncourage all property owners, developers, property owner and
home owner associations, and all government agencies to implement and
maintain fire-safe forest management practices with the understanding
that no one can rely on adjacent properties or sites as protection from
their own failure to implement fire safe practices and follow-up
maintenance schedules.
E. LEstablish and sponsor a training and certification program for
contractors that wish to provide landscape and property fire safe
landscape treatments within the community. All certified contractors
will be placed on a list of recommended providers that will be shared
with interested property owners.
F. LFormally develop and implement a permit process that will
monitor and map all work conducted on private and public property
within the community.
G. LEvaluate the entire community and identify priority areas for
the establishment of safe zones and natural corridors to serve as
defense lines in the event of a wildfire.
H. LConduct a forest health survey within the community to
delineate the impacts of climatic conditions, insect and disease on the
entire community forest.
I. LDevelop a long-term strategic plan to develop a safe and secure
community forest. This plan will have five, ten, and fifteen year
objectives, will be reviewed and updated annually, and will include the
implementation of a maintenance program that all property owners will
be encouraged to continue.
______
Mr. McInnis. Now I think we get an opportunity to hear from
our Senior Chairman of the White Mountain Apache Tribe, Mr.
Massey. Mr. Massey, thank you and you may proceed.
STATEMENT OF DALLAS MASSEY, SENIOR CHAIRMAN,
WHITE MOUNTAIN APACHE TRIBE
Mr. Massey. Good morning, Chairman and Committee also.
Thank you, Chairman, members of the Committee and Rick Renzi,
thank you for bringing the hearing here to Flagstaff.
I am honored and pleased to be able to share a few words
with you today. We have prepared a PowerPoint presentation for
you, but to save time, I think it is better that we present it
at the conclusion of my talk.
I hope we can develop a better understanding of wildfire
impacts and methods to protect our forests and our communities.
As the Chairman of the White Mountain Apache Tribe n eastern
Arizona, my people and I have learned a lot about wildfire.
Last summer on June 18, year 2002, the Rodeo-Chediski fire
broke out on our reservation and consumed more than 500,000
acres of reservation lands, Forest Service lands and private
lands and State of Arizona lands; 276,000 acres or about 61
percent of the fire, was on our reservation. Today, more than 6
months after the outbreak of the fire, I am here to tell you we
have learned from our experiences.
First, let me tell you, a fire of this magnitude not only
destroys trees and landscape, it is destructive to jobs, to
families and to our economy. We are struggling to recover from
the fire which is greater than anything we have imagined and
experienced in our history. And if we do not work together and
take strong steps, we could see more fires destroying our
precious resource basis and devastating families and
communities throughout the West.
Now for us, recovering has been a full time task, which we
must face every day. We are still working to get our first
break-through to get back on our feet. Our recovery work
focuses on bringing our forests back to health and restoring
our economy, getting jobs for people. And we ask for your help
for both. Both restoration and management of our forests is
only half of recovery needs. I often remark to others that at
the core, recovering from a fire is really centered on
recovering for our people. Recovering means assistance and
strengthening for our families, for our wage earners, for our
communities. So planning for forest health must also recognize
that people are part of these forests and our plans for
protection and betterment of our forests must involve us.
For the White Mountain Apache people, our lands, our
forests, are part of us. For us Apaches, our land is our home.
In my language the term is chinek. The word is used to describe
the land. Also, the same word is used to describe our mind. Our
land, our mind are integrated, so we are truly tied to our
land, we live, we work, we spend our days in our forests.
So when we lost so many acres because of the fire, we lost
part of our home, part of ourselves also.
This is why our recovery work must move forward and must be
fully completed, to bring healing to our land, our people.
Unfortunately, with our limited resources, we are struggling to
meet the challenges for this recovery. With the loss of so many
acres of prime commercial forests, we realize the tribe must
further expand its economy to make up for the loss of
harvestable timber. We are trying to develop the use of our
precious streams, lakes and mountains for outdoor tourism,
fishing, camping, skiing and other economic activities using
our natural resource base. This will help expand our economy
and benefit our entire region.
But the key to bringing long-term recovery to the forests
and economy to the region, must link to the people, getting
people employed. Without economy base, we cannot afford to do
the work we need to fix our forests. We need your assistance
and cooperation to help identify new products and new markets
and new policies to use small diameter trees which crowd our
forest land, so that we may create the jobs and provide
economic engines to fund and perpetuate a long-term sustainable
and healthy forestry program in our region. And to protect our
forests from future catastrophic fire.
For our recovery efforts, we have met many obstacles and
roadblocks. We ask for your assistance. But we are patient
people and we are committed to long-term recovery. We are proud
people and we are proud citizens of the United States. We have
every confidence that we will reach our goals. We are pleased
to share our experience and knowledge and we are committed to
work with all of you to restore our land to health. If we do
not act, my people, my land will continue to suffer. We all
face the risk of another fire with a greater magnitude of
destroying more of our precious land.
Are we able to do this?
Mr. McInnis. Mr. Chairman, we are pretty tight on time and
in courtesy to the other members, I am watching my clock, I
have got to tighten it up. So if you can wrap it up in 30
seconds, that is where we are.
Mr. Massey. OK, the pictures say more than 1000 words, and
you have before you the slides that we are going to give you.
Mr. McInnis. That is the handout that you have given to us?
Mr. Massey. Yes.
Mr. McInnis. Great, thank you.
Mr. Massey. But if we could have had time for these people
to see what is on there, it would have been amazing. There is a
lot a picture can tell.
Mr. McInnis. I understand that and maybe what we can do is
come back to you, Mr. Chairman, but unfortunately we have got
to meet a 1 time deadline for a bunch of connections this
afternoon. So if we have time afterwards, I can bring you back
up, unless you can wrap it up in 30 seconds or a minute. If it
takes longer than that, I have to--
Mr. Massey. All right, we will go ahead and take a few
pictures up here, very fast--
Mr. McInnis. All right.
Mr. Massey. --and have you guys look at it from the
audience. Thank you for your time and we will go ahead and
continue doing this. Look at the fires, how we can--if we
manage our forests right, this is what we have out there and
you can read how fire laid down if we can manage our forests
right. The trees are still out there. And look at the post-
fires there, no recent density fuel management treatments--all
gone. Unmanaged forests, fire affects you. Creosote fire, 10
percent harvest; post-fire, artificial regeneration. That is
what it looks like when we treat our salvage harvest. Low post-
fire timber salvage, that is what it looks like.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Massey follows:]
Statement of Dallas Massey, Chairman, White Mountain Apache Tribe
Thank you Chairman and members of the Committee for inviting me to
provide testimony at this hearing. I am honored and pleased to be able
to share a few words with you today, and I hope we can develop a better
understanding of wildfire impacts and better methods to protect our
forests and our communities.
As Chairman of the White Mountain Apache Tribe in eastern Arizona,
my people and I, have, unfortunately, gained a great deal of first-hand
knowledge about the threats and impacts from wildfire. Our reservation,
containing more than 1.6 million acres of Tribal trust land, was the
site of the devastating Rodeo-Chediski Fire which broke out last
summer, consuming nearly one-half million acres of forest land. Of that
amount, more than 276,000 acres destroyed by fire were within our
Tribal lands.
Today, more than six months after the outbreak of the fire, I am
here to tell you about our experiences learned in the Rodeo-Chediski
Fire, to describe for you the impacts it has had on our land and our
people and our economy, and to offer our suggestions, along with the
other valuable comments you will hear today, about what we can do
together to respond to the threat which remains with us this year and
for years to come from the threat of uncontrolled wildfires in our
precious forest lands.
Our learning experience from the Rodeo-Chediski Fire began June 18,
2002, which for us White Mountain Apache was a day that changed our
lives. On that day, looking to the west on our reservation from my own
community of Canyon Day, we could see smoke billowing up like a dark
thundercloud in the sky. We knew that the long dry spell had caught up
with us and that we would be in for a major fire. We had battled forest
fires before; for us Apache, fire is a way of life and it is regarded
in our culture as a teacher. But we soon learned that this fire was
very different. Within a matter of hours it grew beyond all control and
expectation on its march to become the largest fire in Arizona history
and one of the largest in recorded history in the western United
States.
Within several days of its outbreak, the Rodeo Fire had merged with
a new fire on the west side, the Chediski Fire and quickly became a
threat to our lives, our communities, and our livelihood. The combined
fires forced the evacuation of communities all along the northern
boundary of our Tribal lands. Our effort to fight the fire and to cope
with the evacuations and emergency planning consumed our people 24
hours a day. My memory of that time is a blur of endless meetings,
telephone calls, and planning and replanning to coordinate scores of
work teams and equipment which were dispatched in every direction. When
the fire was curtailed and people could begin to return to their homes
and their jobs, more than $50 million had been spent in fire fighting
and well more than 4,300 personnel, in addition to countless
volunteers, had been assigned to the fire.
As the fire was brought under control and drew to a close, we
learned the devastating impact from the fire. On our lands two primary
watersheds in mountainous terrain had been scorched from flames,
creating ongoing damage from erosion and flooding. It is estimated that
more than 400 million board feet of timber from our commercial forests
were destroyed, in addition to the damage and disruption to the variety
of plants and animals which inhabited the 276,000 acres of burned land
within our reservation.
Now, some six months after the fire has come through our lands, we
have gained knowledge and experience and a degree of frustration and
sorrow from what we have seen and what we have learned. For us each day
we are faced with the task of recovery. This means recovery from the
fire's effects on our lands and its effects on our homes, our jobs, and
our future. Recovery for us is a full-time job. It will occupy future
planning for our Tribe for years to come; and to guide our steps to
recovery, we look to what we have learned from the fire and its impacts
on our lands.
Some of what we have seen and learned has been very gratifying and
promising. We have seen that our forestry management work made a
significant difference in the fire and we understand better the need to
continue the prescribed burning and the thinning which was occurring in
some areas of the Rodeo-Chediski Fire. The maps which have been
prepared through our BIA Agency Forestry Office show that when the
Rodeo-Chediski Fire approached areas of our forest which had been
treated through burning or thinning within the past ten years, the fire
intensity dropped and became a healthier fire. The fire dropped from a
crown fire to a surface fire, leaving healthy trees intact to survive
and to provide seed for a future forest. As you can see from the maps
and photos, there is a very dramatic and direct correlation between
areas of treatment and areas of little or no serious fire damage.
In contrast, in the untreated areas, the fire was highly
destructive and in many places, sterilized the soil. Again, the map
shows high fire damage where there were no treatments or treatments in
the recent past. The lesson is that multiple treatments at regular
intervals will make the difference between catastrophic fire and a
potentially healthy fire. In addition, a wildfire which breaks out in a
treated area burns much less intensely and is much much easier for
crews to control and manage. This is what allowed crews to contain and
control the eastern flank of the fire in Cottonwood Canyon. The result
will be much less destruction to the forest base and much less risk to
private property and homes adjacent to forest lands from the threat of
wildfire. We have seen this same pattern in earlier fires within our
reservation, such as the 1999 Rainbow Fire, which abruptly stopped
where it reached a pre-treated area near Cradleboard School.
Our fire also taught us some lessons about the recovery and
rehabilitation work that is needed in the forest after a catastrophic
wildfire. The Rodeo-Chediski Fire burned through a portion of our
forest which had previously been burned in1971 in the Carrizo Fire. We
were able to salvage the destroyed trees in some areas, which removed
fuel for the Rodeo-Chediski fire and resulted in lower fire severity.
In the unsalvaged areas, our forestry officials found that when the
Rodeo-Chediski Fire reached the perimeter of the old Carrizo Fire, the
dead timber, along with additional fuels provided from brush and new
growth, accelerated the fire and it burned with an even greater
intensity. This experience shows that active management steps before a
fire can ensure that the risks from runaway fires are minimized and
action following a fire in the burned area can reduce impacts 30 years
later. If we pull together now, we can utilize this knowledge to plan
for our future and return our forests to a healthy condition and a
fire-safe condition.
For us Apache people, our land is our home. As a people, we draw
our identity and our culture from our land. In my language, the term
shii ne'' is the word we use to describe our land and it is also the
same word we use to describe our mind. So, our land and our mind are
integrated and in that way we truly are a people who are tied to and
are of our land. So for us, the terrible destruction to our forest land
is a loss of ourselves and who we are. That is why our recovery work
must move forward and must be fully completed to bring healing to our
land and to our people.
Unfortunately, for our Tribal government with limited resources, we
are struggling to meet the challenges for this recovery, especially
after experiencing the devastating economic setback from the fire. This
has left the Tribe with even greater challenges to improve the
livelihood of its people, many of whom are now at risk for layoff and
job closures due to the loss of the commercial forest on the west side,
and at a time when our Tribe is struggling economically to get back on
its feet following the fire.
In conjunction with the BIA we have received funding for recovery
for our lands through the Emergency Stabilization and Rehabilitation
(ESR) process, formerly known as BAER, but we know that our recovery
needs will extend much beyond the three year extent of ESR funding and
will need much greater scope and attention than the preliminary soil
stabilization and limited tree replanting, which is the focus of the
recovery plan. For example, we estimate it would take over 150 years of
recovery and growth before we will, once again, have a commercial
forest in the Rodeo-Chediski Fire area. We seek your assistance in
providing positive policy direction and funding to continue this
rehabilitation to prevent further irreparable damage to our lands and
to ensure that recovery becomes a reality for our forest lands.
But we understand that recovery for us will mean much more than
stabilization and rehabilitation for our land, although we consider
this very important. I often remark to others that at the core,
recovery from this fire is really centered on recovery for our people.
Recovery means assistance and strengthening for our families, for our
wage earners, and for our communities which have been impacted by this
fire. In turn, planning for future forest management and forest health
must also recognize that we as people are a part of these forests and
our plans for the protection and betterment of our forests must involve
us.
For the White Mountain Apache people, our lands, our forests are
part of us. We live, we work and we spend our days in our forests. We
undertake our activities in our forests, including our logging, in an
integrated approach. We use our staff and our years of experience to
plan and carry out our forest activities in fulfillment of our
environmental regulations and standards to ensure protection and health
for our watersheds, our pasture lands and our forests. We also
recognize that to bring about recovery we will need help. We have
identified critical projects for our Tribe which we think can help
expand our economic base, still using our precious natural resources,
but geared to alternatives to commercial timber activity.
With the loss of so many thousands of acres of prime commercial
forest, we realize that the Tribe must further expand its economy to
make up for the loss of harvestable timber. With our streams and lakes
and mountains in a state known for its dry deserts, we recognize that
outdoor tourism, fishing, camping, and even skiing are to play a vital
role in our economic future. As part of our recovery, we hope to obtain
funding and assistance to further enhance our outdoor recreation
programs. In turn, we recognize that the dollars spent for these
programs, whether it be sport fishing or camping or skiing, brings a
tremendous boost to our hard-pressed rural economy in eastern Arizona.
The White Mountain Apache Tribe is already well-known and well-regarded
for its tourism and outdoor recreation opportunities. We hope to expand
these programs to further strengthen our regional economy and open a
door to our future in cooperation with our regional partners.
However, we do not mean to overlook a key historic cornerstone of
our economy, as represented by our commercial forests. We also seek
funding and assistance to better adapt our timber processing and
manufacturing to meet the new resource base of smaller trees, and
unfortunately, of salvage trees impacted by fire or the growing threat
in Arizona of bark beetle. It is our firm belief that without a viable
economic base to the activities we wish to undertake in managing and
perpetuating our forests, even the best of efforts will be short-lived
and will not produce the results we wish for our offspring and future
generations. We need your assistance and cooperation to help identify
new products, and new markets, and new policies to utilize the
overabundance of small diameter trees which crowd our forest lands so
that we may create the jobs and the economic engine to fund and
perpetuate a long-term, sustainable and healthy forestry program in our
region and to protect our forests from future catastrophic wildfires.
As I stated, ultimately, recovery from our fire and planning for
our forest health must be tied to people. For that reason, we seek the
assistance and the funding to be able to return our people to work
after the devastating setback from the fire and to build a model which
links our activities at the workplace with the future growth and health
of our forests. Those are not unattainable goals, in fact, we believe
that this approach is the only real viable solution to the future
welfare of our Tribal lands and the forest lands throughout our region.
From the date of the fire last summer, we have met many obstacles
and roadblocks to our plans for recovery. Expectations of assistance
and aid have been met with only limited responses and, more often than
not, denials. But we are patient people and we are committed to our
long-term recovery. We are a proud people, and we are proud citizens of
the United States. We have every confidence that we will reach our
goals and we will achieve our vision for sustenance for our economy, a
positive future for our people, and restoring our land to a balance of
health, but we need your help. We lost much more than trees and forests
from this fire. We have suffered a loss of a part of ourselves and our
heritage, and we ask you for help. Without it, my people and my land
will continue to suffer, and for all of us, the question becomes not
if, but when will another fire of even greater magnitude erupt to
destroy more of our precious lands. We look to your assistance in
bringing our recovery goals to reality, and we pledge our commitment of
cooperation in channeling the resources of our people and their
enthusiasm toward the health, the recovery, and the welfare of our
great lands.
Thank-you very much.
______
Mr. McInnis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I found your
testimony very moving.
Next, Mr. Laverty, Director of the Colorado State Parks
Department of Natural Resources. Thanks, Lyle, for coming down.
You may proceed.
STATEMENT OF LYLE LAVERTY, DIRECTOR, COLORADO STATE PARKS,
COLORADO DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES
Mr. Laverty. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. McInnis. Also, if you do not mind, Mr. Laverty, if you
would give your background prior to becoming the Director of
Parks, so we have an understanding of your knowledge of the
forests.
Mr. Laverty. Thank you. It truly is an honor to be here in
front of you and the Committee again. I am currently the
Director of Colorado State Parks. Last December, Governor Owens
asked me if I would take on that job. In my prior life, I have
had a number of opportunities to engage in a review, I was the
Associate Deputy Chief of the Forest Service dealing with
implementation of the national fire plan. Prior to that
assignment, I served as a regional forester for the Rocky
Mountain Region of the U.S. Forest Service here.
It has really been a delight to see, and I am encouraged
with the conversation that you folks are entertaining as it
relates to really critical issues.
I have got three quick points I want to share with you that
relate to Colorado specifically, and really it is an honor to
be here representing Governor Owens and Greg Walter, our
Executive Director of the Department of Natural Resources. Both
of those folks are passionately committed about forest health
conditions in Colorado and I will share with you at the end
where we are really taking some very active and progressive
actions to deal with forest health conditions.
Three things I will just share with you--some highlights of
the 2002 season in Colorado; some very, very specific impacts
that happened in Colorado as a result of similar situations
that you have seen this morning, and then just share with you
very briefly some of the actions that we are currently taking
in Colorado.
The fires in 2000 in Colorado, we burned over 500,000 acres
with over 2000 fires; a dramatic change for the historic
pattern in Colorado.
On the question of cost, just alone in Colorado, not quite
like the Oregon fires, we did spend over $152 million just in
suppression costs and rehab costs are going off the wall.
As a result of the fires, we moved out 81,000 people, we
evacuated 81,000 residents in Colorado because of racing fires.
They burned over 384 homes, 600-plus structures.
The 134,000 Hayman fire burn was nine times the size of the
largest fire that we have ever had in Colorado, and that was
14,000 acres back in 1994. The 17 wildfires required the
investment of almost 16,000 firefighters throughout the course
of the summer, and tragically, we also ended up with nine
fatalities.
As we looked at the situation, we found that there are
really some very common denominators that existed across
Colorado and perhaps across the interior west. The first being
the fact that we had extremely low fuel moistures, really
unbelievably low fuel moistures; unnaturally dense forest
conditions of which we have been talking about for some time;
and then those continuously high temperatures and lack of
precip.
The urban interface lessons that we learned, I think these
are the important parts I will share with you:
One is that we know that landscape treatments can in fact
make a difference. Landscape treatments can make a difference
when it affects the fire behavior and reduce the risks and the
effects of fire.
In the fall of the season before, we burned about 8000
acres on a prescribed burn and the Hayman fire ran into that
fire and it just went down very similar to the pictures you saw
here. So the records are replete with examples on how active
forest management can in fact affect these costs, suppression
costs, can in fact significantly be reduced. But when you begin
looking at the $152 million that we just spent in Colorado, the
majority of those costs were dealing with the urban interface.
So being proactive in terms of managing that landscape can make
a huge difference, and I am convinced that we can show you
examples over and over again of how this will work.
Compounding the situation that we are wrestling with, with
fire, is the whole issue of forest health. And in Colorado, not
unlike what I just saw when I flew into Flagstaff this morning,
is forest health conditions. We have the pinyon beetle down in
southwestern Colorado that has currently killed 50 percent of
the pinyon pine in southwestern Colorado, and my guess is that
is basically the situation here in Arizona and New Mexico.
Just a couple of specific elements that I would just like
to highlight as it relates to the fires that we had in
Colorado. Congressman McInnis talked about the effects on water
quality, on air quality and on endangered species. We have
found--well, my time is up.
Mr. McInnis. If you could wrap it up.
Mr. Laverty. I will go quick.
The endangered species, we have lost acres and acres,
thousands of acres of habitat as a result of the 2002 fires in
Colorado. Water quality, we have spent over $25 million in the
Denver watershed just as a result of the Buffalo Creek fire
2000--in 1996, I am sorry--and the Hayman fire has burned 10
times the size of that Buffalo Creek fire. So we are
anticipating those are going to be huge impacts on the people
of Colorado.
Let me just talk quickly about some actions. The
legislature in Colorado has taken some very aggressive action--
Mr. McInnis. Mr. Laverty, we need to do it in about 30
seconds.
Mr. Laverty. I will do it in 30 seconds, I will talk fast.
The legislature has taken some very aggressive action to
encourage state agencies to manage forest stands in a healthy
condition. We are working right now with the Forest Service and
in fact, today we are cutting on Staunton State Park to show
you the kinds of treatments that are taking place on the Apache
Tribe. This is an urban interface and I tell you, it is a great
example of how we can in fact show people that good positive
forest management can make a difference in fire effects and
behavior and it can be a very positive thing as a result in how
a state park looks.
Thanks very much, I will be happy to answer any questions
you might have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Laverty follows:]
Statement of Lyle Laverty, Director, Colorado State Parks, State of
Colorado
Ladies and gentlemen of the Committee, my name is Lyle Laverty and
I currently serve as the Director of Colorado State Parks. It is my
distinct honor to come before you and provide some information about
the degraded air quality, water quality, and wildlife impacts that
catastrophic fires had on the State of Colorado in 2002.
As you well know, the Hayman fire was the largest wildfire in
Colorado's recorded history, burning some 138,000 acres in and around
the Pike National Forest--less than 20 miles from the Denver
Metropolitan Area--at a cost of $40 million in suppression costs. The
Hayman fire, the Missionary Ridge fire, and some 2,000 other wildfires
statewide were unprecedented. I would like to share with the Committee
just a few of the impacts that these fires had on the natural
environment in Colorado.
The Hayman fire was started on June 9, 2002. Severe drought and
unseasonably dry weather, exacerbated by unnatural fuel accumulations
throughout the forest, had left the Pike a virtual tinderbox. In a move
not often seen by wildfire ecologists, the Hayman fire crowned and made
a 12-mile run in half of a day's time. It destroyed almost everything
in its path, including threatened and endangered species habitat and
imperiled one of Denver's largest municipal water supplies.
