SPEAKERS CONTENTS INSERTS
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50–964 CC
1998
OVERSIGHT HEARINGS ON NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY ACT
HEARINGS
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON FOREST AND FOREST HEALTH
of the
COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
JULY 30 AND AUGUST 4, 1998, WASHINGTON, DC
Serial No. 105–110
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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
BARBARA CUBIN, Wyoming
HELEN CHENOWETH, Idaho
LINDA SMITH, Washington
GEORGE P. RADANOVICH, California
WALTER B. JONES, Jr., North Carolina
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WILLIAM M. (MAC) THORNBERRY, Texas
JOHN SHADEGG, Arizona
JOHN E. ENSIGN, Nevada
ROBERT F. SMITH, Oregon
CHRIS CANNON, Utah
KEVIN BRADY, Texas
JOHN PETERSON, Pennsylvania
RICK HILL, Montana
BOB SCHAFFER, Colorado
JIM GIBBONS, Nevada
MICHAEL D. CRAPO, Idaho
GEORGE MILLER, California
EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts
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
SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas
OWEN B. PICKETT, Virginia
FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey
CALVIN M. DOOLEY, California
CARLOS A. ROMERO-BARCELÓ, Puerto Rico
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MAURICE D. HINCHEY, New York
ROBERT A. UNDERWOOD, Guam
SAM FARR, California
PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island
ADAM SMITH, Washington
WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts
CHRIS JOHN, Louisiana
DONNA CHRISTIAN-GREEN, Virgin Islands
RON KIND, Wisconsin
LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas
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
JAMES V. HANSEN, Utah
JOHN T. DOOLITTLE, California
GEORGE P. RADANOVICH, California
JOHN PETERSON, Pennsylvania
RICK HILL, Montana
BOB SCHAFFER, Colorado
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MAURICE D. HINCHEY, New York
BRUCE F. VENTO, Minnesota
DALE E. KILDEE, Michigan
ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, Am. Samoa
————— —————
————— —————
DOUG CRANDALL, Staff Director
ANNE HEISSENBUTTEL, Legislative Staff
JEFF PETRICH, Minority Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
Hearing held July 30, 1998
Statements of Members:
Boyd, Hon. Allen, a Representative in Congress from the State of Florida
Prepared statement of
Chenoweth, Hon. Helen, a Representative in Congress from the State of Idaho
Prepared statement of
Briefing paper
Briefing paper
Statements of witnesses:
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Dombeck, Michael, Chief, Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, DC
Prepared statement of
Ferrioli, Hon. Ted, State Senator, State of Oregon, John Day, Oregon
Prepared statement of
Hill, Lawrence, Director of Forest Policy, Society of American Foresters, Bethesda, Maryland
Prepared statement of
Nelson, Cara, Consulting Ecologist, Natural Resources Defense Council
Prepared statement of
Peterson, L. Earl, Florida State Forester, Division of Forestry of Tallahassee, Florida
Prepared statement of
Additional material supplied:
Bear-Potato Analysis Area of the Tyee Fire Recovery, Chelan and Entiat Ranger Districts, Wenatchee National Forest, Environmental Assessment
Text of H.R. 4375
Hearing held August 4, 1998
Statements of Members:
Boyd, Hon. Allen, a Representative in Congress from the State of Florida
Brown, Hon. Corrine, a Representative in Congress from the State of Florida
Chenoweth, Hon. Helen, a Representative in Congress from the State of Idaho, prepared statement of
Briefing paper
Statements of witnesses:
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Garner, James W., State Forester, Virginia Department of Forestry, Charlottesville, Virginia
Prepared statement of
Hill, Barry, Associate Director, accompanied by Linda Harmon, Assistant Director, Energy, Resources and Science Issues, General Accounting Office
Prepared statement of
Josephson, Wally, Wildland Fire Specialist, Office of Managing Risk and Public Safety, U.S. Department of the Interior
Prepared statement of
McDougle, Janice, accompanied by Denny Truesdale, Assistant Director of Fire Management for Operations, Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture
Prepared statement of
Additional material supplied:
Briefing paper
Managing Forests, Managing Fire, Report to Congress
National Interagency Fire Center, BLM Office of Fire & Aviation, report
OVERSIGHT HEARING: NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY ACT PARITY
THURSDAY, JULY 30, 1998
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health,
Committee on Resources,
Washington, DC.
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The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:11 a.m., in room 1334 Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Helen Chenoweth (chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding.
STATEMENT OF HON. HELEN CHENOWETH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF IDAHO
Mrs. CHENOWETH. [presiding] The Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health will come to order.
The Subcommittee is meeting today to have an oversight hearing on H.R. 4345, a bill to authorize the continued use on national forests and other public lands of the alternative arrangements that were approved by the Council on Environmental Quality for a windstorm damaged National Forests and Grasslands in Texas.
Now under rule 4(g) of the Committee rules, any oral opening statements of hearings are limited to the chairman and the Ranking Minority Member. This will allow us to hear from our witnesses sooner and help members keep to their schedules. Therefore if other members have statements, they can be included in the hearing record under unanimous consent.
This hearing will focus on H.R. 4345. This bill is a result of the decision in March of this year by the Council on Environmental Quality, CEQ, to grant alternative arrangements under the National Environmental Policy Act. The CEQ reducing the fuel load, the CEQ allowed for the expedited treatment of East Texas National Forests after they had experienced a very severe windstorm and blowdown on February 10. Immediately after the windstorm, the National Forests and Grasslands in Texas, the office responsible for management of the three national forests damaged in the windstorm, consulted with the CEQ for an alternative arrangement under NEPA. 40 CFR 1506.11 provides for such alternative arrangements in emergency situations. The Forest Service believed that the time period needed for a traditional NEPA analysis would negatively affect wildlife habitat, private property, and the overall conditions of the forest itself. Now specifically, the Forest Service was fearful that failure to act expeditiously would result in severe wildfires, bark beetle infestations, and loss of subpopulation of red-cockaded woodpeckers. Katy McGinty, the chairman of the CEQ, sent a letter to the Forest Service on March 4 granting the expedited NEPA process.
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The CEQ should be commended for this decision. Ron Hufford, of the Texas Forestry Association, wrote in a letter to the Subcommittee: ''the granted waiver has been a proactive initiative that has allowed the removal of down timber to an effort to reduce future insect and disease epidemics as well as reducing the fuel loading in the most severely impacted areas.
The February 10 storm was brief but devastating and left the issue of the health of the National Forests in question. The waiver has allowed the professionals to respond to this emergency in a timely manner.'' And I'd like to submit this letter for the record. Photos of the blowdown are in the members' folders along with the photos of other catastrophic events on other national forests.
[The information follows:]
INSERT OFFSET FOLIOS 98 TO 104 HERE
Mrs. CHENOWETH. H.R. 4345 lists a number of other national forests that have experienced catastrophic events of a similar magnitude as the East Texas blowdown, recommending that they also be granted expedited processes under the NEPA process. The bill also requires the CEQ to develop and issue regulations concerning the use of alternative arrangements on national forests. This is crucial because the CEQ currently has no consistent requirements for the use of alternative arrangements.
It is important to note that this bill does not override or change any environmental law. It merely recommends that the CEQ consider granting expedited NEPA processes to other national forests that have suffered catastrophic events and that need expedited remedial treatment. Although the CEQ has granted alternative arrangements only thirty times since 1980, many of the these were in response to situations of similar or even lower severity than the ones listed in H.R. 4345.
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For example, one alternative arrangement was for the BLM and the Forest Service to implement erosion control efforts after the Eighth Street fire in the hills above Boise, Idaho. Another alternative arrangement was for the aerial spraying of pesticides in Idaho to combat migratory grasshoppers. We know and agree that these were legitimate circumstances for using expedited NEPA processes. We also know that forest conditions in specific areas across this country are in need of accelerated management in order to prevent costly and preventable environmental and economic catastrophes. In some areas, this may mean the removal of dead and dying trees.
