SPEAKERS CONTENTS INSERTS
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55–181 l
1999
FIELD HEARING ON THE TARGHEE NATIONAL FOREST
FIELD HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON FOREST AND FOREST HEALTH
of the
COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
on
THE TARGHEE NATIONAL FOREST ROAD CLOSURES AND THE TARGHEE NATIONAL FOREST TRAVEL PLANS DRAFT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT
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FEBRUARY 13, 1999, REXBURG, IDAHO
Serial No. 106–8
Printed for the use of the Committee on Resources
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/house
or
Committee address: http://www.house.gov/resources
COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES
DON YOUNG, Alaska, Chairman
W.J. (BILLY) TAUZIN, Louisiana
JAMES V. HANSEN, Utah
JIM SAXTON, New Jersey
ELTON GALLEGLY, California
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
JOEL HEFLEY, Colorado
JOHN T. DOOLITTLE, California
WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland
KEN CALVERT, California
RICHARD W. POMBO, California
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BARBARA CUBIN, Wyoming
HELEN CHENOWETH, Idaho
GEORGE P. RADANOVICH, California
WALTER B. JONES, Jr., North Carolina
WILLIAM M. (MAC) THORNBERRY, Texas
CHRIS CANNON, Utah
KEVIN BRADY, Texas
JOHN PETERSON, Pennsylvania
RICK HILL, Montana
BOB SCHAFFER, Colorado
JIM GIBBONS, Nevada
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana
GREG WALDEN, Oregon
DON SHERWOOD, Pennsylvania
ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina
MIKE SIMPSON, Idaho
THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado
GEORGE MILLER, California
NICK J. RAHALL II, West Virginia
BRUCE F. VENTO, Minnesota
DALE E. KILDEE, Michigan
PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon
ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American Samoa
NEIL ABERCROMBIE, Hawaii
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SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas
OWEN B. PICKETT, Virginia
FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey
CALVIN M. DOOLEY, California
CARLOS A. ROMERO-BARCELÓ, Puerto Rico
ROBERT A. UNDERWOOD, Guam
PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island
ADAM SMITH, Washington
WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts
CHRIS JOHN, Louisiana
DONNA CHRISTIAN-CHRISTENSEN, Virgin Islands
RON KIND, Wisconsin
JAY INSLEE, Washington
GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California
TOM UDALL, New Mexico
MARK UDALL, Colorado
JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York
LLOYD A. JONES, Chief of Staff
ELIZABETH MEGGINSON, Chief Counsel
CHRISTINE KENNEDY, Chief Clerk/Administrator
JOHN LAWRENCE, Democratic Staff Director
Subcommittee on Forest and Forest Health
HELEN CHENOWETH, Idaho, Chairman
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JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
JOHN T. DOOLITTLE, California
WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland
JOHN PETERSON, Pennsylvania
RICK HILL, Montana
BOB SCHAFFER, Colorado
DON SHERWOOD, Pennsylvania
ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina
ADAM SMITH, Washington
DALE E. KILDEE, Michigan
OWEN B. PICKETT, Virginia
RON KIND, Wisconsin
GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California
TOM UDALL, New Mexico
MARK UDALL, Colorado
JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York
————— —————
————— —————
DOUG CRANDALL, Staff Director
ANNE HEISSENBUTTEL, Legislative Staff
JEFF PETRICH, Minority Chief Counsel
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C O N T E N T S
Hearing held February 13, 1999
Statements of Members:
Chenoweth, Hon. Helen, a Representative in Congress from the State of Idaho
Simpson, Hon. Mike, a Representative in Congress from the State of Idaho
Statements of witnesses:
Barrett, Hon. Lenore, Idaho State Representative
Blackwell, Jack, Regional Forester, Ogden, Utah accompanied by Jerry Reese, Forest Supervisor, Targhee National Forest
Prepared statement by
Brown, Janice, Executive Director, Henry's Fork Foundation, Ashton, Idaho
Prepared statement by
Burns, John, Former Targhee National Forest Supervisor, Carmen, Idaho
Prepared statement by
Christiansen, Neal, County Commissioner, Ashton, Idaho
Prepared statement by
Cook, Adena, Public Lands Director, Blue Ribbon Coalition, Idaho Falls, Idaho
Prepared statement by
Craig, Hon. Larry, a United States Senator in Congress from the State of Idaho
Crapo, Hon. Mike, a United States Senator in Congress from the State of Idaho
Gehrke, Craig, Regional Director, Idaho Wilderness Society, Boise, Idaho
Prepared statement by
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Gerber, Jim, President, Citizens for a User-Friendly Forest, St. Anthony, Idaho
Prepared statement by
Hawkins, Hon. Stan, State Senator, Boise, Idaho
Prepared statement by
Hoyt, Marv, The Greater Yellowstone Coalition, Idaho Falls, Idaho
Prepared statement by
Ingot, Bill, Rancher, Island Park, Idaho
Jeppesen, Gerald, Madison County Commissioner, Rexburg, Idaho
Prepared statement by
Lyons, Hon. James R., Under Secretary, Natural Resources and Environment, U.S. Department of Agriculture, prepared statement of
Mackert, Brett, Commander, Fremont County Search and Rescue, St. Anthony, Idaho
Mealey, Stephen P., Director, Idaho Fish and Game, Boise, Idaho
Prepared statement by
Moulton, Roy, Former County Attorney, Driggs, Idaho
Affidavit by
Robson, Brent, Teton County Commissioner, Driggs, Idaho
Affidavit by
Ruesink, Robert, Snake River Basin Office Supervisor, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Idaho accompanied by Michael Donahoo, Eastern Idaho Field Supervisor, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Pocatello, Idaho
Shurtleff, Bill, Commission Chairman, Bonneville County Board of Directors, Idaho Falls, Idaho
Prepared statement by
Siddoway, Jeff, Idaho Fish and Game Commission, Terreton, Idaho
Thomas, Eric, Recreationist, St. Anthony, Idaho
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Wood, Hon. JoAnn, Idaho State Representative
Additional material supplied:
Idaho Environmental Council, prepared statement of
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, prepared statement of
FIELD HEARING ON THE TARGHEE NATIONAL FOREST ROAD CLOSURES AND THE TARGHEE NATIONAL FOREST TRAVEL PLANS DRAFT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT
FEBRUARY 13, 1999
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Forest
and Forest Health,
Committee on Resources,
Rexburg, Idaho.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 1:03 p.m., in the Rexburg Tabernacle, 51 North Center Street, Rexburg, Idaho, Hon. Helen Chenoweth [Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. The Subcommittee on Forest and Forest Health will now come to order.
STATEMENT OF HON. HELEN CHENOWETH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF IDAHO
Mrs. CHENOWETH. I want to thank all of you for coming out today. And I just want to say that during this hearing, we appreciate all of you offering each other the courtesy that is needed for us to be able to make sure everyone on the panels are heard and that everyone has their chance to testify and that those of you in the audience can see those who are testifying; so we would ask if the signs could come down. If you wish to display them or hold them, you are welcome to stand along the side.
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So thank you all very much for attending this very important hearing concerning road activities on the Targhee National Forest. In my tenure as Chairman of this Subcommittee, I have had the good fortune of being able to travel to national forests around this great country and to see first-hand the impact that Federal regulations and policies and laws have on the management of our forests. Unfortunately, I have to say that Federal forests across the country have become a political playground for the Clinton-Gore Administration and for their extreme environmental policies.
[Audience response.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. We will ask that the audience not clap or cheer for anyone who is testifying, and that includes the members of this panel. We would appreciate your courtesy.
The Forest Service mission of caring for the land and serving people has, by administrative fiat, been changed to locking up the land and keeping people out. This attack on rural America is putting forests and communities at risk.
Just north of here in the Panhandle National Forest, fir beetle outbreaks have moved local foresters to implement an aggressive effort to harvest and remove the affected trees in an attempt to prevent catastrophic fires in coming years. Unfortunately, the administration, with their environmental allies, are trying to stop this, putting their political agenda ahead of forest health and restoration activities. But nowhere is the administration's agenda of locking up the land and keeping people out more evident than it is here in the Targhee.
As you are aware, last summer, the Forest Service closed 400 miles of roads on the Targhee without seeking public input or performing an environmental analysis. The surface of some roads was ripped to a depth of three feet to prevent motorized access. Nearly 400 miles of roads were obliterated by placing six to eight foot high earthen barriers in the roads. Nowhere in America have we seen these kinds of extreme measures taken to prevent public access. In fact, usual terms did not adequately describe these monstrous barriers, so they have become commonly referred to as tank traps. Only in World War II and in the Gulf War have we seen such constructions before, and those were built to stop the advancement of enemy tanks and equipment during battle. One has to ask why in the world is the Forest Service using battle tactics against the American public. Whatever happened to the honorable calling of serving the people and caring for the land?
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It is evident that when the Forest Service dug those traps, they buried their common sense.
The road obliterations had immediate effect on Idahoans as access to traditional family camping sites, hunting spots and bicycling and hiking areas was cut off. For many people, snowfall has posed a serious safety problem for snowmobile riders who often cannot see the tank traps. In addition, Fremont County search and rescue personnel are unable to reach many areas of the forest and expect their response time will be affected by these traps.
As road closures spread to the rest of the forest off-highway vehicle users use will be curtailed and additional recreation and hunting spots will be eliminated. This has and will continue to adversely affect local rural economies.
The primary reason given by the Forest Service for this public access restriction is to protect grizzly bear and elk. Elk populations, however, are at an all time high and are doing terrific, according to the Idaho Fish & Game Department. Likewise, grizzly bear are expanding outside recovery areas into new habitat and the Federal agencies are beginning the process of delisting.
Given that elk and grizzly bear are generally doing well in these areas raises a question of why is the Forest Service and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service pushing so hard to eliminate another species, and that is people—from these very beautiful national forests.
So in closing, at this time, I would like to take a moment to thank everyone who helped with this hearing, and in particular, I would like to thank Jim Gerber, Adena Cook, especially Senator Stan Hawkins, and my colleagues in the Idaho delegation.
I would also like to introduce our Clerk of the Committee on the Subcommittee on Forest and Forest Health, Natalie Nelson, who will be up here working with us; and my Chief of Staff on the Forest Subcommittee, Doug Crandall.
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Also for anyone who would like to add comments to the record, but could not testify, we have provided comment sheets located at the back of the room. However, if it is more convenient, please submit your written comments to the Subcommittee within 10 working days. All of these comments will be placed in the official record of this hearing.