Water Quality
The impact of catastrophic wildfires on forested watersheds is
difficult to underestimate. The Denver Metro Area is primarily served
by the South Platte River drainage located within the Pike National
Forest. The Denver Water Department, which supplies 1.2 million users
in the Metro area, owns several storage facilities in the South Platte
drainage. One of the most significant storage facilities is the
Cheesman reservoir, which is also at the heart of where the Hayman fire
burned. In fact, some of the most severely burned stands are directly
within the Cheesman drainage. If history is any indicator, this bodes
very poorly for Denver's drinking water.
In 1996, the 12,000-acre Buffalo Creek fire--which is located just
north of where the Hayman fire burned in the South Platte watershed--
burned above a drainage leading to another Denver Water storage
facility in the South Platte basin. Heavy rains a month later caused
flash flooding across the denuded landscape, washed out a state highway
and deposited 600,000 cubic yards (or hundreds of thousands of tons) of
sediment into Strontia Springs reservoir--the equivalent of 13 years of
sediment load in a few short days. To date, the State Forest Service
estimates that more than $25 million has been spent as a result of the
comparably small Buffalo Creek fire.
Colorado's concern, and more acutely, the concern of the Denver
Water Department, is what will then happen if a heavy rain falls upon
the Hayman burn area--an area roughly 10 times the size of the Buffalo
Creek fire and above a reservoir roughly 6 times the size of Strontia
Springs. We are looking at a potentially disastrous situation, despite
the mammoth $7 million flooding mitigation effort by the Denver Water
Department. Denver Water has constructed very large sediment barriers,
but granular granite sediment across such an immense landscape still
has the potential to do tremendous damage to the reservoir.
In short, the Hayman fire has already affected the quality of
Denver's drinking water. Fortunately, the area has not seen any
significant rain as of yet. Unfortunately, our forest professionals
tell us that the threat of landslides and massive sedimentation will
not subside until vegetation has been reestablished. Because of the
heat and intensity of the fire, many of the soils are incapable of
supporting vegetation without scarification or other expensive
mitigation efforts.
It is estimated that Denver's South Platte water supplies will be
cut off for upwards of three days until water quality levels are safe
again if heavy rains occur in the Hayman area. Perhaps most disturbing
is the fact that this threat of incapacitation may persist for up to
three years.
Air Quality
While water quality has been one of the most difficult ongoing
challenges that we have had to deal with after the Hayman fire, the air
quality impacts during the height of the fire may have actually been
worse.
The Metro Area has spent the past thirty years working hard to
improve air quality. In fact, we were recently given ``clean air''
status from the EPA for the first time since the inception of the Clean
Air Act. To put that into context, in 1977 only Los Angeles had worse
air quality than Denver.
On June 9, 2002, the day the Hayman fire exploded across the Pike
National Forest, a strong northeasterly wind carried the enormous
plumes of wildfire smoke up the South Platte riverbed and right into
the downtown area. As the smoke entered the city, visibility was
reduced to less than three miles, and was as little as 1+ miles in some
places. The result of this thick smoke was the worst air pollution
levels ever recorded in Colorado. The fine particulate matter levels
were so high that the air across the Metro Area was deemed unhealthy to
breathe, according to EPA standards. Obviously some members of the
public are more sensitive to air pollution. There was one fatality
recorded as a result of the smoke pollution combined with the
individual's reported asthmatic condition. But humans were not the only
fatalities recorded as a result of these catastrophic wildfires.
Endangered Species
The Pawnee Montane Skipper butterfly is a Federally threatened
species, listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in 1987. It is
found in only one place in the world and that is the Upper South Platte
watershed area. The total amount of suitable habitat burned since 1996
is 12,026 acres, or 48.3 percent of the mapped suitable habitat. Based
on the USFS fire severity mapping for the four major fires since 1996,
it is estimated that the skipper population has been extirpated from
about 30 percent of its former habitat since 1996. The fires of 2002
alone burned 39% of known skipper habitat. The species is now believed
to be in a drought-induced dormancy, so official population estimates
will not be known for some time, although few skipper have been
observed since the fire. Needless to say, the Hayman fire has put
tremendous stress on an already sensitive species.
Over 40,000 acres burned within the boundary of designated critical
habitat for the Mexican Spotted Owl. There were several other
threatened or endangered species that lost habitat--either known or
suitable--in the Hayman fire, including the Bald eagle, Preble's Meadow
Jumping Mouse, and Canada lynx.
We also lost an undetermined number of big game species, such as
elk. Because the fire burned so early in the season, elk calving was a
factor and state officials estimate that cows and calves were lost due
to the immobility of young at that point in the season. The Hayman fire
did not burn the primary range of elk, but wildlife officials are still
unsure about the total impact to the herds in that area.
Colorado experienced a wildfire season in 2002 unlike anything we
have faced before. The largest two fires in our recorded history--the
Hayman and Missionary Ridge fires, respectively--not only burned
simultaneously, but represented nearly half of the total acreage burned
in the entire state in 2002--well over half a million acres in all.
There are contributors to unnatural wildfires like these that are
beyond our control, such as weather and drought. But the unmitigated
fuel levels across Colorado's 22 million acres of forested lands is not
beyond our control.
The Federal Government owns two-thirds of Colorado's forested
acres. Reducing the fuel levels on those lands is a monumental task
with which Congress will have to wrestle. There are enormous roadblocks
that the Federal land management agencies are facing in their effort to
reduce dangerous fuels throughout the West. We know that the actions we
are asking the Federal agencies to take will come at significant
costs--though these costs can and should be reduced through effective
tools like stewardship contracting. But we would ask Congress to keep
in mind the cataclysmic costs that inaction would have on the
landscapes of our forests.
At the state level, Colorado has taken the initiative to address
forest health conditions. The Colorado State Legislature has passed
through one house a bill requiring state land management agencies to
manage state-owned forested lands to reduce the threat of catastrophic
wildfire and to improve wildlife habitat and water quality. We
anticipate the Governor will sign the bill in the coming months. The
only problem is that this bill only deals with state-owned lands, some
1% of Colorado's forests.
Catastrophic wildfires like that of the Hayman can be avoided
through aggressive and coordinated fuels reduction treatments. We know
thinning works. Science and research support these findings. Treatments
in and around the Hayman fire dramatically altered fire behavior. But
to be effective, treatments must occur on a landscape scale. It is for
these reasons, among many others, that the State of Colorado whole-
heartedly endorses the Bush Administration's Healthy Forests
Initiative.
Colorado is currently moving on legislation that will allow us to
use thinning to restore healthy ecosystems in state-owned forests. But
we must have action from the Federal Government to provide thinning on
a landscape scale. Our best efforts simply cannot effect the volume
necessary to avoid Hayman-type catastrophes in the future unless they
are mirrored by Federal land managers. Nothing short of that will
provide the necessary protections for our precious air, water, and
wildlife.
Our analysis provides the following findings:
<bullet> LThe key to reducing the risk of catastrophic fire in
Colorado is to return Colorado's forests to a more fire resistant,
resilient condition.
<bullet> LThere are active management techniques that can speed up
the process of returning forests to a more natural, fire resistant
condition.
<bullet> LObsessive focus on short-term species protection impedes
long-term habitat protection.
______
Mr. McInnis. Thank you again, Lyle.
It has now come to the time for the Committee to ask
questions of the panel. Again, just because we have a fixed
camera, if the members of the panel would just move over to the
podium, then members, if you would limit your questions and the
anticipated response to 4 minutes, we can stay on track.
So if the panel would go ahead and stand up and shift on
over, and members of the Committee will direct the question to
a specific individual. I do not want to spend the whole day on
this, but it is just the circumstance we face.
Mr. Chairman, if you would start the questioning.
Mr. Pombo. Thank you. I just wanted to ask a question of
Chairman Massey, if I could.
Native Americans tend to look at things much longer term
than a lot of us do, and when you look at protecting your land,
your area water, your forests, and you are planning out the
next seven generations, how do you see us and our management of
our forests playing an active role in managing those forests?
Mr. Massey. Well, the White Mountain Apache Tribe and the
Bureau of Indian Affairs have been working real close together
managing our forests and I think with your Committee, we need
your help, I think loosening some of those environmental laws
that we have out there. And I think we can really manage our
forests the right way.
Yes, we have an environmental work plan that we have, an
inter-governmental agreement, but we need to work together on
those issues and I think we can harvest a lot more small trees
and help on that. We would really appreciate that also.
Mr. Pombo. So you see it as an active management, actually
people in the forests actively managing it, trying to plan out
what that forest is going to look like in order to protect it
into the future?
Mr. Massey. Yes, we believe in working in forests.
Mr. Pombo. Thank you.
And just a follow up with Mr. Laverty, if I could. You
talked in your oral testimony and in your written testimony
about the active management of forests and how important is
that. In your experience, if we adopted a policy of hands off,
lock down the forests, do not touch them, are these fires the
result of that kind of a management policy?
Mr. Laverty. Mr. Chairman, great question. And I would say
that the result that we are experiencing today in Colorado and
the interior west is a result of these unnatural conditions,
for a variety of reasons, and you have heard them all. But
whether there has been active suppression or various management
practices, the conditions are not normal. And if we do not go
in there and do some proactive work right now, we are going to
have more and more of these kinds of fires that we have had
this summer.
We are very conscious that we are going to experience in
Colorado large fires again that are going to have even more
catastrophic effect on the life and property of people. So I
really believe that with active management, we can in fact make
a difference, we can in fact make a difference--we can do it.
And I think the present healthy forest initiative--I
subscribe to that personally and I would love to show you what
we are doing on the ground in Colorado because it first exactly
with the President's efforts.
Mr. Pombo. I am sure we will get the opportunity to see
that before it is over with.
Mr. Laverty. Let me bring you to Colorado.
Mr. Pombo. And just in conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I would
like to thank Secretary Rey and Secretary Watson for taking
their time to come out here. It is not very often that we do a
field hearing that we get two high ranking officials from the
Administration out here and I greatly appreciate you making the
effort to be here. Thank you.
Mr. McInnis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Gibbons, you may
proceed.
Mr. Gibbons. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And I think
the first two questions I have would relate to either Secretary
Watson or Secretary Rey, perhaps both would like to answer.
Congress' duty, of course, is to fund adequately services
for each agency as predicted for what would be expected
occurrences over the next year or so, during the budget. How do
you predict in your budget what your annual firefighting cost
will be so that we have that picture in our budget?
Mr. Rey. Normally what we have done over the last several
years is to take the 10-year average expenditures for the past
10 years and budget that. You have also granted us the
authority, if the fire season is worse than that, to use any
available funds to fight fires and then, as has been the case,
you have replenished those funds as they have been borrowed, in
the next appropriations bill.
That system may not work as well now as it once did, for a
couple of reasons. One, it was facilitated by excess trust fund
balances that we no longer enjoy. Second, we are into what
looks to be a sustained situations where fire seasons are going
to be bad for awhile until we can do the fuels treatment work
we need to do.
I believe that what we would like to do is to sit down with
your Committee to look at some alternatives for a more stable
means of funding firefighting costs and today is probably not
enough time to get into that, but there are several
alternatives that we are working with the budget Committee and
with OMB and we would be happy to share those with you as well.
Mr. Gibbons. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary, and that
was such a clear explanation that I am sure Secretary Watson
would agree with it as well for her budget.
Ms. Watson. I do.
Mr. Gibbons. Let me ask Secretary Watson a very brief
question, if I may. In Nevada, we have what is called a
wildfire support group, which is something that would go to
perhaps Mayor Kelley's question about how do you prepare a
community for fires, but the wildfire support group in Nevada
is a group of individuals who have been trained to fight fires,
they are not your volunteer firefighters, they are
individuals--they may be ranchers in a community, they may be
ordinary citizens out there that have a residence nearby that
are trained.
Is that a program that you support and you believe that
having wildfire support groups that can address fires in a
rapid fashion when they are small and containable, to be a
significant part of the answer to preventing or addressing
these larger wildfires that erupt, that are out of control
after many days?
Ms. Watson. I am not familiar with that particular program,
but the concept of having locally trained people to respond is
an important one, because we have found the first responders
are often local folks and they can get a handle on a fire
quickly. And I think adequate training is part of what the
National Fire Plan is all about, working with local
communities, getting them the equipment and the training they
need to work together with us and to respond quickly.
Mr. Gibbons. I would like to make that suggestion to Mayor
Kelley and in fact anybody in this area, this region, that has
a region that is susceptible to fire and the wild/urban
interface. Because the resources that could be used to train
these individuals, these individuals then would be qualified to
address a fire, sort of like a rapid response team that we have
created in homeland defense for terrorist threats, we could now
have a homeland defense for wildfires.
So thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to these
witnesses.
Mr. McInnis. Mr. Walden.
Mr. Walden. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rey and Secretary Watson, I want to commend the
Administration. My understanding is you last year worked on
168,000 more acres in fuel reduction than the prior year and
for this year, you are proposing to double that increase to
almost 300,000 more acres than were done before.
You know, we grow up hearing about the odds of something
happening are like being struck by lightning. In the case of
our Federal forests, I am betting on lightning right now. We
have, what, 100 million acres that are susceptible to
catastrophic fire, disease and bug infestation? And we are
creating--
Mr. Rey. 180.
Mr. Walden. 180? And we are treating 2.2 million acres a
year at this rate, is that correct?
Mr. Rey. That is about right.
Mr. Walden. So it is probably better to bet on lightning
than the fact that we are going to get all this treated in
time.
Mr. Rey. Well, we have to ramp up the rate of treatment
significantly, there is no question about that. But I think we
also have to acknowledge that it took us 100 years to get into
this situation and it is going to take us more than a couple of
years to get out of it.
Mr. Walden. I could not agree more. What are the biggest
obstacles that you are running into right now in being able to
treat our forests?
Mr. Rey. I think the biggest obstacles right now are the
ones that we are focusing on addressing, which is the
procedures that we have used that have become too cumbersome
and expensive to carry out the work on a timely basis. Our hope
is that by changing that alone we will be able to accelerate
the amount of work that we do on an annual basis and certainly
the use of stewardship contracting, the tool that you have just
provided us, will assist that as well.
Mr. Walden. Some critics of the President's plan have said
that it shuts people out from the courthouse door, that you
cannot participate in the process. Is that the case?
Mr. Rey. I think what we want to try to do is to encourage
participation earlier in the process by a broader range of
interests. If we are worried about shutting people out of the
courthouse door, we have already failed. Because once an issue
gets to the courts, we have already sustained a significant
amount of time and expense in trying to do the treatments.
Mr. Walden. And can you describe some cases where the delay
has resulted--or the appeals process the way it is currently
constructed, has resulted in areas not being treated that later
were subject to catastrophic fire, does that go on a lot?
Mr. Rey. Probably the two most notable examples from 2002
are the Hayman fire, where part of the watershed was designated
for treatment, but appeals needed to be resolved before that
could occur; and the Squires fire, the one the President
visited, where appears and litigation slowed up the work that
needed to be done, so that it could not be done before a fire
hit.
Mr. Walden. In the case of the Sour Biscuit fire in
southwestern Oregon, half a million acres were burned, I met
with Josephine County Commissioners 2 weeks ago, they have
already been in and harvested and are beginning I guess
replanting in the 25 acres that the county had in that area.
Can you describe for me what the Forest Service's time line is
to get in and do any kind of salvage effort?
Mr. Rey. Sure, the Forest Service has already done a
limited amount of salvage of what we call hazard trees that
represent a direct threat to human life and welfare. That has
been concluded using a categorical exclusion.
In our case, the situation is a little different because
the fire did not go out finally until about November 19, so we
looked at a large level assessment, a full environmental impact
statement, to do all the treatments as part of a comprehensive
project. We completed the analysis that precedes that
environmental impact statement at the end of the year, we are
assuming that we will have the environmental impact statement
completed by this fall or thereabouts, and we will begin
starting to deal with the salvage activities that have to occur
thereafter.
Some of the rehabilitation work is already being done, all
the emergency rehabilitation work or virtually all of it, has
already been completed.
Mr. Walden. But will it not take, in most people's
estimate, another year of appeals after you complete the EIS
before you actually can get in on the ground?
Mr. Rey. Most likely, given the size of the operation and
the location of the area.
Mr. Walden. So 2 years basically.
Mr. Rey. For large projects and controversial areas, that
seems to be about the norm.
Mr. Walden. And is it not true also that if it is pine,
within that 2 year period, the value of those trees is
basically lost?
Mr. Rey. It depends on the size of the trees and the
species involved. Lodgepole will last longer than ponderosa. In
this particular instance, it is mostly ponderosa and Doug fir.
Mr. Walden. Mr. Chairman, could I ask a question of Mr.
Massey?
Mr. McInnis. Mr. Walden, we have got to keep it pretty
brief, because I want everybody to have an opportunity.
Mr. Walden. Am I over my 4 minutes?
Mr. McInnis. Well, the timer broke, so I'm guessing right
now.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Walden. How convenient. I will keep going until I hear
the buzzer.
[Laughter.]
Mr. McInnis. You can assume you have heard the buzzer.
Mr. Walden. All right. Mr. Massey, when I was in a part of
my district, there were logs on a rail car that were burned
pine, I believe they came from this area clear up into Oregon,
which are going to a mill in my district. Can you just briefly
describe what your time lines are to get in after a fire, and
begin restoration and salvage efforts?
Mr. Massey. Yeah, they told us 2 years and I do not think
it is going to be 2 years. There are a lot of trees already
showing cracks, but as soon as they are done, we are ready for
recovering. We are doing some of it already.
Mr. Walden. You are already doing some?
Mr. Massey. Some of the bare activities, yes, and
reseeding, we are already doing.
Mr. Walden. Very good. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your
indulgence.
Mr. McInnis. Thank you, Mr. Walden.
Mr. Hayworth.
Mr. Hayworth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me continue with Chairman Massey for just a second, on
the question of the mill there on the White Mountain Apache
Reservation.
I understand in terms of salvage, you have a mill there but
as I understand it, you are fitted primarily for large diameter
trees, 17 inches and above. Given the efforts of some to reduce
the size of trees that could be processed, will you have to
retrofit your bill to do that?
Mr. Massey. Yes, Hayworth. Our mill was built about 40
years ago, that was when we had big trees on the reservation,
but as of today, we have more smaller trees and we really do
need assistance in downsizing our mill.
Mr. Hayworth. So you would have to downsize the mill. Do
you know how long a period it would take to retrofit it?
Mr. Massey. We started some process already, I think we
have got about $8 million into our mill downsizing already, but
we still need some more to make it run efficient, to run small
trees.
Mr. Hayworth. Continuing with the subject of money, I was
very interested in Mayor Kelley's offer, if you will, to the
Federal Government, a loan--and let me call up my friends from
the Administration, if I could, please, to talk about this.
Because I appreciate the thinking outside the box and it goes
without saying, when we were visiting earlier, Mark, that the
Mayor was very happy to hear that the funds are on the way and
we will try to avoid the phrase ``the check is in the mail,''
for obvious reasons.
But what about this thinking outside the box, I mean,
should we in the Congress look to find a mechanism for inter-
governmental agreements where local municipalities or county
governments or even with the trying financial conditions we
have right now, states in essence float a loan to the Federal
Government to expedite projects?
Mr. Rey. We actually have those agreements. If you have
enough time to do the upfront work to execute a memorandum of
agreement with a state or a local government, and we have many
of those because firefighting is a cooperative and inter-
governmental effort, then money can flow back and forth between
the Federal and local governments. In California, for instance,
we rationalize at the end of a fires season what we owe the
state or the county of Los Angeles, or what they owe us.
The problem here was we had no instrument to work from
ahead of time, during the timeframe involved. But if the Mayor
wants to look at something on a longer term basis, or any unit
of government does, we are open to that and have the tools to
do it.
Mr. Hayworth. Well, this would then beg the question, I
believe, for us as legislators, to work with our friends in
appropriation and try to form a fast track uniform process,
because when you are dealing with fires and you are dealing
with the trauma a community undergoes, and we have all heard of
really the risks of a second environmental disaster with beetle
infestation and disease and all those other problems, that just
as we come into an area and try to work very quickly under the
auspices of FEMA with low-interest loans to try and get people
back on their feet, perhaps there is a mechanism we need to
explore to fast track it so there is uniformity to move that
forward.
Does that sound plausible, Rebecca?
Mr. Rey. It sounds imminently plausible. We could look at
the authority to write short-term instruments that can be
executed very quickly. The memoranda of agreement that we do
write tend to be programmatic, they tend to be expressions of
how we are going to cooperate, share funding and resources over
an extended period of time. They are not designed to deal with
an emergency situation like this.
Mr. Hayworth. So that would be something that we need to
look at.
Rebecca, one quick--
Mr. McInnis. Time is up.
Mr. Hayworth. I did not hear Betty Crocker's bell, but I
will accede to the Chairman.
Mr. McInnis. Well, again, Betty Crocker--
Mr. Hayworth. Is out baking right now.
Mr. McInnis. Yes. That thing is not working, so I am doing
the best I can at guessing at about 4 minutes. Thank you, Mr.
Hayworth.
Mr. Renzi, you may proceed.
Mr. Renzi. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mark--Secretary Rey, if I could ask you a couple of
questions real quick. We in the Congress and in the White
House, in the President's initiative, are trying to give you a
tool, a new tool, called stewardship contracting, and yet there
are those who are opposing us in this realm. And I would like,
you do not mind, please to explain to the public, particularly
in Flagstaff, the quick essence of stewardship contracting and
also as it relates to some of the funding that my colleague Mr.
Gibbons was talking about, as it relates to maybe A-Bar-S,
Apache-Sitgreaves and some of the hope that we can have in the
White Mountains.
Mr. Rey. Simply stated, stewardship contracting gives us a
new tool that we currently lack, to do long term, landscape
level work on the ground, by using the authority you provided
us to write a long-term stewardship contract--10 years in
length or shorter. That's twice as long a contract as we can
write under existing procurement regulations, and allows us to
treat areas where there is not as much commercial value as
there are in other areas where we can use commercial timber
sale contracts to do the treatments.
So the importance of the tool is it allows us to work over
a longer term basis at a landscape level. The contractor who
signs the contract has the stability with a 10-year contract to
make investments not only in the equipment that he uses to do
the work on the ground, but perhaps in the infrastructure to
use low-value material and convert it into biomass energy or
particle board or something else for trees that are not of a
sufficient size or quality to be used in sawing lumber. It is a
very important tool.
One of the things I think it is worthwhile to announce
today is that we are poised on the brink of announcing a long-
term stewardship contract on the Apache Sitgreaves National
Forest. We are going to call it the White Mountain stewardship
project, it will last over 10 years, it will treat 150,000
acres, 15,000 acres a year. The contract has been developed in
cooperation with local communities and the Nature Conservancy.
The Nature Conservancy has agreed that they would be our
monitor of how well we do under the stewardship contract. We
are hoping to get it announced in July, solicit public comments
on it and get it operating this fall.
So we will be able to see on the Apache-Sitgreaves National
Forest and the White Mountain area, the value of this
contracting tool. And hopefully the way it brings people
together to look at land treatments that need to be done to
avoid the circumstances that we saw last summer.
Mr. Renzi. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I want to thank you
for that announcement and also thank Ms. Watson for her help at
White River.
