"Clearcuts for Kids" Plan Reprehensible

By John F. Borowski

The justification of the continued pillage of the nation's national forests has sunk to a despicable and possible all-time low.

Senate Bill S 1608 seeks to provide additional funding for schools by increasing logging on national forests. This "clearcuts for kids" legislation seeks to justify the logging of national forests, using our youngest citizens as pawns in the newest, yet most reprehensible ploy since the salvage logging legislation.

Teachers and administrators would sit on "Investment Project Advisory Committees" to help (direct quote from the bill) "identify and implement projects on the federal lands that enjoy broad-based local support." Funded by 20-25 percent of payments to schools, these local groups can devise proposals to increase logging on our national forests. I guess even-aged management and other corporate double-speak is not as endearing as "cut more for the kiddies."

But it doesn't end there; if the Forest Service does not get "the cut out," it must take money from the budgets for fish, wildlife and water to fund the county payments for schools. Maybe the schools can purchase curricula provided by the same timber corporations who have helped to draft this legislation.

As an educator, I am heartsick over a proposal that holds our most precious resource - our children - hostage to such politics, especially when pushed by our own Sen. Ron Wyden.

It is crucial that we decouple funding for rural schools from the amount of timber cut on national forests. If we care about children, why not end timber, tobacco, mining, grazing and other pork-barrel programs that benefit corporate America and bestow that money on our students? Sadly, most of us know the answer. Many of those elected officials we send to Washington simply seem to exist to coddle those "power brokers" who claim to be bold capitalists, but continue to dine at the trough of public funds.

And the legacy for our children seems to be more environmental devastation. My critics will quickly point out that over 100 years ago, Congress passed revenue sharing programs to compensate local communities for logging in national forests. This provided 25 percent of the revenues collected by the Forest Service through the sales of forest resources to allocate money to the smaller, rural towns.

Yet the cyclical "boom and bust" trends of market-driven changes in wood prices forced schools to deal with chronic shortfalls and a guessing-game approach of planning annual budgets.

If Sen. Wyden and his cohort Larry Craig, R-Idaho, cared about rural towns, they would sponsor forest restoration programs. Provide funding for the rehabilitation of watersheds, projects that create habitat, obliterate eroding logging roads, and create steady and dependable wages for a multitude of workers.

And shame on those who try to manipulate children as puppets for profit. Once the stumps can no longer pay for schools, what will be the next slogan? Increased mining on public lands, or should I say "strip-mines for schools and tailings for teachers."

John F. Borowski of Philomath is an environmental science teacher at North Salem High School in Oregon.