Unfortunately, it has become politically incorrect to harvest trees on Federal lands, for any reason, even when it is scientifically the most appropriate means for protecting wildlife habitats, soils, and private property. Hopefully, we can get beyond the political aspects of this issue and have a serious dialogue on the merits of using expedited NEPA processes in critical forest areas.
Now, when the Ranking Minority Member comes in, I will recognize him for his statement.
And now, I'd like to introduce our first panel of witnesses: Ted Ferrioli, Oregon State Senator from John Day, Oregon; L. Earl Peterson, Florida State Forester, Division of Forestry from Tallahassee, Florida; Cara Nelson, Consulting Ecologist, Natural Resources Defense Council from San Francisco, California; Larry Hill, Director of Forest Policy, The Society of American Foresters from Bethesda, Maryland.
Let me remind the witnesses that under our Committee rules, they must limit their oral statements to five minutes, but that your entire record will appear in the permanent record—your entire statement. We will also allow the entire panel to testify before we begin questioning the witnesses.
I would like to recognize my colleague, Allen Boyd, from the great State of Florida, and ask if he has opening statements.
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[The prepared statement of Ms. Chenoweth follows:]
STATEMENT OF HON. HELEN CHENOWETH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF IDAHO
This hearing will focus on National Environmental Policy Act Parity and H.R.4345. This bill is a result of the decision in March of this year by the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) to grant ''alternative arrangements'' under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The CEQ allowed for the expedited treatment of East Texas National Forests after they had experienced a severe windstorm and blowdownon February 10th. Immediately after the windstorm, the National Forests and Grasslands in Texas, the office responsible for management of the three national forests damaged in the windstorm, consulted with the CEQ for an alternative arrangement under NEPA. 40 CFR 1506.11 provides for such alternative arrangements in emergency situations. The Forest Service believed that the time period needed for a traditional NEPA analysis would negatively affect wildlife habitat, private property, and the overall conditions of the forest itself. Specifically, the Forest Service was fearful that failure to act expeditiously would result in severe wildfires, bark beetle infestations, and loss of a sub-population of red-cockaded woodpeckers. Katy McGinty, the Chairman of the CEQ, sent a letter to the Forest Service on March 4th granting the expedited NEPA process.
The CEQ should be commended for this decision. Ron Hufford, of the Texas Forestry Association, wrote in a letter to the Subcommittee: ''The granted waiver has been a pro-active initiative that has allowed the removal of down timber in an effort to reduce future insect and disease epidemics as well as reducing the fuel loading in the most severely impacted areas. The February 10th storm was brief but devastating and left the issue of the health of the National Forests in question. The waiver has allowed the professionals to respond to this emergency in a timely manner.'' I would like to submit this letter for the record. Photos of the blowdown are in the Members folders along with photos of other catastrophic events on other national forests.
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H.R. 4345 lists a number of other national forests that have experienced catastrophic events of a similar magnitude as the East Texas blowdown, recommending that they also be granted expedited processes under NEPA. The bill also requires the CEQ to develop and issue regulations concerning the use of alternative arrangements on national forests. This is crucial because the CEO currently has no consistent requirements for the use of alternative arrangements. It is important to note that this bill does not override or change any environmental law—it merely recommends that the CEQ consider granting expedited NEPA processes to other national forests that have suffered catastrophic events and that need expedited remedial treatment. Although the CEQ has granted alternative arrangements only thirty times since 1980, many of these were in response to situations of similar or even lower severity than the ones listed in H.R. 4345. For example, one alternative arrangement was for the BLM and Forest Service to implement erosion control efforts after the Eighth Street Fire in the hills above Boise. Another alternative arrangement was for the aerial spraying of pesticides in Idaho to combat migratory grasshoppers. We know and agree that these were legitimate circumstances for using expedited NEPA processes. We also know that forest conditions in specific areas across the country are in need of accelerated management in order to prevent costly and preventable environmental and economic catastrophes. In some areas this may mean the removal of dead or dying trees. Unfortunately, it has become politically incorrect to harvest trees on Federal lands—for any reason—even when it is scientifically the most appropriate means for protecting wildlife habitat, soils, and private property. Hopefully, we can get beyond the political aspects of this issue and have a serious dialogue on the merits of using expedited NEPA processes in critical forest areas.
BRIEFING PAPER
Oversight Hearing on Fire Suppression
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SUMMARY
Various forest and weather conditions have greatly increased the vulnerability of America's forests to wildfire. In recent years, the total number of wildfires, including the number of large complex fires, has increased dramatically. The costs associated with fighting these fires has risen proportionally, representing hundreds of millions of tax-payer dollars annually. These efforts also require an ever-increasing need for well orchestrated communications and cooperation among volunteer and municipal fire departments, State forestry agencies, and Federal agencies with wildfire management and suppression responsibilities. The purpose of this oversight hearing is to review these and other factors that influence the effectiveness of government efforts in wildfire preparedness and suppression.
BACKGROUND AND ANALYSIS:
Already this year, nearly two million acres have burned, many of those occurring in the well-reported fires in Florida. At a Forests and Forest Health Subcommittee hearing last week, Earl Peterson, the State Forester of Florida, gave high marks to the coordinated fire fighting efforts in his state but did suggest that better coordination would have been helpful in the ordering and distribution of equipment. He also said that better long-range planning would help in order to more effectively station people and equipment in areas of highest risk.
The GAO recently reported that wildfire preparedness and suppression expenditures by Federal land management agencies are at all time highs—over $4 billion for the last five years. Given the recent comments by the Chief of the Forest Service that approximately 40 million acres of agency lands are at a high risk of catastrophic fire, there is little question that these high costs are going to persist—and very likely continue to increase—for the next couple of decades. As wildfires become larger, hotter, and more numerous it is not only becoming more expensive to suppress them but the logistics of organizing communications and coordination among the various state and Federal agencies is becoming exponentially more complex. The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) in Boise, Idaho serves as ''The Pentagon'' for these suppression efforts. Located at the NIFC is the National Interagency Coordination Center (NICC), whose primary mission is the cost-effective and timely coordination of national emergency response. It is through NICC that all agency requests to mobilize personnel and equipment across regions are managed.
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WITNESSES
Our nation's ability to prepare for and suppress wildfires is of extreme importance, not only because these efforts represent such a huge cost to taxpayers, but because without a maximum effort, property, and most importantly, lives will be lost. The intent, then, of this oversight hearing is to discuss the effectiveness of our preparedness and suppression efforts, and to try to answer a number of questions, such as:
• What did we learn from the Florida fires? In retrospect, what could we have done better, and conversely, what worked well? What rehab efforts are underway in the aftermath of the fires?
• How do we fund the various suppression activities? Do we spend too much in some areas and not enough in others? Are we adequately monitoring costs? Are we utilizing cost control measures such as contracting out certain activities to private enterprise?
• How accurately are we predicting the location, timing and severity of wildfire occurrences? What technologies and computer modeling are being used?
• How effective is interagency cooperation—at every level?
• What agencies or organizations are responsible for staffing levels, employee training, equipment availability, public education, maintenance of facilities, fire management planning. Who, ultimately, is responsible for suppression efforts, and does this vary by land ownership?
WITNESSES
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A witness list is attached
STAFF CONTACT
Doug Crandall at ext. 5-0691
STATEMENT OF HON. ALLEN BOYD, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA
Mr. BOYD. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I do have a statement for the record that I'll ask unanimous consent that be included in the permanent record of this——
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Without objection.
Mr. BOYD. [continuing] and I'll have a brief oral opening statement, if I might
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Yes.
Mr. BOYD. I want to thank you, Madam Chairman, and the other members of this Subcommittee for allowing me the privilege of sitting as part
of this panel and to participate in this hearing. I also want to thank you, Madam Chairman, for calling this oversight hearing on ''alternative arrangements'' that have been granted by the CEQ for emergency situations under NEPA.
As my colleagues are aware, the State of Florida has recently experienced a series of severe wildfires that have burned over half a million acres and destroyed homes and timber with aggregate value of somewhere in excess of a quarter of a billion dollars; that's over $250 million dollars.