Just real quick, we have got about 30 cattlemen who drove
up in a bus this morning from Globe and we have had a real
tendency to see our cattle moved off the Tonto. Our cattle
industry in rural Arizona is a critical part of our economic
engine.
Could you please speak briefly to the cattle's role in
creating a healthy forest?
Mr. Rey. We do in many areas use livestock to reduce flora
and forage to reduce fire risk. In many of our forests where we
have fuel breaks, particularly in southern California and
elsewhere in the southwest, we use cows, goats and sheep to
maintain the fuel breaks. So they do have a salutary effect in
that regard.
Here in the southwest, we are in the middle of an extended
drought cycle and it has been a very tough time to maintain
range quality and we have had to make very difficult decisions.
But I will tell you that we are committed to retaining the
grazing industry as an integral part of the public lands and as
an important component of slowing the development and
subdivision of private lands, because every ranch that goes out
of business tends to become a subdivision or a series of
ranchettes. In the last 20 years, 3.5 million acres in the 11
western states have been converted from privately owned ranch
land, often ranch lands that were providing important wildlife
habitat, to subdivisions.
Mr. McInnis. Ms. Watson, I am going to allow you to answer
that because I think it is very important.
Ms. Watson. All right, thank you very much.
I just wanted to make mention that the Bureau of Land
Management shares the sentiments that Mr. Rey just described
and I would like to urge your constituents to participate in a
proposed rulemaking that the Bureau of Land Management just put
out on modifications to the grazing rules and regulations and
our processes. It was just published in the Federal Register
and we need and want comments from the grazing folks on this
initiative. We too think that grazing plays a very important
role, not just in the health of the lands, but in the health of
our rural economies. We want to give them the tools to continue
on the land in the 21st century.
Mr. McInnis. Rebecca, I assume that you have a website that
folks could look up?
Ms. Watson. Yes, if they go to the Department of Interior
website, they can find those regulations there.
Mr. McInnis. Mr. Rey, I assume that applies to your agency
as well--website?
Mr. Rey. There is a USDA website. If I was more computer
literate, I could remember--
Mr. McInnis. Well, they could put in search, but there is a
website out that where they can get some of this data. Also, we
are going to try and put everything we can on our website for
today's hearing, some of the pictures too.
Mr. Pombo. Mr. Chairman, if you would just yield on the
point.
Mr. McInnis. Of course.
Mr. Pombo. For all of the members of the audience, all of
the information from this hearing will be linked to the House
Resources Committee website as well as the information that our
two Under Secretaries just talked about will be linked to our
website. It will take our staff a couple of days to get it on
there, but all of that will be on our website. So any further
information that you want, you will be able to pull down. Thank
you.
Mr. McInnis. And that website, Mr. Chairman, would be--what
would they throw in a search?
Mr. Pombo. Ask one of them.
[Laughter.]
Mr. McInnis. Get your pencil out and we will give it real
quick.
Mr. Pombo. Resources.gov--
Mr. Shadegg. Do you want me to read the whole thing here?
Mr. McInnis. Go ahead.
Mr. Shadegg. //ResourceCommittee.House.gov/107cong/--
Mr. McInnis. Slow down, slow down.
Mr. Pombo. Just put in ResourcesCommittee.gov.
Mr. McInnis. ResourcesCommittee.gov will do it for you.
Mr. Shadegg. I am informed there is a handout with the
website address on it.
Mr. McInnis. Terrific, we will do that.
Mr. Shadegg, you may proceed.
Mr. Shadegg. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to begin with
you, Chairman Massey.
You heard some discussion earlier that there was an ongoing
effort in Washington the try to strike a middle ground and pass
legislation this year where we worked with George Miller and
others to try to reach compromise legislation. Mr. Walden and
the Chairman of this Subcommittee worked very hard on that.
But we were opposed in that because some people to this day
across America, many, adamantly believe we should not be
treating our forest. Chairman Massey, I just want to compliment
you on this PowerPoint presentation. I wish somebody would make
a TV documentary of it to show to the Nation and to the people
of the Nation and to our colleagues in Congress. We got a
chance to see the photos, I want to walk through some of them
quickly.
First, it showed that untreated forest is an abject
disaster, that is a picture of that. It shows that by contrast,
a treated forest is just dramatically better, even after the
fire goes through it.
And then it showed something I had not realized. You have
photographs that show where it has been treated only
mechanically, but not by burning as well, prescribed burning.
It is better than untreated, but it is not near as good as land
that has been treated both mechanically and by prescribed
burning. And I think that is an incredibly important lesson for
us to learn.
It also shows something else that I have been focused on. I
want to focus a lot on the issue of timber salvaging. My
colleague Mr. Walden brought out the fact that if we do not do
timber salvage work very quickly here in Arizona--because
mostly our forests are ponderosa and not pole pine, we had
better do it quickly, and we are not doing it quickly enough.
But your photos also showed that in areas of the fire where
there had been a forest fire before and there had been no
salvage, they were devastated much worse by the second fire
than in areas of the most recent fire where there had been
previous fires and you had done timber salvage and restoration
work.
And I think that is a tremendous PowerPoint presentation,
which as I said, I wish we could make into a documentary.
Is it true that the tribe is now currently doing timber
salvaging and doing it fairly aggressively?
Mr. Massey. Yes, we are doing with several contractors on
the reservation and part of our own sawmill, we are doing some
of that salvage also. But I would like to thank you for
pointing those things out. I think from the Rodeo-Chediski
fire, there is history there. I think we call can go take a
trip and learn from it of what we have been doing to our
forests out there.
Mr. Shadegg. I have information showing that you have at
least three bidders that have already bid to do timber salvage
work and I guess it is going forward presently, and they are
harvesting that timber salvage right now; is that right?
Mr. Massey. Yes.
Mr. Shadegg. Secretary Rey, I want to ask you a question
before I run out of time and the Betty Crocker bell rings. It
is my understanding that on the non-reservation portions of the
Rodeo-Chediski fire, we only have let one timber salvage
contract and I understand it is only of the type you previously
described, that is on areas adjacent to roads and campgrounds
where a falling tree could injure or kill someone; is that
right?
Mr. Rey. Actually there are a couple of contracts that have
been let, all of them under that categorical exclusion and all
of them currently under litigation.
Mr. Shadegg. That was my second question. At the moment,
they have all been stopped by litigation; is that correct?
Mr. Rey. So far that is correct.
Mr. Shadegg. And under the normal time line for that
litigation, is there any hope that we will be able to do the
salvage timbering or will the litigation prevent us from being
able to do that if it pursues its normal course, because this
is ponderosa pine and we have 2 years or less?
Mr. Rey. It is a little too early to tell. If the case goes
to a full trial on the merits, the scenario you describe is
probably correct, but at this point, we have not even had a
hearing on a preliminary injunction. So it is unclear what will
happen.
Mr. Shadegg. I want to encourage you on behalf of all of
northern Arizona to aggressively pursue that litigation and try
to win it any way you can. And I also want to tell you that
some of us in Congress are thinking about introducing
legislation that would address that ongoing litigation.
But beyond that, is there--are there plans to let
additional contracts for areas beyond those adjacent to the
human habitat areas?
Mr. Rey. Yes, the environmental impact statement covering
those areas should be done in May and then, depending on
whatever appeal and litigation activity occurs thereafter, we
will see what happens next.
Mr. Shadegg. My final question is, is there anything else
that we can do legislatively to assist you in ensuring that
that timber salvage work does go forward?
Mr. Rey. We could probably talk about that back in
Washington, if you would like.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Shadegg. Well, some of us want to do that, so thank you
very much.
Mr. McInnis. Unfortunately, Betty Crocker has been replaced
by the little hammer up here.
But Mr. Shadegg, I would point out that your questioning on
litigation is absolutely on point and that has really caused a
problem. And while the litigation is being delayed, I think we
will probably hear from some of the rest of the panel, the
beetles move in and then pretty soon the beetles make it and
then we have got another disaster on our hands. But I am glad
you brought that up, I appreciate that.
Mr. Pombo. Mr. Chairman, just to clear this up in my mind,
when we are talking about this timber salvage that you are
discussing, we are talking about removing dead trees.
Mr. Shadegg. Dead trees inside the footprint of the Rodeo-
Chediski fire that could be used--have an economic value right
now but as has been brought out in other questioning, soon will
have no economic value whatsoever.
Mr. Pombo. So you are not suggesting cutting green trees,
you are suggesting that we go in and remove dead and burned
trees.
Mr. Shadegg. Mr. Chairman, that is absolutely right.
Mr. Pombo. OK.
Mr. McInnis. And I might add, Mr. Chairman, keeping in mind
that every day that goes by that you do not remove that, that
becomes a nest for beetles and then when the beetles do not
have their tummy full from that, they fly to the live trees.
And we have experienced it in huge proportions in Colorado.
I want to thank the panel; thank you very much. I apologize
you had to stand there for all this questioning, but thank you
very much for coming and I ask that the audience recognize the
group.
[Applause.]
Mr. Gibbons. Mr. Chairman.
Mr. McInnis. Yes.
Mr. Gibbons. Mr. Chairman, if I may ask the indulgence of
the Committee while we are changing panels here, there are some
of us who would have liked to have added questions to this
panel. If it is in the discretion of the Chairman and the
Committee, we would like to submit questions for the record for
the panels to answer.
Mr. McInnis. For the audience here, we have a procedure,
because we almost always run into time problems in Committee
hearings, so we do have a procedure that allows the Committee
members to submit further questions and submit questions for
the witnesses and those responses and then we incorporate those
into the record.
The Chairman of the whole Committee has asked me to
remind--well, not remind, many of you are not aware of this,
but some of you would have liked to present some public
testimony, but you did not have an opportunity, for obvious
reasons, to present it as our panel has been able to present
it. So we are going to allow you an opportunity to submit
written testimony. Again, you can send it by e-mail or you can
send it--and we will get you an address on the handout for the
Committee. We do ask that you submit that testimony within the
next two or 3 days. And we will include that in the public
record as well. So please, be aware of that.
I want to thank the second panel for attending. Dr. Moore,
you may go ahead and proceed to the podium, you are going to be
the first.
Let me introduce the whole panel--Dr. Moore a doctor with
the Greenspirit Strategies, Inc.; Dr. Wally Covington--Doctor,
nice to see you again, School of Forestry, Northern Arizona
University; Sarah Cassatt from Flagstaff; Dr. Kolb from
Northern Arizona University; Mr. Gibson from Pulp and
Paperworkers Resource Council; and Mr. Ack from the Grand
Canyon Trust.
Thank you all. Dr. Moore, my timer is broken, so we are
going to give you 5 minutes and I am going to give a little tap
if you are running over. I appreciate you watching that. Thank
you very much, you may proceed.
STATEMENT OF PATRICK MOORE, PH.D., CHAIRMAN AND CHIEF
SCIENTIST, GREENSPIRIT STRATEGIES, LTD
Mr. Moore. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
Subcommittee for this opportunity to testify today.
As an ecologist, co-founder of Greenpeace, where I served
15 years full time, and a life-long environmentalist, I find
myself in a era where many other environmentalists have adopted
policies that would see millions starve in Africa rather than
eat perfectly safe genetically modified corn, that oppose dams
producing renewable hydroelectric power in China when the
alternative is non-renewable coal, and that would see forest
fires kill every living thing rather than support sustainable
forestry and the use of renewable wood.
In this policy environment, I fashion myself the sensible
environmentalist. And there is nowhere a greater need for some
common sense than in the debate over how to manage the national
forests and other public forest lands.
There is simply no sense in allowing conditions to prevail
that inevitably result in uncharacteristic and catastrophic
wildfires. The waste of renewable resources, the destruction of
wildlife, the loss of soil and siltation of rivers, the release
of vast amounts of carbon dioxide and the loss of property and
sometimes human life are things to be avoided, not encouraged.
This is especially true when one considers how simple it is
through the application of time-tested silvicultural practices
to maintain forests in a state that minimizes catastrophic
outcomes.
There are two primary root causes of the forest conditions
on Federal public lands today. The first is constitutional and
political. Most of the Federal public lands are in the West and
most of the population and politicians who determine the fate
of those lands are in the east. This imbalance in electoral
accountability has led to policies that satisfy remote
interests while stifling more local ones.
The second root cause is ideological and stems from the
fact that many powerful environmental groups are basically
anti-forestry and favor policies that reduce the use of wood
rather than encourage its use as a renewable resource. They
promote a policy of cut fewer trees, use less wood.
A sensible environmentalist knows that the correct
environmental policy is grow more trees, use more wood. This in
turn requires active management, the application of
scientifically based silvicultural treatments and the
productive use of the wood thus obtained.
The active management of the majority of public lands with
forests to reduce fire risk, to enhance wildlife habitat, to
protect life and property and to obtain wood in no way
contradicts the desirability of maintaining a world class
system of protected areas where industrial activity is
restricted or banned. The World Wildlife Fund official policy
is that 10 percent of the world's forests should be off limits
to industrial use. That is a reasonable policy, but begs the
question of what to do with the remaining 90 percent. A
sensible environmentalist would favor sustainably managed
forests producing high volumes of wood, while taking the needs
of wildlife and biodiversity into account.
The anti-forestry activists are telling us the way to save
the forest is to let them burn to the ground. Last summer, I
toured forests in Idaho with a group that included former
Forest Service Chief Jack Ward Thomas. We witnessed the
devastation caused by uncharacteristic wildfires in the
ponderosa pine forest in the high country northeast of Boise. I
include a few images from that field trip for your interest.
These photographs show that even after 15 to 20 years, the
forest has not recovered from the devastation caused by
uncharacteristic wildfires.l The soil was burned off exposing
bare rock. Erosion continues, sending debris into rivers where
it damages fish habitat. A beautiful biodiverse ponderosa pine
forest has bene reduced to a barren landscape that will take
decades to recover.
I am not saying that fire in forests is always bad for the
environment. Fire can be a very useful tool for managing fuel
loads and enhancing wildlife habitat. But fire is a tool that
should only be used by professionals trained in forest science,
not by idealists with the naive notion that because fire is
natural, it is automatically good for the environment.
The inferno that began in the Bandelier National Monument
in Los Alamos, New Mexico in May 2000 is a classic case in
point. The park officials who started this fire did so with
good intentions. But they failed to take into account the fact
that over 50 years of fire prevention had resulted in a fuel
load buildup that nearly guaranteed the catastrophic results
that ensued. The only solution in these circumstances is manual
and mechanical removal of wood to reduce the fuel load. In some
types of forests, it may then be possible to manage fuel loads
with prescribed fire. In other types of forests, however,
especially where there are homes and other property at risk,
mechanical thinning and harvesting are the only practical
options.
Just a brief word about the precautionary principle which
is so often used these days to try to convince us that we
should do nothing. There is a risk of using logging and
thinning practices in forests, but there is a far higher risk
of allowing those forests to come to a state where they will
have catastrophic fires. In other words, the precautionary
principle is not only about considering the risk of doing a
certain thing, it is also about considering the risk of not
doing it, not doing active management in other words.
It is therefore essential that the present legislative and
policy obstacles to implementing active management of national
forests and other Federal forest lands be removed. It is
unfortunate that some activist groups characterize this need as
being destructive to the environment, when it is actually the
only way to break the present environmentally destructive
pattern of fuel buildup followed by catastrophic wildfire. I
wish the legislators, policymakers and all those responsible in
the field well in bringing about these very necessary changes
in law and practice.
Members of the Subcommittee, I have attached a section from
my book Green Spirit: Trees are the Answer, for your interest.
The section that is about fire, and I would also ask you to go
to greenspirit.com which is my website which contains a great
deal more material on this and many other subjects.
Thank you very much.
Mr. McInnis. Thank you, Dr. Moore, very interesting
testimony.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Moore follows:]
Statement of Patrick Moore, Ph.D., Chairman and Chief Scientist,
Greenspirit Strategies Ltd.
As an ecologist, co-founder of Greenpeace, and a lifelong
environmentalist I find myself in an era where many other
environmentalists have adopted policies that would see millions starve
in Africa rather than eat perfectly safe genetically modified corn,
that oppose dams producing renewable hydroelectric power in China when
the alternative is non-renewable coal, and that would see forest fires
kill every living thing rather than support sustainable forestry and
the use of renewable wood, I fashion myself the Sensible
Environmentalist. And there is nowhere a greater need for some common
sense than in the debate over how to manage the National Forests and
other public forest lands.
There is simply no sense in allowing conditions to prevail that
inevitably result in uncharacteristic and catastrophic wildfires. The
waste of renewable resources, the destruction of wildlife, the loss of
soil and siltation of rivers, the release of vast amounts of carbon
dioxide, and the loss of property and sometimes human life are things
to be avoided, not encouraged. This is especially true when one
considers how simple it is, through the application of time-tested
silvicultural practices, to maintain forests in a state that minimizes
such catastrophic outcomes.
There are two primary root causes of the forest conditions on
Federal public lands today. The first is constitutional and political.
Most of the Federal public lands are in the West, and most of the
population and politicians who determine the fate of these lands are in
the East. This imbalance in electoral accountability has led to
policies that satisfy remote interests while stifling more local ones.
The second root cause is ideological and stems from the fact that many
powerful environmental groups are basically anti-forestry and favor
policies that reduce the use of wood rather than encourage its use as a
renewable resource. They promote a policy of ``cut fewer trees--use
less wood''. A Sensible Environmentalist knows that the correct policy
is ``grow more trees--use more wood''. This in turn requires active
management, the application of scientifically-based silvicultural
treatments, and the productive use of the wood thus obtained.
The active management of the majority of public forests; to reduce
fire risk, to enhance wildlife habitat, to protect life and property,
and to obtain wood, in no way contradicts the desirability of
maintaining a world-class system of protected areas where industrial
activity is restricted or banned. The Word Wildlife Fund official
policy is that 10% of the world's forests should be off-limits to
industrial use. That is a reasonable policy but it begs the question of
what to do with the remaining 90%. A Sensible Environmentalist would
favor sustainabley managed forests producing high volumes of wood while
taking the needs of wildlife and biodiversity into account.
The anti-forestry activists are telling us that the way to save
forests is to let them burn to the ground. Last summer I toured forests
in Idaho with a group that included former Forest Service Chief Jack
Ward Thomas. We witnessed the devastation caused by uncharacteristic
wildfires in the Ponderosa Pine forest in the high country northeast of
Boise. (Here are a few images from that field trip).
These photographs show that even after 15-20 years the forest has
not recovered from the devastation caused by uncharacteristic
wildfires. The soil was burned off exposing bare rock. Erosion
continues, sending debris into rivers where it damages fish habitat. A
beautiful, biodiverse Ponderosa pine forest has been reduced to a
barren landscape that will take decades to recover.
I am not saying that fire in forests is always bad for the
environment. Fire can be a very useful tool for managing fuel loads and
enhancing wildlife habitat. But fire is a tool that should only be used
by professionals trained in forest science, not by idealists with the
naive notion that because fire is ``natural'' it is automatically good
for the environment. The inferno that began in the Bandelier National
Monument near Los Alamos, New Mexico in May 2000 is a classic case in
point. The park officials who started this fire did so with good
intentions. But they failed to take into account the fact that over 50
years of fire prevention had resulted in a fuel load build-up that
nearly guaranteed the catastrophic results that ensued. The only
solution in these circumstances is manual and mechanical removal of
wood to reduce the fuel load. In some types of forest it may then be
possible to manage fuel loads with prescribed fire. In other forest
types, especially where there are homes and other property at risk,
mechanical thinning and harvesting are the only practical options.
It is therefore essential that the present legislative and policy
obstacles to implementing active management of National Forests and
other Federal forest lands be removed. It is unfortunate that some
activist groups characterize this need as being destructive to the
environment when it is actually the only way to break the present
environmentally destructive pattern of fuel build-up followed by
catastrophic wildfire. I wish legislators, policymakers, and all those
responsible in the field well in bringing about these very necessary
changes in law and practice.
(Please see the attached excerpt from my book ``Green Spirit--Trees
are the Answer'')
Fire in the Mountains (Excerpt from Green Spirit--Trees are the
Answer, Patrick Moore, 2000)
While the changes caused by ice are as slow as glaciers, the
destruction caused by fire is instantaneous by comparison. A lightning
strike or a careless camper can burn an entire hillside or valley in a
matter of hours. The worst fires last for weeks, destroying new areas
each time the wind picks up to fan the flames. Forest fires spark fear
in humans and animals alike. If you find yourself in the wrong place at
the wrong time the flames cannot be outrun.
Public attitudes towards forest fires have always been strong.
Fear, fascination, and anxiety over environmental and economic
devastation have combined to generate powerful opinions. People who
live in communities surrounded by forest want to be able to control
fires so their towns don't get burned to the ground. Foresters view
fire as sometimes beneficial and sometimes harmful, depending on a wide
range of factors. Many environmental activists take the view that since
fires are natural occurrences they are therefore good and should
generally not be controlled.
Little can be gained by arguing about whether forest fires in
general are good or bad. First, forest fires come in a great variety of
sizes and intensities. Some fires burn a small area and kill only the
shrubs and ground-cover, leaving the trees alive. Other fires kill
virtually everything over vast areas including the seeds and soil,
leaving the site sterile and subject to erosion. Second, while forest
fires are often ``good'' as a way of temporarily increasing forage for
wild grazing animals they are just as often ``bad'' for soil, trees,
fish, birds, and humans. We tend to think worse of wildfires the larger
the insurance claim when there is loss of human life and property. This
may seem reasonable to us but it has little to do with the health of
forest ecosystems.
For the sake of discussion forest fires can be placed in one of
three groups: those started by lightning, those started by humans
through carelessness or accident, and those caused by humans on
purpose, often called ``prescribed burning.'' Wherever forests are
valued for timber, recreation, and wildlife, efforts are taken to
control wildfires to protect these values. In 1924 the U.S. Congress
passed the Clarke-McNary Act, an agreement among forest land owners,
the western States, and the Federal Government to cooperate in
controlling fires. A monument at Snoqualmie Falls in Washington State
commemorates the historical meeting where the agreement was reached.
Since that time fighting fire has become a sophisticated enterprise
employing satellite surveillance, helicopters, fire-retardant chemicals
and water bombers, in addition to the traditional fire-spotters in
mountaintop watchtowers. Each year thousands of fires are reported and
most of them are controlled before they spread very far. Some of them
get away and do a lot of damage before they are contained.
In British Columbia, fire control is the responsibility of the
provincial government. In an average year some 2,500 wildfires are
reported, of which about half are caused by lightning and half by
people. In addition, hundreds of fires are ignited on purpose for a
number of reasons including brush control, preparation of harvested
areas for planting, and improving grazing land for wildlife and cattle.
Forest fire control has had a significant impact on the ``natural''
cycle of forest disturbance and renewal that occurred prior to the
advent of modern forest management. Areas severely burned were
particularly large during periods of drought. Even today, in the far
northern boreal forest of Alaska, Yukon, and the Northwest Territories,
where there is little incentive to control fires, vast areas are burned
by lightning strikes nearly every year. When these fires spread without
any intervention they have sometimes wiped out whole mountainsides and
valleys. If the soil is badly burned it can take decades for the forest
to recover on exposed rock. These periods of catastrophic burning were
followed by periods of re-growth and a new succession of forests that
were burned again when conditions were right. Today, in areas where
forests are commercially valuable, most potentially devastating fires
are put out before they get out of control but there are still many
fires that defy early attempts at control and burn large areas.
