SPEAKERS CONTENTS INSERTS
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56–358 CC
1999
1999
FOREST HEALTH MAPS
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON DEPARTMENT OPERATIONS,
OVERSIGHT, NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
FEBRUARY 24, 1999
Serial No. 106–11
Printed for the use of the Committee on Agriculture
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COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE
LARRY COMBEST, Texas, Chairman
BILL BARRETT, Nebraska,
Vice Chairman
JOHN A. BOEHNER, Ohio
THOMAS W. EWING, Illinois
BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia
RICHARD W. POMBO, California
CHARLES T. CANADY, Florida
NICK SMITH, Michigan
TERRY EVERETT, Alabama
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma
HELEN CHENOWETH, Idaho
JOHN N. HOSTETTLER, Indiana
SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia
RAY LaHOOD, Illinois
JERRY MORAN, Kansas
BOB SCHAFFER, Colorado
JOHN R. THUNE, South Dakota
WILLIAM L. JENKINS, Tennessee
JOHN COOKSEY, Louisiana
KEN CALVERT, California
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GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota
BOB RILEY, Alabama
GREG WALDEN, Oregon
MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho
DOUG OSE, California
ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina
ERNIE FLETCHER, Kentucky
CHARLES W. STENHOLM, Texas,
Ranking Minority Member
GEORGE E. BROWN, Jr., California
GARY A. CONDIT, California
COLLIN C. PETERSON, Minnesota
CALVIN M. DOOLEY, California
EVA M. CLAYTON, North Carolina
DAVID MINGE, Minnesota
EARL F. HILLIARD, Alabama
EARL POMEROY, North Dakota
TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania
SANFORD D. BISHOP, Jr., Georgia
BENNIE G. THOMPSON, Mississippi
JOHN ELIAS BALDACCI, Maine
MARION BERRY, Arkansas
VIRGIL H. GOODE, Jr., Virginia
MIKE McINTYRE, North Carolina
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DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan
BOB ETHERIDGE, North Carolina
CHRISTOPHER JOHN, Louisiana
LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa
DAVID D. PHELPS, Illinois
KEN LUCAS, Kentucky
MIKE THOMPSON, California
BARON P. HILL, Indiana
Professional Staff
WILLIAM E. O'CONNER, JR., Staff Director
LANCE KOTSCHWAR, Chief Counsel
STEPHEN HATERIUS, Minority Staff Director
KEITH WILLIAMS, Communications Director
Subcommittee on Department Operations, Oversight, Nutrition, and Forestry
BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia, Chairman
THOMAS W. EWING, Illinois,
Vice Chairman
RICHARD W. POMBO, California
CHARLES T. CANADY, Florida
JOHN N. HOSTETTLER, Indiana
SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia
RAY LaHOOD, Illinois
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JERRY MORAN, Kansas
JOHN COOKSEY, Louisiana
GREG WALDEN, Oregon
EVA M. CLAYTON, North Carolina,
Ranking Minority Member
MARION BERRY, Arkansas
BENNIE G. THOMPSON, Mississippi
VIRGIL H. GOODE, Jr., Virginia
DAVID D. PHELPS, Illinois
BARON P. HILL, Indiana
MIKE THOMPSON, California
GEORGE E. BROWN, Jr. California
DAVID MINGE, Minnesota
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
Clayton, Hon. Eva M., a Representative in Congress from the State of North Carolina, opening statement
Goodlatte, Hon. Bob, a Representative in Congress from the State of Virginia, opening statement
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Walden, Hon. Greg, a Representative in Congress from the State of Oregon, opening statement
Witnesses
Andrew, Susan, ecologist, Southern Appalachian Forest Coalition
Prepared statement
Barnes, Charles C., on behalf of the American Tree Farm System
Prepared statement
Bartuska, Ann, Director, Forest Management, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture
Prepared statement
Answers to submitted questions
Burley, Charles H., eastern Oregon manager, Northwest Forestry Association
Prepared statement
Dessecker, Daniel R., senior wildlife biologist, the Ruffed Grouse Society
Prepared statement
Kline, LeRoy, forest health specialist, Oregon Department of Forestry
Prepared statement
Nebeker, T. Evan, professor, entomology and plant pathology, Mississippi State University
Prepared statement
Sampson, Neil, The Sampson Group
Prepared statement
Struble, Dave, director, insect and disease management, Maine Forest Service, Maine Department of Conservation
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Prepared statement
Swanton, Joel, manager, forest policy, Champion International Corp.
Prepared statement
Submitted Material
Scott, Donald W., entomologist, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, letter of February 11, 1999 in regard to Western pine beetle outbreak
FOREST HEALTH MAPS
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1999
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Department Operations,
Oversight, Nutrition and Forestry,
Committee on Agriculture,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:15 a.m., in room 1300, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Bob Goodlatte (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Pombo, Canady, Cooksey, Walden, Clayton, Phelps, Hill, Thompson, and Minge.
Staff present: David Tenny, Kevin Kramp, Wanda Worsham, clerk; Callista Bisek, Danelle Farmer.
Mr. GOODLATTE. This hearing of the Subcommittee on Department Operations, Oversight, Nutrition and Forestry will come to order.
First, let me say a word of welcome to all of the members of the committee as it is reconstituted. We have some new members and we have some new jurisdiction. I think it is very exciting that we are going to be able to deal with issues related to our National Forests, including this hearing today.
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I hope that we can be very active in addressing concerns that a number of people have regarding our National Forest. They are a treasure for our country. We want to make sure that they are protected and utilized as carefully as possible.
Mrs. Clayton, do you want to say anything before we have opening statements about this particular hearing?
Mrs. CLAYTON. I want to welcome all of our panelists. One of the panelists later on will be from North Carolina. I certainly want to welcome her. I look forward to the presentation.
I would acknowledge this is a new area for this particular subcommittee, forestry, but it is not a new concern for me. I certainly expect to learn more and hopefully to make a contribution in that area.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BOB GOODLATTE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA
Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you, Mrs. Clayton.
I welcome all of you today to this first hearing of the 106th Congress for the Subcommittee on Department Operations, Oversight, Nutrition and Forestry.
I wish to acknowledge the ranking member of the subcommittee, Representative Eva Clayton of North Carolina. I also wish to extend a special welcome to our witnesses, some of whom have traveled long distances to be with us this morning.
The first thing I would like to say at the outset of this hearing is that forestry is alive and well in the Agriculture Committee. I believe there was some speculation upon the departure of Chairman Smith that forestry was dead.
I assure you it is alive and kicking in this subcommittee. I am certain the Forest Service, an agency that simply does not get its fill of Congressional attention, is pleased to hear that.
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Before I explain the purpose of this hearing, I would like to say just a few words about the subcommittee's priorities with respect to forestry during the 106th Congress.
Our first and highest priority is to restore and sustain the long-term health and productivity of our forests. We are currently faced with a massive restoration backlog in our forests.
According to Chief Dombeck, 40 million acres of National Forest are at an unacceptable risk of catastrophic wildfire. As we will learn today, 58 million acres of forest across all ownerships are at high risk of insect and disease infestation.
The Forest Service claims that there is an $8.5 billion backlog in road maintenance and repair. These numbers are staggering and the need to do something about them urgent.
Our second priority is to restore accountability to the Forest Service, both for how it spends scarce taxpayer dollars and for what it accomplishes on the ground.
In January of this year, the General Accounting Office issued a report identifying the Forest Service as an agency at ''high risk'' because of its vulnerability to waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement.
According to the GAO, the Forest Service may be a decade away from being fully accountable for its performance. This is completely unacceptable and must change.
Finally, we have an obligation to carefully examine the role of the Forest Service with regard to private forest land management. Given the agency's performance with its own land and resources, Congress would be irresponsible to expand the Forest Service's jurisdiction with respect to private lands.
Rather, Congress and this subcommittee should act to ensure that the agency is a good neighbor to private forest land owners and that state and private forestry programs are strengthened and improved.
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Today's hearing encompasses each of these priorities.
Last May, with the urging of the House Agriculture Committee, the Forest Service began an effort to identify nationally those forest lands at greatest risk of severe resource degradation.
That was, as you will recall, the basic premise of Chairman Smith's forest health bill. Today, 9 months later, the Forest Service will present to the subcommittee the first in a series of ''risk maps'' identifying forest lands at greatest risk of mortality from insects and disease.
Our purpose agenda today is to review these maps and determine if and to what extent the Forest Service will use them to address the forest restoration backlog.
Members of the subcommittee will see two maps in their folders. The first map identifies 58 million acres of forest land nationally, both public and private, that is at high risk of mortality from insects and disease.
I note that the Forest Service inadvertently omitted this important map from its testimony, so I have instructed staff to give them a copy so that they may use it in their presentation. We hope, by the way, to get the fuller map here. Maybe that is it.
The second map breaks the country down to watersheds and identifies mortality risk in each unit. I also understand that the Forest Service will present a third map to the subcommittee this morning, a work in progress that is not yet ready for our full scrutiny, identifying the location of wildfire risk on Forest Service lands.
As you can see, the risk of insect and disease infestation is not confined to any one area of the country. It is not simply a western problem. It is a national problem that touches every forested landscape of the country.
I commend the Forest Service for developing the maps we will review today. I am encouraged by what appears to be a serious effort to begin managing risk and addressing our forest restoration backlog. This is the direction we should be heading and it is a good start.
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Despite my initial optimism, however, there remain some serious questions about this risk mapping initiative. First and foremost, it is unclear whether the initiative is a priority of Chief Dombeck.
I did not hear any mention of it in his recent State of the Forest address. I also do not see anything about it in the agency's fiscal year 2000 budget. Before we can take this initiative seriously, we need to see some demonstrated commitment by the Chief. Perhaps he will have something to say about this when he appears before this subcommittee in early March.
Second, assuming that the Chief does support this initiative, it is unclear just how the Forest Service will move from strategic national mapping to on-the-ground project implementation.