And now, it is my distinct pleasure to present to you the Chairman of the Forestry Committee in the Senate, our senior Senator Larry Craig.
[Applause.]
STATEMENT OF HON. LARRY CRAIG, A SENATOR IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF IDAHO
Senator CRAIG. Helen, thank you very much. Let me ask unanimous consent that my full statement be a part of the record.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Without objection, so ordered.
Senator CRAIG. Helen, let me also thank you for scheduling and holding this hearing. As Helen mentioned, I am Chairman of the counterpart Forestry Subcommittee on the Senate side, and while I was contemplating a hearing, as most of you know by watching both Senator Crapo and myself, we have been a bit preoccupied for the last month, and that has now been resolved and we will be on with the legislative business of our state and nation. So I thank you, I agree with you.
So it is important that this hearing be scheduled in light of several events that are coming together at this time for all of us to be concerned about, and that is a new forest or road management plan that the United States Forest Service has and is proposing, and how it will impact all of the forests of our nation. As you know, the Targhee was early in developing its forest plan. As a result, when Chief Dombeck announced his road moratorium a year or 18 months ago, the Targhee was left out because of the stage it was in the planning process.
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It was during that time that Senator Crapo and I—Mike was then the Congressman—asked—I should not say we asked to meet, many of you asked if you could meet with us in Idaho Falls as it related to the Targhee forest plan, and we met. Supervisor Jerry Reese, who is here today, attended that meeting, and there was a great deal of concern about the character of the plan itself, the new proposed plan, and the change of direction that it was focusing on.
I expressed at that time my real frustration that for the first time in the state of Idaho, we would have a forest plan that would say that this forest is closed unless designated open, that that was a tremendous reversal of a historic cultural policy, if for no other reason; that we in the west loved our public lands and wanted full access to them, but we would accept closure when it was appropriately designated for the right purposes. But to decide that all forests are closed unless designated open was a rather medieval concept known as the king's forests. All of us resented that, and certainly serfdom of that day resented it.
As a result of that, the forest plan itself went to the regional office where there was a review asked. And what stage we are finally in is yet to be determined, but our concern, and Helen said it very well, was it appeared that a plan was beginning to be implemented prior to the plan being final.
Now there are many of you in the audience today who think you hold a different point of view than this Congressional delegation might hold. You might be a bit surprised if you would just listen. The Targhee Forest, since 1984, has been designated, at least in four areas, as grizzly bear habitat. And that forest area has been closed, and we all know that, and you know it. And the bears are recovering and all of us are happy about that. In fact, I was very excited about the idea that we had finally had an effective recovery plan where we could prove in certain areas the Endangered Species Act could work and we were about ready to move toward delisting.
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Was the plan and closure being complied to? Well, in looking at the statistics, there was a high level of compliance. Was it a perfect compliance? No. There were some folks who moved around the gated roads, but in large part, it was complied with.
Why then are we here today? I think many of you and your organizations would have been filing lawsuits today if the kind of earth moving activity on the Targhee had been done by anybody other than the Forest Service and had been done for anything other than what you thought it was being done for that you liked. Let me put it this way—I do not believe you can have it both ways. Now I do not believe the Forest Service can implement a plan as dramatic as this one is without first bringing it to completion. They cannot do it, nor would they allow it to be done under a draft environmental impact statement. And yet, much of this has been done. I believe road closures for the purpose of protecting grizzly bear is important and it has been important on the Targhee since 1984. And it has worked.
But you want us to play by the rules and you enforce that through your lawsuits and your energy and your public activity. And we do. And we want our Federal agencies to play by the rules too. And they must. That is what this hearing is about. How are the rules being laid out and how are they being played by.
I believe in road closure for the purpose of protecting unique habitat and wildlife values, when necessary and where Idaho, Idaho Fish & Game and the U.S. Forest Service and our citizens are in step. But I must tell you, the pictures you see in front of you were not taken by a freelance photographer, they were taken by me and my staff when I climbed in and out of those tank traps that Congresswoman Chenoweth talked about. And trees were uprooted and laying across the roads and rocks were strewn everywhere. If that had been a logging company or a mining company, there would have been lawsuits filed by every environmental organization in the nation, and you all know it. And yet you are here today defending that? I hope not. If you are here defending the bear, that is another story. Count me in.
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And then I went down to Macks Inn. Just less than a mile and a half off a highway in a heavily trafficked public area where people go to fish, where this area fishes and enjoys the recreation of this resource, I ran into more of these tank traps. And I must tell you, I asked Supervisor Reese right afterwards, what in the heck are they there for. It just did not make sense. That is why we are here today. Not that we are against the grizzly bear—we are for the proper and rightful management and the processes of management. And that is what we are here to seek out, because if it does not happen, we will change the rules—because it must happen, so that we can have a multiple use resource, so we can protect these valuable natural resources, so we can have grizzly bear and elk, and they are thriving on the Targhee and we are pleased about that.
But you do not continually change the rules to fit just one side. That is unacceptable. The Forest Service has to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act, like any other group must that is using or utilizing the resource under the law, and the management most especially. That is what we are here for. That is what I am here to listen to. These kinds of decisions do have impacts, they have impacts on the environment, on wildlife, on the public and you all know that, and that is why we are very concerned about it.
You have heard all you are going to hear from me, I am here to listen. But thank you all, and I mean all of you, for coming out today. It is an important issue. Our Forest Service is struggling right now to find a sound management approach. We have a lot of talented people in the Forest Service and they are very frustrated. The Forest Service cannot be managed out of the executive offices in Washington. Most importantly it cannot be managed out of the Council of Environmental Quality. It must be managed here, on the ground, by the supervisors, using good science and not political science.
Thank you very much, Madam Chairman.
[Applause.]
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Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Senator Craig, thank you very much. And now we will hear from Senator Mike Crapo.
[The prepared statement of Senator Craig follows:]
STATEMENT OF HON. MIKE CRAPO, A SENATOR IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF IDAHO
Senator CRAPO. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman. I appreciate very much the opportunity that you have given us to hold this hearing. Larry and I both had to jump in an airplane last night to get out here, but it truly is much more rewarding to be out here in Idaho working on the Idaho issues than some of the difficult, difficult times we have had in Washington the last month. And I say that notwithstanding the fact that it is evident from the feelings that people have already expressed here today that there are strong disagreements over the proper way to manage our public lands.
It seems to me that—although I agree very strongly with some of the concerns that have already been raised here about the tank traps and about whether the management of the forest system has followed the legal procedures of the land, as all others are required to follow it, and as to whether the right policies have been achieved in terms of assuring proper public access to our wonderful natural resources, while maintaining the adequate protections of our environment.
I am going to limit my comments to one issue. And this may sound like a broken record to some of you who have talked to me privately or been to other places where I have made comment. But I continue to believe that we do not have to sacrifice either our environment and our wonderful rich natural resource heritage or our economy that is so significantly based in our natural resources here in this region, in order to achieve proper management.
I believe that some of the solutions to help us achieve a fix, if you will, that will properly balance all of these needs, may require changes in Federal law to allow more real local management and real opportunity for people like yourselves to impact public policy, or else we may continue to end up with a situation in which the winner is whoever has control or the greatest access and support at the White House during a given administration.
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But I do not think that is the right way for us to manage. I believe that everybody in this room lives in Idaho because they love the quality of life that we have here. And that quality of life depends on us protecting and preserving our wildlife, our fisheries, our natural resources, which are one of the greatest treasures that Idaho has. Everybody also has to have a job. And when an economy is so dependent on our natural resources, as ours is, many, if not most, of those jobs and the families that depend on those jobs will depend on our managing our natural resources so that the people can have access to those natural resources, yes, for economic activities including tourism and recreation.
It is interesting to me—and I have said this to many of you before—that when you hear someone from one side of the issue talking about one of the disputes in Idaho, they will say I believe we have got to protect the environment, but we have got to make sure that I keep my job. And from the other perspective, they will say I believe that we have got to make sure we have got jobs and that we protect the economy, but I think we have got to do such and such to protect the environment. Everyone seems to want to have to qualify that they are not dismissing the other side of the equation but that they have a point of view that suggests that we have not yet reached the proper management balance with regard to our natural resources.
And what I am saying is that I believe those people, all of us when we say that, are telling the truth. The vast majority of Idahoans do not want to destroy the environment and they want to make sure that our management policies protect and strengthen these treasures. And the vast majority of Idahoans do not want to eliminate jobs and restrict access to our natural resources any more than is necessary to assure that we protect them. And that is the balance that we have got to reach.
Now, as I said, I have some real problems with some of the issues that are going to be brought up here today. But I will commit to everyone in this room, whether you are on the job side of the equation or on the environment side of the equation, because as I have said I believe ultimately all of us are on the same side of the equation and that is to preserve both, that working together to allow local input into these decisions and then making sure that we find the common ground where we can build forward to have reasonable management policies that people can accept is an objective that I think we must achieve.
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I think that this hearing will give us an opportunity first of all to let people from many different perspectives voice their feelings, and I would encourage everyone to listen carefully to those with whom you disagree, because they have a point of view and they have some valid points. And if we can look for common ground, we can find a lot of it. And that is what I will be looking for in today's hearing, Madam Chairman. Thank you.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Senator.
[Applause.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. It is certainly my pleasure to introduce no stranger to you, my colleague and your Congressman, Mike Simpson.
STATEMENT OF HON. MIKE SIMPSON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF IDAHO
Mr. SIMPSON. Madam Chairman, thank you for holding this hearing here today. Senator Craig, Senator Crapo, it is nice to have you here today, being the former Congressman from this district.
It is my pleasure to welcome all of you that may not be from this area to what is now my district. I have had the opportunity to represent the State of Idaho over the past as the Speaker of the State of Idaho and now as the Congressman from this district. I have also operated a dental practice for the last 22 years in Blackfoot, some 50 miles south of here. So I and my wife have spent a great deal of time both in Boise and in Blackfoot, but we also have a place in Driggs. And so the Targhee Forest is something that we appreciate and enjoy and something that is very near and dear to our hearts. That is why it is so disheartening for me to see land managers that turn once beautiful forests into what appear to be eyesores and potential hazards.
Idaho's public lands are a priority to the residents of this beautiful state. Idahoans tend to become emotional when public access is threatened. The controversy over the development and implementation of the Targhee Forest Plan has escalated feelings on every side of this issue, as can be seen here today. The failure of the Forest Service to follow the NEPA process and their own prescribed method of road closures only contributes to the public's distrust of those responsible for managing public resources.