In the Second Congressional District, which I represent, a majority of the affected acreage is on Federal lands; primarily two national forests. District Two has the entire Apalachicola National Forest within its borders and also encompasses part of the Osceola National Forest. The wildfires burned thousands of acres of timberland within these national forests. That's the reason I am here today is to listen and learn about alternative arrangements.
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I look forward to the testimony of our witnesses today and, particularly, Earl Peterson, who is a long-time friend and head of the Division of Forestry in the State of Florida.
But I also want to, Madam Chairman, at this time take this opportunity to say a public thank you to all the folks from around the Nation that sent their firefighters to Florida. I wish you could see the outpouring of gratitude in the State of Florida for the folks that came from all over to help us save our timberlands and our homes. And as you know, as a result of the efforts of those people from all over the Nation, we survived this disaster without any loss of life, and we're very grateful for that.
Thank you, Madam Chairman.
[The statement of Mr. Boyd follows:]
STATEMENT OF HON. ALLEN BOYD, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA
Madam Chairman, first of all, I want to thank you and the other members of this Subcommittee for allowing me the privilege of sitting as part of this panel and to participate in this hearing. I would also like to thank you for calling this oversight hearing on a very important, and it would appear, under used tool that the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) has in its tool box to use under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
As my colleagues are aware, the state of Florida has recently experienced a series of devastating wildfires that burned approximately 500,000 acres, having an aggregate value of more than $276,000,000. A large majority of the land affected in the state is located on private and state lands. However, in the Second Congressional District, which I represent, a majority of the affected acreage is on Federal lands.
The Second Congressional District is located in the panhandle of the state, running from Panama City in the west to the middle of the Osceola National Forest in the east. It has the entire Apalachicola National Forest within its borders and also encompasses part of the Osceola National Forest. The wildfires have burned approximately 20,000 acres in the Osceola National Forest. Between 4,000 to 5,000 acres are classified as Wilderness Areas and most of this wood is either hardwood or cypress. Of the 15,000 acres not classified as Wilderness, over 10,000 acres are pine plantations. In the Apalachicola National Forest, a large majority of the 20,000 plus acres that were adversely affected lie within a Wilderness Area.
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As you can imagine, time is of the utmost importance when we are trying to salvage this timber. In my experience as a steward of our land, in the warm and humid climate of Florida, sawtimber must be removed within a 45 to 60 day period after being destroyed by fire. Otherwise, it loses all its economic value and can only be left to rot and fall to the ground. Pulpwood will last for a longer period of time; however, the pulpwood market is currently depressed due to a glut in the pulp market, and the Asian financial situation. That is why I am here today to listen and learn about the ''alternative arrangements'' that have been granted by the CEQ for emergency situations under NEPA.
I look forward to the testimony of our witnesses today, especially Earl Peterson, our State Forester from Florida. Working together, I believe we can take another positive step in our stewardship of our federally owned natural resources.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. It was a very startling disaster and I am also very grateful that there was no loss of life, but it is quite remarkable to be able to see the kind of response to national disasters that we saw in this case and have seen in the past. And I share that feeling of gratitude with you. We were even busy in Boise deploying equipment, and planes, and men to the fires. And——
Mr. BOYD. Men and women also.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Women, that's right. Absolutely, and they're tough. So it's a joy—not joyous circumstances at all that we come together, but it's a pleasure to have you join us today.
As this the normal process here, we ask that all of our witnesses be placed under the oath. It's a normal process in this Subcommittee and I believe all of you have received a notice from the Committee that that is our process. And so, if you wouldn't mind standing and raising your hand to the square.
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[Witnesses sworn.]
The Chair recognizes Senator Ferrioli.
STATEMENT OF TED FERRIOLI, STATE SENATOR, STATE OF OREGON, JOHN DAY, OREGON
Mr. FERRIOLI. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity to be here today to testify in support of H.R. 4345.
My name is Ted Ferrioli. I reside at 111 Skyline Drive, John Day, Oregon. I'm the Executive Director of Malheur Timber Operators in John Day, and I am the State Senator from Senate District 28.
Madam Chairman, Senate District 28 begins in the outskirts of Portland and the Gresham area, and it goes across all of parts of 11 counties in Oregon all the way to the Idaho borders. So, we are neighbors in a sense. The population there is 100,000 people in my district. It's 17,500 square miles. So the population density in my district is .17 persons per square mile. So, I'm very glad to see this rather large crowd of people here today.
I'm here today to testify about the rather dysfunctional response by the Forest Service under the current National Environment Policy Act to a catastrophic event that occurred in our district referenced the Summit Fire, which occurred on the Long Creek Ranger District on the Malheur National Forest.
The Summit fire was caused by lighting. It started August 13, 1996 and it burned for 24 days across 37,961 acres of forestland. It killed or damaged approximately 300 million board feet across those 38,000 acres. Very shortly after the fire was put out, the Summit Fire Recovery Project became the top priority of the Malheur National Forest under direction of Forest Supervisor Carl Pence. Mr. Pence made that the top priority pulling in staff from the other ranger districts on the Malheur National Forest and endeavored to conduct a rather extraordinary outreach process to bring in people to view the fire, to communicate with interested parties and the stakeholders. As a matter of fact, tours were conducted for Members of Congress, Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber's Citizen Eastside Forest Health Advisory Task Force, environmental organizations, Forest Products industry representatives, and representatives of the National Marine Fisheries Service, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife staff.
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Throughout the period of planning, this forest-planning staff received continuous assurances from the regional office that the Recovery Project was on track for a speedy recovery. On August 27, almost a year later, Forest Supervisor Pence signed a Record of Decision that created a Recovery Project treating approximately 9,500 acres—about a third of the fire area which would have produced a 100 million board feet of salvage.
Of course the Record of Decision was immediately appealed by the environmental community in what we refer to as a ''cookbook'' type of appeal.
Despite the unprecedented communication between the Malheur National Forest Planning Staff and the Regional Forest Planning Staff, Regional Forester Bob Williams informed Carl Pence that Williams could not support the Record of Decision, and gave Mr. Pence two choices: either he would remand the project back to the forest; or Mr.Pence could voluntarily withdraw the plan. Since voluntary withdrawal gave more options for remediation, Mr. Pence chose the latter option.
In fact, during the next 6 months, the Malheur National Forest Planning Staff completely rewrote the DEIS, the Environmental Impact Statement, making major revisions, including a development of a water resources management plan which is not required by rule or by statute. And then formal consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for a Bull Trout and informal consultation with the National Marine Fisheries Service for Steelhead. Although at that point in time, neither of those species were a listed species.
On July 12, 1998, more than 23 months after the fire, a new Record of Decision was issued calling for the salvage and rehabilitation of approximately 6,600 of the 38,000 acres burned with an output of approximately a 50 million board feet.
During the intervening months, of course, the insects, and blue-stain fungus, and checking severely reduced the value of the salvageable timber. In fact, if the salvage project had been conducted in August of 1997, it would have produced about $6.9 million in revenue for the Federal Treasury, 25 percent of which would have gone to schools—local schools, and for the roads funds in the counties. Today, if the project was operated, or will be operated, it will be worth approximately one-sixth of that value or about $1.1 million. So we saw a 600 percent reduction in the value of that project over a 23-month period.
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Madam Chairman, the cost of suppression for the Summit Fire was $25,400,000, the moral equivalency of a war. The cost for the original Draft Environmental Impact Survey was $1.2 million. The Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement that was ordered costs about $356,000. The project will put out $1.1 million worth of salvageable materials. The math simply doesn't work out.
Madam Chairman and members of the Committee, while the NEPA process may be well adapted to long-term projects or proposed management actions that are not time-sensitive, it's very clear to us that the NEPA process is especially inappropriate for time-sensitive projects like fire-recovery projects where rapid deterioration and the loss of value is a predictable outcome of delay.
There are three suggestions that I would like the Committee to consider. One is that if alternative arrangements are to be used in this type of arrangement or this type of emergency as they were for the blowdown in Texas, that those alternate arrangements be clearly modelled and clearly delineated so that there is a easily accessible mechanism for their approval.