The agency needs to produce a clear and concise road map identifying how this initiative will ultimately affect the forest restoration backlog. Currently it has none.
Such a road map should identify clear management priorities and objectives, empower local managers to do what is necessary to achieve those objectives, and require strict accountability for results.
It should also identify specific implementation timeframes, cost projections and other benchmarks to ensure that implementation is timely and economical.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, even if the initiative is completed on paper, there remains the question whether the Forest Service will actually implement it on the ground.
There is much talk within the agency these days about identifying outcomes, developing agendas, and convening committees, all ostensibly for the purpose of addressing certain aspects of the forest restoration backlog.
In my opinion, this is all happy talk. We need to move beyond talking and start doing. We do not need more elaborate planning or buzzwords or rhetoric.
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What we need is a basic commitment to confront the backlog and accomplish something on the ground. I am not yet satisfied that the agency has that commitment.
In closing, I want to reemphasize that our first and highest priority must be to restore and sustain the long-term health and productivity of our forests. If we continue to allow the restoration backlog to grow, the health of the land will continue to decline.
We cannot afford to let this happen. We cannot afford to lose tens of millions of acres of forest to insects, disease, fire, or any other forms of resource degradation. I am prepared to do whatever is necessary to address the issues we will discuss today.
Let me be clear that I want the agency to succeed with its risk mapping effort. However, if I am not satisfied with the agency's commitment to the cause, then I am prepared to use whatever means available, legislative or otherwise, to get something done.
Time is of the essence. We need to stop talking and start acting. In the end, it will be our actions not our words that will restore and sustain our forests as the healthy, productive resources we all want them to be.
At this time, it is my pleasure to recognize the Ranking Member of the subcommittee, the Honorable Eva Clayton from North Carolina, with whom I have the good fortune of working again during the 106th Congress.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. EVA M. CLAYTON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA
Mrs. CLAYTON. You do have that good pleasure; do you not?
Mr. GOODLATTE. Indeed.
Mrs. CLAYTON. I want to, Mr. Chairman, thank you for that very thoughtful statement.
Let me just say, I concur with what our chairman said was our purpose in looking at the forestry in terms of those goals. There are some areas that we probably need to develop to come to that same conclusion.
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Parenthetically, before I hear the testimony, I want to just say I think I forestry is interdependent. It is also interdependent in terms of agencies. I am sure that the forest agency here knows that there are other agencies within Congress or other committees have brought you before their committees.
In fact, I attended a couple of them to hear that. So, to have agriculture to say that they are the only one, I do not want my chairman's remarks to superimpose that there are not other Congressional committees looking at this and should be looking at this.
So, we need to find indeed how we protect the healthy forests and do it in a collaborative way with all of the entities and all of the agencies involved. I concur also. We need to as a Federal agency in the National Park, anything we do as a Federal agency, we need to make sure we are good neighbors with our private providers and those tree farmers.
I noted there will be a tree farmer who will be making a presentation. So, what we do as a Nation or as the Federal Government has tremendous implication for not only the industry that depends on their livelihood, but the interdependent of the ecological systems that are there.
Not only are the forests good for the woods, the forests are good for the birds. Forests are good for all of God's creatures who are in there. So, as we look for a healthy forest, we want to make sure not only do we sustain the wood that grow in there, we also want to sustain the other animals and the plant life that is there.
Now, there are more ways of protecting the health of the forest other than the risk management mapping. As we look at this, I am not sure it would be correct to assume. I am not judging what you will say, but I did have the opportunity to review your testimony.
I am not confident that we have not, in fact I am troubled that we may have put more of a premium on this mapping for curing all of the ills than we need to. There have been a number of strategies out there for a number of years.
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I think this should be seen as an additional tool, not as the only tool. So, as we look at this, I want to implement it in its fullness. We should not apply to it all of the disease and insect problems that we have had.
We need to find this as a supplemental to the variety of methods that have been proven scientifically that the industry and the science community have. Further, I think there is an opportunity to indeed to apply a local and a regional test to this national mapping.
Again, a national map is a valuable tool. Again, I hope we are not thinking of one cure would be for all. There are implications in North Carolina which may not be in Washington.
With all due deference to those who live in Washington, the forests are all not the same. So, I am a little concerned that we do not have this one cookie cutter, this one mapping.
Our watershed is a regional map. It allows for some very interrelationship. But it does not allow for the peculiarities that may be in different areas. So, those are the concerns I want to just state early on.
I also want to welcome the new tool. I look forward to strengthen it. We should do everything as the Government to invite critique of this method and how we can enhance it and make sure we have regional and local application.
Again, Mr. Chairman, thank you for calling this. Hopefully, this is the beginning of the exploration for further understanding.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you, Mrs. Clayton.
I am pleased that the subcommittee has a new member, Congressman Greg Walden from Oregon, who fills some literally and figuratively big shoes succeeding Congressman Bob Smith, who we all miss on this subcommittee.
I understand you have an opening statement.
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OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. GREG WALDEN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OREGON
Mr. WALDEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I appreciate your comments about my predecessor. As you read your remarks, I noticed that on his portrait his smile widened. I just want to thank you. It did. It is still smiling.
Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for holding this hearing on Forest Health. It is a matter, of course, that is very important to the people of the Second Congressional District of Oregon.
Unfortunately, many citizens in my district understand all too well that the forest health crisis that is afflicting the west, they live with it every day, every summer, as their homes are threatened by fires and a highly combustible National Forest.
When forest fires spread, they know no boundaries; crossing property lines, roads, rivers as they destroy wildlife, resources, homes, and indeed lives. Driving down Oregon's highways, you can see the forest health problem as you pass stands of dead and dying trees killed by insects that have sought out trees weakened due to over-stocking.
If you put multiple plants in a small flower pot, they become weak and die as they are crowded out. If you put 10 trees in the space of one, they become weak and susceptible to fire and insects. That is over-stocking in its simplest form.
Let me tell you about the Summit fire in Grant County. In 1996, a devastating fire swept over 28,000 acres in the Malheur National Forest in eastern Oregon. The area was over-stocked with trees creating a tremendous fuel load.
The combination of high fire danger conditions and dangerous fuel levels resulted in a devastating fire that burned enough timber to build 10,000 houses.
A further tragedy is that following this devastating fire, managers were unable to remove these dead, but useable trees, in a timely manner, letting a viable product become virtually worthless.
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Now these trees are being attacked by bark beetles, threatening trees in adjoining private forests; all of this in a County that has experienced 12.9 percent unemployment this year alone, and in some months it has hit close to 20 percent unemployment.
In essence, we are not able to go in, in a timely manner and harvest dead trees, bring them to the mills, and have them processed returning revenue to the Federal Government and to the State, and local governments, and creating jobs.
Having walked through the blackened Summit fire in Grant County, I can tell you first-hand the forest problems you will hear about today are not being over-stated.
Today's forest health crisis is not something that has materialized out of nowhere. We have known that fuel loads in our National Forest have been building to critical levels.
Past forest practices have allowed our forests to become dangerously overstocked to the point where we can either manage them through thinning, which enables us to remove a useable forest product, or we can allow them to be burned up in fires like the Summit, Tower, Aubrey Butte, Old Complex, and so on.
Healthy Garden is one that has been actively pruned, and clipped, and managed with the greatest of care. We must also manage our National Forest in that way. By thinning stands of timber and removing dead trees, we can prevent forest fires and bug infestation, while providing a product that can be utilized in our local mills.
We must give our Forest Rangers the tools to manage our National Forest properly. The very survival of our National Forest depends upon careful and reasonable management. I would like to say this too.
In my part of the world, we are surrounded, literally many of our communities, by lands controlled by the Federal Government. In effect, they are our landlord. We are their tenant.
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Our people are hurting economically. Our forests are not healthy. We feel without power to change. That has to change. We can do better with this resource for all involved. We can have healthy forests. We can have a strong economy. We have got to deal with the forest health problem that is before us.
I believe you will see from the maps that we are about to review that these are areas of forests that are at serious risk. With your permission, Mr. Chairman, I would like to invite this subcommittee to hold a forest health field hearing out in Oregon, Second Congressional District, so we can all take a first-hand look at what we see every day in our backyards.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you, Mr. Walden.
I think that is an excellent suggestion. The subcommittee will definitely work with you on the possibility of conducting field hearings out there. We will see what can be done along those lines.
Mr. WALDEN. Thank you.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you.
Does anybody else have an opening statement that they are interested in making?
[No response.]
Mr. GOODLATTE. If not, let me welcome two other new members of the Congress and new members of the subcommittee; Congressman David Phelps from Illinois and Congressman Mike Thompson from California.
We are glad to have both of you with the subcommittee as well.
At this time, we will call our first panel. I am pleased to introduce Ms. Ann Bartuska, the Director of Forest Management for the U.S. Forest Service.
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She is accompanied by Mr. Denny Truesdale, who is the Assistant Director of Fire and Aviation Management at the U.S. Forest Service. Ms. Bartuska, we welcome you. You may begin your testimony when ready.
Your full statement will be made a part of the record. Thank you for joining us.
STATEMENT OF ANN BARTUSKA, DIRECTOR, FOREST MANAGEMENT, U.S. FOREST SERVICE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Ms. BARTUSKA. Thank you and good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee. It is a pleasure to be here talking to you today about our forest health risk mapping effort.
My name is Ann Bartuska. I am the Director of Forest Management. I would like to point out that I only came into that job in January. Prior to that for 4 years, I was Director of Forest Health Protection in State and private Forestry.
So, I certainly recognize the importance of forest health issues for all lands of the United States, not just the public lands. I am accompanied by Mr. Denny Truesdale, who is Assistant Director for Fire Operations and will provide a lot of help on the fire issues.
Today, there are four items that I would like to discuss with you. This will be in summary. As you say, my written testimony will be added as a part of the record.
The four things we would like to cover is first to introduce the complexities of the forest ecosystem health issue. In particular, with emphasis on the insect disease, fire risk, and the wildland and urban interface issue.
