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November 06, 2003

ADP Testimony

Here is my testimony provided at the public hearing on forest plan revision in State College, PA, last night. I'll post later with more o the hearing.

James Kleissler, Forest Watch Director
November 5, 2003

Thank you for this opportunity to testify today on management of the Allegheny National Forest and the future of our communities in northwestern Pennsylvania. The right of every American citizen to share their thoughts and concerns in the management of our public forests is paramount and it is public events that help to preserve that right. And I wish that right had been properly preserved here today.

Today, I am providing testimony on behalf of the individual and organizational Supporters of the Allegheny Defense Project. I heard from a number of Supporters before I came here today and they asked me to send one message: hold a public hearing at a reasonable time and place with adequate and legally sufficient public notice they will be there. This means public hearings during the daytime and evening, during the week and on the weekends, where local residents can walk, bike, take public transport, or drive, and with adequate notice so that Americans can re-organize their schedules in a reasonable and timely manner if necessary. It may be easy to forget but most Americans are struggling for free time right now, they are working second jobs, longer hours at their primary job, and are doing it with less vacation and personal days available to them. The ability to comment on national forest management is not an ability, it is a right.

The decision to hold an additional hearing period this evening is an acknowledgement that the original plans for a daytime hearing were inadequate. While we applaud the addition, the failure of the Forest Service to provide legally sufficient notice of the date and time and hearing details with 30 days notice as required by the National Forest Management Act is inexcusable. And this if unfortunate because this hearing today is about our most treasured resource in the region – the Allegheny National Forest.

The Allegheny is a national treasure but it only can remain one if it is given the proper, delicate care that it deserves. The towering American beech and Eastern Hemlock, the rising Sugar Maple and Red Oak, and the swift flow and ripple of forest brooks. The quiet prowl of bobcat, the eager look of trail hikers, the swift swoosh of canoe paddles, and the light trickle of rain drops collected in canopy leaves. The Allegheny National Forest is home and hearth to millions of Americans and a vast array of wildlife and plants.

All is not well here. Over 90% of the Allegheny National Forest remains in management areas open to commercial logging and over 90% of this logging is done through the most damaging even-aged timbering practices which ultimately lead to clearcutting (regardless of the "removal" euphemisms the Forest Service tries to disguise them with). Even the U.S. Forest Service’s Need for Change document acknowledges that the extensive timber cutting and oil and gas drilling that dominate national forest management are infringing upon recreation and wildlife habitat and causing irreversible damage.

It isn’t simply these destructive practices that is the problem. The Allegheny National Forest management plan is an antique. The Forest Plan needs an overhaul, not a slight adjustment. The Allegheny has less than 2% of national forest lands in Wilderness, a miserable concentration when compared with other national forests. The Allegheny has less than 5% of its forest lands in total special area designations. Again, this is miserable in comparison to other national forests. The only way in which to remedy this deficit is a complete overhaul of special areas management in the Allegheny National Forest including:

• Recommendations to Congress for new Wilderness Areas
• Recommendation to Congress for 18,000 acres in new National Recreation Areas
• Adoption of the first Scenic Area in the Allegheny National Forest in over 30 years at Bogus Rocks;
• Adoption of 250 acres in new Research Natural Areas;
• Adoption of 3,670 acres in new forest Historic Areas;
• Adoption of 7,474 acres in new Natural Areas;
• Adoption of 30,376 acres in new forest Recreation Areas;
• Full adoption of the Forest Service’s proposed old growth corridor with some adjustments to make the plan more consistent with the best available science;
• Designation of a protective corridor along the national scenic North Country Trail; and
• Establishment of 200 miles of new hiking, bicycle, and horse trails.

It is stunning that the U.S. Forest Service could conceive of revising the Allegheny National Forest management plan without recognizing watershed management as the most significant issue. In 1923, President Calvin Coolidge signed the proclamation establishing the Allegheny National Forest specifically for the purpose of protecting the navigable waters herein. However, watershed management is only given secondary consideration in the current management plan and the Forest Service intends to relegate watershed management to secondary consideration as part of revision. Watershed management should be the highest priority of Allegheny National Forest management as it was intended to be. The current Forest Plan does not have a management area dedicated exclusively to watershed protection. In addition to repairing the lesser status given to watershed protection in the forest plan, the Forest Service needs to address all of the following:

• Restoration of streams degraded by timbering, oil & gas drilling, and ATVs;
• Management prescriptions which recognize riparian zones, wilderness trout stream watersheds, High Quality and Exceptional Value Streams;
• Special Area designation of new federally designated wild and scenic rivers;
• Recommendations for designation of streams as state designated wild and scenic rivers;
• Streams and watersheds of particular biological value;
• Recognition and management of water-based trails; and
• Management of wetlands, vernal pools, and other important habitats.