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I am concerned that the Targhee Forest might be the tip of the iceberg instead of the end of the road. We must ask the question: Is this the beginning of an attack on the right of citizens to enjoy the lands that are rightfully theirs. I and many of my fellow westerners live in the west because we love and enjoy this lifestyle. We value and nurture the way of life and the beautiful natural resources that surround us here. I find it disturbing that the Federal Government seems to feel it necessary that it needs to keep the local citizens, those that have had a way of life and stewardship on this land, off the land. I also find it confusing that in order to protect the forest we must deface it. I have real concerns about the government's lack of consideration for the aesthetic value of the Targhee Forest. Most of the people in this part of the country would agree with me that you do not go in and put permanent scars on the land and call it conservation. If any Idaho citizen were to take similar action on the forest, they would be immediately thrown in jail, as has already been mentioned.
Though they may not agree, the individuals on these six panels here today are both thoughtful and intelligent people, each of whom feel passionately about the Targhee Forest, each of whom have their own points of view. Considering the caliber of individuals here, it is both logical and feasible that we ought to be able to work together to develop a workable solution to this problem.
Sports Afield recently named Driggs the best outdoor sports town. That in itself illustrates how important the Targhee Forest is to the residents of this area, both for their personal enjoyment and for their economic wellbeing. To cut off the roads to the Targhee Forest that are the lifeblood of communities in southeast Idaho seems to be irresponsible.
I have worked and will continue to work to ensure access to public lands for everyone. Workable solutions must involve the community and their interests and their interests must be taken into consideration. It is in this spirit that road closures and their methods of implementation should be negotiated with local interests.
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Today, I am truly here to listen to you—the Federal and state agencies, the local groups, the county commissioners, state legislators, user groups, conservation groups and the Idahoans that enjoy these public lands. It is my hope that at this hearing chaired by my colleague, Congresswoman Chenoweth, we will find the beginning of a workable solution for everyone. I hope that everyone, as Senator Crapo said, is here to listen to those people that they might disagree with, because everyone does have a legitimate point of view and we can work together and we can solve this if we do not polarize the issue.
Thank you, Congresswoman Chenoweth.
[Applause.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Congressman Simpson.
Now, I would like to introduce our first panel, if they would come up to the front here and take their place behind their name plaque. Mr. Jim Gerber, President of the Citizens for a User-Friendly Forest; Ms. Adena Cook, Public Lands Director for the Blue Ribbon Coalition; The Honorable Stan Hawkins, State Senator, Boise, Idaho; Mr. Neal Christiansen, County Commissioners, Ashton, Idaho.
As you take your place, I want to ask you to remember that we have many witnesses that we need to hear from today. It was important to me to be able to accommodate all of you and we must bring the hearing to a close at 5 p.m. So, I need to ask all of you to keep your oral remarks limited to five minutes. You may submit your entire testimony for the record and it will appear in the record in its entirety. And I assure you that if you have any written additional comments, they too will appear in the record.
I also want to explain the lights to you. You will see a green and a yellow and a red light. The green light will be on for four and a half minutes—and they are just like traffic lights, you can just go for four and a half minutes and then when the yellow light comes on, you speed up and then when the red light comes on, it means stop.
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Senator CRAIG. And Madam Chairman, when the red light comes on, within half a second after it comes on, do the chairs not eject——
Mrs. CHENOWETH. They do, they fall through the floor.
[Laughter.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. As explained before, and I think you received some of the rules involving this, it is the intention of the Chairman to place all outside witnesses under oath. Now this is a formality of this Committee that is meant to assure open and honest discussion and should not affect the testimony given by the witnesses. Now I believe that all the witnesses were informed of this before appearing here today and you each have been provided a copy of the Committee rules. So if you would please stand and raise your hand to the square, I will administer the oath.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you. I would like to open this panel hearing from Senator Stan Hawkins.
STATEMENT OF HON. STAN HAWKINS, STATE SENATOR, BOISE, IDAHO
Mr. HAWKINS. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I can assume that the light situation here was intended to rein in the politicians, and I will do my best to comply with the technology.
Let me first formally welcome all of you, as our Congressional delegation. This may be a historic moment in fact in resource management in eastern Idaho, and I sincerely welcome all of you here and speak on behalf of the crowd and our constituents and the other elected officials.
I am the State Senator from the 28th legislative district of Idaho and that includes the northern part of Bonneville County, all of Teton County and a good part of Fremont County. I am a native, I was born and raised here, spent all my life here and I can tell you that this is a very diverse area and we depend on resource-based activities to help us fund everything from roads, bridges, schools, many of our public facilities depend upon a healthy and a good resource policy.
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For generations, our land use practices in fact have preserved this area in a condition that now causes us to fight about it sometimes. We want to maintain that which has been maintained and frankly, I am amazed many times at some of the illogical and unsupportable claims that are made on both sides, for that matter, by those who would have you believe that we are going to have to stop using the resources if we are ever going to hand this area down to the next generation.
As local officials, we are charged with this funding mechanism that relies heavily on a resource-based economy, and frankly, panic management and emotional management simply is not going to work, and we are seeing that in the legislature right now. We are seeing an ag economy that is suffering, we are seeing all kinds of problems that I think, at least in part, has to be solved with a balanced approach to the use of our resources.
We are told to count on the new and emerging tourism economy to solve these problems. Frankly, it is interesting to me that many of those people who are telling us to let tourism pick up the slack and that there will be no impact if we do that, they are the same ones who many times want the launches on our rivers limited, they want the roads closed and they want motorized vehicles banned from the public lands and from our parks and so on.
We have people with good intentions who are decrying the urban sprawl and the lack of control on development and tell us that we need to protect our farm economy and then in the next breath we hear many of the same people saying we need the water to move fish. I just have to say we have got to find balance. I am constantly considering these issues, and frankly, I am tired of battling, trying to maintain the way of life that I grew up in, enjoying those natural resources and using them as well; and frankly, we need to get on with some sound management and some sound decision-making.
Now many would say we have already a process to allow that to take place and we give input, we come to the hearings. County commissioners and sheriffs and legislators and the emergency service providers attend hearings. We testify and we speak as if that will make a difference. And in the end, we become frustrated. The plans and the actions are seldom, if ever, reflective of the comments and the wishes of the local interests as expressed by those of us who attempt to speak for the majorities that elect us.
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Frankly, it is my hope that this hearing will move to the questions that are raised by these pictures and get to the bottom of the main question here of this hearing, and that is did the Forest Service in fact follow the law when they moved forward with these decisions. It is an important question. Again, we are thankful that you are here, we are grateful for you being here and we look forward to your help in resolving this issue.
Thank you very much.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Senator.
[The prepared statement of Senator Hawkins may be found the at end of the hearing.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Mr. Gerber.
STATEMENT OF JIM GERBER, PRESIDENT, CITIZENS FOR A USER-FRIENDLY FOREST, ST. ANTHONY, IDAHO
Mr. GERBER.Congresslady and Congressmen, my testimony will address the three reasons the Targhee Forest gave us for closing and obliterating roads on the forest. These are: protect grizzly bear, protect elk and reduce erosion. I will explain why we in CUFF do not believe these are valid reasons for road closures on the Targhee. Please keep in mind as I discuss them that the majority of the people in eastern Idaho do not support road closures, so the pressure to close roads is not coming from us. The question then is: Where is the pressure to close roads coming from?
The first reason the Forest always gives for closing and obliterating roads is to protect grizzly bear.
I have an overhead transparency of a map to discuss the grizzly bear issue. The dark blue line is the outline of Yellowstone National Park; the Targhee Forest lies along the lower left boundary of the park.
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The map shows the results of a ten-year radio-telemetry study in and around Yellowstone National Park. The map is taken from a scientific paper written by Drs. Richard Knight and Dave Mattson, former employees of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee and experts on grizzly bear behavior.
Prior to 1977, park biologists radio-collared a number of female grizzly bears in and near the park and then released them. For the next ten years, biologists flew over the park and through the wizardry of radio electronics located each bear and marked its position on a map with a black mark. At the end of ten years, the scientists produced this map. Every bear management unit—and there are 18 in the park—is covered with black marks indicating the location of bears; every BMU, that is, except one. That one is the Plateau Bear Management Unit in the southwest corner of the park. It is absolutely white. For ten years, while biologists were flying over the park locating female collared bear, no bear ever walked out into the Plateau Bear Management Unit. Congressmen, we are setting 164,000 acres aside for the grizzly bear in an area where the bear does not even want to be.
The second overlay is a statement taken from the same study. The highlighted portion in yellow says ''Low densities of telemetry locations in unroaded areas northeast of Yellowstone and in the park's southwest corner may be a result of poor habitat condition. . . .'' So here we have the premier authority on grizzly bear in Yellowstone National Park saying that the Plateau Bear Management is poor habitat.
When you combine this statement with the previous map and add the fact that the Plateau BMU is hot, dry habitat with no water, you get a clear picture that this area is not good grizzly bear habitat. The question then is why are the Targhee Forest and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service pushing so hard to emphasize grizzly bear here. We hope your hearing can shed some light on this question.
The second reason the Forest gives to close roads is to protect elk, but elk are doing well on the Forest, having increased 600 percent since the 1960s. This increase occurred at a time of heavy salvage logging and associated roadbuilding to harvest millions of beetle-killed trees. This increase in elk associated with more roads does not tell us roads are a problem for elk on the forest. Again, the question is why is the Targhee Forest pushing to close roads when the elk population is at an all-time high and thriving, according to the Idaho Fish & Game Department.
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The third reason to close roads is to reduce erosion. This issue revolves around ghost or two-track roads. The theory being that since these roads are not constructed or maintained, they must be adding large quantities of sediment to streams. However, most of these ghost roads are located one-quarter mile or more from a stream. These roads erode each year, but that sediment runs into the adjacent vegetation and is captured. Little, if any, sediment ever reaches a stream.
In summary, bears and elk are doing fine and water running off the Targhee is clear. This does not indicate a need for the excessive road closures proposed by the Targhee Forest. Since the impetus to close roads is not coming from us in eastern Idaho, we wonder where it is coming from. We hope your hearing can shed some light on this question.
Thank you and that concludes my comments.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Mr. Gerber.
The Chair now recognizes Ms. Cook.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Gerber may be found at the end of the hearing.]