There are many other components of forest health that we have concerns about, but those are the three, I think, are the subject of today's hearing. Second, I would like to talk about the development of the risk mapping process and how we have gone through that.
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We will talk about the outcome of that, which are the maps. There is an example already on display. I believe you have copies of the others. Finally, what we hope to do with it as a first step in our using these particular maps.
As you know, there are 737 million acres of forest lands in the United States. The Forest Service has management responsibility for 192 million acres of which 140 million acres are forest lands.
Our programs do cover all of those forest lands either directly or through technical assistance with our cooperative program. So, it is an issue for us. In those lands, there are four areas of forest ecosystem health concerns I would like to mention. [Map shown]
The first is that we have very large numbers of exotic species that are affecting the health of the forests. Probably the most notable one in this part of the world is the gypsy moth, which was introduced almost a century ago now, and which causes massive defoliation and in some cases the mortality of hardwoods.
So, it is a very prominent feature of this landscape. We also have native insects and disease or native insects and pathogens that do make up the normal functioning of ecosystems in many parts of the country. In some cases, they reach epidemic proportions. [Map shown]
Probably the best known of that is the southern pine beetle. We have had historic levels of southern pine beetle outbreak that we have responsibility for evaluating.
In particular we are concerned because as abandoned cotton field lands have been converted to pine stands, the increased possibility of southern pine beetle continues. So, that is an area of concern. [Map shown]
The third area is fire suppression; the fire suppression that has been in place for many decades resulting in a change in the structure of the forests of the United States.
It was mentioned earlier overstocked stands; a large number of very densely stocked stands that have changed the features of those systems. That resulted in areas that are at high risk to fire because of both live and dead fuels.
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Then last in the wildland urban setting; because of the quality of our forests, we have had many people, both in rural and urban settings moving into forests and adjacent to forests.
These are the same forests that are at risk of fire, at risk of insect and disease epidemic. So, you have a real social challenge, as well as a forest ecosystem challenge. That was really the basis for looking at the whole risk mapping process.
We have so many lands that require attention. We know that this is a priority for our Chief. If you follow the Natural Resources Agenda where watershed health and restoration and protection are really key components of that agenda, as well as sustainable forests and grasslands.
We have been pursuing an aggressive program of forest health in the fire arena, as well as maintaining forest thinning and insect and disease suppression activities as a part of our base program. So, it is a priority. [Map shown]
The question is how do we make decisions on where we should be putting some of our emphasis? For example, the Gypsy Moth Slow-the-Spread Program, which was piloted in 1993 was specifically to get at that issue.
We have a large population of gypsy moth that was on the move. How do we focus our attention to more aggressively get at the advancing edge? So, the Slow-the-Spread Program, which is now in our current budget and full funding is to accomplish that particular task.
So, we have used this information to really focus on programs. That really lead to the development of the risk mapping effort. It is trying to come up with that particular model so that we could assess the areas of risk using the best science that we have available for insects and diseases and for fire risk, and to begin to focus our program. [Map shown]
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If we go to the other insect and disease map, what we have tried to do is put the occurrence on the watershed scale where the watershed is approximately 800,000 acres in size in order to be able to look at, from a watershed basis, where the areas of greatest risk are.
From this map, you can see that the three areas of greatest concern are gypsy moth in the Northeast, the southern pine beetle in the Southeast, and the mountain pine beetle and root disease in the Interior West and the West. Those form the three real major areas of concern. [Map shown]
The other major map is the Wildland Urban Map that looks at two aspects of fire risk. This illustrates the level of effort necessary to return wildland ecosystems to easily maintain fuel levels in wildlands and to focus on the wildland urban interface areas.
The complete data set we have available is only for the National Forest systems lands. We are working to get new information on the state and private lands. Right now, all we can show is the wildland urban areas that are vulnerable to impact.
These initial risk maps really do provide us the initial basis for strategic examination of where we have areas of concern and of course the next step then is what do we do with it?
That is really the intent of carrying on some of our dialog with some of our partners. We have developed the initial maps in cooperation with the State Foresters and our colleagues in Forest Health Protection.
We have had limited discussions with other Federal agencies, as well as other State groups, as well as the academic community. That is a part of the continuing validation of these maps.
The Insect Disease Map has gone through four iterations. The Wildland Urban Map is in only its first step. We have many more to go. So, we are hoping that this process will continue and that we have a lot more dialog on exactly how this map can be used.
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The red light is not on, but I am assuming I should be summarizing. Really what I would like to say is that we are, as a part of the Government Performance Results Act, the whole approach to outcome measures, we see these maps being able to be used to focus our attention to really get at where we can have the greatest impact on changing the landscape to correct some of the forest health problems we have out there in a realistic manner.
We know we cannot treat all of the acres that exist. We do not have the resources to do it. In some cases, we are not really sure we should. We should let nature take its course where you have large infestations.
There are clearly areas where we can have some impact, make some changes, and that is the outcome we are looking for. We have made the risk maps a part of some of the budget deliberations for the 2000 budget.
We would like to continue to use it in setting priorities for 2001 and 2002. So, it really is becoming a part of our budget setting process.
I am going to conclude with that and can carry on some additional discussions in more detail on where the maps are being used. The most concrete one, which is in the testimony, is in the Idaho Panhandle where it is trying to deal with the recent Douglas-fir beetle outbreak.
Over 400,000 acres have been infested. We have been able to use the priority setting process to focus down to a set of projects on 25,000 acres; a realistic, manageable area where we can get the biggest return on the investment that we are going to be spending on those lands.
So, I would like to conclude with that and just reiterate that this is a preliminary process. It helps us identify high risk areas in certain regions of the country. It is an ongoing process.
We look forward to continued discussions on this. Thank you. This concludes my statement. I will certainly be happy to answer any questions that you and the members of the subcommittee have.
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[The prepared statement of Ms. Bartuska appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you, Ms. Bartuska.
Would somebody put back up the original map of the forest lands most at risk to insects and disease; the 58 million acres? [Map shown]
Very good. Thank you.
Let me just say, I find it to be very startling; particularly if you look at the part of the world that I am from, Virginia, West Virginia, and, to a good extent, North Carolina are heavily impacted by insect and disease infestation.
I guess my question is does the data surprise you? Were you surprised when you put this map together?
Ms. BARTUSKA. Well, the map that you are looking at, and let me just briefly explain that for everyone with us what this conveys.
This conveys where we would expect 25 percent or more in mortality over the next 15 years in that type. So, it is not current condition. It is projected. In fact, the area that comes up red that goes from North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia and up into Michigan is not a surprise.
That is exactly the area where we made investments in the Slow-the-Spread Gypsy Moth Program. The primary agent for that part of the country is gypsy moth. We identified that in 1993 with our Pilot Program.
It is now the reason we have a fully-funded program going into the 2000 budget.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Are you saying the agency has known for some time that the risk of insect and disease infestation has been this severe?
Ms. BARTUSKA. We knew that, that was where the gypsy moth was on its way. Because the northeastern and farther northeastern part is the generally infested area of gypsy moth. That is where it has been for a long time.
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We knew the gypsy moth could be moving further south and southwest, as well as west into Michigan and Wisconsin, and have a very active program, Federal and State, because we are in full partnership on this to address the gypsy moth problem.
Again, this is predicted. So, this is where we are predicting the area of mortality will be. Because it is predicted, that is why we have invested our budget to be able to address it. The basis of slow-to-spread is to slow to spread.
Mr. GOODLATTE. If this a 25 percent mortality over 15 years, what is the normal rate of mortality for a healthy forest?
Ms. BARTUSKA. A rule of thumb is we would go, non- epidemic levels would be about 5 percent.
Mr. GOODLATTE. So, this is 3 times the rate of—5 percent over 15 years?
Ms. BARTUSKA. It could be. I mean, again, it is predicted based on our best judgment and the levels of gypsy moth currently in place.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Has the risk of insect and disease infestation increased or decreased over the last 20 years?
Ms. BARTUSKA. Nationwide?
Mr. GOODLATTE. Nationwide.
Ms. BARTUSKA. I would say nationwide it has increased due to a combination of factors. Introduction of exotic species continues. For those of you familiar with the Chicago incident and the New York City incident of the Asian longhorn beetle, that is a very good example of why.
Because of exotics, things continue to happen, as well as in some stands where we have the overstocked condition, where we have drought, insect and disease epidemics typically follow.
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This is especially true for pine beetles in the West; for example, the mountain pine beetle, and in the South with the southern pine beetle.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Prior to this mapping effort, how has the Forest Service identified areas of risk? How have you prioritized those? How have you set your priorities with respect to those risks?
Ms. BARTUSKA. I will speak primarily to the insect and disease issue. In terms of us being able to set priorities and identify risk, we have a very good program at the State and Federal level of cooperation for our Forest Health Protection Specialists all around the country.
In most parts of the country, they either do aerial surveys or they do ground surveys every year, all of the time, identifying where insect and disease problems are. Their expertise allows us to very rapidly, either at the State or Federal level, identify an area of concern.
Then identify that part of our budget that we need to get on top of that. In fact, we stay pretty good on top of the highest priority areas until you get to epidemic conditions. [Map shown]
In terms of base level, year-in and year-out, the expertise on the ground really helps us pinpoint where the problems are. The reason we have this map is because I was having greater difficulty in my own program in the Forest Health Protection to prioritize.
We had an increase. We were basically with our funding level versus the need out there, we were getting a greater difference between available budget and more opportunity to spend it.
The risk mapping effort was a way to help us prioritize where we would really get the biggest return on that investment. That is the areas that you are seeing displayed.
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Mr. GOODLATTE. Ms. Bartuska, how important is the risk mapping effort to Chief Dombeck?
Ms. BARTUSKA. The importance of the watershed health and restoration part of our Natural Resource Agenda is paramount and fundamental. The Chief has said time and again that, that is one of our primary goals as an agency.
