Burned on the Bitterroot: Trees, Taxmoney and Trust

By Larry Campbell

As seen on TV worldwide, the Bitterroot National Forest burned with great fanfare during the summer of 2000. So great was the media attention, that camera crews from ABC, Germany and Sweden showed up at my front door while flames still threatened.

Following the fires, Forest Service officials proposed the largest timber sale in their history, euphemistically naming it the "Burned Area Recovery" (BAR) project.

Friends of the Bitterroot, the grassroots conservation group I work with, organized a campaign aimed at reducing impending impacts to the land and educating the public misinformed by a tsunami of Forest Service propaganda. We recruited a coalition of diverse local and national conservation groups whose thorough scientific research along with broad-reaching public education brought the debate over post-fire management to national awareness.

The Forest Service fanned Bitterrooters' recently-inflamed fear of fire to gain public support for a project they claimed would reduce the fire hazard and restore the forest. However, by relying on commercial logging, the Forest Service's "recovery" project was destined for failure on both accounts.

For example, the Draft EIS quietly admitted, "The slash created by the harvest and fuels treatment that is left on the ground would create a short term (zero to eight years) fire hazard. Under good burning conditions, fires burning in these slash fuel types have the potential to spread rapidly and extensively."

Furthermore, a November, 2001 Dept. of Agriculture audit found that National Fire Plan restoration funds were being proposed for use by BNF officials in designing and managing commercial timber sales. The audit stated: "We concluded that commercial timber sales do not meet the criteria for forest restoration."

When the Forest Service released their Final EIS, they began a series of maneuvers to evade the legally required appeals process. The Forest Service thought by taking decision making authority out of the local forest supervisor's hands and placing it in the hands of former timber industry lobbyist Mark Rey, currently Undersecretary of Natural Resources and Environment, they could circumvent the public appeals process.

Trying to justify this shortcut, Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth said, "The most important thing to me is getting on with the restoration work. There's lots of other work we want to do - roads we wanted to obliterate, watershed work, reforestation."

Fortunately, a federal district judge saw through their smokescreen. Blasting the Forest Service for electing "to take the law into its own hands" the judge ordered the Forest Service to accept public appeals. When the Forest Service appealed that ruling, the district judge ordered mediated negotiations between the Forest Service and conservationists.

In order to lend credibility and accountability to the negotiation process, both Rey and Bosworth were ordered to attend. After two grueling days of difficult give and take, the Forest Service and conservationists agreed on a package deal, which contained some of the logging along with restoration activities. The Bitterroot Settlement was sanctified by federal court one year ago, on February 7, 2002.

According to Forest Service documents, the logging is going on whole hog with over 70% completed. Anyone who visits the logging sites can't help but notice that the largest trees - many barely burned - are being cut down; while the smaller trees remain. I've seen decks full of logs measuring over 30" in diameter including many green trees cut down under the guise of "fuel reduction" and "restoration."

Speaking of restoration, a year into the project and a small fraction of the restoration work has been completed. According to the Forest Service, less than 3% of watershed and road restoration work and only 12% of the reforestation effort has been accomplished.

As pitiful as those numbers are, consider the fact that $25.5 million appropriated for BAR rehabilitation has been spent elsewhere and Forest Service officials now say it may never be replaced, meaning the promised restoration work is on hold and may never be done.

Mark Rey and Dale Bosworth have been flying around the country saying how important it is to have the public trust them as they propose wholesale changes to the way America's national forests are managed.

Commenting on the Northwest Forest Plan, Rey recently said, "I don't think any amount of historical revisionism (by critics) is going to convince us it's a bad thing to live up to commitments the previous administration made." Apparently Rey's sense of honor does not apply to commitments he makes for the present administration.

The Forest Service, by their own admission, is using National Fire Plan money to create a fire hazard on the Bitterroot National Forest, while altogether halting needed restoration work. A lie is being put to the Rey-Bosworth propaganda machine.

Not only are taxpayers getting burned on the Bitterroot, but so to is trust in the Forest Service. Once burned, twice shy is a reality that will haunt any future attempts to negotiate with the Forest Service.

Larry Campbell lives in a cabin he built near Darby, Montana. A geologist by training, he patches together work as a carpenter, log cabin chinker and wilderness guide.