STATEMENT OF ADENA COOK, PUBLIC LANDS DIRECTOR, BLUE RIBBON COALITION, IDAHO FALLS, IDAHO
Ms. COOK. First of all, I am very proud that Idaho's entire Congressional delegation has come here to investigate and hear testimony on this local issue, but this is not just a local issue. It is happening to greater or lesser degree in almost every national forest in the country. So this is a microcosm of what is happening everywhere else.
Thinking out of the box is a popular euphemism for creative problem solving. Tough issues can demand unconventional ways of thinking and processes that reach beyond established boundaries. Nowhere is this more important than in the management of our public lands.
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When Targhee Forest planning began eight years ago, there was promise that a new plan process would attempt new solutions. Dr. Bill Shands, one of the nation's foremost experts on forest planning, was put in charge of public involvement. He advocated taking planning out of the box. This was long before that euphemism became popular. It was hoped that if the public were involved in each step of the process, that consensus or maybe even comprehension would result.
Under Dr. Shands' direction, the process went very well for the first couple of years and understanding was occurring, maybe even a little bit of consensus. But this was not to last. The Office of Supervisor changed—Bill Shands passed away. The preservation direction of the Clinton Administration was emerging and the Forest Service was being reinvented.
Out came a box with a big label—ecosystem management. Its management criteria were slanted in a preservationist direction. Locally based solutions and citizen involvement became less important and polarization started to develop.
Now the Blue Ribbon Coalition has always been a strong advocate of cooperation with land managers. They are our partners. We have demonstrated many successes as a result of this partnership. One of the key elements of success in this way is constructive give and take. Another is dedication to on-the-ground problem solving.
But the inflexible standards of the new forest plan stimulated not this give and take that we needed, but more polarization. For example, it mandated tough road and trail density standards, not only in the bear management units, but throughout the whole forest. It counted a single track trail where motorized use was allowed as having the same impact on wildlife as a Federal highway. And it closed—imposed a ''closed unless posted open'' fiat on most cross country travel.
This inflexibility continued as the process moved forward. A multiple use alternative developed by local citizens, which was included in the Targhee draft plan, was dropped in the final plan because it failed to conform to established parameters.
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A travel plan was issued shortly after the final forest plan was released. This decision designated open roads and trails and decided which trails would be closed. The regional office received 1,276 appeals on this decision and the appeals were upheld by the regional office because the public was not given an opportunity to comment through site specific process.
And then finally, toward the end of last summer, nearly 400 miles of road were obliterated without site-specific documentation. And this not only obliterated the roads, but obliterated any public dialogue that would have examined gates site specifically to determine if they were effective or not; determine whether informal routes were essential and could be traded for other routes; address concerns about winter recreation safety; determine if the obliterations were necessary in developed parts of Island Park.
So now, Targhee's current management is in a box that is inflexible, inhibits on-the-ground solutions and discourages constructive communication. The Targhee is but one example of how thinking in a box constrains land management problem solving.
Committed to top down mandates that come in a box, other national forests face similar difficulties. And that is why we are here. We need you to help us work toward solutions and help us think out of the box.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Ms. Cook.
The Chair now recognizes Commissioner Christiansen.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Cook may be found at the end of the hearing.]
STATEMENT OF NEAL CHRISTIANSEN, COUNTY COMMISSIONER, ASHTON, IDAHO
Mr. CHRISTIANSEN. Thank you, Madam Chair. I certainly welcome this opportunity to state a few of my concerns from a county commissioner's standpoint. Also, I am a former logger, I have been there and watched this forest drop down to where the jobs are pretty near non-existent in the forest.
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I was elected to office in 1994 and re-elected in 1996. I have served now for four years continuously as a county commissioner. During that time and before, the previous four, five, six, eight years, I worked with the Forest on some of these issues that we are facing today, including the forest plan revision and subsequent travel plan.
As I said before, I was for years a logging contractor and am currently Vice President of the Associated Logging Contractors of Idaho. We represent some 560 logging contractors throughout the state plus their families and the jobs that they hold. So as such, I am very familiar with the resource utilization and the forest end of the forest management of it.
Fremont County is heavily dominated by Federal land. Between the Targhee Forest and the Bureau of Land Management, 60 percent of our county is federally owned, most of it, of course, is Forest Service land. As a result, Federal land management policies have a large impact on Fremont County. Those who use the forest also live elsewhere. Tourists are heavily impacting us now, we have a heavy summer home residency. I would like to interject here that this road closure affected practically all of Fremont County, it went from south of the river, north to the continental divide, east to the Teton County—or south from the Teton County line to the Clark County line on the north and on the west, I think there is one road closed in Clark County and we were able to put a stop to it before they hit the Teton County line, but it completely wiped out Fremont County, two-thirds of Fremont County, as far as access to timber extraction.
By example, I point to the loss of the 25 percent funds in the last eight years or so. In 1991, Fremont County had $213,000 in 25 percent resource money coming in. From then on, it has been a steady reduction in receipts and this year, we had a mere $48,000 in 25 percent resource money and a good share of that was from cabin lease sites, very little from grazing or from timber receipts. Practically all of the reduction results in the decline of the timber receipts. The Forest seems oblivious to this impact, even though we have pointed out the problem many times.
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So it is not surprising that we, the county commissioners, were less than enthusiastic about the revision of the forest plan. Still, the public involvement process is the only game in town and hopefully in the enlightened 1990s, they will have an open mind, but this has not happened.
To summarize, I would like you to keep in mind that Fremont County is heavily dominated by federally-owned lands, with 60 percent in Federal ownership. It is very important, therefore, that the Forest carefully consider the effects its actions have on us. That has not always been the case. Since 1991, as I explained before, our 25 percent resource money has dropped to practically nil.
The Forest proposes major reductions in public access and with little input from the commissioners or the public. In addition, 380 miles of roads were obliterated this summer with these tank traps without any public input. This action violates both NEPA and NFMA. Since our constituents did not request the obliterations, we wonder where the pressure to do so originated from. We hope your hearing can shed some light on this problem.
Thank you, ma'am.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Christiansen may be found at the end of the hearing.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you very much, Commissioner.
I want to thank the panel for their testimony and I want to remind the members that under Rule 4(g) in our Committee Rules, even members are limited to five minutes in their questioning. And one thing about being Chairman, you have to wield the gavel. So, I will closely adhere to that five-minute rule for all of us.
The Chair would like to yield for the first set of questions to Senator Craig.
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Senator CRAIG. Madam Chairman, thank you very much. I will play by the rules.
Mr. Gerber, would you please tell us for the record what your organization, Citizens for a User-Friendly Forest, is, why was it formed, what kind of an organization is it?
Mr. GERBER. Citizens for a User-Friendly Forest is a group of forest users in eastern Idaho. We consist of loggers, OHV people, ranchers, snowmobilers, two summer home groups, three county commissioners, a mayor and a number of small businesses from Island Park to Idaho Falls. And we kind of grew out of a citizens involvement group for the Targhee Forest. We could see the forest was not headed in the same direction that we wanted to go. So we developed our own group and developed our own alternative and presented that to the Forest.
Basically, we believe the forest should provide a broad range of goods and services along with the access needed to provide those goods and services.
Senator CRAIG. Would you tell us about the ballot that took place in Madison, Fremont and Teton Counties concerning your organization's proposal?
Mr. GERBER. Yeah, in May of 1966, there was an advisory ballot placed on six counties that touched the Targhee National Forest, and as a result of that—and what it did was give those who voted a chance to choose between the Forest Service's preferred alternative and our CUFF alternative. It was generally known that our CUFF alternative allowed more access, more timber harvest and generally more use of the forest. And as a result of that vote, 78 percent of those six counties preferred our CUFF alternative, compared to 22 percent for the Forest Service.
Senator CRAIG. In total numbers of participants, what does 78 percent represent, do you recall? What were the total number of people who participated in the balloting?
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Mr. GERBER. I do not recall exactly, there were probably 20,000 or 30,000 people.
Senator CRAIG. How many?
Mr. GERBER. Twenty or thirty thousand.
Senator CRAIG. Twenty or thirty thousand.
Mr. GERBER. Yeah, in all six counties.
Senator CRAIG. I see.
Adena, I am well aware of your organization and have worked with your organization and taken testimony from you over the years as it relates to public land management issues. You talk about out of the box thinking and coming at a problem in a different way. I was very early on watchful and hopeful that the collaborative process that the Targhee was engaging in would work, because it had all parties at the table, or certainly appeared to. And then it did not work.
Would you again for the record reiterate why you think it broke down? The players that left, was that largely the problem?
Ms. COOK. Well, yes, it was partly a situation where key players did leave, specifically Dr. Shands, whose ideas had kind of held things together.
But one of the crucial things that happened just as Dr. Shands died and just as the supervisor's position was changing hands, was that preservationist groups filed a lawsuit on the way grizzly bears were being managed. And that lawsuit was settled by the Forest Service with the understanding——
Senator CRAIG. Out of court, right?
Ms. COOK. Yeah, it was—the lawsuit was settled.
Senator CRAIG. Yes.
Ms. COOK. With the understanding that the road density would be brought way, way down in the bear management unit. Now this was right during when the plan was going on and——
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Senator CRAIG. Was this not also a group that had been a participant at the table?
Ms. COOK. Yes, yes. So here we had this extra thing that was going on outside the public process and the Forest Service agreed that all these roads would be taken out while the process was just sort of underway. Well, this broke down the developing consensus, as far as I was concerned. And in fact, those of us who really cared had to push hard to make the Forest adhere to the NEPA process and the new plan revision as opposed to just going out there and closing the roads right then and there. And we were successful in doing that.
The new supervisor, Jerry Reese, did decide that the roads would not be closed right then and there, they would be—the question would be addressed as a part of the forest plan. But the damage had taken place at that point as far as the developing consensus.
Senator CRAIG. I see my time is up. Senator Hawkins and Commissioner Christiansen, let me thank you both very much for your testimony and I appreciate you being here. Thank you.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. The Chair recognizes Senator Crapo.
Senator CRAPO. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman.
Commissioner Christiansen, I want to start with you, so I will go from the other end there. You indicated that you have had a dramatic reduction in the 25 percent funds that the county has received. And if I read your testimony correctly, the reduction has been from a $213,000 level in 1991 to a $48,000 level today.
Mr. CHRISTIANSEN. Right.
Senator CRAPO. So if I understand you correctly, you are talking about more than a 75 percent reduction in funds.