In translating that goal to forest health protection programs, fire programs, and forest management programs the risk map becomes a really important tool for us programmatically.
So, I would say it is important for the agency to have this as one of the many tools, as was pointed out earlier, to use for that purpose.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Can you identify for me anyplace where he has discussed the risk mapping effort in any of his recent public statements?
Ms. BARTUSKA. I do not believe that he has identified the risk mapping effort specifically. He has identified the importance of addressing the forest health issue through our programs. As a manager, my job is get the tools on the ground to be able to do that.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Calling attention to the data that you have put together here, which is very impressive in terms of the work that you have put into it, and very disconcerting in terms of the widespread problems with forest health.
It would seem to me that he would be taking great pains to publicize this information and call it to the attention of the public in general and to those who are particularly concerned about the health of our forests. Yet, he does not seem to discuss it in his Natural Resources Agenda. [Map shown]
Ms. BARTUSKA. This map, this fourth version of the insect and disease map really was only produced over the winter. As you know, as we have mentioned in the testimony, the Wildland Urban and Fire Risk Map is still in its first phase.
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So, I think it was premature to have it announced back when we had the Natural Resources Agenda displayed. It is going to be a part of our management team meetings coming up here in the next couple of months.
We have been briefing all of the staff in the Washington Office, all of the deputy areas, and it will be brought to the Chief's attention for his consideration also. We did not want to bring something forward that has not had sufficient validation.
I think we finally feel insect and disease is closer to where we should be. It is not final. It is much further along. The other risk areas have got to be further validated.
Mr. GOODLATTE. How high a priority is it for the Chief compared to other initiatives like the effort to acquire more land for our National Forest or the Chief's Roadless Policy?
Ms. BARTUSKA. Sir, I cannot really speak for the Chief on that one. My primary responsibility is to make sure that we have the tools to address the forest health problem. I will convey that question to him.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Great. Well, we will hope to be able to address it to him in person soon.
Ms. BARTUSKA. Thank you.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you.
Mrs. Clayton.
Mrs. CLAYTON. I have several questions.
I think you have spoken to the process that is underway and the need for validation. Is there a time or a procedure that would give an indication as to how long all of these maps will take?
Is the Insect and Disease Map now complete to be used for regional and local applications? If so, where are you using them other than, I think you cited one area. What area did you cite?
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Ms. BARTUSKA. I think I mentioned the Slow-the-Spread Gypsy Moth Program, which would be where the red shows up for Virginia.
Mrs. CLAYTON. I am going to ask you how that is being done.
Ms. BARTUSKA. OK.
Mrs. CLAYTON. In your testimony, you said the use and application is mainly in the broad planning area and that you have used it and that it can also be tiered from the local planning efforts.
Using your example of the gypsy moth, what has happened in West Virginia, North Carolina, and Virginia based on the utilization of these maps?
Ms. BARTUSKA. I would like to just backup and make one comment. That is what we do not want to do is use any of the risk maps in isolation from the others. Really, the whole process was designed to look at them in an interrelated manner.
So, insect and disease, fire, wildland urban all to help integrate on-the-ground, nationally, where the areas of greatest concern are.
Now, having said that, we can use the insect and disease layer from highlighting certain areas of concern at the national level and then work with our regions and the states to better validate what is the true extent of the problem at a more local level?
That is the intent. That is exactly what we are trying to do. Again, getting back to the Idaho Panhandle example, where we had the identification of a very broad area of concern because of the beetle epidemic. The analysis was done. That focused where the areas of greatest risk were. We looked at the areas of wildland urban interface and were able to identify a much smaller number of projects.
For the gypsy moth program, in a way it is a very similar process where we identified where we would expect the advancing edge of gypsy moth would be based on where the oaks primarily were.
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That is the host type for gypsy moth. We knew that if we were very proactive about the gypsy moth through monitoring, aggressive prevention, and eradication we could slow-the-spread and actually reduce our investment 3 to 1.
So, the process is again working with the States and the Federal agencies to aggressively go after the gypsy moth in and at advancing edge.
Mrs. CLAYTON. Are you stating what you will do or what you are currently doing now?
Ms. BARTUSKA. That is what is in the plans currently. The pilot program was only in Virginia, North Carolina, and West Virginia. The full program goes all the way through to Michigan and Wisconsin. So, that will now be a part of the Gypsy Moth Prevention and Suppression Program.
Mrs. CLAYTON. How long has the Pilot Program been underway?
Ms. BARTUSKA. The Pilot Program began in 1993. It was completed in 1998. We went through a transition in 1999 which is where we are right now.
Mrs. CLAYTON. So, actually the Pilot Program started prior to you completing the map; right?
Ms. BARTUSKA. That is correct.
Mrs. CLAYTON. OK.
Ms. BARTUSKA. In fact, the map sort of validates where our experts already had been targeting areas.
Mrs. CLAYTON. I am trying to get really a handle on what new things, as the result of a map, you feel you want to identify to us? You have used this tool over what you have done already.
In gypsy moth, apparently you had a number of things underway. So, you are mapping perhaps, as you say, confirm what you saw as a trend because you used these other methods.
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Ms. BARTUSKA. Right.
Mrs. CLAYTON. I am assuming these maps are very good. I am not asking these questions to perhaps put less value on them. I am just trying to intensify my knowledge.
Ms. BARTUSKA. I understand.
It is a work in progress. The idea is to use the maps in their entirety as a course filter at the national level to say where are areas of greatest concern? To get that information then to the regions and the States and let them then do further analysis.
So, that they would then look at, for example the Southeast is a very good example. We have identified these broad areas of concern. Through letting the regions and the States then further validate and further focus down where are the areas that really make sense.
Is this true what we are seeing at a national scale? Then what kinds of projects would be needed to address that? That is that process of working nationally to provide broad direction, working within regions then to provide further evaluation. Then working it down to the ground.
That is very definitely our plan to utilize this map. Using the Forest Planning Process, of course, is still the tool that the National Forest have to implement this.
Mrs. CLAYTON. I thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. POMBO [presiding]. Ms. Bartuska, in looking at the maps that were provided to the subcommittee, my district at one time had a thriving forest products industry which is, for the most part, gone away.
In looking at the maps, I see that the districts to my east, which would be Congressmen Doolittle and Herger—Mr. Thompson is north of me, on up into Oregon are the areas that are heavily identified in the West in terms of impact, both in the watershed map, as well as the forest lands that are at most risk.
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I realize that the Forest Service has been doing some work particularly in the Lake Tahoe area in terms of trying to manage and trying to deal with the at risk areas.
I am concerned, however, that in the budget request we do have $215 million as a part of the request for land acquisition. I was wondering if that $215 million had instead been directed toward the project that we are discussing at this hearing now?
How much additional acreage would you be able to treat with an additional $200 million in your budget?
Ms. BARTUSKA. I am not sure I could calculate the figures that quickly. That is something that we would need to go back and look at.
Mr. POMBO. How much per acre are you spending now in terms of being able to treat? What do you budget in Idaho? What do you budget in the Lake Tahoe region?
Ms. BARTUSKA. I think you would have to break it down by what kinds of activities. Probably the one we can most easily get you is what we spend on fuels treatment.
I will ask my colleague to respond to that.
Mr. TRUESDALE. I do not have it broken down in the specific areas that you requested. In this fiscal year in California in Forest Service region 5, we have $10.7 million allocated to the region for 49,900 acres of treatment.
The cost per acre for treatment varies region-to-region. Some areas are significantly less than that. When you complicate it with extensive wildland urban interface, the cost of treatment sometimes goes up.
That is reflected a lot in the Lake Tahoe area. I do not have those numbers with me.
Mr. POMBO. If you would not mind, I would appreciate it if you would provide that for the record for the subcommittee.
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In looking over the budget request, it appears that the request is for the same amount in the next fiscal year as what was provided last year.
If that is mistaken, I am open to being corrected on that. Just in looking through the budget request, that is what I understand is currently the request.
At least in my part of the country, we are having a very difficult time managing the forests and having enough money to do that; particularly on the Federal forests. It does raise eyebrows to see a request to increase the amount of forest lands.
Is that being taken into account in your estimates for the next year that we are not just going to have what is currently in the Federal inventory, but if that request were granted we would have additional lands that would be brought into the Federal inventory?
Is that being calculated in your estimates for the work that needs to be done for your priorities for the next fiscal year? I heard in your response to the chairman, you said this was an estimate of the next 15 years.
Are you calculating in that we are going to have a substantial increase in the amount of Forest Service lands and therefore, we are going to need additional monies?
Ms. BARTUSKA. In our risk mapping effort, we do not consider a land acquisition level. What we were looking at is nationwide for all forest lands where the areas of concern.
Certainly from the standpoint of spending or looking at our priorities in terms of forest health protection, or fire or for forest management, we would be needing to look at where those areas are on the ground. From the land acquisition question, I cannot really answer the linkage.
Mr. POMBO. Would not you have to take into account that there is a request to increase the number of acres that would fall under this program?
Ms. BARTUSKA. The delivery of the Forest Service program would have to take it into account. Again, remember the risk mapping effort is really to look at the few issues associated with forest ecosystem health.
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It is a very limited set for this first go around. I certainly think it would be a rich opportunity to look at other factors that we would want to consider in subsequent prioritization. This seemed to be the greatest priority: fire, insect disease, and wildland urban interface.
Mr. POMBO. Well, that is what I am talking about. Obviously, with these maps that have been put together, any lands that would be acquired would more than likely be within the areas that are identified as high risk or watersheds that are at risk. I happen to represent an area that is downstream from this entire area here that you have got identified as Watersheds At Risk. Everything that washes out of this part of California washes into my district.
So, this is more than a passing interest. We do have some severe water quality problems. If the Forest Service is having a difficult time finding the money to manage the lands that are currently within your inventory, it is somewhat surprising that we are talking about increasing that inventory by a substantial amount.
I would have to question why are we not putting that, if the money is available, why are we not putting it toward doing what you know and you have identified as needs within the current inventory?
