Nevada Focus: Timber industry may pay for past sins

Thursday, May 14, 1998 | 5:03 a.m.

The Nevada Democrat says ecological scars from the indiscriminate clearing of trees during the Comstock era are the driving force behind his push to halt construction of new logging roads on national forests throughout the country.

"Logging is one of the most significant factors in the declining clarity of Lake Tahoe," Bryan said.

"Three hundred miles of old roads cut decades ago continue to be a source of erosion and pollution. Some of them date back to the Comstock."

Bryan's crusade is riling influential Western Republicans on the Senate Appropriations Committee who are aligned with the timber industry and upset that Forest Service spending has held steady while timber harvest levels have dropped dramatically since President Clinton took office in 1993.

The senator's move is likely to touch off another Senate floor fight this summer and could put the Clinton administration in the awkward position of crossing environmentalists to defend spending $37 million on logging road construction in the coming year.

It also puts Bryan at odds with other Western Democrats - including Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., - who have raised their own concerns about the administration's road-building policies.

Bryan said he's determined to stop or slow new road construction at least until the Forest Service addresses a $10.5 billion backlog in road maintenance needs.

The agency acknowledges its 440,000-mile network of roads - eight times the size of the U.S. Interstate system - is in disrepair. Abandoned and ill-maintained roads accelerate land slides and erosion, filling streams with silt.

Bryan also wants the administration to broaden a proposed moratorium on new road building to ban new construction in controversial old-growth forests in Alaska, Oregon, Washington and Northern California.

"It doesn't make sense to continue expanding a road system that we cannot currently maintain," Bryan wrote Clinton in March.

A second-term senator and former governor of Nevada, Bryan came within one vote last year of securing an amendment that would have cut $10 million from the Forest Service's $47 million roads budget. The GOP-led House also narrowly turned back an amendment that would have eliminated all new road spending.

This year, the Clinton administration adopted the $37 million figure Bryan had advocated. But Bryan said the new discovery of the huge backlog warrants even less money for new roads.

"I'd like to reduce the $37 million to as little as possible. I don't know if we'll zero it out. Let's just say the priority ought to be road maintenance," Bryan said.

His position could create some heartburn for the Clinton administration, which is trying to win congressional backing of the proposed temporary moratorium on new-road building in all but a few national forests.

"It is all speculative at this point. We don't know if he will offer an amendment," Forest Service spokesman Chris Wood said about Bryan.

Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck earlier told Republican leaders the moratorium - a "time out" as he called it - would help avert the annual showdown in Congress over the agency's budget.

But Sens. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Slade Gorton, R-Wash., told Dombeck recently "there is presently no hard evidence that your proposal for a 'time out' will prevent another debate over the agency's road budget.

"Indeed, there is now every reason to believe that we will relive last year's road budget debate," they wrote last month.

"In light of your rationale for the moratorium, we would have hoped that you would have spoken with Senator Bryan and other congressional opponents on your road budget to secure their agreement with your proposed course of action. Apparently this is not the case."

Agriculture Undersecretary James Lyons told Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources subcommittee on forests, earlier this month that he will defend the $37 million request against attacks in Congress.

"Even if it comes from (Democrats on) the other side of the aisle?" Craig asked.

Lyons responded, "We will defend the president's budget."

Bryan said he has not discussed the matter directly with the administration. "We're not acting on behalf of the administration but pursuing good policy," he said.

Industry leaders acknowledge the Tahoe basin forest was razed irresponsibly at the close of the 19th century to meet the demand for lumber for gold and silver mines as well as the building of San Francisco.

But they say the forest that grew in its place is unnaturally dense, with thick undergrowth that wasn't there prior to settlement because Indians set small fires to clear brush from the forest floor.

"It isn't fair to compare the practices of earlier days with today," said John Hofmann, a vice president for the California Forestry Association in Sacramento.

"We have learned an awful lot. We are much more aware and concerned about the environmental needs of the forest and the lake," he said.

Active thinning and selective logging of the forest stands is needed to reduce catastrophic fire risks at the vacation destination that draws millions of visitors annually, Hofmann said.

"The forests there have grown up to the point the land base cannot sustain those trees. Some of those trees have to be removed. New road construction is definitely needed to protect today's environment," he said.

Much of the $37 million would be used to access campgrounds or relocate old roads out of environmentally sensitive areas such as along stream beds, Hofmann said.

"I think Senator Bryan is not looking at what that money is actually used for," he said.

While Bryan embraces support from the Sierra Club, Daschle, Baucus and Wyden have walked a finer line trying to please conservationists while still maintaining a cordial relationship with the timber industry bases in their states.

They told Dombeck in a letter a month ago they were concerned the administration's proposed moratorium on new roads was "overly broad and open-ended."

They support the ban on new construction in most roadless sections of forests 5,000 acres or larger. But they want the administration to pull back a bit on automatic protection for areas 1,000 acres to 5,000 acres where there currently are no roads.

"We'd like to see more protection, not less," said Steve Holmer of the Western Ancient Forest Campaign, a backer of Bryan's approach.

"If the administration was serious about not wanting a roads debate then they shouldn't have proposed 400 miles of new roads in this year's budget with an additional $37 million to facilitate the construction of logging roads on our national forests."

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