Some species of plants and trees are specially adapted to survive
forest fires. Trees such as Douglas-fir, western larch, and longleaf
pine have thick bark that protects them from ground fires. The seeds of
some trees are adapted to survive all but the hottest blaze and some of
their cones actually require heat from fire to trigger the release of
seeds. The nutrients in the ashes from fires, so long as heavy rains do
not wash them away, provide a basis for rapid growth of new plants on
the site.
Foresters realize that in some areas small frequent ground fires
play an important role in reducing the potential for eventual
catastrophic fires. The ground fires can clear away the accumulation of
dead wood and brush before the fuel load becomes large enough to
support a fire that kills the trees. While this might lead one to think
that fires should therefore be allowed to burn whenever they start it
is not that simple. It is often difficult to tell in advance if a
particular fire is the kind you want or if it might develop into an
inferno that wipes out a whole forest. When there are towns nearby the
decision becomes even more difficult. This is a good example of a real-
life situation that requires judgment based on experience and
knowledge. The answer cannot be found in a rule or regulation and even
the wisest person will get it wrong sometimes. It's instructive to
consider two examples of situations where judgments were questioned and
where there has never been a resolution on the subject of whether a
wildfire should have been put out or not.
In the summer of 1994 there was a large forest fire near Penticton
in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia. The fire started in rugged
hills south of the town in timber not considered valuable. Initially,
winds were light and blowing away from the town so forestry and
environment officials decided to let it burn as a way of clearing off
the fuel load and improving grazing for wild mountain sheep. This
worked fine until a few days later when the wind came in strong from
the south and fanned the flames in the direction of the town of 35,000.
I watched as the pines exploded in flame and the blaze leapt from tree
to tree. Whole suburbs were evacuated, 18 homes were burned down, and
the town's electrical supply was threatened. Water bombers were called
in from Vancouver Island and as far away as Ontario to combat the blaze
and save the town. Luckily the combined efforts of forestry
firefighters, water bombers, and the Penticton Fire Department kept the
damage confined to the outskirts. Needless to say, government officials
came under severe public criticism for not doing more to extinguish the
fire. Even so, environmentalists and wildlife advocates declared that
the fire would result in improved wildlife grazing habitat.
A much larger fire began in July of 1988 during a hot dry summer in
Yellowstone National Park. <SUP>1</SUP> At first the officials in
charge decided to let the fires burn as part of the natural cycle. As
the summer progressed the fires became more numerous and spread
throughout the park. Local environmentalists strongly opposed
controlling the fires even though they were spreading outside the park
into commercially valuable forest. Loggers, ranchers, and residents of
nearby communities wanted the fires stopped. By September the main
lodge at Old Faithful was threatened with destruction and the decision
on action was passed all the way up to the White House. By the time
President George Bush ordered the National Guard in as firefighters, a
massive effort was required to subdue the blazes, ultimately costing
over $120 million. In the aftermath those in favor of controlling such
fires before they get out of control felt they had been right all
along. The environmentalists disagreed, stating that even though it had
been finally judged necessary to put the fires out that they had been
beneficial to the ecosystem. They believed the forest would recover
quickly from this ``natural'' event.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Micah Morrison, Fire in Paradise: The Yellowstone Fires and the
Politics of Environmentalism, HarperCollins, New York, 1993.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eight years later I visited Yellowstone, and made extensive
observations on the effects of the fire, which in the end affected over
a million acres (400,000 hectares), nearly 50 percent of the area of
the park. There are huge areas of forest where all the trees and plants
were killed and there are other vast stretches where the forest was
partially burned. It soon became clear to me that depending on where
one looked, a case could be made for both positions regarding the
impact on the ecosystem. In some areas, where the fire had not been
severe, new lodgepole pine seedlings have grown back so thick they look
like a green carpet. These sites will recover fairly quickly. But in
other extensive areas, such as the Lewis River canyon, all the trees
are dead and very few new trees have grown back. These areas were so
hot that the seeds were burned and the phosphorous in the soil was
vaporized. The only vegetation after eight years is from seeds like
fireweed and cottonwood that have blown in on the wind. The soil has
been heavily eroded in places and it will take many decades before a
healthy new forest becomes established.
It is one thing to debate the merits of forest destruction by fire
in a park and quite another when commercially valuable timber is at
stake. It is even more problematic when a fire starts in a park and
then spreads outside the park into areas designated for forestry. The
two land uses, parks and timber production, are managed according to
different values. In the park we care about aesthetics, recreation, and
an environment not dominated by the material needs of people. On
commercial forest lands we care about wood production, wildlife, and
recreation. Fire is not aware of these distinctions and does not
respect the boundaries between them.
I don't believe there is an absolute right or wrong answer to the
question of whether a particular fire should burn or not. Wildfires in
forests, whether caused by lightning or people, remind us that we are
not always in control of the outcome of events. The only rational
approach is the combined use of experience, careful judgment, and
common sense. It is just as foolish to reject efforts to control forest
fires as it is to think they should always be put out. The most
reasonable approach must balance forest health, timber supply, human
safety, and property protection. Such a complex mix of factors, each
depending on circumstance, cannot be reduced to a simple formula.
In many of the areas where it is practiced, logging has replaced
fire as the major cause of change in the forest. To some extent
clearcutting and other forms of harvesting can ``mimic'' the impact of
fire in the evolution and successional development of the forest. This
is discussed later in this chapter.
______
Mr. McInnis. Dr. Covington. Dr. Covington, welcome to the
Committee, I appreciate your attendance here today. You may
proceed.
STATEMENT OF W. WALLACE COVINGTON, PH.D., SCHOOL OF FORESTRY,
NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY
Mr. Covington. Thank you very much. Thank you, Chairman
McInnis, Chairman Pombo and members of the Committee for the
opportunity to testify before this Subcommittee. And thank you
for breakfast this morning. You find out you feed a forester,
you have got a friend for life.
Mr. McInnis. Well, you are buying lunch, I assume you have
packed lunches coming in for all of us.
Mr. Covington. So on with the testimony. I will summarize
the highlights of it and of course ask that the full body of my
testimony be incorporated in the proceedings.
Although the general principles that I will talk about
today apply to the vast majority of forests of the West, of the
frequent fire or dry forest types of the West, I will focus
most of my testimony on the ponderosa pine type. As you know,
the General Accounting Office has identified that over 90
percent of the severe crown fires in the West occur in
ponderosa pine and closely related forest types.
My testimony today has four major points. First, that the
greatest threat to the sustainability, diversity and social
viability of the forests and communities of the West is our
failure to aggressively restore forest health in these frequent
fire forests.
My second point is that the pace and scale of forest health
restoration treatments is wholly inadequate and unconscionable.
Treatments should at least be on the scale of acres destroyed
by catastrophic fires. I will say more about that in just a
minute.
My third point is that knowing what we now know, it is
critical that we move forward with large scale restoration-
based fuel treatments, using an adaptive management approach.
And my fourth and final point is that there are emerging
models of communities working together with agencies and other
organizations to restore forest health in the full suite of
values that accrue to society from forest health restoration.
So first, the greatest threat to sustainability, diversity
and social viability in the West is our failure to restore
forest health. I used to say that it was crown fires, but in
fact, that is overly simple. It is also the bark beetle
infestations and all of the manifestations of forest health
problems that we now see.
Simply installing fuel breaks around our cities and rural
developments, in my opinion, is forsaking wildlands that are
the basis of the long-term sustainability of the western United
States and of the nation. Such actions fail to address one of
the most contentious problems that we face, the protection of
endangered species. Severe frequent wildfires of the West are
the greater taker of endangered species habitat right now. It
is not forest harvesting, it is not development,
suburbanization or any of that; it is these severe wildfires
that we are seeing.
If we are serious about restoring ecosystem health, we must
confront the bigger problem, not just protecting our houses and
habitat, but protecting the houses and habitats of wildlife, of
spotted owls, of goshawks, os salamanders, all of the rest of
the components of the community of life in our western forest
lands.
The second point, the pace and scale of our forest
restoration treatments is wholly inadequate.
The current rate of acceleration in the severity and size
of wildfires in the West indicates that average annual losses
over the next two decades are likely to be in excess of 10
million acres per year. Unless we act aggressively, we will
long for the years of 20002 and 2000 because the trend is
undeniable. It is been building now for five decades. Using the
reasonable assumption that preventative restoration treatments
should at least be on the pace and scale of losses to severe
stand replacing fires, one would conclude that we should
conservatively be treating five to ten million acres per year,
and that the size of those treatment areas should be on the
scale of the losses we are now accruing. We should be looking
at 100,000 to half a million acre units when we analyze and
implement treatments, not 10,000 acre units, not 20,000 acre
units. It needs to be hundreds of thousands of acres.
I also want to point out that when I speak about
preventative restoration treatments, I am not talking about
trying to close the barn door after the horses are out. What I
am talking about is getting in before wildfires occur and
putting in treatments like we have seen in earlier testimony
today, that clearly will prevent the kind of devastation--
Mr. McInnis. Doctor, we have got to speed it up a little.
Mr. Covington. OK. I have got my little watch running here
too, so I am now going to wrap this up.
The last point that I have to make is that we have
sufficient knowledge to do these treatments on the scale of
hundreds of thousands of acres and that we need to do so in
adaptive management framework.
And my final point is that we have emerging models of
communities working cooperatively to make this happen. One of
the best examples I think is here in the Flagstaff area, the
Greater Flagstaff Forest Partnership, which is working on
restoring the Greater Flagstaff Forest Ecosystem.
And again, thank you very much for the opportunity to
present testimony.
Mr. McInnis. Thank you, Doctor, and I appreciate your time.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Covington follows:]
Statement of Dr. W. Wallace Covington, Regents' Professor and Director
of the Ecological Restoration Institute, Northern Arizona University
Chairman McInnis, and members of the Committee, thank you for this
opportunity to testify on a subject of personal importance to me and of
critical importance to the health of our nation's forests and the
people and communities that live within them.
My name is Wally Covington. I am Regents' Professor of Forest
Ecology at Northern Arizona University and Director of the Ecological
Restoration Institute. I have been a professor at NAU since 1975.
I have a Ph.D. in forest ecosystem analysis from Yale University.
Over the past 25 years I have taught graduate and undergraduate
courses in research methods, ecological restoration, ecosystem
management, fire ecology and management, forest management, range
management, wildlife management, watershed management, recreation
management, park and wildland management, and forest operations
research. I have been working in long-term research on fire ecology and
management in ponderosa pine and related ecosystems since I moved to
Northern Arizona University in 1975. In addition to my publications on
forest restoration, I have co-authored scientific papers on a broad
variety of topics in forest ecology and resource management including
research on fire effects, prescribed burning, thinning, operations
research, silviculture, range management, wildlife effects,
multiresource management, forest health, and natural resource
conservation. I am senior author of the Ecosystem Restoration and
Management: Scientific Principles and Concepts chapter of the
interagency publication entitled The Ecological Stewardship Reference.
I am a member of numerous professional societies including the
Ecological Society of America, the International Society for Ecosystem
Health, the Society for Conservation Biology, the Natural Areas
Association, the Soil and Water Conservation Society, the Society for
Range Management, and the Society of American Foresters. I am also a
member of the Society for Ecological Restoration and was founding chair
of its Science and Policy Working Group. In addition to publishing in
the scientific literature I have been actively involved in outreach
efforts to natural resource professionals, community leaders, and the
general public on issues related to forest ecosystem management.
Although the general principles that I will discuss apply to the
vast majority of the West's dryer forest types, I will focus my
testimony on ponderosa pine forests. As the GAO has pointed out over 90
percent of the severe crown fire damage nationally is in this forest
type.
My testimony today has four major points:
1. LThe greatest threat to the sustainability, diversity, and
social viability of the forests and communities of the West is our
failure to restore forest health in the frequent fire forests of the
West.
2. LThe pace and scale of our forest health restoration treatments
is wholly inadequate; treatments should at least be on the scale of
acres burned by severe wildfire annually.
3. LKnowing what we now know, it is critical that we move forward
with large-scale restoration-based fuel treatments using an adaptive
management approach.
4. LThere are emerging models of communities working to reduce the
threat of fire while restoring the forest for its full suite of values.
Their success depends on meaningful community collaboration, human and
financial resources and adequate scientific support to make well
informed management decisions. Congress, Federal agencies,
universities, and non-governmental organizations must support these
communities to help them achieve success. These groups should be
supported and encouraged to work at the scale of the greater ecosystem,
200,000 to 1,000,000+ acres.
Background
It is an unfortunate set of circumstances that have led to this
hearing. Scientists have predicted the current forest crisis for the
last 75 years (Leopold 1924, Weaver 1943). In 1994 I was senior author
on a review paper in which I stated that we could anticipate
exponential increases in the severity and extent of catastrophic fire.
It is not a prediction I ever wanted to come true. In that same paper,
I also suggested that we have a narrow window of opportunity to take
preventative actions to restore forest health and minimize the losses
of civilian and firefighter lives as well as the mounting damage to our
nation's natural resources.
The forests of the West are full of communities that have poor
escape routes and little capability for evacuation in the event of a
fast moving fire. It is not likely that our luck will continue. Recent
fires have traveled spread at rates in excess of 10 miles in a 24 hour
period. Given such a rate of spread in heavy forest fuels there is no
way that we will be able to evacuate vulnerable mountain communities in
time to prevent the loss of lives. Clearly, if we do not do something
quickly we can expect civilian and firefighter fatalities that are
today unimaginable. I commend the Committee and Congress for taking a
problem-solving approach to the current and future fire situation.
I am optimistic that thoughtful action, adequate resources and
public and private leadership we can begin to solve this crisis.
1. LThe greatest threat to the sustainability, diversity, and
social viability of the forests and communities of the West is our
failure to restore forest health in the frequent fire forests of the
West.
Simply installing fuel breaks around our cities and rural
developments and forsaking the wildlands would be an abdication of our
responsibility to future generations. Attention cannot be narrowly
focused on a ring around the developed areas. Such actions will fail to
address one of the most contentious issues of our time, the protection
of endangered species. Severe wildfires in frequent fire forests of the
West are the greatest single threat to critical habitat for many of
these vulnerable species because they are not adapted to stand
replacing fires. According to a recent draft plan by the Coconino
National Forest surrounding Flagstaff, Arizona, over the last ten years
the nesting habitats of seven northern goshawks and six Mexican spotted
owls have been eliminated or severely altered by stand replacement
fires in the vicinity of the San Francisco Peaks.
There are numerous factors that contribute to the decline of
species in this country but the biggest threats, according to experts
like E.O. Wilson, a Harvard conservation ecologist, are habitat
destruction and degradation. Degradation of habitat occurs for many
reasons but one of the most severe factors is the elimination of
important ecological processes, such as the periodic, low-intensity
burns that characterize the fire dependent ponderosa pine forest. By
not restoring the forest we contribute to the decline of habitat and
the collision between society and nature.
From a conservation biology perspective (conservation biology deals
with the biology of rare and declining species), one of the most
critical needs for species conservation is the ecological restoration
of the core areas of greater ecosystems. Core areas are large areas
that are managed as source areas for native plants and animals to
disperse across the larger landscape. Core areas are typically, but not
always, wilderness areas, National Park backcountry, and similar
undeveloped areas. In the ponderosa pine type, these core areas are
often even more overcrowded by unnaturally dense stands of trees than
is the rest of the landscape. As such, our parks, wilderness areas, and
other reserve areas are at a much greater risk of catastrophic crown
fire than is the rest of the landscape. Furthermore, because of the
importance of these areas as strongholds of biological diversity, their
loss to crown fire is a much more critical blow to biological diversity
than are fires in other areas. If we are serious about restoring
ecosystem health we must confront the difficult problem of how to
restore these critical core areas and do so immediately. At the very
least we should seek to protect them with a defensible perimeter using
restoration based fuel breaks much as we are trying to do with urban
areas.
2. LThe pace and scale of our forest health restoration treatments
is wholly inadequate; treatments should at least be on the scale of
acres burned by severe wildfire annually.
The current rate of acceleration in the severity and size of
wildfires in the West indicates that average annual losses over the
next two decades will be in excess of 5-10 million acres per year.
Using the reasonable assumption that preventative restoration
treatments should at least be at the pace and scale of losses to severe
stand replacing fire, one would conclude that we should be treating 5-
10 million acres per year. Our current pace and scale is woefully
inadequate given the scope of the problem. Unless we accelerate
treatments rapidly and immediately we will never get ahead of the
problem.
3. LKnowing what we now know, it is critical that we move forward
with large-scale restoration-based fuel treatments using an adaptive
management approach.
We have a solid body of scientific information to support a
systematic scientific approach for implementing forest restoration that
will protect people, communities and the forest. Adaptive management
would use this information, coupled with ongoing monitoring and
evaluation, to ensure that maximum learning comes from ongoing
operational treatment implementation.
We have sufficient knowledge to implement large, landscape scale
restoration treatments in ponderosa pine and related ecosystems. Such a
scientific approach should be based on attempts to objectively discover
the truth about how best to learn how to improve treatments during the
course of ongoing large-scale restoration of the landscape. The
scientific method has been developed as a systematic way to discover
truth, or more specifically to avoid being fooled by biases about how
we imagine that things might be. A.D. Bradshaw (1993) of the University
of Liverpool in England has presented a particularly cogent discussion
of the need for objectivity in ecological restoration work. Otherwise,
he fears that arguments over restoration objectives and approaches will
tend to degenerate into decisions and actions based on intuition and
impressions instead of the best knowledge available. He goes on to
state that, ``With this goes the belief that good restoration is
intuitive, stemming from feelings rather than logical understanding,
and that because of this it is only learned by experience...Certainly
nobody should ever decry the importance of intuition...Yet applied to
the exclusion of other principles, these beliefs will destroy the
efficiency and effectiveness of restoration ecology...''
Restoration ecology, he posits, must be based on six cardinal
points:
1. LAwareness of other work.
2. LPreparedness to carry out proper experiments to test ideas.
3. LPreparedness to monitor fundamental parameters in a restoration
scheme.
4. LFurther tests and experiments suggested by these monitoring
observations.
5. LThe restoration of functioning ecosystems in which a whole
variety of species is involved.
6. LPublished results.
There is abundant scientific research that began in the 1890's and
continues today that provides a sound scientific framework for
implementing the science and practice of restoration in ponderosa pine
and related frequent fire ecosystems. We have solid information about
presettlement forest conditions, changes in fire regimes over the last
century, deterioration of overall ecosystem health, and ecological
responses to thinning and prescribed burning--the key elements of any
attempt to restore ecosystem health in ponderosa pine and related
ecosystems. We know that current overcrowded stands of trees do not
sustain the diversity of wildlife and plants that existed a century
ago. We know this by examining the data of early naturalists and
scientists. We also know this to be true from primary research.
Scientists that have compared biological diversity of overstocked
stands--stands that have had decades of fire exclusion--with open,
park-like stands that have not had severe fire regime disruption, have
found greater plant diversity, greater insect diversity, and greater
bird diversity. Similar studies have also found greater old-growth tree
vigor and resistance to insect attack in open, park-like stands--stands
similar to those present before settlement. We also know that stopping
ecologically based forest restoration that includes thinning, is not
saving the forest as some would like you to believe, but only
contributing to its demise and causing severe losses to the wealth of
species that depend on it.
Research across the Intermountain West has shown that restoration
treatments substantially reduce fire hazard by thinning trees to
decrease tree canopy density, break up interconnected canopy fuels,
raise the crown base height, and then reduce accumulated forest floor
fuels and debris with prescribed fire. Where tree density is great,
fire alone is inadequate. Without thinning, fire can lead to increased
mortality, especially among old growth trees. This is the typical case
over most of the ponderosa pine type throughout the West.
Restoration thinning enhances the productivity (growth) of trees,
allowing young trees to develop old-growth characteristics such as
large size and full crowns. Perhaps most importantly, restoration has
been shown to increase rapidly the productivity of native understory
grasses and herbs, the species that make up 90-99% of the plant
biological diversity in western fire-adapted forests. The resources
provided by abundant understory vegetation--seeds, flowers, fruits, and
cover--translate into key wildlife habitat components. For example, the
number of butterfly species and individuals increased within two years
in Arizona sites that had received ecological restoration treatments.
A variety of restoration options are being investigated at research
sites across the West, applying treatments developed locally by
scientists, managers, environmental activists, resource users, and
members of the public. It is important to continue and expand the
research effort, but at the same time it is imperative that we accept
the responsibility to apply the extensive knowledge we already have,
before more forests are lost. Restoration faces many challenges,
because ecosystems have been highly fragmented and degraded by decades
of overuse. It is not necessarily simple nor is success always
guaranteed. But the preponderance of research clearly indicates that
restoration management approaches stand in striking contrast to the
destructive effects of unnaturally intense fires. Clearly the risks of
inaction far outweigh the risks of scientifically based restoration
treatments.
The actions that others and I believe should be taken to restore
the ecological integrity of ponderosa pine forests and therefore reduce
the threat of crown fire are well known. I do not advocate a ``one-size
fits all approach'' but rather crafting management approaches based on
the location under analysis, its presettlement condition, and its
relationship to the broader ecosystem and the communities that live
within it. In this sense, ecological restoration should not be viewed
as a strict recipe or a rigid set of prescriptions. Rather, ecological
restoration should be viewed a broad intellectual framework for
restoring and enhancing not only ecosystem health, but also sustainable
human uses of the land.
At the Ecological Restoration Institute we have developed some
general principles for restoration of ponderosa pine ecosystems http://
www.eri.nau.edu/. In general, treatment design should:
<bullet> LStrive to emulate, insofar as is practical, natural
ecosystem patterns and processes. In ecological restoration we refer to
these natural conditions as ``reference conditions''. In most cases for
ponderosa pine forests this includes fewer trees per acre; retaining
older trees and removing the excess trees thus opening up the forest
canopy to promote increased numbers and species of plants and grasses.
<bullet> LSeek to incorporate human needs with ecosystem
conservation goals. For example, in many circumstances it may be
desirable to deviate from strict-sense restoration prescriptions to
accommodate specific uses by humans, endangered species, or other
ecosystem management objectives.
<bullet> LRecognize that ecologically based restoration treatments
not only provide fuel breaks to stop crown fires from spreading across
the landscape, but also enhance resource values and minimize the risk
of environmental degradation.
<bullet> LBe based on comprehensive economic analysis. Initially
the cost of pre-suppression treatments and restoration appears large,
however, when compared to the cost of fire suppression, property loss,
environmental services lost (such as water), potential loss of lives
and other factors it is relatively small. As others have said, we can
either pay now, or pay much more later.
<bullet> LRecognize that initial costs will be higher than
maintenance costs. For example, in a degraded forest the cost of
restoration can be as high as $700/acre. Following treatment,
prescribed, low-intensity fire can be used as the primary tool at a
much lower cost, as little as $40/acre for large areas.
<bullet> LRecognize that agency staff capacity and operational
funds are limited and must be increased to meet the challenge. In the
near term, fire suppression costs will continue to mount and
implementing pre-suppression treatments will require resources as well.