The second, if we are to make the NEPA process work, we need to also provide an expedited appeal and litigation process to resolve conflicts in a timely manner. If we had shorter statutory appeals processes, and a shorter judicial appeal process, we could not only have heightened access for citizen appeals and litigation, but we would also have timely resolution. And that's a critical factor.
The other thing is, Madam Chairman, we should modify the NEPA process to add the full consideration of the economic values affected by Federal decisionmaking. At present, NEPA requires the full disclosure of the environmental values and considerations, but does not disclose the economic impacts to local communities, and the economic values and considerations in Federal decisionmaking. And to be effective, we believe that NEPA needs to fully disclose the economic impact on local communities.
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Our experience has shown that catastrophic events require a planning response that preserves the net asset value of the resources, not only to sustain our communities that depend on natural resource outputs, but simply to capture the maximum value to pay for the cost of planning, and to pay for the cost of rehabilitation of resources damaged by wind, insects, disease, and wildfire.
Thank you, Madam Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Ferrioli may be found at end of hearing.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you very much, Mr. Ferrioli, and the Chair will yield to Mr. Boyd to introduce Mr. Peterson.
Mr. BOYD. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman.
I didn't know I was going to get this opportunity, but I'm very pleased. I don't have a bio of Mr. Peterson in front of me. I can tell you from personal experience that's he's been a public servant in Florida for all his professional career and I—what 30 years, Earl
Mr. L. EARL PETERSON. Forty years.
Mr. BOYD. Forty years. Oh, my goodness, and within the last six or 8 years been named head of the Division of Forestry which is under the Department of Agriculture in the State of Florida. I've had the chance to, before I was in public life, work with Earl Peterson on many occasions in their job working with timber and landowners, and they do a great job under his leadership. And I'm very pleased to welcome Earl Peterson.
STATEMENT OF L. EARL PETERSON, FLORIDA STATE FORESTER, DIVISION OF FORESTRY OF TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA
Mr. L. EARL PETERSON. Thank you, Congressman Boyd, members of the Committee.
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It's a pleasure to be here today and I particularly want to say also how appreciative we are for the assistance that came from throughout the country in our recent siege of wildfires. The Federal agencies, the U.S. Forest Service, the sister-state agencies throughout the country, were more than generous in their resources. Without them, it certainly would have not been possible to come through this with the success story that we had, and with the safety record that we're so proud of.
I'm also pleased to be here to talk a few moments about how the Florida Division of Forestry manages its timber resources and in particular how we deal with emergency salvage operations when struck by natural disaster.
The Florida Division of Forestry is one of the largest land management agencies in the State of Florida. We have been managing state forest lands for over 60 years and presently co-manage about a million acres while at the same time we are the lead manager on about 740,000 acres.
We have 36 state forests, approximately 55 percent of which is suitable for pine silviculture, timber production, if you would. An active forest management program occurs on this pine acreage and includes prescribed burning, reforestation, and timber sales. Trees have grown to an old age on state forests for a number of reasons, two of which are to provide a natural ecosystem that is rapidly disappearing from the State and also to provide a special experience for the public sector who visit state forests in order to enjoy a large number of resource-based outdoor recreation activities. Our state forests represent an investment by the citizens of Florida, and that investment should produce both a natural resource heritage for the future and an economic return.
The practice of sustainability is a cornerstone in the management of our timber resource. By using current forest inventory data, we insure that state forests are not overcut and that the growth will continue to exceed yield on an annual basis. Trees are harvested through a number of silvicultural techniques, including improvement thinnings, restoration harvests, and the latter being the removal of offsite species that the naturally occurring species can be restored to a particular site.
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In a well-managed state forest, foresters from the division strive to keep the trees in a healthy condition using such management tools as prescribed burning and improvement thinnings, which I have previously mentioned. However, due to natural processes beyond our control, unexpected and undesirable tree mortality sometimes occurs in any natural forest system. Examples are lightning——killed trees, mortality from wildfires, insect and disease outbreaks, and windstorm damage.
Because this is a natural process, if the level of tree mortality is considered light, then sometimes no action is taken. The resulting dead snags provide homes for wildlife and help create biological diversity in the forest system. However, when tree mortality reaches levels where there is significant economic loss or there is the potential for insect and disease spread, then we salvage or do sanitation harvests and initiate a process to recoup the monetary losses and reduce the based on the threat to spread to disease or insects.
Although prompt action is often taken to salvage timber that has been damaged or killed at moderate levels or in limited areas, there is no question that the Division of Forestry will take appropriate action when major tree mortality events take place. This statement is clearly exemplified by October 1995 Hurricane Andrew which made a direct hit on Blackwater State Forest, which is Florida's largest state forest with 189,000 acres. Within six months, we had salvaged 95 percent of the damaged timber, which was approximately 50 million board feet of sawtimber.
In the spring and summer of 1997, Florida experienced the worst outbreak of southern pine beetle in our history. This infestation was centered in Marion and Levy County area of Central Florida. Loblolly pine was the major species being killed, but it also moved into slash pine and longleaf pine. The insect was indiscriminate in attacking trees across all ownerships. The Division of Forestry took a lead role in taking actions to control the insect outbreak plus the salvage that followed and worked with other agencies as if we carried this out. And at the same time, we did them on our state forests in two locations.
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Finally, the State of Florida had just gone through one of the most serious outbreak of wildfires in our history. Approximately 500,000 acres burned between June 1 and late July. Of this, there was a total of about 260,000 acres of commercial-pine timberland. A conservative estimate is that 2,600,000 cords of damaged or fire-killed timber will require salvage in the next few months. Besides being directly involved in the total salvage effort, the Division has approximately 14,000 acres on state forests; Tiger Bay State Forest; and Lake George State Forest in Volusia County. Once the wildfires were controlled, we immediately moved toward damaged appraisal and initiating salvage sales on these state forests. In 2 weeks, we sold four salvage sales and have plans to sell four more during the third week.
The time is of essence in selling salvage timber, especially sawtimber. In Florida's warm climate, dead sawtimber must be utilized within a few months or it will deteriorate where it will be worthless except for pulpwood. Pulpwood will only last a few months longer. Because of this short timeframe, we expedite the bid process and only give potential bidders a week or less to submit their bids for sale. Emergency salvage sales of this nature are almost always sold on a per unit basis, which means we sell it by the ton. A performance bond of $5,000 or more is usually required to insure sale compliance.
A few key points for salvage operations conducted by the Division of Forestry are that they are done in a rapid fashion to insure maximum economic return, eliminate waste and to prevent the spread of pathogens or insects that might kill additional timber. All potential bidders are given a chance to bid on every sale so that no one could be accused of unfair sale practices, and ongoing sales are administered closely working with the loggers comply with division personnel.
The Division of Forestry is fortunate to have the latitude to make these decisions about procedures and conditions for silvicultural applications, such as reforestation and timber harvesting.
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Thank you.
[The prepared statement of L. Earl Peterson may be found at end of hearing.]
Mr. PETERSON OF PENNSYLVANIA. [presiding] The Chair thanks the gentleman from Florida. With the name Peterson, you've got to be OK.
[Laughter.]
Mr. L. EARL PETERSON. Thank you.
Mr. PETERSON OF PENNSYLVANIA. I'm Congressman Peterson from Pennsylvania temporarily filling in for the Chair. The chairman had to leave for a few moments.
At this time, I recognize Cara Nelson, Consulting Ecologist, Natural Resources Defense Council for her testimony. Welcome, and good morning.
STATEMENT OF CARA NELSON, CONSULTING ECOLOGIST, NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL
Ms. NELSON. Thank you. Thanks for the opportunity to participate in this hearing. I'll be testifying against H.R. 4345.
I work both as a research forester and as a consulting ecologist for Natural Resources Defense Council. Natural Resources Defense Council is a national non-profit environmental organization dedicated, among other things, to the protection of forest resources. My work for NRDC is largely focused on issues related to fire and fuels management in the forests of the Interior Columbia Basin in eastern Washington and Oregon.
This morning, I'd like to share my views on what I believe to be one of the most critical issues facing forest managers today; how, when, and where to experiment with forest restoration activities and the related topic of requirements for environmental review of these projects.