Mr. CHRISTIANSEN. Yes, I will say in fact that is just from 1991. In the late 1980s we were taking in upwards of $400,000 a year.
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Senator CRAPO. Four hundred thousand?
Mr. CHRISTIANSEN. That was the peak of the salvage operation on the Targhee. Of course, we realized that could not last forever.
Senator CRAPO. Right, that was an unusual circumstance.
Mr. CHRISTIANSEN. Yes, it was an unusual thing, but we still maintain our forest should generate more than eight million board feet a year.
Senator CRAPO. Right. You believe though that the $48,000 level is not the proper sustainable level?
Mr. CHRISTIANSEN. I might say that probably close to $40,000 out of this comes out of cabin lease sites, which has been that way forever.
Senator CRAPO. So only about $8,000 comes from grazing a timber?
Mr. CHRISTIANSEN. From grazing and timber harvest.
Senator CRAPO. Is the county in the process of seeking to get approval of—I do not know what the right word is, but of submitting its RS-2477 roads to the Federal Government for approval and acceptance? Is the county doing that?
Mr. CHRISTIANSEN. Yes, we are recording our RS-2477 roads and——
Senator CRAPO. How is that process proceeding?
Mr. CHRISTIANSEN. How is it, you say?
Senator CRAPO. In other words, I have heard——
Mr. CHRISTIANSEN. It is a slow process.
Senator CRAPO. That was my question. I have heard that there is a feeling that there is not much progress being made in resolving the RS-2477 road issues.
Mr. CHRISTIANSEN. No.
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Senator CRAPO. Is that your experience in the county?
Mr. CHRISTIANSEN. That has been our experience. We do not agree on the methods of the Forest Service and the county commissioners do not agree on the wording of the RS-2477 roads.
Senator CRAPO. All right, thank you.
Adena, I am going to move to you because I know my time is going to turn to the yellow light here pretty quick. I was very interested in the testimony you provided, both your written and oral testimony, about Dr. Shands and the effort to find consensus. And as I am sure you know, that is something that I would hope to see us try to focus on and recreate.
One of the questions that I have with regard to the off-road vehicle usage issue and one of the issues that has been brought to me the most often is the question of leaving roads or leaving trails and just going cross country where there are no trails. Can you address your perspective? And I assume you are speaking on behalf of your association, is that correct?
Ms. COOK. Excuse me?
Senator CRAPO. Are you speaking on behalf——
Ms. COOK. Yes, I am, yes.
Senator CRAPO. Would you tell me whether there is a position with regard to how the forest roads ought to be managed on the issue of off-road vehicle usage in terms of leaving the trails and leaving the roads for cross country usage.
Ms. COOK. Right. In general, we adhere to tread lightly, which means to stay on established routes and to not cause off-trail damage. And in fact, under the current rules, any time the off-trail damage does occur, the Forest does have a right to close those routes down.
Now we urge our members to adhere to these tread lightly rules, but a lack of flexibility occurs when you only designate those routes that can be open and everything else is closed. In order to close a route or a trail or anything else, you should have a good reason, just like there is a good reason to stay on established routes.
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Senator CRAPO. But you are not disagreeing with the policy that established routes should be kept to by those who are using off-road vehicles?
Ms. COOK. I am sorry, I could not hear, we are getting an echo here.
Senator CRAPO. I understand. You are not disagreeing with the tread lightly policy.
Ms. COOK. Oh, absolutely not. And people need to take care of the land as they go out and enjoy and use it, no matter what their form of transportation.
Senator CRAPO. I see my time is about up. I have got a lot more questions, but we will get to them later on. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Senator.
The Chair recognizes Congressman Simpson.
Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Mr. Gerber, you mentioned during your testimony that there were three reasons given for the road closures—one was grizzly bear habitat, the other was elk habitat and the third one was the erosion; and that the grizzly bear seem to be doing fine coming back, reaching the possibility of delisting; the elk habitat seems to be fine, record numbers of elk according to the Idaho Fish & Game; erosion does not seem to be a problem. You said that the pressure for these road closures does not seem to be coming from us, that it is potentially coming from someone else. Would you care to speculate on that? Are there other species, are there other things out there that I am not aware of that is going on that would force the Forest Service into this?
Mr. GERBER. I am not aware of any other species. If I was going to speculate, I would say it is maybe an internal thing between the Forest Service and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, almost a mindset these days that you have to protect everything, almost to the exclusion of human beings.
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Mr. SIMPSON. Do you think that there is a mindset in the Forest Service that the only way to protect habitat is to keep people off? I remember that years ago the debate occurred on whether the Alaskan pipeline would destroy the caribou herds, and now you find pictures of them, that is where they care to spend their winters, is next to the Alaskan pipeline. Is that the kind of science we are using here?
Mr. GERBER. It seems to be. Unfortunately it just looks really like there is almost—when you look at these pictures down here, it looks like a big billboard that says ''human beings stay out, you are not welcome here.''
Mr. SIMPSON. Adena, is it possible to alter the prescribed road density policy for the forest plan to increase public access and also protect and maintain the habitat for the bear management units?
Ms. COOK. Well, we believe that there is. However, to do so would require a forest plan amendment and we have thus far been unsuccessful in persuading anyone that that needs to happen. Procedurally, however, the decisions on the forest plan appeals have not yet been resolved. The final decisions have not come down from the Washington office. So procedurally, I do not see how they could start a revision process until those questions are cleared up. It has been about a year and a half and I am not sure why a decision on those appeals has not been rendered yet. But that is an interesting question.
Mr. SIMPSON. Is the concern if they were to open the forest plan again that we would lose some things that we currently have in the current forest plan—it might go in the wrong direction, from your point of view?
Ms. COOK. That is always possible because—although I will say that I do not think the whole thing has to go back to the drawing board and we do not have—we have already made a lot of progress. I think there is just some fine tuning that has to be done and the densities and the questions need to be made on a more site specific basis. I just think they were made on too broad a basis. So I think there is some fine tuning, I do not think you have to go back to square one.
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Mr. SIMPSON. Commissioner Christiansen, Senator Crapo mentioned the 2477 roads. How has the road closures affected your process in developing those 2477 roads or declaring those 2477 roads? Has it made it more difficult?
Mr. CHRISTIANSEN. How they have affected the process of the RS-2477 roads?
Mr. SIMPSON. Uh-huh.
Mr. CHRISTIANSEN. Well, really not that bad except that there is a couple of roads that are within this grizzly bear recovery zone that is probably going to be controversial, mainly over there on the Centennials, but it does not look like or sound like in the Clark County end of the Centennials that—that is going along pretty fine and hopefully it does not affect those.
Mr. SIMPSON. In this plan, if you declare a 2477 road and it is accepted, does that affect the road density or does it mean they just close other roads?
Mr. CHRISTIANSEN. Well, I assume in the grizzly bear management units, we are going to have to include it in the density, although we should not have to.
Mr. SIMPSON. Do you have an answer to that, Mr. Gerber?
Mr. GERBER. I am pretty sure that it would be included within the road density standard. You could check with Jerry Reese when he gets up here, but I believe that would be how they interpret it.
Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Congressman.
I want to turn my attention to Senator Hawkins. I know that when you first approached us about bringing the Committee in, you were very, very concerned about the local economies and how they would be impacted based on these decisions on road policies.
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For the record, would you explain what your thinking was, your concern about the local economies in your district?
Mr. HAWKINS. Congresswoman Chenoweth, for the most part, we are faced with funding many of the things that people expect from government in this area from basically a couple of sources—property tax predominantly is an issue, and when you up end and essentially terminate an economy that was once based on the resource industries, you typically remove a lot of property tax base from the rolls and that causes a shift. And when that shift occurs, it essentially means that the local residents then are faced with funding the same things with less base to spread it on.
The symptoms of that are everywhere. We just recently put the finishing touches on a new school in Teton basin, took 20 years to pass a bond to get that school built finally. And frankly, when that bond passed, it impacted a smaller base, to the extent that many farmers were very adversely impacted by that.
From a broader sense, Congressman Simpson got out of the legislature just in time because we are now facing the specter of the Department of Fish & Game having the biggest budget problem that I can remember. I have been in the legislature 15 years and this is as bad as it has been. And frankly, I believe when you close roads, there are many people who want access to hunt and fish that essentially begin to say this is not the way I want to do it, I cannot walk, I will not walk, I cannot expect my young children to walk——
[Audience comment.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Will the gentleman yield? I would appreciate very much that the audience not interrupt the testimony.
Mr. HAWKINS. I am one that believes that the budget problems of the Department of Fish & Game now face at least are affected by the policies that we are making on public lands, and I think that there is some resistance now and we have seen that in the tag and license sales, we are seeing a flattening of those purchases. I believe that is part of the mix, not all of the mix.
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So those are the things that I am concerned about.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Very well.
Mr. Gerber, I wonder if we could throw the first overhead back up on the screen there. You showed us that in the southwest corner there, there is virtually almost no sightings at all.
Mr. GERBER. Yes.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Could you point out and describe for the record where the roads are that they are using the tank traps in your counties?
Mr. GERBER. Okay. This is the Targhee portion of the Plateau Bear Management Unit, this whole thing is about 455,000 acres and about 164 out here. These are the roads out here that were tank trapped. And you can see there were no black—for that ten year period, there were no female grizzly bear that were in there.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. For the record, so we can get it on the record—I know what your background is, but those who read the Congressional Record do not. Can you give us your background?
Mr. GERBER. I am a forester, I worked for the Forest Service for 30 years, mostly in timber management and forest planning. I retired in 1994.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Mr. Gerber, based on your background, can you see the logic in this at all? And as a county commissioner, were you consulted ahead of time with regards to the impact on the county that it might have?
Mr. GERBER. I have to say that I can see no logic for what I see out there on the ground from a biological standpoint or a common sense standpoint.
And we certainly had no input into any of these road closures ahead of time.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. And is it not true that under Idaho law, roads that are under the county jurisdiction, you have been granted by the state sole jurisdiction over the roads and the activity on those roads, right?
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Mr. GERBER. I am sorry, I am not quite following.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Under Idaho law, you have been granted the authority as a county commissioner and the jurisdiction——
Mr. GERBER. Yeah.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. [continuing] to handle activity on roads under county jurisdiction, which would include RS-2477 roadways.
