Freedom of Information Act Request Reveals Info for July U.S. Forest Service 'Report' was Gathered in Hours
Questionable report continues to be used by Bush Administration, Forest Service and pro-logging members of Congress to call for more logging, less public involvement

For more information:
Matthew Koehler, Native Forest Network: (406) 542-7343
Tom Weis, National Forest Protection Alliance: (303) 823-2447
Byran Bird, Forest Conservation Council: (505) 466-2459
Jim Bensman, Heartwood: (618) 259-3642

MISSOULA, MT - With Congress locked in a heated debate over the Bush Administration's Healthy Forests Initiative, documents obtained from a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request reveal that the U.S. Forest Service spent just a few hours gathering information for their much-heralded July report, "Factors Affecting Timely Mechanical Fuel Treatment Decisions."

The hastily produced report - which made national headlines this summer - claimed that 48% of mechanical treatments of hazardous fuel (ie timber sales) were appealed. The questionable report continues to be used by the Bush Administration, Forest Service and pro-logging members of Congress as a major reason to suspend environmental laws and citizen oversight for U.S. Forest Service logging projects.

The FOIA request sought "A copy of all documents sent to the Regional Offices asking for information for this report and all replies from the Regional Offices." In response, Frederick Norbury, Director of Ecosystem Management Coordination for the U.S. Forest Service, admitted that "The timeframe for gathering the information used to develop the report was limited to hours. Thus, much of the information was provided orally in telephone interviews with a variety of Forest Service employees throughout the country."

"This level of research may be OK for a middle school project, but when the U.S. Forest Service quickly pieces together a report and then uses it as Exhibit A to justify suspending our nation's environmental laws to increase logging in national forests, it approaches fraud," said Matthew Koehler of the Montana-based Native Forest Network.

Tom Weis, executive director of the National Forest Protection Alliance, the organization which filed the FOIA request, noted that the General Accounting Office (GAO) had already conducted an in-depth investigation of all Forest Service fuel-reduction projects for fiscal year 2001 and found that of 1,671 projects, zero had been litigated and only 1% of the projects had been appealed.

"The Forest Service didn't like the findings of the GAO report, so they cooked up numbers more to their liking," explained Weis. "This is unconscionable behavior on the part of the Forest Service, but not a big surprise, given that 25-year timber industry lobbyist Mark Rey is running the show as the Bush Administration's Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment."

"The GAO report concluded that 99% of hazardous fuels reduction projects had not been appealed. The projects that have been challenged are commercial logging projects, which scientists tell us actually increases the risk of wildfire," stated Bryan Bird of Forest Conservation Council in Santa Fe, NM, a monitor of Forest Service activities. "Meanwhile, the questionable Forest Service report looked mainly at traditional commercial logging projects done under the guise of fuel reduction. That is why nearly half of those projects were appealed."

To illustrate his point, Bird cited two projects listed in the Forest Service report. The Corner Mountain Salvage Sale on the Gila National Forest in New Mexico was appealed by several conservation organizations because it was located far from a community and would have logged trees in spotted owl habitat and impacted several imperiled fish species downstream.

The Dry Fork Vegetation Restoration Project on the Lewis and Clark National Forest in Montana was appealed by local conservation organizations because the 'restoration' project called for commercial logging of 950 acres of old-growth forest miles away from the nearest community.

"This report is an example of why our laws should not be suspended. The Forest Service simply cannot be trusted to do adequate and accurate analysis on their own. America's environmental laws are designed to protect our national forests and the public when the Forest Service makes up excuses to justify logging," stated Jim Bensman, forest watch coordinator for Heartwood, an eastern U.S. forest protection group that has appealed numerous timber sales disguised as fuel reduction projects.

Click here for a copy of the FOIA response from the U.S. Forest Service (.pdf approx 350 KB).

Analysis Finds Unreliable Data and Bias in Forest Service Report (.pdf approx 100 KB)