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As strategies are developed and implemented for protecting the fire and insect resiliency of Federal forests, it is critical that adequate attention is devoted to environmental review and that opportunities for restoration are not subverted by lack of careful planning or information, or overemphasis on short-term economic goals.
I'd like to stress three primary reasons why comprehensive environmental review is needed for all treatments that justify commercial harvests of dead, dying, and overstocked trees as forest health measures.
First, there is a lack of scientific consensus about the efficacy of thinning, salvage, and fuels treatment for improving fire resiliency or ecosystem integrity. Surprisingly, little empirical research has been conducted on the impacts of these treatments on fire behavior. In spite of hypothesized benefits, the handful of studies that address these issues, as well as anecdotal accounts and analysis of recent fires, suggest that removal of dead, dying, and overstocked trees may not reliably reduce fire intensity or severity. In fact in the Pacific northwest, three recent studies of the relationship between thinning, fuels treatment, and fire behavior all found that treatment actually exacerbated fire conditions. In all cases, unmanaged stands had the least severe fire effects.
The second reason that thorough environmental review of management actions is so important is that the type of harvest practices employed, as well as the manner in which they are executed, influence environmental conditions and fire and insect hazard. Thinning, salvage, and fuel treatment are all sufficiently vague terms that treatments can vary widely in both the techniques used and the residual stand conditions.
For example, in Van Wagtendonk's model-base study of six different approaches to fuel reduction in the Sierras, and this study was part of the ''snap'' process, only one was predicted to reduce the number of acres burned or fire intensity below that of untreated stands. Findings such as these provide evidence that a careless or thoughtless approach to restoration treatments is likely to result in more harm than good.
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Third, in addition to the speculative nature of claimed ecological benefits from removal of dead, dying, and overstocked trees, there is ample evidence that persistent adverse impacts can and do result from salvage and thinning. These impacts include: the loss of snags; down logs and closed canopy habitat conditions that are required by many wildlife species; damage to soil integrity; creation of sediment which may eventually end up in our streams; increased mortality of residual trees due to pathogens and mechanical damage; and then most importantly, increase near-term fire hazard due, primarily, to logging slash.
These downsides to salvage and thinning need careful, conscientious evaluation and must be squarely presented to the public, sister agencies, Congress, and ultimately, decisionmakers if a responsible judgment is to be made about where, how, and at what level experiment with logging base approaches to reducing fire and insect hazard. Failure to analyze and disclose the environmental risks associated with these treatments may result in continued ecosystem degradation and may prevent the adoption of ecologically sound approaches to management.
In conclusion, sound scientific support does not exist for broad or generalized inferences that emergency logging operations will ameliorate fire or insect risks in our Nation's forest.
I hope that my testimony will help dis-sway the Subcommittee from proceeding with legislation that would abrogate the existing NEPA process in the name of forest health emergencies. Thank you again for the opportunity to appear and present this testimony.
[The prepared statement of Cara Nelson may be found at end of hearing.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. [presiding] The Chair now recognizes Mr. Lawrence Hill, Director of Forest Policy of the Society of American Foresters.
Welcome, Mr. Hill.
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STATEMENT OF LAWRENCE HILL, DIRECTOR OF FOREST POLICY, SOCIETY OF AMERICAN FORESTERS, BETHESDA, MARYLAND
Mr. HILL. Thank you, Madam Chairman, and Committee. I really appreciate the opportunity to be here today to testify on this piece of legislation.
As director of Forest Policies for the Society, I represent our 18,000 members who constitute the scientific and educational association representing the profession of forestry in the United States. Our primary objective is to advance the science, technology, education, and practice of professional forestry for the benefit of society. That's a small ''s.'' We are ethically bound to advocate and practice professional forestry consistent with ecologically sound principles. I am especially pleased to submit comments on H.R. 4345 and wish to thank the Committee for its continued support of professional forestry and especially its continued support of some of SAF's priorities.
H.R. 4345 highlights a key provision of the National Environmental Policy Act and we support that provision. The regulations issued by the Council on Environmental Quality in 1978 provide for alternative arrangements to normal NEPA procedure in an emergency situation. The CEQ regulations state: ''where emergency circumstances make it necessary to take an action with significant environmental impact without observing the provisions of these regulations, the Federal agency taking the action should consult with the Council about alternative arrangements. Agencies and the Council will limit such arrangements to actions necessary to control the immediate impacts of the emergency. Other actions remain subject to NEPA review.
In addition to this direction, we understand that individual Forest Service and BLM units are required to consult with their respective Washington offices about emergencies that may result in a request for an alternative arrangement from CEQ. Additionally, Federal agencies seeking alternative arrangements should provide CEQ with a complete description of the needs for such an arrangement at the time of the request.
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These provisions are worthwhile and allow for a rapid, yet cautious, response to situations that clearly should be treated as emergencies. The environmental laws of the Nation are some of the most comprehensive in the world, yet at times they can slow actions intended to mitigate harm to the environment. The wisdom of the authors of these laws, and particularly NEPA, and regulations is clearly shown in the emergency provisions. At times, the environment is better with action than with inaction.
What appears to be absent from the alternative arrangement procedures granted by CEQ is some sense of direction and criteria for how and when these procedures should be granted—excuse me—and when these procedures should be applied. The best person to determine whether the situation warrants alternative arrangements from CEQ is the on-the-ground manager. The people intimately involved in the day-to-day management of a forest know what the situation is, and how quickly it needs correction. The additional guidance CEQ is required to develop under this bill should provide land managers in all the Federal land-management agencies with a better understanding of when and how they should request these expedited procedures. Therefore, SAF supports the provisions of the bill. This guidance would also ensure that directions are made consistently over time, and that all parties interested in the decisions have a clear understanding of how and why they were made.
We cannot comment on the specific locations of the National Forests for which this bill requests that CEQ and the Forest Service develop alternative arrangements under NEPA. However, we are encouraged that the bill merely requests, and does not require, the Forest Service to develop alternative arrangements for these areas. Although SAF has heard from some of its members that there are many locations in the national forest and public domain lands that are in need of emergency treatment, and we believe the decision to seek alternative arrangements from CEQ should rest with the agencies and the on-the-ground managers on a case-by-case basis.
Thanks again for this opportunity to testify and I, as the others, would be pleased to answer questions.
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[The prepared statement of Mr. Hill may be found at end of hearing.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you very much, Mr. Hill, and we look forward to your answers to some of our questions. I do want to let you know, Mr. Peterson, had to step out, momentarily, but will be back very shortly.
Chairman is going to step out of order and with unanimous consent I'm going to issue a statement. Because this issue is so very important to the northwest, to those of who live there, and work there, and actually see on the ground the devastating affects of the lack of decisionmaking ability for one reason or another.
And I'd like to address my comments to Ms. Nelson. In your testimony, you criticized reports of successful fire-hazard reduction as being almost entirely anecdotal. You then cited as an example the thin stand in Tiger Creek in the Boise National Forest, which survived the 1992 Foothills fire. I can tell you that the Subcommittee visited that site last year and the Boise Forest explained to us why that particular stand survived.
Let me explain that to you. It was only because the thinning had removed enough material between the larger pine trees to eliminate the fire ladder that had previously existed, and when the fire reached that stand, it dropped to the ground, burning the ground fuels but not reaching the crowns of the trees. The evidence was very compelling and, as expected, only in this area was the fire similar to historical fire behavior for the Boise National Forest.
You then said thinning was not effective at reducing fire intensity and severity on Rabbit Creek fire also in the Boise National Forest where some 200,000 acres burned in 1994. I must point out that it sounds like your observation is anecdotal.
As you didn't cite any scientific reports or other explanations for your conclusions, however, assuming your description of this fire is correct, which it is not, I must point out that many other factors influence how fire burns including the intensity of the vegetation, and so on. In fact, I am told by forestry experts that thinning tree densities are substantially the reason why forest fire don't crown.
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I would appreciate if you could provide me with additional information on the Rabbit Creek fire from your perspective, scientific, actual information such as the type of thinning that was done, the fire weather, and other factors that influenced the fire behavior in that particular fire.
Thank you very much.