I am sure that internally you guys have some great discussions on this as well. I would really be interested in knowing what the answer to that is. I mean, why is the priority not taking care of what you have versus expanding even more lands that you do not have the ability to take care of?
I do not know if you are able to answer that or not, but before we get into this budget process, it is a question that I really need to have answered.
Ms. BARTUSKA. I would like to take that question back and have some of our other folks talk about that. It clearly is an issue. I think it is not an issue that could be answered by one specialist involved in one part of our program. It really is a much more comprehensive issue on how we manage our lands.
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Mr. POMBO. I am not going to put you on the spot, but I am sure you have an opinion on it. I will let you answer that for the record.
Mr. Thompson.
Mr. THOMPSON. No questions.
Mr. POMBO. Mr. Walden.
Mr. WALDEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Do you feel that anywhere on your Federal forest lands there exist an emergency situation because of this forest health problem; insects and mortality? Do you think it is really an emergency?
Ms. BARTUSKA. I think we have areas that we need to take a lot more aggressive action than in others. Clearly, the gypsy moth area is one. That is not just for Federal lands. That is a really critical issue.
The gypsy moth, so far, has only been in 25 percent of its host type. There are great gobs of oak out there that the gypsy moth can move into affecting large other segments of industry, as well as the quality of life in those areas as you get further South and West.
I think that is a really critical issue. Certainly, in the Interior West where we have the big red blob up there, and other areas where you have the overlap with the wildland urban, there is an extreme sense of urgency.
You have people, homes, families right in the middle of forests that are prime fuel loading areas. I think that would constitute more of a sense of urgency than many other areas.
Again, though that is something that we can get on top of in some areas, but not through the whole extent of the range. That is one of our challenges with this priority setting process.
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Where can we get in, make a difference, but not assume that we are going to be able to treat all of the acres that are being identified as at risk?
Mr. WALDEN. I go back to my analogy of sort of landlord/tenant relationship. If you look at the map of Oregon, for example, and can you, before I get into that, is it possible to get these blown up bigger so I could look at Oregon on a watershed basis? You have got a lot of dots plopped in here.
Ms. BARTUSKA. Yes.
Mr. WALDEN. I would be curious to know where specifically those are. As I look at this, I think if I were a resident of a Government housing project which, in effect, you are in forest with your management, we had some slum areas here that needed to be cleaned up.
I mean that seriously and analogous too. It is just frustrating to me. I want to pick up on what our acting chairman said as well. I hear a lot of discussion about continuing for the Government to acquire more and more lands.
I wish that this administration, and I am not picking on you. This is the frustration I hear at home and I believe seriously. I wish this administration would focus on some sort of emergency package to take care of the lands that the Government controls today.
So, this is one member who is not going to be advocating for additional ownership by the Federal Government until the lands that we have are better managed.
I spent some time in Chicago. It seems like twice each week at O'Hare. I noticed that they had a beetle infestation. It, of course, is a tragedy in the city because they are losing trees being cut, harvested.
It seems like they were reacting quickly to this problem. Do you think that, for example, in the Summit fire in Oregon, and I do not necessarily expect you to be familiar exactly with that one, but do you think it is important to get in before a hatch occurs and do something on a pine beetle infestation?
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How important is that? How effective can you be? What would it take?
Ms. BARTUSKA. Once a pine beetle epidemic begins, it is almost impossible to get on top of it. We have spent decades chasing the beetle around.
Mr. WALDEN. You have.
Ms. BARTUSKA. That is the way the story goes. That is State and Federal; the partnerships out there. So, I think that there really is a difficulty.
When there is an epidemic starting, where can you make your investment? Clearly, one of our goals is to restore some of the structure, the ecological structure, of those forests so that they are less prone to epidemics that are out of cinc with normal processes.
Epidemics are always going to happen. The other issue, though, is that, and again, it is a part of the analysis that we have done. These beetles were there for many years before the fire.
They are the ones who create the fuel loading. So, being able to get a better understanding of where this structure is going to lead to an epidemic and then where that epidemic could lead to fuel loadings is a part of the whole risk process.
That is that projection out. That is the fundamental part of this whole risk mapping effort. It is to look outward. Where can we get ahead of the curve when it is possible?
I assume in the Idaho Panhandle example, when you have 416,000 acres within 2 years of beetle infestation, you are not going to treat all of them. You need to really fight your battles; figure out where you can get some return on a net investment most effectively.
Mr. WALDEN. Going back to my question, if you know a hatch is going to occur, is it effective to go in and do something about that before it spreads off the Federal forests on the other overstocked areas and private lands or do you sort of let it happen?
Ms. BARTUSKA. That is a part of our risk analysis that we do that the entomologist on the forest consider. That is, is there an area where moving off the National Forest or off public land onto private land is a concern?
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There have been cases where we do take more aggressive action because of that. Again, the Idaho Panhandle is a good example. That was one of the strategies that they were using.
We do not have enough resources in this country to chase all of the beetle epidemics that occur naturally within all of the forests of the United States because they are so widespread. So, it is picking your battles and identifying where the greatest priorities are.
Mr. WALDEN. Let me try this one more time.
Ms. BARTUSKA. OK.
Mr. WALDEN. If you know a beetle is going to occur, is it better to try and stop that then and there? If you had all of the resources in the world, are you better to try and stop it before it spreads or not?
Ms. BARTUSKA. It really depends. In some areas where the economics is a greater concern, we try to get on top of it very quickly. In other areas, it is a natural event.
You just let it go. So, a prudent manager is going to be thinking about that issue as he would get on top of it. No, you do not always attack the beetle as soon as it starts emerging.
You wait to see. You evaluate what the potential effects are going to be. That is where our biological evaluations really come into play.
Mr. WALDEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. GOODLATTE [presiding]. Thank you, Mr. Walden.
The gentleman from Louisiana, Mr. Cooksey.
Mr. COOKSEY. No questions.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you.
I am pleased that we are also joined by another new member of the subcommittee and a new Member of Congress, Congressman Baron Hill from Indiana.
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Do you have any questions of the witness?
Mr. HILL. No questions.
Mr. GOODLATTE. All right. I have a few more.
Ms. Bartuska, the subcommittee has only just received your budget explanatory notes. We have not had an opportunity to go over them with a fine-tooth comb, I do not see mention of the mapping initiative on the face of the document.
Can you point me in the direction where it shows that funding for this effort is in the budget notes?
Ms. BARTUSKA. That would be within the Forest Health Protection Explanatory Note. That is the area you would be looking.
It probably is not explicitly identified in there because it is a part of our normal technical assistance programs.
It would be a part of the ongoing efforts within the Forest Health Protection Program.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Do we know how much it is going to cost?
Ms. BARTUSKA. They are estimating about $400,000 a year. That would be for all of the different layers, including bringing the experts together.
Mr. GOODLATTE. How much of that is funded by the budget?
Ms. BARTUSKA. Fully-funded by the budget.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Good.
Is this mapping effort incorporated into the agency's GPRA Strategic Plan?
Ms. BARTUSKA. The data, certainly, the insect and disease, and the fuel risk data are a part of the analysis that is being done for the outcome measures.
The actual risk mapping process does not fit into an outcome. It is a part of the process we would use to identify where you would be doing your work on the ground.
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Mr. GOODLATTE. Can you point me to someplace in your initiative for your Fiscal Year 2000 Performance Plan where I might find reference to it?
Ms. BARTUSKA. We would have to look into that.
What we are discussing here is that the way our report on the GPRA is developed, it really speaks to the outcomes, and what we are going to be measuring on the ground, and what we are going to be treating.
So, the map would not be in there as a part of the process. That is one of the tools we would have to accomplish the outcomes.
Mr. GOODLATTE. How long will it take to complete the mapping process at the national scale?
Ms. BARTUSKA. I believe that the next round on fire risk and wildland is 2 months, roughly. Then probably the subsequent layers will take probably a full year to go through the multiple validation steps.
In the meantime, we could start seeing what the patterns are and be looking at or using them mostly in an informal way. We do still have quite a bit of peer review yet to go through on some of the layers.
Denny, do you have a comment?
Mr. TRUESDALE. Yes. I would anticipate from the fire maps that they may never be done, so to speak, so that we never have to work with them again. Every time a major area is treated, every time a major fire goes through an area, that information changes the condition of the forest. I would anticipate that over the years, that information from the local level would be input into the mapping process.
Whether annually or bi-annually, I do not think we have talk about yet, but the maps would continually be revised as new information is developed. So, ''done'' is we are completed. It would be kind of relative.
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We probably will have the initial process done in a year, but 3 years from now you would probably see a different map.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Sure. We are referring to completing the overall mapping. Obviously, then you will have to update it on a regular basis. I would assume that would be true of the insect and disease infestation as well. They are going to vary with time also.
Ms. BARTUSKA. If I might add, Mr. Chairman, I think really key to this and to the success, recognize that the insect and disease mapping process has been going on for about 2 1/2 almost 3 years.
You would assume that there would have to be similar levels of effort just because the dialog that is needed among the other agencies, with the States, with the experts out there is a very rich process.
It is an ongoing process. So, having the first layer is a really important step. This continual updating, review, and dialog is really going to be critical for us.
Mr. GOODLATTE. How long will it take to break this data down to more local scales in a way that would be useful to local forest superintendents and other managers who will use it?
Ms. BARTUSKA. It really is not designed to be broken down to the local level. It is assuming a level of information at a very broad course scale. That is the national scale.
Now, the data elements that maybe were used in terms of the expert judgment on this may be available, but at very, very almost site-specific—for example, the insect and disease.
We do have insect disease data layers that are a result of our Forest Health Protection Programs. The map itself, the pixels, for example, that is a 1 kilometer square area.
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The availability of a local manager to use that for local decision-making is really not germane. It is a totally different scale of information.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Well, we look at it from a different standpoint then. How long will it be before we see this initiative produce some on-the-ground results?
