Environmentalists, timber industry face off over roadless proposal

Jeff Barnard

Wednesday, June 21, 2000 | 8:12 a.m.

PORTLAND, Ore. - President Clinton's proposal to protect 43 million acres of national forests nationwide by banning new road construction drew cries of "sham" from the timber industry and calls for even tougher protections from environmentalists.

The two sides faced off Tuesday at the Oregon Convention Center, where Clinton had brought them together in 1993 for the Forest Summit - a vain attempt to resolve differences over logging on public lands in the Northwest that preceded court-ordered cuts in timber production to protect habitat for the northern spotted owl, a threatened species.

During what may prove to be the largest of 300 public hearings being held around the country, timber industry officials urged the U.S. Forest Service to extend the public comment period on the proposal, complaining they have had trouble obtaining the 700-page draft environmental impact statement and the policy was being rammed through in half the time it takes to approve a timber sale.

Frank Gladis, of the Independent Forest Products Association, called the hearings a "sham" and said Vice President Al Gore's statements in support of it indicate the decision already has been made.

Environmentalists asked the Forest Service to adopt even stronger protections by banning logging and off-road vehicles as well as new roads in unprotected wild areas that are even smaller than the 5,000-acre minimum in the proposal. They also called for including the Tongass National Forest in Alaska, the nation's largest, rather than going through a separate process there.

"I don't want to tell my children stories about old growth forests that used to be there," said Sybil Ackerman, a regional representative of the Sierra Club. "I want to take my children to see them."

Regional Forester Harv Forsgren said outside the hearing that the proposal arose from a growing public demand to protect wild areas for clean water, fish and wildlife habitat and spiritual renewal. He added that extending the public comment period was unlikely because the core issues have been debated for decades.

Chris West of the Northwest Forestry Association, a timber industry group, acknowledged outside the hearing that any delays could well doom the proposal, undertaken as an executive action by the president, by making a final decision fall after Clinton has left office. But West argued that if the proposal is truly good policy, it will stand up to closer scrutiny.

Speakers representing the timber industry also argued that the proposed roadless policy would make it impossible to improve the health of forests ravaged by insects and disease and to fight fires like the one that devastated Los Alamos, N.M.

Environmentalists countered that the healthiest forests in the nation are those that have not been subject to logging or road-building, and that the primary reason for devastating forest fires has been keeping natural fires from doing their job in the ecosystem.

Faced with 386,000 miles of roads built primarily to haul logs, but lacking the money to maintain them as logging revenues have declined, the Forest Service has been considering for years how to deal with its 60 million acres of lands where logging and development has not occured.

Pressed by Clinton, who is interested in leaving a legacy of protecting public lands, the Forest Service issued a draft environmental impact statement last May. It proposed banning new roads in 43 million acres of national forests to protect water quality, fish and wildlife habitat, and outdoor recreation.

The roadless policy represents the latest in a series of battles stretching back to the early 1980s, when environmentalists chained themselves to bulldozers and won a series of court battles that ultimately led to an 80 percent reduction in logging on national forests to protect habitat for fish and wildlife.