The Chair recognizes Mr. Boyd for questions.
Mr. BOYD. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Maybe I should open up with a question of Mr. Peterson about some of the practices that you use—the State of Florida uses and you're authorized by the State through its legislature to use. And I noticed in your testimony that you said sawtimber must be utilized within a few months. Can you be more specific on that timeframe, and also is that different in Florida, and why?
Mr. L. EARL PETERSON. Yes, sir.
Florida's climate makes it very conducive to an early beget of blue stain. Sawtimber depends on the time of year, but within 30 to 45 days, you need to move that out or it will become less valuable and have to revert to pulpwood because of the inset of blue stain and other deteriorations. That time would be greater in the winter, of course, when weather is not so warm and humid.
Mr. BOYD. So, this is the time of the year that it would be most critical?
Mr. L. EARL PETERSON. Absolutely. Yes.
Mr. BOYD. There's another problem we have in the south they don't have in other places and that is the southern pine beetle. What happens in terms of outbreaks of southern pine beetle after fire damage?
Mr. L. EARL PETERSON. Well, the stress occasioned by the fire on trees often make them very susceptible to the infestation of the southern pine beetle and, of course, when that occurs as we have learned from experience, it spreads and it's imperative that you get in and remove the damage of the infested trees, along with a buffer, all around them to limit the spread and further destruction of the forest.
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Mr. BOYD. OK, let it be noted in the record that we did have a severe outbreak of southern pine beetle in the Osceola National Forest within the last couple years.
Madam Chairman, I've spent all of my professional life in agriculture and part of that has been the—I'm a timber owner. I'm a land owner that has plant some virgin pines on it and also planted pine plantations. And I've spent all of my professional life managing that for, basically, three things: one is aesthetic value; two is wildlife habitat; and three is also economic production. They are not in conflict with each other. I can tell you. And so, I think the things that I've read, and I want to turn to Ms. Nelson now, if I might. I didn't get through all of your testimony because I didn't get a copy of it until I received it when I got here, but I read part of it.
Ms. NELSON. OK.
Mr. BOYD. And I must tell you that I'm somewhat shocked because it goes against everything that—the years that I've spent in the business, it goes against what we know to be true and what works. And I want to read to you. Well, first of all, let me ask you this question and then I'm going to read part from your testimony. I guess I understand from your testimony that you feel like there should be one, no thinning in any national forest land.
Ms. NELSON. No, that's not true.
Mr. BOYD. OK, that's not true.
OK, second, you feel there should be no fuel treatments.
Ms. NELSON. No, that's not true either.
Mr. BOYD. That's not true. OK.
Ms. NELSON. I feel that we must be very careful in implementing both thinning and fuels treatments, and I've cited in my testimony—there is a long list of citations of studies that have been done that show that the way in which fuels treatment is conducted makes a large difference in the resultant insect and fire hazard in the residual stand.
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Mr. BOYD. Well, I guess I didn't get to the part where you said that thinning or fuel treatment might be OK. I mean, I just read the part where you were making the case that it increased fire risks. So, then would it also be safe to say that you would be against any salvage operations in damage—whether that be fire damage?
Ms. NELSON. Same answer to all three of those questions is that——
Mr. BOYD. OK.
Ms. NELSON. [continuing] with all of these treatments, they need to be designed for specific reasons on specific sites and carefully conducted. And that's why environmental review is so important.
Mr. BOYD. But I gathered from your testimony that the length of the environmental review would be so long that in the case of Florida here, where we have, there would be no value to the salvage operation
Ms. NELSON. If the sales are being conducted for forest health reasons or environmental reasons, then if that's the case, then I don't see any emergency reason to proceed. Now, if the primary objective of the sale is economics, then I think that should be clearly stated and that there may be a need to, on a 6-month time period, you know, recover economic value. However, with the case in Texas, from my understanding and again—you know, I'm not familiar with the forests down there, but from the record, the record states that the purpose of the sales was to protect the surrounding resources and—you know, the ecological integrity of the stand. And there's no reason to expedite the removal of trees for that purpose.
Mr. BOYD. Madam Chairman, I notice my red light comes on, but I would ask unanimous consent to have additional time since we don't seem to have a large crowd here on the Committee.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Please proceed Mr. Boyd.
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Mr. BOYD. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Well, for the record, let me tell you that the 15,000 acres that burned in the Osceola National Forest here in the last sixty days that was outside of the wilderness area—there's about 5,000 in the wilderness area, 15,000 outside the wilderness area, primarily was pine plantations. I spent several hours with Marcia Carney, who is the State Forester for U.S. Forest Service, last weekend touring those sites and talking with her about what her vision was for what should be done. And she and I agreed that those pine plantations would best be salvaged and replanted in longleaf pine. By the way, those are slash pines. Those are pine plantations which, obviously we—when I say plantations, I mean man planted them. But if you don't do a salvage operation pretty quickly, those logs will fall over a period of time and make reforestation, rehabilitation almost impossible. So, I want that to be shown as part of the record, that if you don't get in there in some reasonable period of time and do the salvage operation, then reforestation and rehabilitation becomes very difficult.
Now, I want to turn to the other members and I know you probably have not had a chance to read Ms. Nelson's statement, and I want to ask you to consider this statement. And I read from Ms. Nelson's statement on page two, third paragraph: ''results from a study of the effectiveness of fuels treatment on previously non-harvested lands in the Bear-Potato Analysis Area of the Wenatchee National Forest, Washington provides evidence that harvest treatments may increase risk of fire damage. In this study, the Forest Service evaluated the effects of past fuel treatments on fire severity. Before wildfire in 1994, approximately 2,021 acres of the fire that had not been previously logged were treated for fuels with mechanical removal and/or prescribed burning.'' And then she goes on to describe using percentages that says those areas that had fuel treatments prior to the fire had greater damage than those that did not have fuel treatments prior to the fire.
Mr. Hill, let me ask you. What would be your reaction to that statement?
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Mr. HILL. Well, I'd have to wonder what some of the fire conditions were at the time the experiment was conducted: you know, wind temperature; was the fuel spread; was it piled for burning; or just exactly what happened—I'm really not familiar with that particular study.
Mr. BOYD. But you certainly couldn't make a statement carte blanche—a general statement across the board that land that had fuel treatments on it was more likely to be—have a higher mortality in case of fire, could you
Mr. HILL. That's correct.
Mr. BOYD. OK. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Mr. Boyd.
I have some questions for Mr. Ferrioli.
In your discussion and in your testimony, you discussed how appeals and litigation can be used to slow or stop Forest Service discussions, but often it seems that just a threat of a lawsuit seems to stop everything.
Mr. FERRIOLI. Oh, thank you, Madam Chairman.
It has been our experience that the Forest Service is extremely risk adverse, and it seems that even the mention of an appeal can send our planners into a paroxysm of self-analysis, and it seems to make the process very protracted. In the case of the Summit Fire Recovery Project, there were numerous instances where members of the environmental community said in response to proposals in scoping ''If you do that, we'll sue you.'' And I believe that made the agency very, very careful to the point of even dereliction of their duty to be timely.
We heard today that there's a great concern that a revision of the NEPA process might make planning thoughtless or careless. Planning does not need to be thoughtless or careless to be timely, and that's the biggest problem. When the agency is so averse to appeals or lawsuits that they fail to carry out their duties which are serving the people and protecting the land by moving forward on these projects, the communities definitely suffer.
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In the case of the Summit Fire Recovery Project, what should have probably taken 6 months, took 24 months. We still have not seen the end of it. The appeal that was filed is one that we've seen templated and used in dozens of other appeals. The response from the agency is as if they've never seen this kind of an approach before. They treat every appeal the same. Anybody that's willing to invest in a word processing program and a $.32 stamp can virtually bring a planning process to a halt.
And in the case of the deterioration that Mr. Boyd mention, I can assure him that although his concern with southern pine beetles, we must have Yankee pine beetles in the Oregon area——
[Laughter.]
[continuing] because our pine beetles attack with the same kind of ferocity. We have the same blue stain, and checking, and deterioration—very rapid deterioration of our pine stocks.