Ms. BARTUSKA. Two years probably for the entire package. I will say that even next year in the 2000 budget, there is a new line item that we are proposing called Forest Ecosystem Restoration and Improvement. In our initial allocation to the regions for those funds was based on the risk map, at least the insect and disease layer and our best guess of where we think the priority areas are.
That will translate on the ground as soon as projects are put in place. So, we hope very quickly. But it will be an ongoing process.
This validation of the multiple levels is really going to be critical. We are talking about some pretty urgent issues in the wildland urban setting.
Mr. GOODLATTE. In your opinion, is the Quincy Library Group Plan an example of adapting the kind of data contained in these maps to on-the-ground management?
Ms. BARTUSKA. Sir, I am not really sure what the Quincy Library Group used to develop their planning process. I think I would need to look at that before I could answer.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Well, they are complaining that the agency is dragging its feet on implementing their plan, even though it is now a part of the law passed by the Congress, signed into law by the President.
Is that an indication of the willingness of the agency to accomplish something on the ground using this mapping initiative?
Ms. BARTUSKA. Again, I am not sure that they are tied together. So, I would have to look at what Quincy Library did and what information the used to be able to answer something like that.
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Mr. GOODLATTE. So, once we are implementing on the ground, how long will it take the agency to appropriately treat the Federal acreage identified on the map? By the way, did anybody ever ask how much acreage is involved?
We have 58 million, but that is both public and private as I understand it.
Ms. BARTUSKA. That is correct.
Mr. GOODLATTE. How much of that is public land?
Ms. BARTUSKA. It is 24 million acres on the National Forest.
Mr. GOODLATTE. So, a higher percentage of our National Forest are suffering from this infestation than of our private forest lands. By my math, you have 730 million acres of forests in the country.
Of that, about 540 million acres are private. Of that, about 34 million are suffering from disease infestation; so, 34 out of 540, but 24 out of 192. So, a considerably higher percentage of the forest lands, National Forest lands, are suffering as opposed to private forest lands.
Ms. BARTUSKA. From the major insects and diseases that we have identified, that is true. That is partly due to the structural issues; getting back to conversations. The testimony that was given earlier is you have had a real change in the forest structure because of fire suppression. that has been a lot more typical on public lands than on private lands.
Mr. GOODLATTE. How does this acreage overlap with the acreage affected by the roadless moratorium?
Ms. BARTUSKA. I am not really sure what the exact overlap would be. We would have to do an analysis of that.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Well, perhaps you can tell me this. How would the agency's plan to treat the affected acreage be affected by the Roadless Moratorium?
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Ms. BARTUSKA. I think we have to look to see what areas are in fact included by the Roadless Moratorium. An example, however, the Idaho Panhandle which has some areas of concern. None of those acreage are within the area covered by the moratorium.
They are able to identify all projects outside the roadless areas. I think a lot of our regions are taking that approach. The areas of greatest concern, more areas than not, are not associated with roadless areas.
Again, it comes back to the wildland urban setting. That is going to be a real priority for where we do work.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Well, let me ask you to pursue that question, if you would, and compare the roadless areas with the infested areas and give us a more definitive opinion about whether maintaining an arbitrary, nationally established moratorium on roads without having much, if any, local input into deciding where roads are badly needed, how will that affect your ability to deal with this massive infestation of insect and disease?
If you would get back to us, we would like to have the benefit of that.
Those are all of the questions I have. Mr. Walden, do you have any questions?
Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Chairman, I just want to run some math through. I am not sure I was blessed with the math genes. So, help me out here.
As I ran your numbers, it looks like you are spending, out of your example out in California, about $200 an acre to treat the lands.
Mr. TRUESDALE. I am not sure I am blessed that quickly either, but I can take a quick look for you.
Mr. WALDEN. While you run the numbers, if that is right and you have got, I believe you said 24 million acres affected that are diseased. This looks to me like about a $4.8 billion problem.
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Mr. TRUESDALE. I cannot tell you for sure. I know the GAO has testified under other committees. I cannot speak for their numbers right now either, but they said $3.2 billion. I am not sure whether that works out correctly.
Mr. WALDEN. It is really somewhere between a $3 billion and probably $5 billion problem.
Mr. TRUESDALE. Please recognize that I think the numbers I gave you for California are the highest cost per acre of our Forest Service regions. I can give you an example of that. Region 8, with $14 million, only $4 million more, will treat in 1999, 862,000 acres.
We have a range to work with. So, do not take the high end to get the total number, but we could estimate probably some ranges of what that would be for you.
Ms. BARTUSKA. I also think I just need to clarify something. The 24 million acres we were talking about are those of insect and disease projected mortality. The numbers that Denny was giving you were cost per acre for hazardous fuels treatment.
Although they are interrelated, they are definitely not one-for-one. There are probably many of these 24 million acres where we would choose to do no treatment because, again, that is a priority setting process and a treatment not be relevant for those particular areas.
Mr. WALDEN. I am new to this process here. So, help me with some of the nomenclature. You talk about wildland urban setting. Where would I find a definition of what that is?
Ms. BARTUSKA. We actually developed a definition within this effort because we do not have one. There has been quite a bit of dialog going on with a forestry organization and with us about what really constitutes a wildland urban setting, other than what we think it might be.
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What we are using as a first step is one house per acre to one house per 20 acres as being a wildland urban interface area.
Mr. WALDEN. I am coming from a district where there are, in some cases, one person for every 9 miles of power lines. So, if I heard you right, you talked about the first areas where you would work on would be wildland urban settings. I guess what I am going to want to know, and I do not expect you to have this right now, is if that definition is the one that you use, is anybody in my district going to qualify as a priority?
Mr. TRUESDALE. Do you cover Bend, Redman?
Mr. WALDEN. I do. So, that would.
Mr. TRUESDALE. There is a big chunk of ground in there that would definitely be wildland urban interface.
Mr. WALDEN. Right.
Mr. TRUESDALE. The problem we have, and I believe the Representatives from California have left, but there are areas that are no different than subdivisions here in Virginia that butt against wildland areas.
There are high priorities to work in those also. Our priority, if we are fighting wildfire human safety first. So, even if you have one house per 9 miles of telephone line, we, in conjunction with the State of Oregon, will protect life and property.
Mr. WALDEN. And you have. I have no dispute with that whatsoever. I guess what I am trying to sort out is as you look at mortality from a fire fighting standpoint, and infestation which I look at more as how do you spray in control, I guess what I want to differentiate is where is the resource going to go for prevention as opposed to sort of the post-op triage?
The other question I have relates to this map on Hydrologic Units Affected By Insects and Disease. I note that as you breakout the data you go zero to 5 percent, 5 to 10, 10 to 15. Then we take a big jump of 15 to 83 percent. I just wondered why that big of a spread.
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What does the new map show? Now that I have peaked over 40, I cannot see as well either, I have discovered. One final question, Mr. Chairman, if I may, at least for this point.
Why does your budget show that its fuels reduction acreage will actually go down in fiscal year 2000?
Mr. TRUESDALE. The acreage goes down as we move into the higher priority area, the wildland urban interface area, and the expense of treating those acres versus acres that are out and away and not as expensive.
The expense usually comes in prescribed fires, as you probably well-know, in protecting structures, keeping smoke out of the environment where it is not wanted, and that sort of thing. The closer you are to the wildland urban interface, the more we focus on that, then the more expensive it gets.
Mr. WALDEN. Have you looked at trying to maintain an acreage level and find funding from somewhere else within the budget?
Mr. TRUESDALE. I would not want to speak, since there were just budget hearings yesterday that I was not privy to. I would have to speak on the budget itself. We do feel that there are a lot of acres out there that have a high priority need for treatment.
We could, by focusing all of our funding, for example, in the Southern area, we could increase, or not even all of our funding, just increasing their budget a few million dollars. We could increase the number of acres treated significantly because of their low cost per acre for treatment.
However, we have to balance that I think with some of those areas that have been mentioned in the urban interface in the Sierras. As we focus more and more on those areas, the cost per acre goes up.
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Mr. WALDEN. Right. But what I am saying is if you could pick the acreage amount and then try and find the funding to match that acreage amount.
I am not asking you to go take your money and move south necessarily. My friend is gone from Louisiana. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you, Mr. Walden.
Ms. Bartuska and Mr. Truesdale, we thank you very much for your contribution this morning. We do have some additional questions which we will submit to you in writing. We would hope that you would reply to those as promptly as possible.
Ms. BARTUSKA. Absolutely.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Again, thank you for your contribution.
Ms. BARTUSKA. You are welcome.
Mr. GOODLATTE. We would like to invite our second panel to the table. Mr. LeRoy Kline is a forest health specialist for the Oregon Department of Forestry. Mr. T. Evan Nebeker is a professor of entomology and plant pathology at Mississippi State University.
Mr. Dave Struble is the director of Insect and Disease Management for the Maine Forest Service at the Maine Department of Conservation. Mr. R. Neil Sampson, of the Sampson Group, is also with us.
We have a vote folks. So, I think what we are going to do is go vote before we start the panel. So, the subcommittee will recess for, hopefully, about 20 minutes.
[Recess]
Mr. GOODLATTE. The subcommittee will be in order.
We are pleased to have the second panel. We will start with Mr. Kline, welcome.
STATEMENT OF LEROY N. KLINE, FOREST HEALTH SPECIALIST, OREGON DEPARTMENT OF FORESTRY
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Mr. KLINE. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I am LeRoy Kline from Salem, OR. Thank you for the opportunity to be here.
A year ago, I retired from the position of director of Forest Health Management, Insect and Diseases for the Oregon Department of Forestry. I am not employed today by the Department.
I am here today presenting testimony on behalf of the Northwest Forestry Association. My comments will relate to insect issues in Oregon.
To me, the major forestry issue that we face is the forest health problem. In some localized areas, I believe we have a forest health crisis. Our ecosystems are out of balance when compared to historical conditions.