<bullet> LConsider the potential for the creation of new
restoration based jobs and industries. Many new jobs will be created
throughout the nation as a consequence of implementing ecological
restoration. Furthermore, in many situations the woody material could
be removed and used to produce wood products to provide jobs and offset
some of the costs of the restoration.
This is not to suggest that we do not need more research or that we
should not continue to learn from current treatments so that we can
improve future treatments. One of the most important contributions the
scientific community could make to improve land management is to
develop monitoring protocols that are simply applied, affordable,
understandable to land managers and that can be quickly synthesized to
inform adaptive management.
This need for continued research and monitoring is particularly
acute for processes that operate at the landscape scale. For example,
with regard to endangered and threatened species as well as many other
species occupying the forest, we need more information on wide-ranging
animals that we cannot gather until there are more and larger
restoration treatments in place. Ironically some critics of forest
restoration argue that before we can implement landscape scale
restoration treatments we must know the effects of treatments on this
scale--a Catch-22 argument.
4. LThere are emerging models of communities working to reduce the
threat of fire while restoring the forest for its full suite of values.
Their success depends on meaningful community collaboration, human and
financial resources and adequate scientific support to make well
informed management decisions. Congress, Federal agencies,
universities, and non-governmental organizations must support these
communities to help them achieve success. These groups should be
supported and encouraged to work at the scale of the greater ecosystem,
200,000 to 1,000,000+ acres.
There are emerging models of communities working to reduce the
threat of fire while restoring the forest for its full suite of values.
Designing restoration and fuel reduction strategies that protect towns
and their wildland habitats is not easy because of the social, economic
and philosophical ties people have to forests. In addition, even with
broad support for treatments there are some people and organizations
that will choose not to participate, yet will litigate if the
approaches don't match their ideology. The towns working to implement
fire risk reduction and the ecological restoration of forests are
developing important models for accomplishing protection. In addition,
their experiences are an important source of information that should be
used by decision-makers, agency officials and others for adapting their
own ways of operating to support community-based decisions.
An exemplary community based collaborative group has been working
to restore the forests right here around Flagstaff. For the past six
years the Greater Flagstaff Forests Partnership has worked to develop
and implement strategies to prevent catastrophic fire and restore the
ecological integrity of ponderosa pine forests in the Greater Flagstaff
Forest Ecosystem. Over 25 public and private organizations participate
in the Partnership. Members include Northern Arizona University, the
Coconino National Forest, the City of Flagstaff fire department, the
Chamber of Commerce, the Grand Canyon Trust and many others. The group
was formed in response to the volatile fire season of 1996. During that
season fires were a constant threat within the city limits and two
wildfires in the Coconino National Forest demonstrated the
vulnerability of the San Francisco Peaks to fire. In fact, it was the
decision to re-deploy fire fighters from the Hochderffer fire in the
Coconino National Forest to a fire within the Flagstaff City limits
that resulted in the Hochderffer fire growing to approximately 16,000
acres.
The goal of the Partnership is to analyze the forest surrounding
Flagstaff and within that area to treat strategically located areas to
achieve fire protection for the town, the surrounding wildlands, and
especially the San Francisco Peaks. Although there are aggressive fuel
reduction treatments underway on city property and on private property
in the city, the Partnership recognizes the social and economic
importance of applying ecologically based restoration to the forest
surrounding Flagstaff. The Ecological Restoration Institute at Northern
Arizona University in collaboration with the Rocky Mountain Research
Station and others is developing the science-based treatments, research
and monitoring that are essential for developing effective approaches.
Developing the science behind each treatment is a critical part of
achieving community consensus and responding to criticism. Other
important activities include developing economically viable approaches
to restoration by promoting and developing the use of small diameter
trees (where feasible), community outreach and education, and
exploration of restoration based employment options.
What Congress Can Do
There are several constructive steps Congress and the Federal
agencies can take to improve our current situation.
<bullet> LTreatments to reduce fire threat and restore the
ecological integrity of forests should become the single biggest
priority of forest management policy and the land management agencies
working in the West. The 1999 GAO report pointed out that the Forest
Service has estimated that 39 million acres of Forest Service lands are
at high risk to catastrophic wildfire in that region alone.
<bullet> LCongress should provide adequate resources to the
agencies to maximize treatments. A simple extrapolation of recent rates
of increase in crown fire damage suggests that within the next decade
acres burned could easily double whereas costs for fire suppression and
compensation could approach four billion dollars annually.
<bullet> LWherever possible, Congress and the land management
agencies should support the collaboration of forest communities to
design ecologically based restoration treatments. This includes:
producing high quality, timely environmental review documents;
elevating the production of the review documents to a top priority;
assisting communities to develop economically viable opportunities for
restoration products; and assisting to develop new employment
opportunities in restoration.
<bullet> LSupport the development of science-based restoration
treatments.
To move forests from their current degraded conditions to healthy,
diverse, and productive ecosystems requires knowledge. Our lack of
understanding of how naturally functioning ponderosa pine forests
function and the ecological and social implications of changed forest
conditions has led to the current situation we now face with regard to
catastrophic fire, endangered species and the social and economic upset
of forest communities.
The Ecological Restoration Institute at Northern Arizona University
and its collaborators are generating significant knowledge about pine
forest restoration and working to get that information into the hands
of communities and land managers that can apply it on the ground. With
each treatment we learn more and can incorporate that knowledge into
the next set of treatments. However, the time for clinical trials is
over. Restoration based forest health treatments are proving to be so
beneficial in contrast to no action that we must move forward rapidly
and at large scales.
Thank you very much for asking me to appear before the
Subcommittee.
______
Mr. McInnis. Our next witness, Ms. Cassatt, you may
proceed.
STATEMENT OF SARAH CASSATT, GARDENS MANAGER, ARBORETUM,
FLAGSTAFF, ARIZONA
Ms. Cassatt. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to
speak here. I work at the Arboretum at Flagstaff, which is a
botanical garden here in the area.
The mission of the Arboretum at Flagstaff focuses on the
conservation of plants and plant communities native to the
Colorado Plateau and the wise stewardship of our natural
resources.
One of the Arboretum's primary concerns relative to
wildfires and forest management is the issue of invasive
noxious weeds. Where invasive weeds spread into native
habitats, they have the following impacts: They reduce native
plant populations and jeopardize the survival of rare plants.
They alter native plant communities, sometimes replacing them
entirely. They reduce wildlife habitat and the biodiversity of
both flora and fauna. Invasive noxious weeds also degrade
ecosystems in a variety of ways. Some species alter soil
chemistry inhibiting the growth of native plants, some alter
site hydrology, they may interfere with nutrient cycles and
some of them alter the fire cycles and other characteristics,
increasing fire frequency and intensity of those fires.
Invasive noxious weeds have already impacted 40 million
hectares of land in North America and cost the United States
economy billions of dollars a year.
I would like to talk a little bit about weed
characteristics relative to this issue. The ability of
particular plant species to rapidly invade new areas is based
on several characteristics that provide competitive advantages
under certain environmental conditions. Invasive plants tend to
be species adapted to disturbed site conditions and their
spread often follows the path of disturbances through habitats.
They tend to be heavy seed producers, various species may
produce 5,000, 50,000 and even 500,000 seeds per plant per
year. These seeds may remain viable in the soil for up to 35
years. They typically grow well in soil low in organics and
nutrients and are often very drought tolerant. The most
troublesome of these species become dominant on a site, persist
as dominants for years and may be toxic or poisonous.
The factors related to weeds that also relate to fires and
forest management are as follows: Fire removes organics from
the soil, exposing the soil and reducing moisture and nutrient
levels. High intensity fires destroy important microorganisms
in the soil that support native plant life, and thus make it
difficult for those plants to regenerate.
Research in Arizona has shown a positive correlation
between higher fire temperatures and a greater predominance of
invasive weeds revegetating those areas.
Much of the equipment used in forest management activities
are designed to be efficient in moving through forests. That
usually means they have good traction, and tight turning
radiuses. Unfortunately, that also means they are really good
at churning up the soil.
Staging areas also disturb the soil surface and can compact
the soil, both of which provide competitive advantages for the
invasive weed species. People, animals, transport vehicles and
equipment used in logging and thinning are all excellent
vectors for transporting weed seeds from infested sites to new
areas.
So what can we do? We think that prevention is, by far, the
best method for controlling the spread of invasive noxious
weeds. Once they are established, many of them are notoriously
very difficult to control or remove.
So we would like to propose the following:
Evaluate each management area for existing weed colonies
and the potential for spreading these weeds into, through, and
out of these areas.
Minimize the potential for weed transport by avoiding or
managing infested areas and by thoroughly cleaning vehicles
before moving to new areas.
Following activities that disturb soil, mitigate those
areas by mulching the area and/or reseeding with native
understory species. Both of those activities will help reduce
the likelihood of the non-native invasive species becoming
dominant.
Where fire is involved, reinoculate the soil with
microorganisms. This can be done by spreading native
undisturbed soil over the area and also reseed, again with a
native species.
There is some research going on looking at the slash pile
burns. The bigger those slash piles are, the hotter the
temperatures and again, the greater the disturbance of that
soil. Those sites tend to become good vectors for introducing
non-native invasive species.
So we would like to propose that during that kind of
management activity, slash pile sites be kept small to minimize
the burn temperature, and then again, restore those sites once
the burning has been completed.
It is also important to conduct some follow up monitoring
after forest management activities, to identify sites where
invasive species are coming in and then conduct immediate and
aggressive removal and control methods of new weed colonies
while they are small enough to still be manageable. There have
been many areas, many cases throughout the United States and
the world where areas were let go and became problems that we
now do not know how to manage.
In summary, the Arboretum of Flagstaff encourages the
Subcommittee to consider the significant impacts of invasive
noxious weeds on native plants, native plant communities and
ecosystem functions. We strongly recommend that weed management
be required as part of all forest management activities and
that sufficient funding be provided for follow up monitoring
and control of invasive weeds. Integrating weed management into
the overall forest health management activities is essential to
create truly healthy forests that will continue to provide both
forest products and healthy functional ecosystems on which we
all depend.
Thank you.
Mr. McInnis. Thank you, Sarah. Your points are excellent
and I can tell you that the average individual out there does
not even think about noxious weeds. So your points are very
well taken, excellent. In our state, tamarix has overrun our
state which uses, as you know, several hundred gallons a week.
So thank you very much for your testimony. I appreciate that.
Ms. Cassatt. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Cassatt follows:]
Statement of Sarah Cassatt, Gardens Manager, The Arboretum at
Flagstaff, Flagstaff, Arizona
Invasive Noxious Weeds And Their Relationship To Wildfires And Forest
Management Activities
The mission of The Arboretum at Flagstaff focuses on the
conservation of plants and plant communities native to the Colorado
Plateau and the wise stewardship of our natural environment.
One of The Arboretum's primary concerns relative to wildfires and
forest management is the issue of noxious, invasive weeds, which are
spreading rapidly throughout the West. Invasive weeds tend to move into
sites where the soil has been disturbed. Both fires and forest
management activities often result in disturbed soils. Where invasive
weeds spread into native habitats, native plant populations continue to
be reduced. The Colorado Plateau region includes many unique habitats
as well as many rare, threatened, and endangered plant species. In
fact, about 15% of the native plant species of the Colorado Plateau is
globally rare, whereas the average in other regions of the country is
about 10%. The continuing spread of noxious, invasive weeds jeopardizes
the survival of rare native plants and reduces overall plant
biodiversity.
The spread of noxious, invasive weeds also impacts plant
communities and ecosystem functions. As invasive weeds take the place
of native plants, plant communities and associated habitat functions
are altered and wildlife habitat and biodiversity is reduced. Ecosystem
functions are being impacted through changes to a variety of components
including hydrology, chemistry, and fire behavior, and the overall
values of our natural resources are diminishing.
The rapid expansion of invasive, noxious weed populations is
costing the United States economy billions of dollars annually in lost
production, abandonment of farms, eradication and control, and habitat
restoration.
The Arboretum at Flagstaff encourages the Subcommittee on Forests
and Forest Health to consider the significant impacts of invasive,
exotic species on native plants, plant communities, and ecosystem
functions. The spread of invasive weeds tends to increase in response
to activities that disturb the soil and native plants. The Arboretum
strongly recommends best management practices that minimize the spread
of invasive species be required as a part of all forest management
activities and that sufficient funding be provided for follow-up
monitoring and control of invasive, exotic species that do arise
subsequent to forest management activities.
Many questions remain regarding mechanisms weed species use to out-
compete native plants, how they take advantage of disturbance
activities, and how best to control and eradicate them. The Arboretum
at Flagstaff also strongly recommends that funding be provided to
incorporate research on these questions into forest management
activities. Concurrent research will maximize the benefits of forest
health restoration programs.
Invasive, Noxious Weed Characteristics Relevant to Forest Management
Activities
The ability of particular plant species to rapidly invade new areas
once introduced is based on several characteristics that provide
competitive advantages under certain environmental conditions. Those
that become dominant by eliminating other species, may be toxic,
poisonous, or parasitic, and that significantly reduce the desirable
functions of the habitat are generally considered invasive, noxious
weeds.
<bullet> LMany exotic plant species grow and spread aggressively
following various types of disturbances to forests and rangeland
habitats. Some of these species, once established, have been observed
to spread from disturbed sites into undisturbed sites.
<bullet> LParticularly in disturbed sites, invasive species may
out-compete native species, becoming dominant or even becoming a
monoculture. The most troublesome are those that persist as dominants
for years or decades, alter plant communities and ecosystem functions,
are toxic or poisonous.
<bullet> LMany invasive species are heavy seed producers. Several
species are capable of producing up to 50,000 seeds or more per plant.
Seeds may persist in the soil for a few years to 35 years or more. An
individual dalmation toadflax can produce up to 500,000 seeds, which
may remain viable in the soil for 10 years.
<bullet> LOther invasive species spread aggressively through
extensive and rapid root growth. These plants can quickly produce new
shoots from root buds when disturbed by mowing, burning, or hand-
pulling.
<bullet> LThe dominance of invasive, noxious weeds degrade
ecosystems in several ways:
<bullet> LSome noxious species alter soil chemistry, inhibiting the
growth and germination of other species.
<bullet> LNoxious species may interfere with natural nutrient and
water cycles, creating secondary impacts to other plants and the
ecosystem.
<bullet> LSome invasive species alter the fire cycle and the
characteristics of fires within an ecosystem.
<bullet> LThese changes to ecosystems alter plant communities,
wildlife habitat, and ecosystem functions.
<bullet> LSome exotics are related to native species and are able
to hybridize with them, which in the long run may genetically eliminate
the native species.
Disturbance Factors that Contribute to the Spread of Noxious, Invasive
Weeds
Invasive plants, both native and non-native, tend to be species
adapted to disturbed site conditions. They typically grow well in soils
with low organics and nutrient levels. Their seeds sprout when on or
near the surface of exposed soils and many are adapted to low soil
moisture levels. These conditions are often the result of activities
integral to forest health management.
<bullet> LFire removes organic material from the surface layer of
the soil, exposing the soil and reducing moisture and nutrient levels.
High intensity fires also destroy important microorganisms in the soil,
which are important for plant uptake of water and nutrients. All types
of fire activities have this affect including prescribed fires, slash
pile burns, and uncontrolled fires. Research in northern Arizona
forests have shown that the more intense the fire, the greater the
number and species of exotic weeds. Many questions remain about the
relationships between the timing of fires, soil types, and the
successful invasion of noxious weeds.
<bullet> LMuch of the equipment used to thin or harvest trees
disturbs the soil by churning up the surface layer and compacting the
soil. Churning the surface exposes weed seeds to light, allowing them
to sprout. Soil compaction limits plant root activities and reduces the
water holding capacity of the soil.
<bullet> LEquipment, vehicles, people, and animals are all vectors
for transporting seeds from one location to another. Of primary concern
is the movement of any of these vectors from an area infested with
invasive, noxious weeds into an area not yet infested. Another
important consideration is disturbing a site that previously sustained
activities that brought weed seeds into the area. Areas that have been
heavily logged or have been grazed earlier may retain weed seeds in the
soil ready to sprout following the next disturbance.
Mitigation Measures
There are a number of Best Management Practices available to
minimize the opportunities for invasive, noxious weeds to expand into
new areas and to become dominant in areas in which they already occur
as a result of forest health management activities.
Prevention is by far the most important measure for controlling the
spread of invasive, noxious weeds. Once noxious weeds become
established, their removal and even just control has proven very
difficult and costly. Many infestations require multiple control
efforts each year and for several years. Some species have successfully
resisted control efforts for many years and research is ongoing to
identify new methods. Early detection of an infestation and early and
aggressive application of control methods are the most successful and
by far least costly in time and expenses. The following is a brief
outline of BMP methods currently recommended.
<bullet> LEvaluate each area in which management activities are
planned and identify the potential for weed infestations from existing
stands and from potential seed bank in the soil based on previous
activities in the area. Also identify ecological processes for that
habitat relevant to the type of management activities planned. For
example, determine the role of natural fire process for the habitat and
natural forest stand densities to which the native plant communities
are adapted.
<bullet> LLimit possible weed seed transport from infested areas to
non-infested sites. Avoid activities in or adjacent to heavily infested
areas or remove seed sources and propagules from site prior to
conducting activities, or limit operations to non-seed producing
seasons. Wash or otherwise remove all vegetation and soil from
equipment before transporting to a new site.
<bullet> LFollowing activities which expose the soil, mitigate by
covering the area with weed seed free mulch and/or seed the area with
native species. Covering the soil will reduce the germination of weed
seeds, maintain soil moisture, and minimize erosion.
<bullet> LConduct regular follow-up monitoring of areas in which
the soil has been disturbed to identify any new infestations of
invasive, noxious weeds.
<bullet> LConduct immediate and aggressive removal and control
measures of new stands of invasive, noxious weeds while colonies are
small and manageable. Consider that weed removal and control activities
may again result in disturbed, exposed soil. In these cases, provide
follow-up restoration measures, such as seeding, to restore a healthy
native community to minimize the opportunities for future invasions by
weeds.
Invasive noxious weeds have become a significant and costly problem
throughout the forests and rangelands of the western United States.
These weeds not only impact individual native plant and animal species,
they also jeopardize entire ecosystems, which are the basic support
system for our natural resources. Integrating weed management into the
overall forest health management activities is essential to create
truly healthy forests that will continue to provide both lumber
products and healthy functional ecosystems on which we all depend.
______
Mr. McInnis. Dr. Kolb.
STATEMENT OF THOMAS KOLB, PH.D., SCHOOL OF FORESTRY,
NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY
Mr. Kolb. I appreciate the invitation to testify here
today. Just a little on my background: I have been on the
faculty in the School of Forestry at NAU for about the last 10
years and during that time, much of my research has focused on
the response of ponderosa pine forests to thinning and
prescribed burning, also to drought and bark beetle attacks.
I also serve as President of the Board of Directors of the
Greater Flagstaff Forests Partnership that has been mentioned
already. The Partnership is a non-profit organization that
works with the Coconino National Forest to help restore
healthier forest conditions surrounding Flagstaff. For the last
5 years I have been a member of the Partnership Advisory Board,
which includes 25 members. This has given me I think a pretty
keen understanding of both the ecological issues and community
concerns.
I just want to reiterate the point that clearly tree
densities need to be reduced in our forests to reduce fuel
levels and fire hazard, but there is an extra benefit of that.
We have research results that indicate quite clearly that
reducing tree densities by thinning will also provide more
resources and energy for the trees to produce resin, which is
their primary defense against bark beetles. So thinning has the
extra benefit of increasing bark beetle resistance of trees.
I also advocate that these thinning treatments should not
be restricted to the urban/wildland interface area, the area
right around homes. This is an important area and a high
priority area, but the quality of life and also the economy of
people living in forested towns like Flagstaff are strongly
linked to a healthy forest landscape. Proposals that I have
heard that would limit tree thinning and prescribed burning to
narrow bands around housing developments are very short-
sighted, in my view.
I also want to make a case that this thinning should be
aimed at trees less than 100 years old, not the old growth
trees in the forest. In the southwest, for example, these old
growth trees are scarce because of past timber harvest, but we
know that they are more important for wildlife habitat and they
are oftentimes more resistant to fire because they have thicker
bark than the younger trees. However, just conservation of
these existing old growth trees is not enough. We need to
create conditions where the small trees will grow rapidly into
good sized trees that have old growth characteristics. And we
can do that through creative thinning. We know that
silvicultural management of stands can make these young trees
grow into old growth forests much quicker.
I also want to talk about something that I think has been
under-emphasized so far in the hearing and that is the
development of local markets and industries for small diameter
trees. For example, the forest partnership here has a project
that has had environmental reviews completed and this project
has taken years to complete because we cannot do anything with
the wood. There are no vigorous markets or industries that will
use these small diameter trees and it has really slowed down
progress for us.
We know from other parts of the United States and from
other countries that industry can use small diameter trees
profitably. Industry does not need large diameter trees in all
cases. Locally, the most serious impediment to using those
small diameter trees is uncertainty about the supply of these
trees. No industry will come here and invest if they do not
have some certainty that there will be a multi-decade supply of
trees on a given time schedule. It is imperative that managers
of Federal, state and tribal forests and private landowners
work together to coordinate a reliable supply of this resource
so that we can promote markets and industries that use these
small diameter trees.
Some of the exciting developments in these areas are
sawmills that use small diameter trees and also biomass energy
plants that use wood of any size and also leaves and bark to
produce energy and electricity.
I am going to touch on salvage logging and give you a
different perspective on salvage logging. First of all, I do
support salvage logging in some cases where very dense forests
have high numbers of dead trees killed by bark beetles. These
are cases where there are lots of dead fuels that need to be
reduced to reduce fire hazard. However, I caution against
widespread acceptance of salvage logging as being a way to
restore areas that have been burned in wildfires, especially
areas where you just have burned trees left and there has been
severe soil damage.
Why do I caution you this way? We know that dead wood on
the site provides habitat for insects, for animals, for
microorganisms that over the long term will help these sites
recover. Logs on the ground also help stabilize soils and in
these severely burned areas, soil erosion is a severe problem.
Salvage logging may involve new road construction and if it
does, soil erosion can even be worse. And also locally, I have
seen no evidence that areas that burned in very hot wildfires
and severe crown fires, reburned hotly afterwards. I have been
looking at areas that burned here in 1996 and the year 2000 and
I have seen no evidence that these areas burned again very
hotly or that these areas spread fire to unburned areas.
So I think that salvage logging should be approached
cautiously, but I do recognize that there are situations where
salvage logging must be used for safety reasons, immediately
adjacent to roads, trails, towns and homes. And in those cases,
it needs to be done using best logging practices. If trees have
to be cut in salvage logging on steep slopes, they should be
removed with helicopters. And I was very pleased to learn
recently that on the Apache Tribal lands where there is some
salvage logging that has started as has been mentioned, that
helicopter logging is being used to minimize soil damage.
And the last topic I will briefly talk about are bark
beetle outbreaks. Your staff has made it very clear to me that
bark beetles should be on my agenda. Attached to my written
testimony are two documents that describe the current
conditions of bark beetle outbreaks in northern Arizona and
there is one pamphlet that describes what we know in terms of
prevention and control. Both of these pamphlets were authored
by Tom DeGomez, who is the Arizona State Forest Extension
Specialist.