I'll just show for illustration purposes, this is a blue-stained log. It's about 33 inches in diameter. After 24 months, you can see that the blue stain almost approaches the center of the heartwood. This log would have been relatively valuable if harvested within 6 months of the fire. Today, it has deteriorated to the point where it is just about pulpwood.
[Photograph.]
The same thing with this particular piece. This round is about 33 inches in diameter. You can see that the round is almost split all the way to the heartwood. Blue stain goes right to the heartwood, and there is ample evidence of pine bore beetle damage to this wood.
[Photograph.]
I do believe that there's a coefficient between environmental concerns and economic concerns, and it seems that there's a desire on the part of some folks in the environmental community to completely disconnect environmental considerations from economic considerations. But one of the things that we need to focus on is the kind of damage that we see as a result of these fires.
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This is a devastated, class-one stream in the Summit Fire Recovery area. It is habitat to bull trout, and it's habitat to steelhead. This is approximately 24 months after the fire. You can see that we still have exposed mineral soils. You can see that the treatments that should have been done in this area which would have been reducing the standing wood to lower the risk of reburn have not been done; that we have not had reforestation; and that the native vegetation has not returned to this area. This is after 24 months.
So I would submit to you that the failure to take appropriate and timely action can contribute to a long-lasting environmental degradation that does effect and impact species like steelhead, bull trout and other anadromous species. This is just one of the riparian areas that were devastated by that fire.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Senator Ferrioli, it seems down at the Forest Service does treat fire when it's actually occurring. It's an emergency, and then after the fire is over, it's no longer an emergency.
Mr. FERRIOLI. Madam Chairman, if I could comment?
We had 24 days of very intensive fire response. We spent a million dollars a day putting that fire out. At the end of the Fire Recovery Project, we should have had about 3 to 6 months, a period of time for scoping, planning for the recovery project and implementation. Due to the inexplicable responses of the Forest Service to the idea that they might have an appeal or the idea that somebody might sue, we saw that process protracted to 24 months. It just seems that the moral equivalency of war is what we bring to putting the fire out. We spent 24 months and about $1.7 million in planning for rehabilitation. To date, we've done nothing on the ground. So, you could say that there is a tremendous race for fire suppression and then an interminable process for planning and recovery.
And in the meantime, we see continuing resource degradation. The community stands to lose significantly. We have about 600 jobs at stake in keeping the mills open in our community. Our schools are already on a 4-day school week. The value of this project has dropped six-fold, meaning there will less dollars for schools, and roads in the counties. And the volume under contract in our community is between 3 and 6 months.
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So, we literally have a situation after the fire where the Forest Service seems to be engaged in a round-robin of planning while the community's needs are not met and environmental degradations pile up.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Senator.
Ms. Nelson, you mentioned that there were some times when forest restoration or thinning is acceptable. Are you referring to the Van Wagtendonk Study of 1996?
Ms. NELSON. I'm not referring that study as an example of when treatments would be called for. I used that study as an example that the way in which a treatment is done, meaning the techniques—specific techniques that are used have variable effects. So, for instance in that study, one of the treatments that was part of the experiment was lop and scatter and——
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Lop and scatter
Ms. NELSON. [continuing] lop and scatter. It's a standard fuel-treatment practice.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Would you explain for the record what lop and scatter is?
Ms. NELSON. Sure. It's an approach where the materials, tops of trees and branches, are scattered around the site, and this is a standard fuel treatment. The other kinds of treatments that were investigated by Van Wagtendonk—we have some model-base study prepared as part of the Sierra, Nevada Ecosystem Project, included prescribed burning, chipping, I believe. I think there were six treatments in all, and lop and scatter came out as the results of study indicated that lop and scatter on these stands would increase flame land and rate of spread of the fire.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Of course——
Ms. NELSON. Now, the reason that I mentioned the study in the first place was not to say that fuel treatment should not be done, but that environmental review is important because, you know, in the Sierras and those areas we would want to make sure that lop and scatter treatments are not being done on that site.
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Mrs. CHENOWETH. You do admit in your testimony that this model was constructed, but this has never applied in a natural setting
Ms. NELSON. Well, the treatments have been applied in a natural setting, and I think why, as Mr. Hill mentioned in his response——
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Now let me back up here.
Ms. NELSON. OK.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. I want you to answer my question because in your statement and let me quote to you——
Ms. NELSON. Yes.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. [continuing] ''given that the studies' conclusions are based on models that have not been tested in natural settings, results must be interpreted cautiously.''
Ms. NELSON. Yes, and that's how I view, as a scientist, I take a very cautious view on when and how much inference you can make from scientific studies. Now the interesting thing with this topic in general is that there are very few studies that have been conducted at all. So, this is the reason that we need to rely on modelling studies. If there were results from on-the-ground studies, that would provide further——
Mrs. CHENOWETH. So, we have a heavy fuel-load situation, and the only thing that you recommend in order to avoid the heavy fire that damages the soil creates a crowning effect is lop and scatter?
Ms. NELSON. The only thing that I recommend?
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Recommend, the thinning?
Ms. NELSON. Oh, no. You must have misheard what I said previously. I said lop and scatter increased rates of spread and flame land. So that would not be a good technique——
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Mrs. CHENOWETH. Alright.
Ms. NELSON. [continuing] in these particular forests in the Sierras.
Now, I don't say that there's one approach that I would recommend or not recommend in every situation. My point is that there is no blanket prescriptions that we can use for all stands, number one. And No. 2, that using the wrong treatments can result in higher risks because of activity fuels, as Mr. Hill mentioned previously. Activity fuels is the main problem with the implementation of treatments.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Let me ask you.
Ms. NELSON. Yes.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Given a situation where there has been 9 years of drought, the forests are stressed because of lack of moisture, there is heavy fuel load on the forest floor, what kind of thinning techniques would you recommend, specifically?
Ms. NELSON. Well, I would need to know more specifically about the stand than what you just told me. However, I would, No. 1—would not do anything on an emergency basis. And No. 2, I think the most important thing about this whole topic is that there is a need for more information about where to go with this incredibly large problem that we have as forest-free community.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you very much.
Mr. Peterson, the Subcommittee is having a hearing on fire readiness next week, and since we have you here now, we'd like to have you talk freely about the fires in Florida. I'd like for you to please feel free to share any important lesson learned. From your perspective with the Committee, and for the permanent record, I'd really like for you to elaborate on where you think we are most effective. Where you think we're the weakest, and on the quality of our equipment, people, and the communications And finally, I'd like to ask you what do you think we need to do to be better prepared for similar or worst occurrences in the future, God forbid
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Mr. Peterson.
Mr. L. EARL PETERSON. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Those are profound questions. If I can—but before I do that, if I might. I would just like to say that my experience with the Federal land managers are that they the people at the ground level would like to move more expeditiously and effectively in dealing with situations such as fire, disease, insects outbreak, but because of the fear, because of the threat of challenges, they feel their hands are tied. That things just have been said here today—the classic example which I have is 1995 when Opal hit Blackwater, we got our 50 million border feet out within six months and our neighbor across the way, the Conecult National Forest, they were only able to begin by the time we got through.
So, I think the local managers for the Federal agencies are very interested in being more aggressive in dealing with these problems, but they just feel like the process won't permit it.
The fires in Florida have been a challenge that I think has been well met by all. It's one of those things, Madam Chairman, that I don't think any state can meet either staff or equipped for that magnitude in that complexity of fire. I think there has to be a lot of lessons learned from this and I wish I had this opportunity about 3 or 4 weeks from now because the fires have barely stopped, and we are now in the process of critiquing, evaluating, and what went well, and what didn't go quite so well.
I will say that it was a classic example of good working relationships between, local, State, and Federal agencies. We had personnel in the state from every state except two, and most of those probably except for the southeast were Federal employees. We had about 5,175 out-of-state people in Florida at one time or another during this siege.
Bringing in those people and that equipment is a challenge of monumental proportions. I think there needs to be a better coordination between the ordering agencies to be sure that the right equipment is ordered. I think it also needs to refine the process so that there is not duplication, for example.