Mr. GERBER. Right, under state law, county commissioners do have total control over the RS-2477 roads and I have to correct you, I am not a county commissioner, I am a public consultant, public land advisor to the county commissioners.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. All right. I see my time is up, but let me ask Mr. Christiansen very quickly, were you consulted ahead of time as a county commissioner with regard to the activity that took place?
Mr. CHRISTIANSEN. Excuse me?
Mrs. CHENOWETH. As a county commissioner, were you consulted ahead of time with regards to the activity that you see here in the pictures?
Mr. CHRISTIANSEN. We were not.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you very much.
I want to thank this panel very much for your outstanding testimony. I know we all wish we had more time with you and we will look forward to reviewing your entire testimony. And as I said earlier, if you have additional comments that you would like to enter into the record, you have ten days to do so. Thank you very much.
And now I would like to recognize the second panel as this panel leaves.
[Applause.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. I would like to call to the panel Mr. Marv Hoyt, representative of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, Idaho Falls, Idaho; Mr. Bill Shurtleff, County Commissioner and Chairman of the Bonneville County Board of Directors, Idaho Falls, Idaho; Mr. Gerald Jeppesen, Madison County Commissioner, Rexburg, Idaho and Mr. Brett Mackert, Commander, Fremont County Search and Rescue, St. Anthony, Idaho.
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Gentlemen, you have all heard me explain about the lights and what they mean—the green light will be on for four and a half minutes, the yellow light for 30 seconds and the red light means stop your testimony. And also, as you know, you have received a copy of the Committee Rules and we will be swearing you under the oath. So I wonder if you might stand and raise your hand to the square.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. The Chair recognizes Mr. Hoyt for his testimony.
STATEMENT OF MARV HOYT, THE GREATER YELLOWSTONE COALITION, IDAHO FALLS, IDAHO
Mr. HOYT. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
We know that the ostensible reason for this hearing was the Forest's use of tank traps to discourage the illegal use of closed roads. GYC readily concedes that tank traps may not be the best way to keep the scofflaws off the roads. In fact, back in 1994, when the Forest had the money and the staff, GYC and other conservation organizations proposed that the Targhee rip and reseed those same roads. If our proposal had been implemented back then, it would have made the use of tank traps unnecessary this last year.
Unfortunately, the Blue Ribbon Coalition, loggers, folks on the Idaho Congressional delegation and county commissioners, all came out in opposition to this proposal. We knew then and we know now that gates have not prevented the illegal use of roads. We also know that most of the same people who claim to be concerned about tank traps are the very ones who did not want the roads reclaimed.
Now, some five years later, the Forest has limited funds to effectively close these roads; therefore, the use of tank traps. We would like to offer a solution.
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If tank traps are the real issue, then we would be more than happy to work with the delegation, the Forest Service and other interested parties to seek funding necessary to obliterate and permanently put these roads to bed.
As far as scars and aesthetics go, I know that is a concern for some folks, it is for us too, and if you want to look at scars, look at the hundreds of thousands of acres that have been clear cut and the thousands of miles of roads that you can see from outer space on the Targhee—that is a scar that will not go way for perhaps centuries.
Access management is more than just tank traps and grizzly bears, it is about more than that, it is about protecting of a variety and array of public resources—water quality, fisheries, wildlife, soils and so forth. GYC believes that the Targhee National Forest took some very positive steps in terms of access management in the revised forest plan. The most important step was setting road density standards for the various management prescriptions. We also believe that the elimination of indiscriminate and highly damaging summer time cross country motorized travel across part of the forest was a significant improvement.
We also think that eliminating the use of ghost roads was an improvement, and finally the new signing system for the roads, open roads and open trails is an improvement.
These elements should eventually solve the problems caused by the widespread and illegal use of ghost roads.
As for grizzly bear, some have said that the Plateau is not good grizzly bear habitat, bears do not use it. I will read from a February 4, 1999 memo from an Interagency Grizzly Bear Team committee member, which says, ''I think that if the Forest Service can get their planned road reductions implemented, the change will go a long way to improving the BMU for grizzly bears. With the road reductions, I think most bear biologists would consider the BMU good grizzly bear habitat. Without the reduction, it is still bear habitat and grizzly bears do use it. With fewer roads and less human impacts, habitat effectiveness in this unit can only increase. If the population is increasing and expanding, in time, grizzly bears will occupy secure habitats available to them. Remember also that the landscape is dynamic. Unforeseen changes within the greater Yellowstone area may increase the relative importance of the Plateau BMU.''
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There were 169 grizzly bear sightings on the Targhee reported to the Targhee between 1985 and 1997 and this does not include the grizzly bear sightings, which were numerous this past year, as we all know. There were also 44 grizzly bear sightings in 1997 alone, within one mile of the Targhee border inside Yellowstone National Park, in the Plateau Bear Management Unit.
We think that the Forest Service has made some long-overdue changes in travel management. We also believe that modifying or abandoning these would be a bad idea.
So far, the American public has spoken convincingly in this matter. This is not just a local issue. There have been 5,171 comments received by the Forest Service as of February 11. Of those, 98.6 percent prefer closing roads, 95 percent of the Idahoans have said close the roads. Idahoans who make up .06 percent of the population of the U.S. make up 15 percent of those commenting on this forest plan and are in favor of closing roads. I think those are some significant numbers and I think that the delegation needs to understand and the folks in this room, that this is a national forest, we all have a right to say and speak about it as we wish. We all have feelings about it and I think that many Idahoans and the American public are in favor of road closures to protect these resources.
Thank you.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Mr. Hoyt.
[Applause.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you very much, Mr. Hoyt. I wonder if you might provide for the Committee copies of the surveys that you quoted in your testimony.
Mr. HOYT. I would be more than happy to, Madam Chairwoman.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you very much.
The Chair now recognizes Mr. Bill Shurtleff.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hoyt may be found at the end of the hearing.]
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STATEMENT OF BILL SHURTLEFF, COMMISSION CHAIRMAN, BONNEVILLE COUNTY BOARD OF DIRECTORS, IDAHO FALLS, IDAHO
Mr. SHURTLEFF. Madam Chairman, Senator Craig, Senator Crapo, Representative Simpson, members of the panel and guests, my name is Bill Shurtleff and I am the owner and manager of Call Forest Products. I also fill the position of Bonneville County Commissioner. However, today my testimony will be based upon my 29 years of experience as a timber resource user.
Let me begin by telling you that during the 1970s and the 1980s, as the Forest Service was constructing many of the roads we are now discussing, the constant mantra was that their roads were the number one asset of the Forest. These were the roads that would allow them to manage the forest into the future. These were the roads that would allow them to fight fires, thin trees, make inspections, open for recreation and even perhaps allow some harvesting of trees, if needed.
I cannot tell you how many times I have been taken to the woodshed by a sale administrator because a logging machine had damaged a road shoulder or surface. We were also shut down if dust reached a certain level which would cause a loss of road surfaces. All of this was enforced in order to preserve and maintain the number one asset of the Forest—the road.
Now all of this has been reversed. I am certain others will talk about the process that the Forest Service went through in order to implement their new policy, but I would like to talk about what the long-term effect will be. By closing these roads in a manner that will virtually stop all travel for long periods of time, these roads will deteriorate to a point of uselessness. The only two means that the Forest Service has at its disposal to repair these roads is hard money, which I am sure you are aware there is very little of, or the selling of timber where the road construction or repair is tied to the sale.
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In the Targhee, this is very unlikely to take place. The very small sale volume that is available on the Targhee will not economically carry much road construction or maintenance.
It is my opinion that this entire process will basically close off large portions of the forest to any management. What will return is the same forest we faced in the 1950s, a forest of lodge pole pine, old and diseased, dying and then finally burning. We know this because we have seen it happen before. And let me insert that I think that the Targhee right now is basically in extremely good condition, it is primarily a young, vibrant forest, based upon what we have done in the past. The strange thing to me is that I thought the action we took in the 1970s and 1980s was specifically meant to avoid this happening again.
My opinion is that roads could be closed in such a manner as to allow inspection travel, minor maintenance travel and still accomplish the objective of X number of miles of road per acre. This would not stop all road deterioration, but perhaps it could reduce it to the point that the road could be reclaimed at some need in the future.
I know our topic today is road closure, but I cannot let this opportunity pass without commenting on what I believe to be the underlying design to close the entire Targhee National Forest to any type of commercial harvesting. It is my opinion that this is an objective of the present forest plan by the manner in which it is being carried out. I will say no more on this subject, but would love to discuss this topic further at your convenience.
In closing, I want to thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. I have great respect for the job you are both performing—all four of you, I should say. I have some feeling for the difficulty involved.
I thank you very much.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Commissioner.
[Applause.]
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Mrs. CHENOWETH. The Chair now recognizes Madison County Commissioner Gerald Jeppesen.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Shurtleff may be found at the end of the hearing.]
STATEMENT OF GERALD JEPPESEN, MADISON COUNTY COMMISSIONER, REXBURG, IDAHO
Mr. JEPPESEN. Thank you, Madam Chairman and members of the Committee. It is an honor for me to be here to talk to you today. I represent the fourth generation of a farm community and farm family that live in close proximity to the Targhee Forest and have recreated and used those resources through the last four generations to build homes and to recreate and do all the things that people in this area enjoy doing in the forest.
In the very beginnings of the forest plan, I was a member of the citizens committee and did follow that process as a member of the Soil & Water Conservation District in Madison County, and then later represented Madison County Commission on that same council. I do concur with what the conclusion was.
We went through that process and everybody seemed to agree and it was a very workable process. But things seemed to change with the changing of the road density in the bear management units. Everyone on that committee had agreed to a certain number of roads and then we were told we could not do that because of an agreement with Fish & Wildlife Service, and then the next thing we knew was when the open road plan came out, the same agreement that we had agreed to on the bear management unit, the primary one, was asserted to all the other areas of the forest. That was very, very disturbing to us because that was never mentioned until that final plan did come before us as county commissioners or as residents.
At that point, we became very involved in the 2477 process and before you, you have a map of Madison County's assertions. What we have done is we have taken the roads that are recognized by the Forest Service on their plan, those are in yellow. The ones that are in purple are the ones that are designated by our county and the county commission as designated 2477s and those that do overlap have kind of a yellow-purple color. So if you would like to review that with me later, I would be glad to go over that map with you.