If you read through that information, what you will see is
all we can really do on a landscape level to make trees more
resistant to bark beetles is use thinning to create healthier
forest conditions. Once a big bark beetle outbreak gets going,
in many respects, it is harder to stop than a wildfire. There
is not a bark beetle rapid response team out there that can
aggressively attack this problem.
So we are going to see a lot more bark beetle mortality in
the next year. How much no one can say. Observations in other
parts of the country suggest that these bark beetle outbreaks
in one region lasts two to 5 years before they taper off.
Mr. McInnis. Thank you, Doctor. I noticed from the hotel
this morning looking out there, the beetle kill that you are
experiencing here in your own community. That is deadly stuff.
I appreciate your testimony. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Kolb follows:]
Statement of Dr. Thomas E. Kolb, Professor of Forestry, School of
Forestry, Northern Arizona University
I appreciate the invitation to testify at this hearing. I have been
on the faculty of the School of Forestry, Northern Arizona University
(NAU), Flagstaff, Arizona, for the last 10 years, where I am currently
Professor of Forestry. At NAU, I teach courses in forest ecology,
forest health, and tree physiology, and much of my research focuses on
the response of ponderosa pine forests to forest management actions,
stress, drought, and insect attacks.
I also serve as President of the Board of Directors of the Greater
Flagstaff Forests Partnership (GFFP), a non-profit organization working
with the Coconino National Forest to restore healthy forest conditions
surrounding Flagstaff. In this role, I have worked with the
Partnership's 25-member Partnership Advisory Board since 1998 which has
given me a keen understanding of both ecological issues and community
concerns.
My testimony today represents my own views, not the opinions of NAU
and the GFFP.
Forest Health in Southwestern Conifer Forests
There is little debate now that coniferous forests in the
Southwestern U.S. are in terrible condition. High tree density caused
by heavy regeneration in the early 1900s and suppression of surface
fires that used to kill many young trees have led to forests
characterized by highly stressed trees that are susceptible to bark
beetle outbreaks, low plant and animal diversity, degraded habitat for
animals adapted to open forests and grasslands, and uncontrollable,
highly destructive wildfires. These symptoms of decline are most
evident in ponderosa pine forests, but also occur in some pinyon-
juniper woodlands and higher elevation mixed conifer forests.
Corrective Actions
I advocate the following actions to improve forest health in
Southwestern ponderosa pine forests:
1. Reduce tree densities to levels that will constrain fire to
burning understory fine fuels, such as leaf litter and herbaceous
vegetation, not tree canopies. In some forests that already have low
tree densities, prescribed fire alone can be used to achieve this goal.
However, most ponderosa pine forests contain too many trees for the
fire alone approach, and require mechanical thinning to reduce
densities. After tree densities are reduced to safe levels, fires
should be allowed to burn through the understory as long as houses and
towns are not threatened. Light, surface fires are a natural part of
the ponderosa pine forest, and have beneficial effects on most plants
and wildlife habitat.
2. Do not limit tree reduction treatments to the urban-wildland
interface. While these treatments can reduce wildfire hazard to houses
and towns if only applied locally, the forest health crisis is much
larger. The economy and quality of life of most people living in
forested towns are strongly linked to a healthy forest landscape. For
many people, a healthy forest means green trees, meadows of native
grasses, good wildlife habitat, protection from flooding by properly
functioning watersheds, and recreation on the surrounding landscape,
not only in their backyard or neighborhood. Proposals to limit tree
thinning and burning activities to small areas surrounding human
settlements are short sighted.
3. Thinning should be aimed at trees less than 100 years old, not
old-growth trees. Old-growth trees, which for ponderosa pine can be
defined as trees with yellow bark and greater than 100 years old, are
scarce on the landscape because of past logging. They are more valuable
for wildlife habitat than younger trees and often are more resistant to
fire. However, conservation of existing old-growth trees is not enough
to improve forest health; we need to create conditions that accelerate
growth of young trees to large sizes. Development of forests with old-
growth characteristics can be promoted by careful forest thinning.
4. Use a mosaic of different tree thinning approaches on the
landscape, rather than one approach everywhere. Such a mosaic should
include: heavily thinned stands, lightly thinned stands, meadow
openings, unthinned stands, stands with a clumpy tree pattern, and
stands thinned to approximate stand conditions present before European
settlement. Creative use of such a mosaic can be used to reduce hazard
to human settlements, provide diversity in stand appearance that most
people like, and provide a diversity of habitats for animals.
5. Act now using an adaptive management approach in spite of
incomplete information. We will never have all the information needed
to address all important issues related to forest management. The best
we can do is monitor the results of management actions, and learn by
doing. Waiting for all the important information will result in large
losses of ponderosa pine forests to wildfire and bark beetles and
unacceptable impacts to people.
6. Develop local markets and industries that use small diameter
trees, not large diameter trees. We know from other areas of U.S. and
other counties that industry can use small diameter trees profitably.
The most serious impediment to developing local markets and industries
for small diameter trees is uncertainty about wood supply. Managers of
Federal, State, and Tribal Forests must work together to coordinate a
reliable supply of wood to promote market development. Sawmills that
specialize in using small diameter trees and biomass energy plants that
use trees to produce energy are exciting developments in this area.
I caution against efforts to re-establish local industry based on
large sawlogs. Such an approach would be a step backwards, and will
create an uprising of public dissent that will threaten our efforts to
improve forest health.
7. Many wildfire burned areas do not need salvage logging for
restoration. I am concerned about recent proposals to clean-up severely
burned areas by salvage logging of dead trees. If the goal is to hasten
recovery of severely burned areas, I advocate leaving dead trees on
site, not logging them. Dead wood provides habitat for many animals,
insects, and micro-organisms that are important components of forest
ecosystems. Logs on the ground will help stabilize soils and provide
favorable micro-habitats for tree establishment. Road building
associated with salvage logging often creates erosion, which is already
a major problem in wildfire areas, and promotes establishment of exotic
noxious weeds that reduce forest health. I have seen no evidence that
dead trees left in severe wildfire areas in Southwestern ponderosa pine
forests are highly prone to reburning catastrophically, or spread fire
to unburned forests.
Despite these cautions, I recognize that salvage logging may be
justified immediately adjacent to trails, roads, and houses for safety
reasons, and to support economies of communities dependent on logging.
In these cases, logging should be done when soils are not saturated,
and soil compaction should be minimized by using best logging
practices. If trees have to be cut on steep slopes, helicopter logging
should be used. I was pleased to hear that some of the salvage logging
of areas burned by the Rodeo-Chediski Fire on the Apache Tribal Lands
used helicopter logging.
8. Invasion by exotic, noxious plants is a serious concern in
wildfire burned areas. Several exotic, noxious plants that have
degraded rangelands and forests in California and the northern Rocky
Mountains, such as diffuse knapweed, spotted knapweed, yellow star
thistle, and leaf spurge, are present in Arizona. Once established,
these noxious plants degrade ecosystems, and can persist for decades. I
urge the panel to take this threat seriously and mandate and provide
the resources for thorough sanitation of vehicles, people, and
equipment entering wildfire areas. Exotic, noxious weeds in wildfire
burned areas should be monitored and controlled aggressively.
______
For Immediate Release: Pine Bark Beetle Outbreak in Arizona
Written by: Tom DeGomez, Forest Health Specialist, with the
University of Arizona Cooperative Extension Forest Health Working Group
and the Arizona Bark Beetle Task Force which includes professionals
from University of Arizona, Northern Arizona University, United States
Forest Service, & Arizona Public Service
Arizona's ponderosa pine and pinon forests have sustained
significant impacts from the bark beetle outbreak of 2002. Conservative
estimates, based upon U.S. Forest Service aerial surveys of Federal
lands, place the number of dead ponderosa pine statewide at 2 million
on 503,000 acres. This estimate is admittedly low because the surveys
were done between late July and October and many additional trees were
detected during fall. One area was re-flown in October and levels of
mortality increased more than 300% over the earlier estimates.
The most heavily impacted forests of the state are the Tonto,
Apache-Sitgreaves, and Prescott National Forests, and the San Carlos
Apache Reservation and adjacent state and private lands. Some stands in
these forests have 80 to 90% tree mortality, other stands have less
that one percent mortality. Mortality in pinon pine woodlands are
equally high. A late season survey of 28 square miles of pinon woodland
southeast of Flagstaff revealed 700,000 dead trees or more than 90% of
the mature pinon trees in the area. Table 1 describes the extent of the
outbreak in Arizona's national forests.
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5487.007
Several trees in the juniper family, and spruce have also been
attacked by bark beetles. Native junipers, native Arizona cypress and
Leyland cypress are among those being killed by the cypress bark
beetle. Spruce bark beetle activity has occurred on over 35,000 acres
of spruce as well.
The two main reasons why bark beetles are killing so many trees is
that the forest has too many trees and the trees are very dry.
Overcrowded forest conditions coupled with drought lead to the high
probability of beetle attack. Unfortunately the winter of 2002-03 has
not been as wet as hoped for. Moisture levels for the winter of 2002-03
(October to Jan) are running 3 inches below normal. The current dry
conditions coupled with very high levels of over wintering bark beetles
could very well lead to greater bark beetle outbreaks in 2003. Recent
rains in mid February could greatly improve forest health; however it
may take several years for stressed trees to rebuild carbohydrate
stores. Stored carbohydrates are used by the tree to produce beetle
fighting resin (pitch).
The forests of Arizona have been able to survive in relatively dry
conditions because in past centuries low intensity fires helped to
maintain a low density of trees in the forest. Whereas, in the past
century we have controlled fire which allowed many forested areas to
become overcrowded.
The best way to avoid having trees attacked by bark beetles is to
take preventive measures. First and foremost is to lower tree density
through thinning. Many people are unsure as to which trees should be
removed. In these cases it may be best to consult with a certified
forester or arborist. For a listing of certified professionals consult
the yellow pages, call your local University of Arizona County
Extension office, or log on to www.isa-arbor.com to find a certified
arborist or www.safnet.org/certified/directory.htm to find a certified
forester.
When removing trees it is important to treat the logs and slash
properly or you may promote beetle populations to increase in the down
material. If you are not interested in saving the logs then they can be
hauled to the landfill or chipped. If they are chipped don't pile the
chips deeper than 3 inches next to live trees as the chips may attract
bark beetles. Try to keep chip piles in the open sun and as far from
live trees as possible.
If bark beetles are found in the logs and you wish to keep the logs
for firewood there are several options. Utilize the firewood prior to
April 1. Peeling the bark from the logs will expose the brood to
natural enemies. The bark should then be raked into a pile and burned.
Covering sun exposed stacked logs with clear plastic in an attempt to
cook beetles overwintering in the bark may not work as well in practice
as in theory. If you use this method keep the stacks small (2 to 3
layers high) and check the plastic often for tears and any other
openings that may allow the adult beetles to escape.
The small slash (limbs and tops less than 3 inches in diameter) is
less likely to be used by beetles. This material can be chipped, or
piled for burning this winter. When piling, put the smallest diameter
material in the middle with the largest on the outside.
Often property owners will have several trees that have significant
value in their landscape. These trees may be valued for their size or
location. These high value trees can be given additional care to
prevent infestation. They can be irrigated or sprayed with preventative
insecticides.
If these trees are irrigated they should be given enough water to
wet the soil at least two feet deep. The water should be applied in a
donut shaped pattern at the drip-line or outer edge of the trees
branches. It generally takes about 2'' of rain to soak 2 feet deep.
Check the soil 6 to 8 inches deep just outside the drip-line of the
trees monthly. If the soil is dry, then water. Generally, the months
that most often warrant watering are May, June, and October. However,
depending on weather patterns watering may be needed any month of the
year. If current dry conditions continue this winter you may need to
irrigate in March or April. Keep in mind watering restrictions that may
be in effect in your community and follow those guidelines as well.
Applications of fertilizers will not help protect trees from the
effects of drought, and will not protect against bark beetle attacks.
Un-infested trees can be protected from beetle attacks by spraying
with insecticides. When spraying, the entire trunk and the bases of
large branches of the tree 4'' in diameter and greater must be soaked.
Spraying large trees is generally not a practice that homeowners can do
themselves, to locate a certified pesticide applicator call the Arizona
Structural Pesticide Control Commission at 800-223-0618. The only
registered chemicals for this purpose are carbaryl and permethrin. You
must use a product that is especially formulated for bark beetles, such
as Sevin SL, Dragnet, or Astro. This is a protective measure only, it
will not kill beetles once they enter the tree. Typical home and garden
products containing carbaryl or permethrin will be ineffective. If the
correct material is applied properly it should be effective for an
entire season. Spraying should be completed prior to April 1 to ensure
a full season of protection.
The only known direct control method is the removal of infested
trees. A good rule to remember is ``If the tree is brown cut it down,
if in doubt cut it out.'' If we leave dead trees standing we run the
risk of the new generation of beetles leaving the tree and attacking
more trees. Finding reddish-brown boring dust in the bark crevices of a
tree indicates that the tree has been successfully attacked, and the
tree should be cut down even if the tree is still green at that point.
If dead trees are next to houses or other structures, they can become a
hazard tree.
Insecticide injections or systemics have not proven effective
against bark beetles. Many trees have been injected with what seemed to
be success. What has actually happened is that the treated tree
successfully pitched out the attacking beetle with resin prior to the
treatment. The tree was then injected with insecticide when in fact no
beetles were actually in the tree. The tree saved itself! Studies have
proven that injecting chemicals will not kill bark beetles attacking
conifers.
There are several miracle cures being promoted to save trees from
bark beetles. These materials may not have gone through extensive
research to test their effectiveness. Buyer beware! Often, if what is
being marketed sounds ``too good to be true'' it generally doesn't live
up to its billing. Remember, it is against the law to use unregistered
pesticides and using pesticides for insects not listed on the label is
unwise.
The University of Arizona, Northern Arizona University, and U.S.
Forest Service will be engaged in research to test materials to prevent
and control bark beetles in Arizona. When these studies are completed
and reviewed the results will be released to the public as soon as
possible.
Many trees may only have the top half of the tree dead. Most often
what happens is that the lower half of the tree will be killed shortly
thereafter. Do not cut the top out of the tree hoping that the rest of
the tree will recover. It is best to remove such trees to prevent the
spread of beetles to other trees and to prevent them from becoming a
hazard tree. You need not wait until the entire tree turns brown, many
adult beetles may have flown from the tree before turning brown.
Remember, the most effective method for preventing bark beetle
infestations is to thin overly dense stands of trees. If you need more
information please contact your local University of Arizona Cooperative
Extension office, State Land Department, or your local fire department.
Additional information can be found at the following web sites. http://
ag.arizona.edu/extension/fh/ or http://ag.arizona.edu/yavapai/
Contact:
Tom DeGomez, Forest Health Specialist
University of Arizona
928-523-8385
degomez@ag.arizona.edu
______
[An attachment to Mr. Kolb's statement follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5487.008
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5487.009
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5487.010
Mr. McInnis. Mr. Gibson, you may proceed.
STATEMENT OF KENT B. GIBSON, PULP AND PAPERWORKERS RESOURCE
COUNCIL
Mr. Gibson. Thank you. Good morning. My name is Kent Gibson
from Snowflake, Arizona. I thank the House Resource Committee
for this important field hearing and for the opportunity to
express my concerns. I have worked for 30 years in the forest
products industry. For 27 years I have been a member of the
United Paperworkers International Union and the PACE
International Union. Our memberships, working with our
companies provide this country with high quality paper
products. Today, I represent over 300,000 of my brothers and
sisters who depend on wood fiber and timber to produce our
products. I am currently serving on the national steering
committee of the Pulp and Paperworkers Resource Council, a
grassroots labor organization representing the interests of the
nation's pulp, paper and solid wood products industry. We are
dedicated to conserving the environment while taking into
account the economic stability of the workforce and the
surrounding community.
The testimony I give today needs to be viewed within the
framework of my section of the forest products industry, which
is the pulp and paper industry of this country. I also ask that
you remember that my counterparts in logging, lumber mills,
plywood and particle board mills and other industries who
depend on our national forest lands are experiencing problems
equal to or greater than those I speak of today.
In 1992, a group of five employees from Stone Forest
Industries traveled to Washington, D.C. to meet with Members of
Congress and discuss the serious problems facing our forest
products industry.
The hard fact is that within 5 years I was the only member
of that group who had a job in the forest products industry. My
friends who worked at sawmills here in Flagstaff, Eagar,
Arizona and South Fork, Colorado, along with towns like
Fredonia, Heber and Winslow were all losing their mills, a
vitally important part of their social and economic viability.
It is estimated that the two small lumber mills remaining
in Arizona, which are not on the tribal lands, may produce
about 2 percent of the 500 million board feet of timber
harvested in Forest Service Region 3 during 1989. As alarming
as this trend is to our state, the problem is not isolated to
the forest products industries of Arizona. If you would look at
this chart, in the last 10 years, 135 pulp and paper mills in
the United States have closed. Since 1997, 30,000 people have
lost their jobs in the pulp and paper industry. This represents
30,000 people who have lost their primary source of income,
hundreds of counties, cities and towns who have lost much of
their tax base. This occurred despite the fact that the basic
forest reserves had not declined.
The mill that I work in chose to reconfigure our operation
to 100 percent recycled operation. This decision in part was
due to the difficulty in obtaining a reliable supply of wood
for fiber. Paper mills have always used small diameter timber,
thinnings and chipped wood to produce our products. In 1989,
the Snowflake mill used an estimated 60,000 cords of pulpwood
and 290,000 units of chips. A unit of chips is about 2400
pounds. Which was an economic impact of $23 million. But in the
1990's it became increasingly more difficult to secure
contracts for wood needed to supply our operations. Arizona
forests needed thinning but our mill was hauling chips from as
far away as east Texas and Montana to supply our operation. The
national impact of the loss of forest products revenue in just
the pulp and paper mills is significant.
In the past decade alone, much of the forest products
industry in this state is gone. And without industry, there is
no infrastructure to support the work that must be done to
return the forests to sound health. We must realize that
industry is a vital tool in the recovery of our forests. Some
say that we can place the cost of forest health recovery on the
taxpayers and require someone other than industry to help
restore the forests. I ask why pay someone else to do the work
when industry has a need for the resources and will produce the
products used by every one of us.
The areas that were most affected by the Rodeo-Chediski
fire were not properly managed due to heavy restrictions. There
is an absolute cause and effect relationship that exists
between poor forest health and catastrophic wildfires. Had
these forests been properly managed, we would not have seen the
hundreds of thousands of acres destroyed in our state and the
millions of acres across the Nation just last year. There are
many tools needed to return our forests to a healthy condition,
but we cannot forget three important tools which are thinning,
controlled burning and logging.
The members of the Pulp and Paperworkers Resource Council
strongly support the President's initiative to prevent
wildfires, return the forests to health and create stronger
communities. There should be no place for catastrophic wildfire
in our forest management philosophy. It is imperative that a
healthy forest management plan be implemented in order to
protect our forest resources throughout the United States.
Thank you.
Mr. McInnis. Thank you, Mr. Gibson.
[Applause.]
Mr. McInnis. I guess one who fully appreciates your
testimony, Mr. Gibson, is somebody without a job. Most of us in
this room are fortunate enough right now to have jobs, but your
testimony is moving and it does have--in my beginning comments,
I talked about what I called the economic--the environmental
impact, but it certainly has an economic impact on people of
your trade. Thank you very much for your testimony. I think you
spoke well on behalf of your colleagues that you represent.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Gibson follows:]
Statement of Kent B. Gibson, Pulp & Paperworkers Resource Council
Good afternoon, my name is Kent Gibson from Snowflake, Arizona. I
thank the House Resource Committee for this important field hearing and
for the opportunity to express my concerns. I have worked 30 years in
the forest products industry, and I am currently employed by a large
paper mill as an instrument and controls technician. For 27 years I
have been a member of the United Paper workers International Union and
the PACE international union. Our membership working with our companies
provide this country with high quality paper products. Today I
represent over 300,000 of my brothers and sisters who depend on wood
fiber and timber to produce our products. I am currently serving on the
national steering committee of the Pulp and Paperworkers Resource
Council, a grassroots labor organization representing the interests of
the nation's pulp, paper, and solid wood products industry. We are
dedicated to conserving the environment while taking into account the
economic stability of the workforce and surrounding community.
The testimony I give today needs to be viewed within the framework
of my section of the forest products industry, which is the pulp and
paper industry of this country. I also ask that you remember that my
counter parts in logging, lumber mills, plywood and particle board
mills, and other industries who depend on our national forest lands are
experiencing problems equal to or greater than those I speak of today.
In 1992 a group of five employees from Stone Forest Industries
traveled to Washington D.C. to meet with members of congress and
discuss the serious problems facing the forest products industry. The
hard fact is that within 5 years I was the only member of that group
who had a job in the forest products industry. My friends who worked at
sawmills here in Flagstaff, Eagar, Arizona, and South Fork Colorado,
along with towns like Fredonia, Heber, and Winslow were all losing
their mills a vitally important part of their social and economic
viability.
It is estimated that the two small lumber mills remaining in
Arizona may produce about 2 % of the 500 million board feet of timber
harvested in Forest Service Region 3 during 1989. As alarming as this
trend is to our state, the problem is not isolated to the forest
products industries of Arizona. In the last 10 years at least 135 pulp
and paper mills have been closed in the United States. (See attachment
A.) Since 1997 more than 30,000 people have lost their jobs in the pulp
and paper industry. (See attachment B.) This represents 30,000 families
who have lost their primary source of income, hundreds of counties,
cities, and towns which have lost much of their tax base. This occurred
despite the fact that the basic forest reserves had not declined.
The mill that I work in chose to reconfigure our operation to 100%
recycle fiber. This decision in part was due to the difficultly in
obtaining a reliable supply of wood for fiber. Paper mills have always
used small diameter timber, thinnings, and chipped wood to produce our
products; in 1989 the Snowflake mill used an estimated 60,000 cords of
pulp wood and 290,000 units of wood chips, an economic impact of
$23,443,000.00. But in the 1990's it became increasingly more difficult
to secure contracts for the wood needed to supply our operations.
Arizona forests needed thinning but, our mill was hauling chips from as
far away as east Texas and Montana to supply our operation. 39,500
cords of wood and 182,400 units of chips were used in the final year of
timber based operation, 1997, with an economic impact of
$24,139,000.00. The national impact of the loss of forest products
revenue in just the pulp and paper mills is significant.
In the past decade alone much of the forest products industry in
this state is gone. And without industry there is no infrastructure to
support the work that must be done to return the forests to sound
health. We must realize that industry is a vital tool in the recovery
of our forests. Some say that we can place the cost of forest health
recovery on the taxpayers and require someone other than Industry to
help restore the forests. I ask why pay someone else to do the work
when industry has a need for the resources and will produce the
products used by every one of us.
The areas that were most affected by the Rodeo-Chediski forest fire
were not properly managed due to heavy restrictions. There is an
absolute cause and effect relationship that exists between poor forest
health and catastrophic wildfires. Had these forests been properly
managed we would not have seen the hundreds of thousands of acres
destroyed in our state and the millions of acres across this nation
just last year. There are many tools needed to return our forests to a
healthy condition, but we cannot forget three important tools which are
thinning, controlled burning, and logging.