Now, the Forest Service clearly intends, based upon the Notice of Intent, Need for Change document, and statements made at public meetings to retain timber management as the overriding broadest use of the Allegheny National Forest. The Forest Service fails to even address the illegal forest planning direction given to Management Area 3 which clearly, without question, violates the National Forest Management Act’s direction not to select a logging system based primarily on commercial returns. The conservation of soils, watersheds, wildlife, and recreation are mandatory, the ability to clearcut isn’t. The ability of private contracters to cut trees in our national forest is a privilege, not a right. And that privilege is not mandatory but is discretionary. And while the Need for Change recognizes that commercial logging creates problems for meeting the mandatory provisions of the NFMA it fails to provide anything resembling a rational resolution for meeting the goals of that law.

Now, while the Notice of Intent and Need for Change documents inadequately deal with the very real problems of timber management in the Allegheny National Forest, they entirely ignore many other key subjects:

Oil and Gas Drilling: The Need for Change document recognizes that oil and gas drilling is causing irreparable harm to the Allegheny National Forest by permanently changing forest areas from natural forest conditions to conditions incompatible with wildlife and recreation. We also know that oil and gas drilling has caused harm to the national scenic North Country Trail and has impaired watershed quality including that of Salmon Creek. The astonishing thing in the Notice of Intent is the decision NOT to consider oil and gas drilling a significant issue. There simply is not legal, moral, or scientific justification for this.

Additionally, the Need for Change document has all kinds of incorrect information on oil and gas in the Allegheny National Forest. The Forest Service has acknowledged in the past that they have not been making proactive attempts to purchase mineral rights underneath the Allegheny National Forest. The Need for Change document incorrectly assumes there is no interest in selling these mineral rights because attempts to buy them have been unsuccessful. But the Forest Service has not made many, if any, serious attempts to purchase mineral rights throughout the Allegheny National Forest. When serious attempts have been made in the past, while perhaps difficult, the Forest Service was able to purchase the rights in the end.

We filed a FOIA request two years ago which determined that in the seventeen years following the Pennsylvania Oil and Gas Act of 1984 the Forest Service had never utilized the "objection" provisions of that law to protect the Allegheny National Forest. This despite the fact that harm to "public forests" are a basis for objection in the law. In response the Forest Service claimed that oil & gas drilling was compatible with management of the Allegheny National Forest. However, the Need for Change documents reflects the fact that this was intentionally misleading information given out by the Forest Service. And the Need for Change document incorrectly cites the Pennsylvania law as dating to "2001" when in fact the relevant provisions were adopted seventeen years earlier. The manner in which these mistakes are made suggest that they were made intentionally to cover-up the negligent management supervision of leadership on the Allegheny National Forest.

Geology and Soils: The U.S. Forest Service has virtually no meaningful management direction for cave and formation management in the Allegheny. Nor does the Forest Service have any scientifically sound ideas for how to resolve the very serious soil health problems we are facing as a result of acid rain, logging, herbicide use, and the use of nitrogen-based fertilizers. The failure to identify these issues as significant issues is again inexcusable.

Herbicides: The current Forest Plan had no intention of allowing herbicide use past 1995. This is clear from reading the 1991 Environmental Impact Statement and Record of Decision on this subject. Since 1991 there has been a wealth of new information on herbicides documenting their very serious impacts on the forest ecosystem. More recent research shows that even at low doses the herbicide Roundup is astonishingly toxic to tadpole populations. Somehow, the Forest Service doesn’t think that the implications of herbicide applications are a concern despite the lack of monitoring and up to date environmental analysis.

The ability of the U.S. Forest Service to ignore these issues is directly related to the use of an incorrect legal stand for determining what issues will be assessed as part of forest plan revision. The Forest Service has arbitrarily decided that instead of studying "significant issues" in the environmental impact statement as required by law they will limit the issues of concern to those "identified as being most critically in need of change." This is an incorrect legal standard that has prejudiced this process from the start.

These are not the limits to our concerns. The damage caused over the past thirty years of mismanagement will only by reparable if a full-scale restoration program is put in place, More details about our recommendations are included in our Allegheny Wild! report available on our website at www.alleghenywild.org.

Posted by jkleissler at November 6, 2003 03:12 PM

Comments

Posted by: RJ at November 6, 2003 06:07 PM

Posted by: jim k at November 7, 2003 03:23 PM

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