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We did submit this to the Forest Service, they did come out with their second DIS on open roads. We found quite a bit of confusion on their maps. They have designated some of our roads that were designated as 2477s as closed, others were listed for decommission and we were very upset by the prospects of that. I do have in your file though a letter from Jerry Reese that did come forward after the plan was submitted and said that no action would be taken on those roads without consultation with county commissioners in Madison County, and we do agree with that proposed approach on these roads. We believe that no designation can be made on them until some kind of an agreement is made between the county commissioners and the Forest Service on those roads. We have also asked that those roads be eliminated from the forest plan process because we do believe that counties do have the authority over those roads and they should not be included in the forest plan to begin with because those are county roads.
One of the great diversities of this is two years ago, the Forest Service approached us to actually take over ownership of many of the roads we have listed as 2477s. We did at that time take over approximately eight to ten miles of those roads, we have maintained those for the last two years, but because of paperwork with the Forest Service we have not received title for those, so there is no way for the state to pay us for those roads, for the upkeep that we have been doing on them.
We believe that roads, if maintained properly, do not have any effect upon the environment or upon streams or anything in the area, and we have been doing our part to maintain those roads.
We are very concerned about closure of ghost roads. Most of those roads are a quarter of a mile to half a mile in length. The primary use of these roads is for the public to get off the main road to camp and enjoy the surroundings of the forest without having someone drive through camp every 15 or 20 minutes. Most of the local residents have used these camping sites for many years with little or no effect on the forest. Closure of these roads would force campers into organized campgrounds that are already crowded or force them to camp on both sides of the roads that are heavily trafficked. This in turn will force the public out of the forest putting undue pressure on private landowners.
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This is not the forest experience that most of us have grown up with and we would ask for your support in this investigation to help make these roads be open because they do provide a valuable part of the culture and nature of Madison County and the surrounding areas.
Thank you very much.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Commissioner.
[Applause.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. And now we will hear from Commander Brett Mackert of the Fremont County Search and Rescue.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Jeppesen may be found at the end of the hearing.]
STATEMENT OF BRETT MACKERT, COMMANDER, FREMONT COUNTY SEARCH AND RESCUE, ST. ANTHONY, IDAHO
Mr. MACKERT. Thank you, Madam Chairman and fellow supporters.
This summer—first of all, I bring to you a story of how I was exposed to this road closure issue. I work at a correctional facility in the state of Idaho and in that correctional facility, we take youth to the forest and we do service projects for the Forest. Our service project chosen for the day was to scout areas to put trees, a very worthy project, I would say, a very worthy project, to go in and actually put trees into the forest. That is the idea of forest management.
When we get on site that morning, we have to go through a locked green gate, as all of you are probably aware of what they look like. There was no traffic behind that gate or there had been none. We drive down the road for about a mile and a half to two miles, we come to another locked green gate. Still no traffic on the road, still none. Immediately behind the second locked green gate is where the tank trap started—one, two, three. Evidently they did not feel like the gates was working in that area. They were, they were working very well. There was absolutely no way anyone could get around the gates where they were located.
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Not only were there tank traps, there were large rocks rolled onto the road and then I would think that the thing that appalled me more than anything else at that point was a tree, a single tree, broken off about 15 feet in the air, 10 to 12 inches in diameter, toppled in amongst these tank traps. For someone who is supposed to manage the forest and take care of the trees, it appalled me. I said little about it, you know, at that point, the damage had already been done.
I was called to Island Park to look at another situation. I was asked to go and look at the Flat Rock Road in Island Park, a popular road in the summer time for people who ride four-wheelers. It is a flat area, there is no hills, the road is just entirely flat. On that road, the tank traps started and approximately every 75 yards there was another one and another one and another one. Well we had walked down the road a short distance and my young son, who is seven years old, he says to me, he says, ''Dad, what does the sign say?'' And there a sign next to a tree said the following, in essence it was this is a forest test plot, damage to this area is something to the nature of imprisonment in law, enforceable by the Forest Supervisor. Piled at the base of this sign is the branches off the tree where the excavator had scraped them off approximately 15 feet in the air.
That day, we walked past 14 tank traps. We did not go to the end of the road, that was as far as we made it, was 14 of them. Fifty trees had the bark and branches scraped off of one side of them, six trees were busted off and tipped over and 14 tank traps. I am sorry, that is significant, that is not taking care of the resource, that is destruction of a resource.
One of the three reasons that Mr. Gerber spoke of was erosion. I wonder how those 14 tank traps that we walked past are going to look come spring time, and where that dirt and that erosion is going to head to. It is a sad, sad thing in this world that we can destroy this and say it is for the betterment of the forest. There has got to be a better method—there has to be.
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Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Mr. Mackert.
[Applause.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. The Chair recognizes Senator Crapo for questioning.
Senator CRAPO. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Marv, I would like to direct my first few questions to you. It seems to me that one of the issues with regard to the tank traps is whether the gates actually work, and if I understood your testimony, you do not believe the gates do work to keep the traffic off the roads.
Mr. HOYT. That is correct. I think that from my own personal experience they do not work; for many people I have talked to, they do not work; and from a project called the Road Scholar Project where a group of young folks monitored those gate closures and the effectiveness of them over a two year period on the bear management units and found—and I do not have the exact percentage, but a high percentage, well over 50 percent, were not effective at all. Partially effective, there was a percentage and so forth. So no, it is not only my opinion and my thought, it is—I think it is pretty well substantiated.
Senator CRAPO. What did you think of the suggestion by Mr. Shurtleff that—I think it was Mr. Shurtleff—that—I hate to characterize other people's testimony for them, but I think what he was saying is that he thought we could find a way to monitor it effectively, but that we should keep the roads available for potential future use, just stop their usage now.
Is that fair, Mr. Shurtleff, as a restatement?
Mr. SHURTLEFF. [Nods head.]
Senator CRAPO. What do you think of that idea both in terms of if it could be achieved, would that be an acceptable solution, and do you think it could be achieved?
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Mr. HOYT. I think that it could be an acceptable solution. Keep in mind that the areas where most of those roads go were lodge pole clear cuts, it is going to be 60, 80, 100 years from now before those trees are available for harvest. And I think the other thing to keep in mind is that since the road closures have not been effective and unless there is a significant increase in the Forest Service's budget for law enforcement to make sure that the roads stay close and those closures are effective, it simply will not meet the requirements of the biological opinion.
Senator CRAPO. What is the road density now in the Targhee and what is the level of road density which is acceptable from your point of view for proper management?
Mr. HOYT. Well, I think that each of the management prescriptions, each has its own road density. In grizzly bears, it is .06 miles per square mile, I believe. In the core areas, it is 0 miles per square mile. For elk, it is other densities. So each area of the forest—there is not a blanket prescription that covers the entire forest. And all of those were calculated to protect not just grizzly bear and elk, but water quality, cutthroat trout spawning and so forth. And I think that they are a key component and a key element of the forest plan. And for folks to say that we could change that without doing a significant plan amendment or without involving the public or taking a lot of time, are simply fooling theirselves. If the entire forest plan is based on road density standards, which it is, to protect those resources, we would be looking at a significant amount of time, significant amount of money and I do not think that the outcome would be any different than what we are looking at today. And I do not think the American people or the people of Idaho or the Forest Service or anybody else is really interested in jumping back into that after spending the last eight years doing that.
Senator CRAPO. You know, one of the things that I think is a core issue that a lot of these other issues relate to is the question of whether the forest is open except when designated closed or closed except when designated open. I think that gets to sort of what I think Senator Craig referenced as the culture of our usage of the forest historically here in this area. I know that is my cultural experience here. And I come to it from an approach of supporting open unless designated closed, but supporting reasonable management for making sure that we close those areas that need to be adequately protected.
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You gave some numbers in your testimony about the support for closing the roads.
Mr. HOYT. Yes.
Senator CRAPO. Were those numbers directed at supporting an open versus closed—excuse me, a closed unless designated open policy or were they a tabulation of those who supported one or another version of closing roads?
Mr. HOYT. I believe that virtually—I would say that over 90 percent, maybe 98 percent of the figure that I gave you favor road closures and each of those, what they say is—and I think you have seen some of these postcards with comments that have come in on, they say keep the ghost roads closed, keep the road density standards and keep the signed open, otherwise closed part of the forest plan. And I think that the important thing to remember on that particular issue is it directly relates to the issue of road density standards.
In the past, for many people, virtually anybody that has spent any time on our national forests, when you see a road closed sign, it is almost always full of holes, laying face down in the mud with motorized tracks beyond it. And that is why it is important to have it signed open. People are not going to tear those signs down then, you will have plenty of people that will try to violate that, but it will be a blatant violation, and I think it is the way to prevent those signs from being torn down.
Senator CRAPO. Thank you.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. The Chair recognizes Congressman Simpson.
Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you.
Marv, let me ask you, do you agree with the statements that were made that the grizzly bear were doing fine and coming back and that the elk herds were doing—are doing fine?
Mr. HOYT. I think since the Forest Service began better enforcement on some of its road closures and so forth, that the elk populations have increased. That is a layman's observation and I would certainly defer to Fish & Game, and I think that anybody that really wants to get at the answer to that question ought to be talking to the biologists that work for Fish & Game in this region. They are the only ones that I believe can answer that clearly and effectively and accurately.
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Mr. SIMPSON. I will ask the Forest Service and those people and I will ask those individuals at the proper time too.
If it is true that they are coming back, then what are we protecting, if—by going in and doing the tank traps? I mean apparently the gates, even though some people were going around them, were doing the job they were intended to do.
Mr. HOYT. Again, I cannot answer specifically, I am not a biologist, all I can say is that the gate closures have helped that problem. However, I believe it was prior to 1990 or so, and I am probably not exactly accurate on that, there used to be—actually it was prior to that, back in the 1970s, that area had I think a 30 or so day any elk season. That was cut down to a five day spike only hunt in the 1980s because of the amount of roads and habitat alteration. I think over time the elk numbers have come back. I do not know the exact figures.
For grizzly bears, I think that the Interagency Grizzly Bear Team that I quoted from the memo stated it correctly, grizzly bears do not—will use the BMU if the roads are effectively closed. And that is the issue, it is not just closed, not just gated, but effectively closed. And they have used it more often in the last few years, notwithstanding the ancient research that Mr. Gerber's slide was based on. There is much, much more recent data that shows the exact opposite. So again, I would defer to biologists to answer that question.