The members of the Pulp and Paperworkers Resource Council strongly
support The Presidents Initiative to prevent wildfires, return the
forests to health and create stronger communities. There should be no
place for catastrophic wildfire in our forest management philosophy. It
is imperative that a healthy forest management plan be implemented, in
order to protect our forest resources throughout the United States.
Attachment A:
Summary of jobs lost in the western United States--Oregon, Idaho,
Washington, and California
Total Mills closed--396
Total Mill jobs lost--35,610
Total Logging jobs lost--10,942
Total jobs lost--46,552
Attachment B:
U.S. Paper Mill shutdowns by year--American Forest and Paper
Association
Employment at Pulp and Paper Mills--Bureau of Labor Statistics
Attachment C:
Table 102--USDA Forest Service--1989-2000
Attachment D:
Pulp & Paperworkers Resource Council Position on Forest Health
______
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[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5487.006
Mr. McInnis. Mr. Ack, thank you for coming and you may
proceed.
STATEMENT OF BRADLEY L. ACK, SENIOR PROGRAM DIRECTOR, GRAND
CANYON TRUST
Mr. Ack. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to testify here this
morning.
My name is Brad Ack and I am the Senior Program Director
with the Grand Canyon Trust, it is a regional conservation
organization based here in Flagstaff. We have been involved in
the forest ecosystem restoration issue for sometime now and we
are one of the founding members of the Grand Canyon Forest
Partnership. I am the Vice President to Tom's Presidency on the
Board of the Forest Partnership. We also serve on the Advisory
Board, the Governor's Forest Health Advisory Committee and on
the Centennial Forest Advisory Committee.
I want to make three key points in addition to what I have
submitted in my written testimony.
First, absolute agreement there is an ecological crisis on
the southwestern ponderosa pine forest. I think you have heard
that overwhelmingly today and I think there is broad agreement.
I differ in saying that it is the result of management, not
unmanaged forests. And I think that point has not been made
today. We got to where we are today because of the management
practices that we have engaged in over the past century, and we
need to keep that in mind as we move forward toward solutions.
Secondly, the National Environmental Policy Act is not the
problem, from our perspective as an organization that has been
working through it for sometime. It is really the
implementation and the management of the National Environmental
Policy Act that has been a problem. And I am going to talk
about that in more detail, and provide some suggestions for
solutions.
And then finally, to reiterate Tom's point, building
markets and utilization of small diameter wood is going to be
absolutely essential to getting restoration done at the scale
and at the pace that Dr. Covington spoke of. Without those
markets, it will not matter what we do to NEPA, it will not
matter what we do to our forest management practices, the wood
is not going to come out of the forest.
So first, the ecological crisis, we do urgently need to
address it, we all agree with that. But where we are today is
the result of some of the past management. We have these very
high densities of small trees in the southwest because of
exclusion of fire due to the removal of fine fuels, suppression
of fire, the removal of the old growth forest structure which
people have talked about here, the extirpation of predators,
extensive building of roads which has led to much of the
invasive weed colonization and so forth. Those are the
management practices of the past that have led to some of this
crisis and what we recommend and what the Grand Canyon Forest
Partnership--Greater Flagstaff Forest Partnership works on is
comprehensive ecological restoration; not just thinning and
burning, that is an absolutely essential piece, but we have to
look at the bigger system, we have to look at the rest of the
values across the system, we have to look at wildlife and
wildlife habitat, we have to look at ecological values like
springs and rare species and so forth.
That is what we have been trying to do here in the
Flagstaff region. We have broad support, Tom mentioned 25
organizations that are part of that effort. And it also means
that we do not repeat the mistakes of the past that got us to
this present forest condition, and I think that is very
important as we go forward in the next century of forest
management.
Second point about NEPA, we have found in our experience
that the Forest Service--and we have great colleagues on the
Forest Service and wonderful working relationships, but they
are not adequately staffed to do NEPA at the scale and the pace
that we need in this region. We are taking up to 2 years to get
environmental assessments and environmental impact statements
through the process. That is before we get to any of that
potential delay associated with appeals and litigation. That is
just doing to documentation. I have colleagues in the Forest
Service who tell me they should be able to do it in 3 months,
so 2 years versus 3 months.
Our suggestion, and it is in some legislation that we are
working on with Senator Jon Kyl, which I hope you all have
copies of, proposes better funding and dedicated teams for the
Forest Service to do NEPA. We have a pilot project here in the
southwest, we call it a Super NEPA team. Essentially is a group
of people who do nothing else but environmental planning for
forest restoration. And they guarantee a certain number of
projects will get through the mill every year, will get 150,000
acres a year or 200,000, 500,000 whatever the number is, will
get that number done on an annual basis through the
environmental planning process, and will have the staff to do
it. They will not be taken off to fight fires, as they are now,
five or 6 months a year leaving the planning process
essentially on hold. We will have the right expertise, they do
not use lawyers right now on these teams, and we need to have
lawyers on these teams. Obviously the legal questions in NEPA
are very important. We need to have conservation biology, we
need to have GIS.
So we are suggesting better funding of dedicated teams to
do NEPA right rather than saying let us throw NEPA out. Let us
not throw the baby out with the bath water here. There are
problems with the implementation, but it is more, in our
perspective, in the management and the allocation of resources
to NEPA.
Finally, on markets, we have been studying the market issue
in this region for a number of years now. Again as part of the
Greater Flagstaff Forest Partnership, we have spent National
Fire Plan dollars to look at this situation. There are a number
of ways to utilize this material, it is happening in many other
parts of the country, many other parts of the world. It is not
happening much in the southwest in large part because of the
uncertainty. That NEPA compliance team would help deal with the
uncertainty. But it is going to take some co-venturing from the
Federal Government here. This is low margin investment when you
consider the high risk, the high downside. The upside is not so
great, we need some co-venturing here and this proposed
legislation that we have been working on with Senator Kyl talks
about the creation of essentially a small corporation to do co-
venturing with the private sector on establishing small
diameter utilization enterprises. We think that that coupled
with this more coordinated planning effort and more assured
supply of small diameter is going to really make the difference
in getting restoration done at the scale and at the pace that
we all agree it needs to be done at.
So thank you very much for your attention this morning.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Ack follows:]
Statement of Bradley L. Ack, Program Director, Grand Canyon Trust,
Flagstaff, Arizona
Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to testify here today. My name is Brad Ack and I am the
Program Director at Grand Canyon Trust. Grand Canyon Trust is a
regional conservation organization dedicated to the protection and
restoration of the canyon country of the Colorado Plateau. We have a
long and proud history of seeking pragmatic solutions to difficult
environmental problems.
The Trust has been proactively working to restore degraded and fire
prone forests in northern Arizona since 1997. We are very concerned
about the risks of catastrophic, or stand replacing fires in this
region as they have the capacity to destroy all that we work to
conserve. Our efforts on forest restoration include founding the Grand
Canyon Forests Partnership (now the Greater Flagstaff Forests
Partnership) in cooperation with the U.S. Forest Service in 1997 and
subsequently becoming involved in all aspects of ecological
restoration--from project design, implementation and monitoring to
hiring thinning contractors and providing low-interest loans to local
small-diameter wood processors.
Grand Canyon Trust holds seats on the Greater Flagstaff Forests
Partnership's corporate and advisory boards and serves on the Arizona
Governor's Forest Health/Fire Plan advisory committee and Northern
Arizona University's Centennial Forest's advisory committee.
The following testimony is based on our empirical knowledge of
what's needed to increase the scale, pace, and quality of ecological
restoration in degraded southwest ponderosa pine forests.
This testimony will address (1) causes and symptoms of the current
ecological situation, (2) what we should do about it, (3) how we get
there from here, (4) obstacles we've encountered and solutions to these
obstacles. This testimony is based directly on our six years of
experience to achieve forest ecosystem restoration in the ecological,
social, and economic environment of northern Arizona. It may or may not
be applicable to other parts of the country with different ecological,
social, and economic circumstances.
I. There is indeed an ecological crisis in the Ponderosa pine forests
of the Southwestern United States.
The causes of this ecological crisis include fire exclusion due to
removal of fire-carrying grasses and forbs by livestock; active fire
suppression; removal of the dominant old-growth forest structure;
predator extirpation; and road building.
The symptoms of this crisis include dangerous accumulations of
hazardous fuels; high densities of small trees; too few large and old
trees; declining native biological diversity; and increasingly large
and severe fires affecting human and ecological communities. Severe
fires are but one symptom, albeit the most obvious, of an ecosystem in
rapid decline.
II. What Do We Need to Do About This Problem?
We need to place an extremely high priority on restoring degraded
and fire prone ecosystems. Ecological restoration is the process of
assisting the recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded, damaged
or destroyed. We urgently need to undertake that process at a scale
that is commensurate to the degradation and fires we are now witnessing
in Southwest ponderosa pine ecosystems.
Ecological restoration is not necessarily synonymous with fire
prevention or fuels reduction; research has shown that different types
of fuel reduction treatments can have different consequences for fire
behavior, biodiversity, wildlife habitat, tree vigor and forest health.
Except in areas immediately adjacent to communities, fuels reduction
strategies need to be consistent with broader ecological restoration
goals including conserving the diversity and resilience of native plant
and animal communities, safely re-establishing the natural variability
of fire regimes and tree recruitment, and facilitating the development
old-growth forest structure. Ecological restoration should also entail
rehabilitation and protection of rare and rich biological communities
like springs, riparian areas, and meadows.
Effective solutions address both the symptoms and causes of a
problem; reversing the declining health of southwest ponderosa pine
ecosystems must also include taking a hard look at those activities
that may be contributing to further decline such as livestock grazing,
road building and road management, and recreation management. If we are
serious about restoring these forests, we need to deal with the
fundamental causes of their decline, and not just the symptoms. We
should not repeat the actions that got us to this point in the first
place.
III. How Do We Get There From Here?
Our experience in the Greater Flagstaff Forests Partnership
indicates that in order to be successful, ecological restoration must
be ecologically sound, scientifically defensible, socially acceptable,
and economically viable. Some key elements of a successful restoration
program include:
<bullet> LParticipatory processes based on involving a diversity of
stakeholders;
<bullet> LDeveloping and then working from a common ecological,
social, and economic vision;
<bullet> LAn adaptive management framework with clear science-based
guidelines by which to monitor, evaluate, design, implement and improve
treatments;
<bullet> LErring on the side of caution when faced with
uncertainty;
<bullet> LFocusing on areas of broad agreement, or ``the radical
center'': for example, we have very broad agreement to do restoration
in this forest type when thinning is limited to young trees smaller
than 16'' dbh.
<bullet> LCongressional, state, local, university, and non-
governmental support of community-based restoration efforts.
IV. What Are the Main Obstacles We Have Encountered?
1. Our experience indicates that agency management of the NEPA process,
rather than the regulatory environment of NEPA itself, is a
problem.
There are systematic management and personnel problems within the
Forest Service unrelated to the regulatory environment of NEPA that
affect the quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of planning. These
include (1) fragmented and delayed analyses due to personnel transfers
and/or re-assignments (most notably to fight fire); (2) inadequate
staffing levels and prioritization; and, (3) lack of relevant expertise
(law, conservation biology) utilized during the planning process.
These problems result in (1) extremely slow execution of the NEPA
process, (2) avoidable mistakes that subject decisions to legitimate
and time-consuming appeals and litigation and (3) analyses that are
marginally commensurate to the guiding intent of NEPA or to
contemporary principles of conservation science.
Our purpose here is not to be overly critical of the Forest
Service. Our purpose is to provide an honest assessment so that
appropriate solutions may follow. Until these problems are resolved and
careless mistakes are prevented, well-intentioned projects will
continue to be legitimately appealed, litigated, and delayed--
regardless of the regulatory environment in which they occur. Changing
or circumventing regulations will not prevent careless mistakes or the
appeals and/or litigation that result from them.
Our oral testimony will detail two cooperative projects between the
Coconino National Forest and the Greater Flagstaff Forests Partnership
that exemplify these problems. The first of these, the Kachina Village
Forest Health Project, has taken two entire years to move from initial
scoping to final EIS. The second, the Fort Valley Ecosystem Restoration
Project, was riddled with avoidable mistakes that resulted in two
successful appeals and one successful lawsuit.
Our recommendation: Do NEPA correctly according to existing
regulations and authorities by creating a regional NEPA teams whose
sole purpose is to ensure efficient, high-quality NEPA analyses for
ecological restoration and fuels reduction projects. Such teams would
consist of experts solely dedicated to executing NEPA analyses and
decisions who would not be available for other duties such as fire
assignments.
Our recommendation: Utilize new data and tools for computer-based
mapping that can clarify scientific uncertainty, place restoration
projects within a larger ecological context, and when employed in NEPA
analysis, enhance the quality and transparency of analyses underpinning
decisions, thereby also advancing public understanding, dialogue, and
support of restoration efforts.
Fires are now occurring at the landscape scale. We need to conduct
analyses at similar scales, using the best available science to
strategically prioritize restoration projects and understand their
effects within a landscape context. Better science will not slow down
the process of restoring and protecting our forests. To the contrary,
it will allow us to increase our ability to think bigger and think
better at the same time.
Thanks to support from Senator Jon Kyl and the Northern Arizona
University Ecological Restoration Institute, Northern Arizona
University's Sisk Laboratory for Conservation Biology and Landscape
Ecology is developing such a capability for Southwest ponderosa pine
forests.
2. Lack of markets for small diameter wood
While restoration cannot be expected to fully pay for itself,
offsetting the costs of implementation by creating value from small
logs can determine the economic viability of projects. Our experience
clearly indicates that without the development of a new sector based on
the utilization of small diameter wood in the Southwest, we will not
get the restoration work done at the scale and pace we need it to be
done, and the Forest Service will continue to need to cut large trees
to finance fuels reduction work. This is certain to cause serious
conflict and delay, while also being unjustifiable ecologically.
Our recommendation: Create a Small Log Enterprise Development
Center to provide financial and technical assistance to nonprofit
organizations, small enterprises, and individuals throughout Northern
Arizona to promote the creation of enterprises that use, and provide
value-added processing for, small diameter logs that are removed from
covered forests through fire risk reduction and forest restoration
efforts. Help to create an adequate site for such businesses to co-
locate and share infrastructure resources. Without government
assistance, private sector money is unlikely to flow into this needed
enterprise.
These recommendations are the subject of a draft piece of
legislation formulated by the staff of Senator Jon Kyl and ourselves.
It is entitled the Forest Health, Restoration and Small Enterprise
Development Act.
Thank you for inviting me to speak in front of the Committee today.
______
Mr. McInnis. Mr. Ack, I especially appreciated your
comments in regard to the teamwork, community effort, the
corporation. You have got some excellent ideas, thank you for
your testimony.
I now ask that the panel--sorry to do this to you, but if
you all would not mind standing by the podium up there. And Mr.
Chairman, you can begin the questioning. Members, we have 30
minutes, so I think we can go five or 6 minutes, if you would
like.
Mr. Pombo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will just tell you
this is some of the best testimony that I think I have ever
heard on this issue, from this panel. You all did a fantastic
job.
I would like to start with Dr. Moore, if I could, and talk
a little bit about the management of our forests and what is
involved with doing. I think in my mind and what we have tried
to come up with in producing legislation on the healthy forests
is a way of taking all of the ideas that we have heard here
this morning and putting those together and stepping in and
trying to manage some of the mismanagement that has occurred in
the past. And I know that you have quite an extensive
environmental background in protecting our world's resources.
How do you feel about taking a lot of these ideas and
putting it together in a management plan that is developed
locally, that you are bringing local people and making them
part of the process, both the process of planning it and the
actual work that has to be done in making that work on a local
basis so that when you look at it on a macro basis, it is
actually working?
Mr. Moore. I strongly believe that short of transferring
ownership of Federal lands, that it is very important to
devolve the management authority and the management planning
down to a more local level. In other words, national forests
and BLM land should be grouped into geographically reasonable
sizes that can be managed at more the state level. Of course,
there has to be rules that the landlord puts on that you cannot
go outside of, but the management plan should be done at the
local level.
One of the biggest flaws institutionally with the Federal
land is the ownership structure and the fact, as I mentioned,
that the people are in the east, the land is in the West and
when it comes to votes in Congress, it is almost always
satisfying often distant priorities and it is easy to make
yourselves look green when none of your constituents suffer
from the decisions you are making. And that is what has
happened time and time again.
On the other hand, the Forest Service, being this huge
national organization with people moving from one district to
another through their careers, the question is who is the
steward? It is not the contractors in the private sector
because they are just bidding on jobs. And it is not the Forest
Service in many cases because the individuals in the--I mean
you to go Europe and Canada, my home country, very often you
will have an individual forester managing the same area of land
for their whole career. Then you get institutional memory being
built into the system. Whereas, if you try and manage the thing
on a Federal level. you often lose the ability to have a
steward in the system.
Mr. Pombo. Thank you. I think I would prefer that we break
it down even further than what you are suggesting, and take
smaller regions and manage them in a very small region, where
you do have the mayor or the chairman from the local tribe, and
the local environmental group, and you have these people that
actually live and work in that community that get together and
develop management plans. And we do have a national standard,
and I do not think anybody is talking about doing away with the
national standard. But the actual planning process, bringing in
people who actually live and work in that community, to make
those decisions. And how do they meet that national standard
and have a healthy forest locally.
I am sure that in your years of experience in this, that
you have found that the people who care the most about that
forest or that environmental problem are the people who
actually live there. That is why they are there.
Mr. Moore. That is often the case, but I just point to the
Quincy Library Group as a classic case of people organizing at
a local level, but without going into the byzantine nature of
the situation, it has still been very difficult for them to
move forward in the way they should because of the complexities
of the Federal laws and the Forest Service institution itself.
It has got to be streamlined, is really what it comes down to.
So the two main themes I would stress are devolution of the
management authority to a more local level and streamlining the
process so that we can get on with the job that everybody seems
to know has to be done.
Mr. Pombo. Thank you very much.
[Applause.]
Mr. McInnis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Gibbons.
Mr. Gibbons. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and to our
witnesses, thank you for appearing here today.
I have--or would like to begin questioning Mr. Gibson
because I think of anybody here who has the expertise to decide
on how to create a small business market with regard to small
diameter trees, you, more so than we in Congress or any of the
experts with Ph.D.s, could give us some insight on that.
So what would you recommend? How can we help create a small
diameter local tree market that would utilize the experience of
the industry to help with all of this, and are there certain
roadblocks that you have experienced in your history or your
background, such as regulations or whatever, that we need to
remove? What would you suggest we do to create a local small
diameter tree market?
Mr. Gibson. Well, first of all, there is an unfriendly
attitude toward industry as a whole. Industry is vilified as
the bad guys. If you say logger, it is a bad word to a lot of
people. So you have to have a philosophy change that says hey,
these guys are trying to help us, so what can we do to help.
Can we give them, you know, contracts that last long enough to
pay for their investment. Those kind of things are difficult to
get at this time because we do not know where we are going to
get our resources from. And so before you can put out those
kind of investments, you have to have guarantees.
Mr. Gibbons. Are lawsuits a current threat and a problem to
you?
Mr. Gibson. Lawsuits are not a current threat to me, but to
the industry as a whole, I think they are a major problem.
Mr. Gibbons. Thank you, Mr. Gibson. Let me turn a quick
question over to Dr. Kolb, I appreciated your testimony.
With regard to the pine bark beetle, Doctor, once these
beetles are found in trees, as we see here in this local
community, what is the proper treatment?
Mr. Kolb. Well, once beetles are in a tree, that tree is
dead, you cannot pump any kind of insecticide into the tree,
even though some people try to sell you on that. It is not
effective. Once there are large numbers of beetles in a tree,
that tree is dead. The best thing to do is to rapidly cut that
tree down and treat the wood and the branches in a way that the
beetle larvae that over-winter in the tree will be killed.
Some of the guidelines that I attached to my testimony go
over how one might do that. You can pile that material and burn
it, you can debark it so the phloem that the beetles live in
dries up and that will kill the insects in the wood.
Mr. Gibbons. Sounds like an expensive process.
Mr. Kolb. Well, it is. For a homeowner that has a few high
value trees that they want to protect or for a campground. If
the trees are not attacked, you can spray the trees with the
proper insecticide. The spraying has to be done by a licensed
applicator, it is fairly expensive also; it runs $50 to $80 per
tree locally. And people are doing that when they have high
value trees that they want to save. But once a tree is
attacked, none of that will work.
Mr. Gibbons. Thank you, Dr. Kolb. Dr. Covington, I
appreciated your comments with regard to the acreages that you
experience or believe need to be treated.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes the
Arizona area, Nevada, Utah, California, most of the West, has
recently ruled that a maximum of 5000 acres can be treated
before you have to go through this long delay, full blown EIS
process.
In your opinion, is there anything magical about a 5000
acre limitation? Is that something that has some scientific
connotation to it that would allow the Court to make that
decision?
Mr. Covington. I am unaware of what their logic was. All I
can--what I can say though is that if we are limited to 5000
acre treatments, there is no way we are going to get on top of
this problem. We really do need to be looking at the scale of
hundreds of thousands of acres as treatment units.
Mr. Gibbons. So you feel, as most of us who look at it from
a layman's point of view, but you from a scientific point of
view, that it was an arbitrary limitation.
Mr. Covington. Again, I do not know what their rationale
was. But, you know, if we were in 1950, a 5000 acre treatment
unit for planning and analysis and treatments might work, you
have got enough time to do it. But in 2003, 5000 acres, these
are just postage stamps in huge landscapes that are at threat.
Mr. Gibbons. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. McInnis. Thank you, Mr. Gibbons. Mr. Walden, you may
proceed.
Mr. Walden. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First, I wanted to thank--is it Ms. Cassatt? I wanted to
thank you for your comments on noxious weeds, an enormous
problem in my district and throughout a lot of the rural west,
so I appreciate your suggestions and your comments and I know
in the President's budget, there is a significant increase this
year over last year in funding to deal with this issue. So
hopefully we can make some progress there.
I wonder if I could ask a question of both Dr. Covington
and Dr. Kolb. One of the issues that is moving forward here
deals with diameter size and I know as we get into some of
these management projects, I begin to hear, well, we want to
save certain diameter width and I have seen some displays where
there are old growth trees, and the concept is to manage to old
growth, the LSR situation in Oregon and all. And yet, we have
suppressed fire for 100 years and a lot of these trees are
about 100 years old, so we have been in play, as Mr. Ack would
say, in terms of interfering. Now you have got 100 year old
trees next to each other. How do you choose among them and do
you, and is diameter of the trees at breast height really the
best way to manage for forest health? And if not, what is?
Mr. Covington. First, the diameter--there is no widespread
rule of thumb about what diameter trees should be removed or
should be left. The point that Tom made in his testimony is
something that I have been pretty fervent about for some time,
is that the old growth population crash has occurred at about
the same pace that the post-settlement population eruption has
occurred. So as young trees have increased, old trees have died
due to competition and fire and logging operations.
So I think it would be unwise to try to set any kind of
national diameter limit.
Mr. Walden. So would you manage to a specific area within a
forest, so area-by-area, pre-fire suppression, pre-settlement;
is that the best way to do this?
Mr. Covington. That is a starting--a starting point should
be reference conditions, the kinds of conditions that were
present before fire regime disruption was put into place. And
then you would deviate from that for specific reasons. You
might leave more or less trees to achieve specific management
goals.