The issues are as great as ever. It appears in many areas that the U.S. Forest Service is unable to get out ahead of the problem. Action on their part is necessary and required to get us out of the cycle of going from one crisis to the next.
The Forest Service has a lot of qualified people. They know basically what to do. They have demonstrated in the past what should be and can be done. In many cases, they get bogged down in Government red tape and the many laws that they have to follow. [Map shown]
I have brought a map that is on the easel here showing the areas in Oregon that have received major tree mortality over the last 10 years. I would like to enter that map into the record, if I could.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Without objection; so ordered.
Mr. KLINE. Large areas of mortality, like you see on the map, sets the stage for major forest fires. That is exactly what has happened in eastern Oregon.
The biggest concern that was mentioned earlier today was the Summit fire. Perhaps if there is more time later, we can talk about that.
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I would like to enter into the record also some photographs that were taken a couple of weeks ago as I visited the fire. It illustrates some of the bark beetle problems that we have going on there.
I would now like to give an example of why it is so important to quickly move when we have natural events such as wind or ice storms. [Map shown]
In 1985, there was a wind storm that blew down about 1,500 acres of timber in the pine district of the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest in Oregon.
These areas are shown in the small cross-hatched areas on the map. Most of the trees were englemann spruce. Bark beetles, such as the spruce beetle, prefer down timber over standing timber.
They attacked the blowdown and built up large populations and then emerged to attack and kill adjacent standing trees. That is what we would like to show in the next overlays. [Map shown]
This is showing the mortality that occurred as the beetles emerged out of the blowdown timber and spread into adjacent trees. You can see that year-by-year the infestation increased, both in intensity and size.
Basically, over that 10-year period the beetles killed most of the mature spruce in those drainage. The food supply controls the population. As I understand, most of the timber was not salvaged because the area was in the Eagle Cap Wilderness Area.
This outbreak could have been minimized had the Forest Service been able to remove the blowdown before the beetles emerged or used an insect pheromone called methylcyclohexenone (MCH).
The wind storm this past summer near the Summit fire called the Banner blowdown has a similar problem developing. I think we can see the same pattern develop there as we see developed there.
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The beetles were attacking those trees that were blown down 11 days later. I have listed on page 4 of my written testimony 8 steps that should be taken to improve forest health. I will not take time to go through these today.
My last comments will be on the Insect and Disease Risk Maps that the Forest Service have just produced and you saw this morning. To me, this is an important first step. However, I feel that areas in Oregon have been rated too low as currently shown.
When I looked back over the problems that occurred during my career, the 10-year mortality map that I just showed you, the current build up of the Western pine beetle, the Douglas-fir bark beetle, the spruce beetle, the Douglas fir tussock moth, and large areas of stagnated and overstocked pine stands, and the Swiss needle cast along the Oregon Coast, the ratings should be much higher.
I strongly suggest that the Forest Service work with their regional field offices and the State foresters in fine tuning the system.
In summary, the forest health problem continues. We need to get out ahead by implementing strategies to prevent problems. Starting early is the key to success. At the same time, there are hot spots that need immediate action to reduce future impacts.
Insects will start flying in mid-April, ready or not. Thank you. I will be glad to answer questions at the appropriate time.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Kline appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you, Mr. Kline. Mr. Nebeker, welcome.
STATEMENT OF T. EVAN NEBEKER, PROFESSOR OF ENTOMOLOGY AND PLANT PATHOLOGY, MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIVERSITY
Mr. NEBEKER. I am Evan Nebeker from Mississippi State University. I am involved in research, teaching, and forest resource protection. My principal interest is in prevention rather than fighting fires.
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So, we are very interested in how we can prevent issues from arising. That is what my comments will be looking at today. The notion that our forests are at risk is real. It is real from the point of view that there are exotics that have been introduced into the system.
It is also real because there are non-exotics that are also in the system, such as the southern pine beetle. They have been here for a long time and they are responding to the resource that is present.
The potential of the introduction of other exotics is also of real concern; those things being brought in on raw logs and so forth, into this country, and how they will invade our natural resources is of concern.
Risk assessment conceptually is very good, especially if resources managers are able to utilize this in the decision-making process to prioritize areas in need of silvicultural treatment.
It is my opinion that the maps presented by the U.S. Forest Service underestimates the situation in many areas. By presenting maps as they have, perception becomes reality. People perceive these notions that certain areas are not at risk.
I will give you a few examples. On the maps, the oak wilt situation in Texas does not even show up. There are certainly people there that are very concerned about those oaks in Texas.
The southern pine beetle in many of the States in the South probably is underestimated as I have talked with my associates. YLT lands and other lands that have been overstocked for many years are at risk to southern pine beetle.
It is not a matter of if it will happen, it will be when it will happen. States were not contacted for their input with this first part, so many of my associates have indicated. They are very concerned about that.
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The other thing was that the use of hydrologic units makes very little sense in the South. They keep data on a county-by-county basis. It is not based on hydrologic units. So, in the South, that is not particularly useful.
The Forest Service must be aggressive in the management of the insect problems on their lands. I give you but one example. In Texas, just for example, there is only 6 percent of the land that is under their management or their control, but over 50 percent of the southern pine beetle infestations have occurred on that land in the last 10 years.
It has been significant. That falls over onto private lands that are adjacent or in the area. Long rotations on the National Forest and lack of management leads to these kinds of conditions.
So, the southern pine beetle says thank you for giving us the habitat to survive in. The southern pine beetle certainly is on the radar screen of the southern foresters. In a recent survey of the southern State Foresters, the southern pine beetle was one of their major concerns, along with other issues.
Protecting this great resource of the South is one of the things that they are very much interested in doing. There are specific types of problems that go from the wetlands of southern Louisiana to the mountains of North Carolina that are unique to that sub-region.
These are things that face them. We feel that the Forest Service is in a key place to take a leadership role and to be aggressive in that leadership role as they are to protect this major resource.
We feel that the lack of action, in some cases, is also of concern. We can get suppression dollars to work on southern pine beetle outbreaks, but other bark beetles, such as IPS, suppression dollars are not available when there is a problem. Drought conditions in the late fall put a lot more trees at risk due to the drought.
So, these are some of the concerns that we have in the South concerning the forest health. We certainly are very much aware of the need to prioritize and to again reiterate that the risk assessment is certainly one of the ways to approach this, but we are very concerned that with current maps that perception becomes reality.
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I will be happy to entertain any more comments that you might have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Nebeker appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you, Mr. Nebeker.
Our next witness is Mr. Dave Struble, director of Insect and Disease Management for the Maine Forest Service at the Maine Department of Conservation.
I might add that on my way over here, Congressman John Baldacci who is I believe your Representative, and who is on the Agriculture Committee but not on this subcommittee, sent his kind regards.
So, you are welcome to begin your testimony.
STATEMENT OF DAVE STRUBLE, DIRECTOR, INSECT AND DISEASE MANAGEMENT, MAINE FOREST SERVICE, MAINE DEPARTMENT OF CONSERVATION
Mr. STRUBLE. Thank you. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. My name is Dave Struble. I am the State entomologist and the director of the Insect and Disease Management Division for the Maine Forest Service.
I am here today to share some thoughts on how we view forest health issues in Maine. Now, although I have frequently discussed these issues with some of my other colleagues in the Northeast and I think that my statements are consistent with the general perspective of the forestry agencies of the regions, in the final analysis, this is a Maine State perspective. Getting right to the meat of it, regarding the National Insect and Disease Risk Assessment Maps: I think it is fair to say that the State Pest Management Specialists in the Northeast view this specific exercise as being a work in progress which, at this stage, has little direct application to State Forest Pest Management Programs.
That aside, the development process has been collaborative, at least in the Northeast, with considerable very frank discussions between the Federal pest management people and the individual State folks like myself. We are committed to working with the Forest Service to make sure that these maps become a valuable tool to help provide guidance for strategic planning and budgeting, particularly at the national level.
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In the Northeast, we have managed to capture an approximation of the situation for a few of the major regional pests. In some of the comments that Evan talked about, things are left out in the South. I think that is very true here in the Northeast as well. We have captured bud worm, gypsy moth, hemlock, and beech bark disease. I know that at least some of the individual State concerns have been captured as well.
In the case of Maine, we have a spruce beetle problem in the coastal spruce stands in Maine. That has been incorporated in the map base. We can debate whether the specific criteria used to select these individual agents and identifying it or the map locations for that whole process is absolutely correct but at this point I think from the national strategic planning perspective, this is a reasonable initial submission. I do not believe that anybody on the State side—I do not think that is probably true of most of my Federal counterparts—are fully satisfied with the current product. We are working on it. In the meantime, I hope that the agency will not feel unduly pressured to use these maps as planning tools before they are refined.
In the cooperative approach we have used in addressing these forest health issues; we have had this collaboration here in the Northeast on the risk mapping; we had a long history in the whole pest management arena.
The Cooperative Forest Health Management Program of the Forest Service and its predecessor, the Cooperative Pest Action Program, have over the years provided the vehicle for the State and Federal staff to coordinate and share resources to address the needs as the have arisen.
I think another fine example is the current Forest Health Monitoring Program. This is a model example of State and Federal cooperation. We are working together to improve our capabilities to address the anticipated and the unanticipated forest health needs.
From a strictly Maine perspective, this collaborative relationship is a key ingredient in my shop's capacity to conduct sufficient forest health surveillance and to provide the predictive evaluations, preventative, and remedial prescriptions to allow the managers of the land to make timely and informed cite-specific pest management decisions.
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This statement raises a point that bears on the question the subcommittee had asked about the sufficiency of the management practices. In the Northeast, three-fourths of the land base is owned by non-Federal entities. In Maine, a State that is 90 percent forested, 96 percent of the timberland is privately owned. This is roughly split in half between large industrial and smaller non-industrial land owners.
Management decisions are made by these people. To the extent that our forests are healthy, and when I say healthy, what I am saying is they are sufficient resilient so that they can recover from stress as they encounter it, they have the capacity to provide the necessary ecological support for things like water and wildlife, they generate the desired levels of amenities and products that the owners and others ask for. I mean, to that extent, that is what constitutes a healthy forest.