Mr. SIMPSON. Let me ask just a general question and any of you might want to answer it, if you can. It is a rather naive question on my part, I guess. It seems like environmental questions are the ones that seem to divide us the most, are the most politically sensitive that we get, as we have out here, people on both sides of the issue very emotional about it. I think an overwhelming majority of people, whichever side of the issue you are on here about closing these roads, agree with saving grizzly bear habitat, elk habitat, stopping erosion in the forest and so forth. Most people do not want clear cuts. There are people on both sides, there are people on one side who feel that any human being in a forest is an intrusion and should not be there. There are people on the other side who feel that any clear cut tree was meant to cut. But an overwhelming majority of people are environmentally sensitive people that want to take care of our national forests. How do we resolve this problem that seems to divide us so much politically?
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Mr. HOYT. You know, if I had the answer to that, man, I would be a millionaire consultant. There is not an easy answer to that question. I think a lot of people look at things differently and that is the problem. I think that the Forest Service has actually made a pretty good attempt. There were, by some calculations as many as 3,300 miles of open roads or roads that were built on the Targhee and were there ten years ago. There are now, if this forest plan and this travel plan, which we hope to see implemented, there will be about 1,600 and some miles of roads, about half. To me, that seems to be striking a balance. And I think that is what we are really talking about, is balance. We are not in favor of closing all the roads or all the trails. We would like to see a balance, a balance that effectively promotes wildlife protections, allows those of us who like and prefer non-motorized muscle powered recreation to be able to do that without having to walk or run into a motorized vehicle, but also allowing the folks that like motorized vehicles to have their place in the forest too. I cannot imagine with 2,200 miles of open roads and trails still open that people say there is no access. That is enough to stretch from Chicago to Seattle. That is how many will be left open after this travel plan is implemented. It is not denying anybody access, just maybe not to a specific place and every place by motor.
Mr. SIMPSON. Anybody else care to——
[Applause.]
Mr. JEPPESEN. Really quickly, from the standpoint base as a farmer and a land manager, we would like to see the forest managed. What we see happening is everything ceasing to exist and no management at all happening. There has to be a mix here where there is good management of the forest. That has to be done in many, many different ways. There has to be some grazing and there has to be some forest cutting and there has to be recreation. All those things are important components of the forest and they have to be there or we go back to that philosophy that the only way to manage something is for nobody to be there at all. I do not think we can live with that kind of explanation in this time and age.
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Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you.
[Applause.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. The Chair recognizes Senator Craig.
Senator CRAIG. I notice that Commissioner Shurtleff was wanting to respond. Go ahead and respond and then I will ask my questions.
Mr. SHURTLEFF. Thank you, Madam Chairman, Senator Craig.
What I wanted to respond to is I want to kind of preface the fact we say everybody is for grizzly bear habitat and want to preserve that, and I do too. But I want to specifically make sure it is habitat before I try to preserve it. I do not want to just preserve it because it is a piece of ground.
[Applause.]
Mr. SHURTLEFF. The other thing that I wanted to respond to there was we talk about the amount of roads that we will be able to use will be cut in half. And I have no problem with that, to be very honest with you. What I want to make sure that the other half that we block off are still available to us, because let us go back to the original reason we built these roads in the first place. We built these because the Targhee was a dead, dying forest and we had to do something about it to revive it and bring it back into operation. If we wipe out half those roads, we will be exactly in the same place somewhere down the road because we will have half the amount of roads. What I am saying is that if we need to block them off for certain periods of time, let us keep them blocked off to where they can be reopened, they can be revitalized if needed at some point in the operation. To block them off now, they are gone.
Senator CRAIG. Thank you.
[Applause.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. The Chair really does appreciate—and I would like to stop the time for the Senator, your applause, but the fact is that we must conduct this hearing and be finished by 5 p.m. So I would ask from this point in time on that you restrain from applauding. Thank you very much.
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Now we will start the clock again.
Senator CRAIG. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I have always said as I have chaired committees applause is not recorded for the record. And we do appreciate it, but it will eat into time and I think the testimony and the questions that go into the record are more important.
Mr. Hoyt, a couple of questions of you. I have I guess in the course of the last 17 years attended over 200 hearings on resource management. Almost all of them have been polarized with conflict. I am very concerned about that. I have not been at all excited about the conflict in the end. I do not know how to express it otherwise. I have seen communities divided, I have seen anger result in physical violence.
And it largely began when we decided that we would start managing our resources from the top down. We would decide national schemes, force them into local or regional areas with little domestic or local input. I understand why that happened, it was to build a greater environmental ethic than existed at the time. I think that this country has come a long way in a positive sense in the last 20 years in the growth of a positive environmental ethic. I think it is reflected in this room today. I think it is reflected from both sides.
There is no question what we think about our environment today. Everybody wants to be an environmentalist. I do not know of a politician this year who ran on an anti-environmental platform. Everybody is for clean air and clean water and quality habitat for wildlife. But the conflict still goes on. It is people versus no people in some instances.
I have just completed two and a half years of hearings with everybody at the table including every environmental group that wanted to come, to try to find a way around the conflict, to look at new decision-making processes that would result in less conflict. We have examined one that seems to work a bit, it is called the community collaborative process, with all parties at the table equally represented.
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That is why I watched the Targhee so closely. It seemed to be working for a time until a group spun off and filed a lawsuit. I do not recall now who that group was. Were you involved in that?
Mr. HOYT. That lawsuit was filed by the Idaho Conservation League, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition and the Wilderness Society and a variety of other groups, several of whom were participating in——
Senator CRAIG. But not at the table?
Mr. HOYT. No, that is incorrect.
Senator CRAIG. Did those environmental groups have representation at the table of negotiation?
Mr. HOYT. Absolutely. Lynn Kincannon, who you well know, I believe——
Senator CRAIG. Yeah, I know her well.
Mr. HOYT. [continuing] worked for the Idaho Conservation League and was attending those meetings until she was threatened.
Senator CRAIG. Threatened?
Mr. HOYT. Yes.
Senator CRAIG. I see.
Mr. HOYT. She said that she was threatened and intimidated and that happened in about 1994 or 1995 and she said she would not go back.
Senator CRAIG. Okay. Well, the reason I asked that question—because obviously it broke down for some reason. A lawsuit was filed, the Forest Service would not fight it, they negotiated it out of court, settled it and we have the conflict we have today based on road density, I do believe.
Mr. HOYT. That lawsuit only applied to the Plateau Bear Management Unit on the Targhee, it did not apply to the entire forest.
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Senator CRAIG. That is correct. But it did apply to the road density in that area, did it not?
Mr. HOYT. It applied the road density standards that the science said were needed to protect grizzly bears and the reason the Targhee and the Forest Service settled in court—not out of court—they settled that——
Senator CRAIG. It was in court?
Mr. HOYT. It was settled in court. That lawsuit is still valid and can be re-activated at any time.
Senator CRAIG. Oh, I know it is, that is why the Forest Service is making the decisions it is making, I understand.
Mr. HOYT. But that lawsuit, the decision was—their solicitors, their biologists looked at it and realized that they had in fact ignored the Endangered Species Act, and to be in compliance with that law, they felt that they had no recourse.
Senator CRAIG. Where is the science of road density? Who determines what is the right density?
Mr. HOYT. That is based on research by various grizzly bear biologists that has taken place for many years. Some of those are parts—part of that research has been conducted in Idaho and around the west, and Idaho scientists have been involved with that.
Senator CRAIG. Okay. Well, the reason I bring this point up is because the negotiations failed or at least certain groups felt it was failing and they spun away and filed a lawsuit.
I am trying to craft a law that would allow full representation at the table and once a community collaborative process was decided, while people could spin out and file in court who think they could win a better position in court, it would hopefully result in less conflict. And in areas where it has been effectively used, it appears less conflict is occurring. Somehow, we have got to get there and bring local communities of interest back into the process.
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So I just want to make that statement for the record because I was hopeful it would work here. It has not worked, largely because the formal structure did not exist and certain groups were not willing to play within the range of that structure, Madam Chairman.
Thank you.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Senator.
Mr. Mackert, you—did you wish to comment to that?
Mr. MACKERT. You know, we have been around Fremont County for years taking care of the people in Fremont County that get lost. For years and years we have done this, I have been involved in this since I was 18 years old and I am now 39. I have been the commander of our rescue unit for seven years. And when I asked our people how many roads were being breached, they come up with five—five.
We have the authority to open those gates and go and help find people. Inevitably what we find as soon as we open the gate is trees that are tipped over, nature taking its course to reclaim the road. And most of the time that stops us. The destruction that has went on in this forest is—I just cannot bring words to describe it, it is sad.
I pose the question to you, if you have a flat tire, do you send your car to the crusher to fix it? If the gate did not work, move the gate a little bit or put a little bit more of a barricade around the gate. Do not do the destruction to the forest that was done, please. It is sad.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Mr. Mackert.
[Applause.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Sorry, no applause, please.
I would ask that all signs be held down, as I did at the beginning of the hearing, so those behind you can see. Thank you very much.
I would like to ask Mr. Shurtleff what would you consider to be the reasonable timber sale level for the Targhee considering growth rates, in a forest that is predominantly lodge pole pine with very little Doug fir or whatever other species in it? What would you consider to be the reasonable timber sale level and the volume estimates?
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Mr. SHURTLEFF. From my experience, Madam Chairman, it would be somewhere around 20 million board feet I think this Forest Service could handle, but let me tell you, I am not too concerned about the level that we start as long as we are on an approach. What concerns me most of all is the fact that now that we have established an annual sale quantity of approximately eight million feet, of which my understanding is they will only accomplish about half of that if they are lucky. That means they are going to actually sell about four million feet. Of that four million feet, it will be predominantly Doug fir. My opinion is that what they are doing basically is driving those who have situated themselves to be lodge pole pines—and to be honest with you, we thought we were basically a conservation type outfit. In other words, we stuck around and were going to try and stay here so that we could help preserve, because we do think it takes some tree thinning, some harvesting to make a forest survive. What I am concerned about is the fact that now the plan that they have in place is going to be predominantly Doug fir, so therefore, lodge pole pine users or people who can use that and put a product to it will all be gone when the Doug fir runs out because 20 years ago, we thought that Doug fir was basically gone out of the Targhee. So that is my big concern, is the way they are interpreting and using the plan is basically going to take all the resource users out of the business. Then at some point in time when they say well gosh, we could sell some lodge pole pine now, they will say but there is nobody here to buy it.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Mr. Shurtleff.
I wanted to ask Mr. Hoyt. I have reviewed the testimony of Mr. John Burns and also of Steve Mealey, and we will be hearing from them on the nex