So, you know, I think what we have to realize is that the
diameter limit is mostly related to commercial value, and most
of the people that are arguing for diameter limits are really
more concerned about the development of the wood products
industry with the possibility that once the trees that need to
be removed for forest health restoration, once those have been
removed, that then there would be pressure to remove even more
trees, to start removing the trees that are needed for
conservation purposes.
Mr. Walden. Can we hear from Dr. Kolb as well, and then I
have a final question for Mr. Ack.
Mr. Kolb. Well, one thing that Wally has taught me is that
one way to spot old growth ponderosa pine trees very easily is
they are trees that have yellow bark and big plates on them.
And if you do that in this area, you are almost always talking
about a tree that is 120-plus years old. Oftentimes, they are
200 to 300 years old.
In our Greater Flagstaff Forest Partnership projects, we do
not cut those trees ever, because they are valuable and they
are easy to identify.
I guess the other point I would add is I think there is
probably far too much energy spent debating about guidelines to
use in cutting trees that are 16 to 20 inches in size. We spend
a lot of energy talking about these issues, but biologically on
most projects, it really does not matter whether you draw that
line at 16, 17, 18, 19 or 20 inches, it is just not that
important. It is an important hot button issue for some
environmental groups because of the issues that Wally just
raised about the fear that we are going to have industry
addicted to large diameter sawlogs again and it is going to
cause management problems in the future.
That is my perspective on it.
Mr. Walden. Mr. Ack, if I could ask you, you raise this
issue of NEPA appeals and the need for more staffing, and I
will read through the bill that you and Senator Kyl are working
on obviously.
But my experience has been that no matter what the
professional foresters do, no matter how much time they put
into a NEPA document, EA and EIS, the litigation appeals flow
endlessly, regardless of what they do.
So my question is, is there a way to break that cycle of
litigation? We are trying to do it through some of the
legislation we are proposing for better disclosure, more
involvement up front, time limits on the amount of appeals, and
requiring those who want to appeal to actually participate up
front in the process, in order to have standing to appeal, to
end the postcard appeal that caused so much problem.
But I would appreciate your comments on that.
Mr. Ack. I think those are all worthy solutions or worthy
proposals. One thing is stick to areas where there is broad
social agreement and there will be much less appeals. And this
issue of large diameter trees versus small is a social issue
more than a biological issue, as I think you have just heard
from the two forest ecologists. But it is an important social
issue and every time we put it on the table, we are going to
attract people who are willing to do whatever it takes to stop
the project.
We can get 90 percent of the way there if we stick to small
diameter trees and boy, with the government, 90 percent is a
great distance. So I think that--
Mr. Walden. That is how much we have shut down now, so
yeah, it would be nice to reverse that.
Mr. Ack. Absolutely.
Mr. Walden. Let me close with one comment, that we had an
appeal in my district of 50 trees that were cut by the
firefighters to fight a fire, and when they went to simply take
those that had already been cut, out and get some value out of
them, that was appealed. I mean this system is out of control
right now and it has got to be changed.
[Applause.]
Mr. McInnis. We need to move on. Mr. Walden, I completely
agree with you. We somehow have got to condition society to
move from emotional management of our forests to scientific
management of our forests. I noticed your comment, let us go to
an area where it is socially acceptable. I have yet in my term
of chairmanship ever found anything, when you mention thinning,
that is socially acceptable to certain sects out there, groups
out there. You may respond to that very briefly and then we
will move on.
Mr. Ack. The only response is you can also do the documents
in a way that the appeal takes 30 days to run its course and it
is denied and there is no further follow up, if you do not make
any mistakes in the documentation.
Mr. McInnis. You are right, and that is why that team work,
and I like the concept in your bill of putting a team out
there, and I like the concept--well, I happen to be an
attorney, I think there is some housecleaning that needs to
happen out there, and I do like the concept of putting some
people on the ground with some legal expertise to try and get
it done right the first time.
[Applause.]
Mr. McInnis. Mr. Hayworth.
Mr. Hayworth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank Brad
Ack, I thank my friend from Oregon for really highlighting the
issue. Brad, thanks for working proactively with Senator Kyl.
But I share the lament, having worked on these issues for
the better part of a decade, in a time when we were simply
discussing in theory around here what happened, and it is even
now, with the salvage of dead trees, a group from New Mexico,
not even Arizonans, have filed suit to stop the process. And
there reaches a point where you hear all sorts of terms bandied
about, but I think it is fair to ask, who is the extremist in
this instance, when you ignore forest health and safety of a
population. It seems to me a context of reasonableness, what
the reasonable person test is, and sadly, some evade all
reason, no matter how noble the efforts are to get the legal
documents to perfection. There is no reasoning with those who
will not reason. And that has brought us to where we are today.
Let me turn to Dr. Covington very quickly. Wally, some
years ago--and I mentioned it in my opening remarks and I think
it might bear some amplification--you talked about a scenario
where the fire, the incendiary fire storms of Dresden that we
saw in World War II, the horrific nature of the bombing that
went on there and the storms whipping up of their own volition
after the fires were started--that type of scenario could be
visited on a city like Flagstaff. If we took the nature of the
acreage affected by the Rodeo-Chediski fire, what would that
fire have done to Flagstaff?
Mr. Covington. Well, I actually have a graphic of that back
up here on the wall. If you take--maybe I will just wait until
I get that.
[Pause.]
Mr. Covington. Thank you. This is a half million acre,
centered in the fire shed of Flagstaff, so the greater
Flagstaff ecosystem or the greater Kachina Peaks ecosystem,
whatever you want to call it. So the fires come up from the
southwest out of Sycamore, Oak Creek Canyon, burn up threatened
500,000 acres. This is the San Francisco Peaks, this is the
City of Flagstaff, Williams, Navajo Army Depot, and this would
entail three wilderness areas, three national monuments, four
cities, Cochina, Mountain Air, all of that area could
reasonable be burned in a fire of that size.
And what we have to understand is this is not a theoretical
scenario, this absolutely is going to happen unless we do
something about it. And we do not have much time.
I was staggered by last year's fire season. I really did
not think we would see half a million acre fires for about
another 20 or 30 years, as the landscape filled in. But it is
here, this is our reality today.
Mr. Hayworth. Thank you, Dr. Covington.
Let me just close by thinking my friend Kent Gibson, long
time constituent until the realignment, now Mr. Renzi's
constituent.
I just want to thank everyone for coming and for offering
positive solutions and I think the challenge is to find what is
reasonable and like minded or good hearted people with this
intent, I think can agree on what is reasonable and the time
does call for bold action.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. McInnis. Thank you, Mr. Hayworth. Mr. Renzi, you may
proceed.
Mr. Renzi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank the
panel also for your testimony, in particular Dr. Covington, for
a statistic that you gave us, which is that five to ten million
acres of forest needs to be treated in order for us to get back
to a healthy forest and to a balance, a holistic balance in our
environment.
Mr. Gibson, your testimony was compelling. The idea--I
think we all agree that the timber industry must work in
partnership with the local communities and with the
environmentalists in order to strike a balance that we can get
there together, is an absolute.
I also want to point out that in northern Arizona, we have
got to fund a way to bring back a reasonable timber industry.
It is absolutely important for our economy and our jobs and in
order for small businessmen to make those kind of capital
investments that it is going to need, they are going to need
the guarantees of 10 to 15 years worth of products. In order to
have 10 or 15 years worth of products, we have got to free
ourselves from the environmental lawsuits that year in and year
out are used to obstruct.
Therefore, Mr. Ack, it is encouraging to hear you talk
about having a super NEPA team, including legal experts that I
am guessing would somehow be able to draft legislation or would
have some sort of binding mediation so we do not end up in this
litigious society that we see ourselves in right now.
Mr. Ack. Well, the team, the way it is set out in that
draft legislation, would have the legal skills to be able to
know what the case law is, to avoid the simple mistakes that
the people who want to obstruct these processes hang their hats
on. It is really not that hard when there is gaping errors made
or glaring errors because the case law changes quickly and the
Forest Service staff, as has been pointed out I think by Dr.
Moore, clearly move around, they have different
responsibilities and they are not legal experts. So our
proposal on that team is that the lawyers are there to help
craft documents that are legally defensible, so if it does get
litigated, it gets dismissed at the first hearing rather than
going through a case on the merits that drags on for 2 years.
Mr. Renzi. Thank you.
In addition, one of the nexus of the arguments, one of the
big rubs that we are seeing in our community is not only on the
argument of the diameters and the size, but whether or not we
should be thinning the forests out in the outland, in the back
country. I have got a good friend in this community, Bobby Orr,
who helps run one of the fire departments here, and he taught
me early on about what is firewise in our community and how
private homeowners need to be able to keep their own property
thinned.
And yet the idea that we take that thinning and move it out
into the back country is opposed by some people. They want to
say that we should be treating and thinning only within the
urban/wildland interface. But it really would be a last stand
to ask our firemen to put themselves in harm's way right when
that fire is on our doorstep.
So the idea, Dr. Covington, of being able to thin in the
outback, of being able to provide defensible perimeters is an
absolute, particularly when you look at the fire season that
approaches Flagstaff and the idea that you told me that a fire
that starts in Oak Creek Canyon in the morning could sweep
through and be in Flagstaff by the evening and because of the
topography and the wind, we could have an overtake fire here
that our good firemen would not be able to stop.
Would you like to comment on that, please?
Mr. Covington. Yes, I think that scenario is a likely
scenario. And not just in Flagstaff, you can look throughout
the western United States, we have got communities that are
just sitting ducks.
So from a fire protection standpoint, it is important. It
is also important from a habitat standpoint. As came out in
previous testimony today, no one wants to live in Flagstaff
with a half mile buffer of live forest around it. You know,
it's the greater ecosystem, it's the habitat why we are all
here.
Mr. Renzi. Yeah, I do not want to see our Flagstaff become
an ashtray.
Sarah, could I ask you just real quick, thank you for your
testimony, very, very interesting and very unique, particularly
we have not heard that kind of testimony on a panel.
What are the two most non-native and noxious species of
weeds in our area that we need to deal with?
Ms. Cassatt. I think one of the worst ones throughout much
of the West is the spotted knapweed. There are a couple of
knapweed species, but that species, basically nothing eats it,
it usually forms monoculture stands, it has sharp stickers, it
is really a nasty plant that is hard to get rid of.
Secondly, here, there is actually a group of three or four
species, I cannot remember if I put them in there or not.
Mr. Renzi. That is OK.
Ms. Cassatt. I could get you a list of the high priority
species that have been identified for Arizona.
Mr. Renzi. All right. I just want to point out that if we
are able to move forward with the stewardship projects, the
slash piles that you talked about which contribute to the weeds
would not be there, because those small diameter fuels would
actually be harvested. So that would be a way to work together.
Thank you, Sarah. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. McInnis. Thank you, Mr. Renzi. I might add, Mr. Renzi,
in regards to your statement in regard to urban interface,
which is absolutely correct, back in the outback, which is
where I happen to live, the watersheds are back there, the
wildlife is back there, the air pollution and for these people
to think that you can handle this by going back--we actually
had, as you know, some of our colleagues on the panel actually
said half a mile or quarter of a mile--quarter of a mile back
and then you would not treat. Geez--anyway, the watersheds are
awful important, but to wrap up our questioning, Mr. Shadegg,
you may proceed.
Mr. Shadegg. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I simply want to begin by thinking all of these panelists.
It makes me proud that we have right here in Arizona cutting
edge expertise in addressing this problem, which is a national
problem.
Dr. Covington, I note and I think it is very significant
that your change in the No. 1 threat from the fire itself to
our failure to respond to the conditions that are creating the
fire. And I do not think there is disagreement with Brad Ack
that it is a problem with management. We managed wrong before
is how we got ourselves into this mess. And I think that point
is well taken.
I want to thank you, Dr. Covington, for all your work, but
I also like--it is always nice when you give us specific
recommendations and you conclude your testimony with four
things Congress can do. Often we do not hear actual suggestions
and I will tell you, I am committed to the No. 1 suggestion,
which is we have got to advance treatments and we have got to
do it at a much faster pace.
Mr. Kolb, I was fascinated by your testimony and I want to
express my appreciation for it. Knowing, for example--I just
went into Bradshaw last weekend with my son and saw devastation
of bark beetles there, and knowing that thinning will help
fight the bark beetle problem is an important fact for me to
try to get out to my constituents and understand.
You made the point about limiting thinning to the urban
interface is bad public policy. I will tell you when we were
fighting this issue last year, the Chairman of the Subcommittee
and my colleague, Mr. Walden, and I, every day we met this
fight that just said well, all we need to do is the interface,
all we need to is the interface, all we need to do is the
interface. And I am thinking, you know, some day I want my
great grandkids and their great grandkids to be able to go
someplace deep into the forest and have it still be there. And
if we never treat the deep forest, that will not be true. So I
appreciate that and I hope your colleagues around the country
will listen to you.
Your encouragement of the markets for small diameter trees,
I strongly believe in that and Mark Rey has brought products in
front of us and shown how you can use small diameter trees to
do that.
I thought your points about salvage logging were well
taken, but I have a theory; if in fact--and I think you
acknowledged this in your testimony--if in fact, the forest is
overgrown to begin with, then allowing every tree, following a
devastating fire, to remain is allowing too many trees to
remain. It seems to me, if the premise is we have allowed our
forests to get too thick--when this lawsuit was filed to stop
the salvage timbering that is supposed to go forward right now
in Arizona, the group that filed it issued a press release in
which they said they believed every single tree burned in the
Rodeo-Chediski fire should be allowed to fall where it is. And
what I heard you say is that some of those trees should be
allowed to fall, but not necessarily every single one of them,
where it is too thick.
And I do want to note that in the proposal from the Forest
Service, there are, I think, 25,000 board feet of timber that
would be removed by helicopter, and I want to make sure I
understood your testimony correctly.
Mr. Kolb. Well, clearly there are severe wildfire
situations where we do not have to leave every tree onsite. I
advocate leaving many dead trees onsite, and I think the best
thing that could happen in terms of restoration of those sites
is send crews out to cut them and leave them on the ground, get
them on the ground quickly so that soils will be stabilized,
they will start--trees will start to decompose more quickly on
the ground because there is more moisture down there. This will
help recovery in the long term, but--
Mr. Shadegg. Where the forest was excessively dense, would
you not also agree some of those trees can come out?
Mr. Kolb. Well, there are cases where to pay for those
activities probably some of those trees have to come out,
unless taxpayers are going to subsidize that or someone else is
going to subsidize that.
To answer your question exactly, it depends on the
situation, it depends on how much soil damage there is, it
depends on how many trees are remaining, so that is where
foresters come into play, they can assess those conditions on a
site-specific basis.
Mr. Shadegg. I am going to lose my time, I want to make one
last point. Brad, I compliment you and the Grand Canyon Trust,
on all of the work you do. I think you have shown a great
spirit. If every environmental group were as open-minded and
engaged in as productive a dialogue--I am going to pick a nit
with you. You said NEPA is not the problem. I think maybe a
more accurate statement would be if we had enough money, NEPA
would not be the problem. But the reality is, I do not think we
have the money to do as much--as deep an analysis as quickly as
needs to be done, and I want to associate myself with Greg
Walden's comments. NEPA does allow a single environmental
extremist to file a lawsuit to block the will of the majority
and the consensus of all the expertise in this room.
I assume that you do not necessarily completely agree with
the President's healthy forest initiative, that this could be
done by a categorical exemption. I guess I would like to know
if that is true, No. 1, and No. 2, is there a middle ground
between addressing it as a categorical exemption and requiring
a full-blown NEPA process which I believe is going to cost too
much money and take too much time, and at the end will still
result in the lawsuit that Greg has talked about.
Mr. Ack. Well, it is a difficult question. I think our
proposal of this team is that if you have a team that is
working on multiple projects, that maybe encompass 200, 300,
400,000 acres of 10 different projects, you are going to get
some real economies of scale and efficiencies of scale, rather
than having 10 different teams doing that. And you can avoid
the mistakes.
I do not believe the categorical exclusions exempt
lawsuits, they exempt appeals, if I am not mistaken.
Mr. Shadegg. Yes, I think you are right.
Mr. Ack. So you still--if you do not do a project well, you
are still going to face--you save 45 days of appeal and 30 days
of response, but you still have lawsuits. And I just do not
believe that we want to exclude the right of citizens to
address grievances through the courts if we do not have to
abridge that right. That is kind of a fundamental right of this
democracy.
Mr. Shadegg. With regard to areas of social agreement, we
may come to social agreement on large diameter trees, the sad
part is I do not think we are ever coming to social agreement
on the dense forests where some of your colleagues say only do
the urban interface.
Mr. Ack. Well, I am completely in agreement with working on
the broad ecosystem. Our mission is the larger ecosystem, not
the urban interface.
Mr. Shadegg. I will be happy to yield to my colleague, Mr.
Renzi.
Mr. Renzi. Thank you very much. On the issue that you
talked about with leaving trees or salvage trees in the woods,
I need to point out to you that many of the trees, if left
standing and not fallen will provide, what we call the widow-
maker effect. So it is unsafe for the kids to go into the
woods, it would be unsafe.
So with the idea that we are able to go in and salvage,
particularly those trees that are on Rodeo-Chediski and the
Indian fire in Prescott, the idea of leaving them standing does
not allow us to go in and replant or fertilize and restore.
So under the widow-maker concept, I would like to just
point that out.
Mr. Kolb. My verbal and written--
Mr. McInnis. Just a minute, Doctor, let me tell you that we
have got to wrap it up.
Mr. Kolb. OK.
Mr. McInnis. So make your comment in 20 seconds and then we
will wrap it up.
Mr. Kolb. I can do it. My verbal and written testimony
clearly indicates that for safety purposes, salvage logging is
certainly justified near trails, roads, houses. Also, the trees
do not stay standing that long; we have been watching trees
that burned catastrophically in 1996, after about 5 years, they
start the break in half and come down.
Mr. McInnis. Thank you. Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Pombo. Just a concluding statement for this, and you
guys can sit down. What we should have done is we should have
had to stand up for as long as you were and then it would have
probably hurried it up.
But just a concluding statement on this, I want to again
thank Congressman Renzi for hosting us, the City of Flagstaff
for allowing us and being such a great host, to hold this
hearing. Taking over as Chairman of the Resources Committee,
one of my goals is to do this a lot more often, and to bring
Congress out to the people, not only to allow us to hear from
people out in the real world, but also to give you the
opportunity to educate us.
So I thank Chairman McInnis for bringing this hearing out
here, I think this is extremely important, I think what all of
you heard, what the Committee heard today, was some extremely
valuable testimony as we move forward in what we hope to be a
consensus effort to have a balance in protecting our forests
for future generations.
So I thank you, Mr. Chairman, I thank Mr. Renzi for hosting
us in this hearing, and thank the City again.
Mr. McInnis. Mr. Renzi, I also extend our thanks to you and
your staff for helping coordinate this, asking for it. I think
you were well rewarded, we have got some help for the tribe, we
got an announcement from Mr. Rey, so on and so forth.
I also want to stress that what we are attempting to do
here really is truly move from an emotional argument. And
frankly the testimony about the influence in the East versus
the West, Doctor, is exactly on point. And that is how it has
managed to move from scientific management to emotional
management, because of the numbers.
I also want to thank the City and the law enforcement
personnel and the other agencies of the City that helped us put
this together. I want to especially thank the witnesses who
have come from across the country. I thought your testimony was
great and that is exactly the intent of having these kind of
hearings. Most of all, I want to thank the audience. I thought
this was a--you were very polite, very professional and we
should note that this is probably the longest time that any of
you have sat in a crowd this size and not heard cellphones for
3 hours.
[Laughter.]
Mr. McInnis. It is kind of a nice pleasure.
On behalf of the Committee, thank you, the City of
Flagstaff, and thank you to our audience.
[Whereupon, at 1:04 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
Statement of The Honorable Jeff Flake, a Representative in Congress
from the State of Arizona
Thank you Chairman Pombo for providing the opportunity for this
field hearing today. I also thank Congressman Renzi for his part in
requesting this hearing on issues so vital to Arizona.
There is a crisis in the national forests. Fires have blazed
through at unprecedented rates in the last few years, treatments have
been delayed or halted, droughts have contributed to the severity of
fires and dozens of timber mills that can provide assistance through
thinning have been driven out of business or prevented from working.
Today, the President's Healthy Forest Plan is being looked at by
Congress in order to address this crisis situation.
Last year alone, wildfires burned over 7.1 million acres of public
and private land. To put this in perspective, Secretary Norton has told
us in the past that this is an area about the size of the states of
Maryland and Rhode Island combined. Over 460,000 of those burned acres
were part of the Rodeo-Chediski fire here in Arizona. Hundreds of
communities felt the impact through road closures, evacuation, burned
homes, burned structures, temporary displacement and loss of valuable
property. Yet the problem persists.
For years the work of the Federal land managers has been hindered
and delayed and the lands have suffered. Now, over 75 million acres of
forestlands are at an unnaturally high risk for catastrophic wildfire.
Some of that acreage at high risk includes already burned areas that
haven't been cleaned up yet.
Environmental extremists have prevented the U.S. Forest Service
from implementing several forest management plans. There have been many
frivolous lawsuits along with a widespread concert of effort that has
spread the agency's budget thin. In the Southwestern region alone
(Arizona and New Mexico), 15 decisions to implement fuels treatments
were appealable decisions. Of those 15 decisions, 11 were appealed and
two were litigated. This is a number well beyond allowing for
productive land management.
Even closer to home is the example of the Apache Sitgreaves and
Tonto National Forests, site of the Rodeo-Chediski fire. The Forest
Service awarded three timber contracts to remove dead and burned timber
from those forests--necessary cleanup on those lands--and on January
10, 2003, the Forest Conservation Council filed a lawsuit against the
efforts. If the dead trees are left much longer, the U.S. taxpayers,
through the Forest Service, will be footing the bill for any future
cleanup efforts because all value of the timber will have been lost.
Finally, if these Forest Service projects are able to continue,
there are few places to turn for commercial work. Sawmill and pulp and
paper mill operations have significantly decreased and closures have
skyrocketed over the past several years. According to statistics from
the American Forest and Paper Association, the West has been severely
impacted since 1989 when 400 mills in the West closed over 378 of those
were lumber and panel mills. This idled some 36,000-factory workers.
Another 36,000 logging jobs were lost as well, bringing the total
direct jobs lost to over 70,000 within the industry alone. These
numbers show how reliability of forest related jobs is low and further
hinders necessary treatments.
The President has introduced the Healthy Forest Initiative, which
will counter the catastrophic impact of last year's wildfire season on
communities and environmental resources. Focusing on legislative and
administrative proposals to empower land managers to better deal with
the crisis conditions and allowing for certain fuel reduction projects
on Federal lands under accelerated procedures, the proposal hopes to
address the plethora of concerns. Congressman Shadegg, Hayworth, myself
and others have also introduced legislation to improve the situation
for communities susceptible to wildfire.
Land managers are only expected to treat about 2 million acres this
year of the 75 million acres at unnaturally high risk to catastrophic
fires. The Forest Service needs both of its tools used in maintaining
forestlands: the removal of trees and prescribed burning to effect
change and contain the threat of catastrophic wildfire to local
communities. It is time to think long-term about how current policy
should be changed to prevent a continuation of the threat of wildfire
to public lands and nearby communities.
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