This process is working in Maine. The critical point is not whether we have appropriate management options. It is rather whether we have sufficient relevant, unbiased, and timely information upon which to base our decisions and develop prescriptions.
Case in point, at this time in Maine our largest forest health issue is not an insect or disease organism. It is a public perception that the current forest management practices are not sustainable and that change of some sort is necessary to ensure environmental and economic stability for the long-haul.
This situation has spawned citizen's referendum initiatives and a whole parade of legislative and regulatory proposals. We find ourselves in this increasingly polarized atmosphere. We are trying to justify prescriptions. We are trying to justify management actions and policies.
All parties agree on only one point. That being that if the public had credible and more timely information available regarding the state of the forest resources, the whole process could be expedited and some common ground found.
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These mapping efforts are worthwhile, but they are only as good as the data bases from which they are derived. From a State agency's perspective, the most important source of information about the overall forest resources at risk is the U.S. Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis Program.
This program has just been through national review by leaders of the full forestry community. The recommendations of the review panel, which focus on improving the timeliness, the quality, and the utility of deliverables are detailed in the report of the FIA Blue Ribbon Panel II.
It serves as a basis for a lot the specific language in the 1998 farm bill. While I do not want to detract from the forest health risk assessment effort that is underway, from a State perspective, it is a much lower priority when seeing the recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Panel supported and funding provided by Congress for full implementation in the 1998 farm bill.
This concludes my comments. I will be happy to answer questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Struble appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you, Mr. Struble.
We are also joined by Neil Sampson of the Sampson Group. Welcome, Mr. Sampson.
STATEMENT OF NEIL SAMPSON, THE SAMPSON GROUP; ALEXANDRIA, VA
Mr. SAMPSON. Thank you very much.
I am Neil Sampson, president of The Sampson Group, which is an Alexandria, VA consulting firm specializing in natural resource issues.
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I am also a senior fellow with American Forest, which is the Nation's oldest conservation organization. I am an affiliate professor at the University of Idaho's School of Forest Resources.
Today, my testimony is simply based on my professional experience and does not represent any of those organizations.
I want, first of all, to commend Ann Bartuska and her staff and all of the scientists and staff at the Forest Service that have tried to put these first mapping efforts together.
These maps are not easy. They have been challenged to solve some very significant new problems. I think it is also important to realize that this is a first step. This is a job that is never done.
It depends on constant monitoring. I think if you took a very localized look, there are a lot of areas in eastern Oregon that have been discussed this morning that no longer would be seem to be at high risk of insect and disease damage.
There are large watersheds that are largely dead from past infestations. They only have to die once, at least for quite a while. So, quite frankly, those risk maps are going to have to change and change fairly significantly as constant monitoring feeds new information.
My testimony contains a few examples of some principles that we have run into in trying to do hazard and risk modeling in the last few years.
The first principle, it seems to me, is to recognize that each mapping effort has to be designed in response to the questions that are asked of it and are trying to be answered.
A map like this can answer one type of question, which is a national overview of where the problems are serious. It just simply cannot be made to answer a whole lot of other questions, like the local issues that have been brought up by other members of the panel.
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You cannot just take this map and blow it up and learn what is going on at the local level. The level of information gets no better. The blurbs just get bigger. They are the same level of resolution.
The map shows average conditions over a one kilometer square area, and that is OK if you are looking at national issues. But it is not going to bring you local level information. So, you have got to be really careful about taking these maps and asking people to blow up the Northwest corner of this State to understand what is going on there?
It is also necessary to understand, and I think Ms. Bartuska hit on this very well, that when you go to the local level and do that reassessment with different levels of data, analyzing different ecosystem processes at that level of specificity, the conclusion of your national maps are not always going to be born out exactly.
You are going to find different things. You are going to find hot spots such as they showed. You are also going to find holes in the middle of those red areas that have no problem when you get right down to the local level.
So, they may start out by thinking that the problem is X million acres and discover under local analysis that, that number changes significantly. I guess the only point I am making is do not hold them to those national maps too tightly. They are liable to change.
It seems to me that one of the things that is often overlooked with these maps is their value as a communications tool. If we use them as a communications tool, we can understand in general what is going on, as long as we do not expect them to be very precise.
Everybody I think is going to be a lot happier with the effort. One of the challenges we face that we brought up this morning is how do you index this information? These maps are built from a data set that creates some kind of a number.
The number ranges, let us just say, run from 1 to 100, whether that is a count on things or whether that is an index, it does not matter. The question is where along that 1 to 100 continuum does the map turn from yellow to red or from even green to yellow?
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That is an important scientific distinction that takes a lot of local knowledge. That has been brought up. We addressed this problem by using a pretty broad of expert judgment and by assembling teams of folks to really come to agreement about these things, based on their profession experience and their judgment.
There is simply no research that says the number 50 is significantly different than the number 49 in a lot of these areas, but you have got to draw that line somewhere. The best bet is to get this kind of range of interest in it and experience.
Another question that is hard to answer at the national level, but gets really, really important at the local level is the whole array of questions that I call the so-what questions.
So what if this place burns? Is that going to be a real significant ecological, or social, or economic event? In our Colorado exercise, which happily on my part just went to publication this went and hopefully will be out one of these days, we asked this kind of a question.
You have got 10 watersheds all of which are red on your map. They are all equally likely from a probability standpoint to experience a very hot and large wildfire. So the questions is so what?
The answer is in a table that I have printed in this testimony for you and it makes a lot difference. Some of those places are going to cause real human suffering, both from a health point and an economic point and some of them are not.
For people for whom that is a big issue, well then that is a priority setting question. So, you have got to take a look at these risk maps on the basis of well, what is going to occur as a result of that?
That, of course, keeps bringing you back as you heard this morning to those areas where an awful lot of people, their health, their lives, and their safety are at risk.
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Well, I guess the final point I want to make today though is just to bring to your attention again how important these are as a communications tool. We have been coming up here for 10 years now telling the Congress that there was a forest health problem in the Interior West. It was in a very serious condition.
A lot of people did not realize that, but you look at this map this morning and it is no surprise, not only where your next political controversy over forest health is coming from, but where the two or three down the road are coming from.
I think the map shows you fairly well. In that, you have got a communications device that you have never had before. I think it is really useful.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Sampson appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you, Mr. Sampson.
Your work in Colorado sounds very interesting. How long did it take you to develop your strategy to address fire risk?
Mr. SAMPSON. Well, it took us a lot shorter time to develop a strategy than it did to implement it. We took 35 scientists to a workshop and worked on it for a week. The problem with all of that is, is that we were breaking some new ground.
When people went back to their jobs, they sort of lost the trail. Quite frankly, we have just finished preparation work with the Panhandle National Forest in northern Idaho right in the middle of that red blob.
It takes about a week of preparation to get agreed on what data sets you are going to get. Then it takes about 2 months of technical time to get the data sets the way you want them.
Then it takes a couple or 3 weeks to go through the expert process of building the indexes and the maps. So, it can be done in a reasonably short time, but you are captive of the quality of the data sets that are available.
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The point was made here. If you have got good data sets, you can do a whole lot more than if you do not. Unfortunately, in a lot of places the answer is they are hard to come by.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Well, with that criteria, how long should it take the Forest Service to do the type of analysis that they are doing on a national scale?
Mr. SAMPSON. Well, that depends on whether you are doing it the first time, or the second time, or the third time. I think they have made the kind of pace that I would expect.
I cannot answer your question any more than that. It is a very difficult thing. You have to realize that a map at this level is built by the contribution of hundreds of scientists, most of whom do not ever face questions like you are asking in Congress.
Most of them are facing questions about how do I manage my particular piece of forest? How do I run my particular research project? They look immediately at this and say, who needs to know this stuff?
So, the answer when it comes down from Washington is we do. But that does not always elicit the kind of speedy response that you would like.
Mr. GOODLATTE. I am trying to get results. That is my ultimate objective.
Mr. SAMPSON. I believe this is getting results. I think the answer you heard this morning is you do not have to have the map to get results. You have to start thinking about priorities and trying to establish a way to get at them. You have to get people to thinking about how to establish priorities.
The results start immediately. This is just a milestone in progress on this. It is not the end. You do not have to have this to start getting results, in my opinion anyway.
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Mr. GOODLATTE. Good. I also understand that you did some risk assessment in the Idaho Panhandle, which on these maps is almost completely red. Does the Forest Service map accurately identify what you have seen in Idaho?
Mr. SAMPSON. Yes. It accurately identifies what we have seen there over the Interior Columbia Basin Study and over our study. I think you have to realize that these are areas that are being setup for wildfires of the kind that we do not know how to deal with.
These are forests which naturally burn at very high intensities and very high severity. Now that they are full of houses, people, and towns boy this is a serious problem. One of our major concerns in the hazard risk mapping up there was how do you get escape routes for people?
These are the kinds of events you do not prevent and you do not stop once they start. They are very dangerous.
Mr. GOODLATTE. What did you do up there and how long did that take? How effective was it?
Mr. SAMPSON. It is not complete yet. We started it a year ago. It took us, as I said, 2 weeks to get it setup. Not wanting to dwell too much on this, but the Forest Service in northern Idaho was switching from an old computer system called the Data General or DG, which everyone learned to love, to the IBM System.
In the process, all of the data bases got very, very, very difficult to handle. It took technicians about 6 months to figure out how to get that stuff straightened out. So, that is not a fair response. It is just an accurate one. It should not take that long in other places.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Is that work an example of what the agency can be doing on the ground while the national mapping is being developed along the lines of your saying that you do not need a map to do the work?
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Mr. SAMPSON. Well, that raises another problem. What the agency is doing on the ground right now is trying to identify those 25,000 acres of high priority work and get on them.
They have just been hit with an emergency. Ms. Bartuska told you about it. They have also been hit with diminished staff. Their staffs are down a