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In Florida, if you say I'm going to send ten dossiers, you really haven't helped me. You've got to send me ten dossiers that are low-ground pressure, white track. So, there's much room to refine the process of ordering to avoid duplications. We also had and I would hasten to say that I'm not suggesting that any of these are major problems except they just bear our attention. I think we need to solidify the resource-ordering process more closely than we have in the past so that we centralize to avoid the duplication; to avoid the wrong resources being ordered. That's an area I think we can.
Certainly within the State of Florida, there's some things that we will do different, but I think also, Madam Chairman, that this is a classic example of what, particularly the southern group of State Foresters, has been saying for a number of years and that is catastrophic fires are not, and should not, be considered unique to any one region of the country. It's a matter of time. It's a matter of time when any one region can have it and our policy, our strategies, and our operational designs should be developed along those lines, not overcommitted to any one region of the country.
I think generally speaking because of difference in terrains, the difference in fuel loads that the equipment issue is one that is a little more regionalized than others. To have people expected to come to Florida—or to the southeast I should say, with equipment and training that is applicable to the west or to the northeast is not always a good fit. So maybe a little more diverse training would be in order for that. I'm sure that's true. I told someone this morning that probably the most common phrase I heard was ''my God, it's green. It's burning,'' and that's not normally heard throughout the country.
The wild and urban interface, a terrific part in Florida, and certainly in some other states. We spent and inordinate amount of time, and energy, and resources steering fires around communities. That, admittedly, added to the acres burned, but each day the team set their priorities, and each day the priority was a protection of life, and residence, and property.
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I would also add that the working relationship between the State agency, and the Federal agency, and in this case, the Florida Division of Forestry and the U.S. Forest Service was excellent. Bearing in mind, when you bring in a type–1 overhead team, you get a big team and that's what you need at a time like that.
The Forest Service, from day one and every day thereafter, reminded us that we were the lead agency. They were there to help, and I never saw that change That was generally true of everyone that was there. Our sister agencies and State Government, they did not try to second guess or preempt what the forest agencies thought was the best strategies. We were, indeed, dealing with wildfires in most cases. The local fire departments did an excellent job helping us protect communities, residences, and those type things.
I think one of the lessons learned are reminded, it was probably already there, but it brought it into sharp focus that there needs to be a responsible, prescribed fire program. Now that has some issues on the other side that cannot be ignored, but particularly in the areas in and around communities and subdivisions, there has to be major fuel reduction efforts, and I think you will see us in the State of Florida put forth a great deal of effort in that regard.
When you go Palm Coast and you see 48,000 acres of one-time woodland sprinkled with 5,000 homes and you see some homes burned and some saved, and you know there's a difference there. You wonder what it is. It's probably a difference and coincidence for sure, but fuel reduction is part of the answer there. There has to be more dispensibles based by the homeowners. They have a responsibility here.
The wild and urban interface is an enormous challenge in Florida, not just in Palm Coast. We put water with our helicopter on 45 homes in a subdivision in southwest Florida earlier in the year.
So, these are some of the things—I might have rambled a bit here, but we're going to fine tune these. We are going to critique these. I think also something for us to work on and I know my Federal counterparts are certainly amenable to this, and that is how can we be more cost effective in firefighting. It's not cheap. It's not cheap, but when you have life and property at risk, you go get the fire out and then you try to come back and figure out how you can do it better and more cost effective next time.
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So, I would, again, thank all of those who helped us in this undertaking. It's quite an experience. We'll get it back together at some point in time, and I'm not sure if it'll be the same old routine as far as fire preparedness goes.
[The prepared statement of Mr. L. Earl Peterson may be found at end of hearing.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Mr. Peterson. That was very instructive and informative to us.
I do want you to know that I have put together a bill and dropped it about six months ago on the urban-interface-wildland fire suppression, and it deals directly with this issue, and it was put together on the recommendation of foresters from the Forest Service in the field. And so, I look forward to your looking at it. I look forward to Florida's support on this very important bill. It does affect that very critical area.
Mr. L. EARL PETERSON. We look forward to doing that.
One thing that I neglected to say. I think FEMA came to Florida. They were very involved. I think it was a learning process for them and us. I suggest that I think that they will be doing this. That they look more to being supportive in prepositioning and getting resources in place ahead of an urgent need, and indeed they did that in this case. It's something that they are not accustomed to. It was a new experience for them, but I will commend them for their efforts, but I think one of the things that we all have to do is be alert to the weather, the climates.
You see, Madam Chairman, what we had here was a coming together of a unique situation, with drought indexes, with fuel loadings, with fuel moistures, with climatic conditions all at one time, and those fires were spotting a quarter to a half a mile. So, that was just a terrible situation, but I think we all need to be more prone to preplan, to preposition to move our resources closer to where the area at risk may be before the catastrophe occurs.
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Mrs. CHENOWETH. Fire suppression is so important, but fire prevention is also very important.
Mr. Peterson it has come to my attention that you even had to deal with some arson activities down there during those fires.
Mr. L. EARL PETERSON. We always have and I'm sure each state does a certain amount of arson activity. There was a period of time there that it seemed like that on a few days that the larger part of our starts, as we would refer to, were by arsonists. Then there was those fires that began—were human caused by carelessness, and then there was that period of time where the majority of were lightning caused. These fires were, in large part, in what we call a lightning belt. So, we had all of the above, but certainly arsonists was part of it.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Mr. Peterson.
The Chair recognizes my colleague, John Peterson.
Mr. PETERSON OF PENNSYLVANIA. I thank the chairman.
I would like to ask a question to Ms. Nelson. I was pleased to hear that you are not opposed to thinning and salvage, and you probably had the chance in the recent years to look at a number of sites where this has been proposed. Could you share with the Committee a site where maybe you would have blessed a thinning and salvage cut
Ms. NELSON. Well, for instance, I think there are some cases where epidemic levels of beetles might require removal—say it was mountain pine beetle of large diameter trees, certain number on a site, to prevent spread into adjacent stands.
Looking at the flip side of that, for instance, the Texas exemption that just occurred. In that case, I would not be in support of removal because, from my understanding and again I have not visited those sites and I have just reviewed those materials in the record, there was no epidemic. The removal was intended as a risk-avoidance measure in case there were epidemic levels of infestations at some future time. And I think in balance there, the environmental damage associated with the salvage operation, which would occur, would outweigh the potential benefit at some point in the future if there did in fact—if the stand did, in fact, reach epidemic levels of southern pine beetles.
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Mr. PETERSON OF PENNSYLVANIA. So you wouldn't support it for economic reasons? I mean, to salvage the value of the timber that was there?
Ms. NELSON. Well, let me just say that I work as a scientist. I consult with NRDC, but I work as a research scientist and so I wouldn't comment on whether a sale should go forward for any particular reason. However, in the Texas example, the justification was an environmental one for forest health or protection of forest purposes.
Mr. PETERSON OF PENNSYLVANIA. And you disagreed with that?
Ms. NELSON. Yes, I don't think that that was a valid justification at that point in time.
Mr. PETERSON OF PENNSYLVANIA. This question may not be on this particular issue, but I guess for perspective, you know, half of the soft-wood timber owned in America is owned by the Federal Government. Do you support greencuts for economic reasons or for thinning or do you support cutting of timber on public land, personally
Ms. NELSON. On all public lands? You mean——
Mr. PETERSON OF PENNSYLVANIA. No, selected—I mean, almost all of it is locked up. There's about 20 percent that we actually practice forestry on of the land owned by the Federal Government, but do you——
Ms. NELSON. If you're asking me whether I would support a zero-cut policy on Federal lands, I would say, no.
Mr. PETERSON OF PENNSYLVANIA. You don't support zero cut?
Ms. NELSON. Yes.
Mr. PETERSON OF PENNSYLVANIA. OK, so on some situations you would. Is the only exception in a salvage area?
Ms. NELSON. No, I would support thinning and fuels reductions as well, but I'm a little uncomfortable even broaching the subject because I tend to try to avoid large policy matters like this and just think in terms of the science and the ecology involved. And so, I would support the removal of live trees, and a thinning for fuel reduction if I felt that that treatment would accomplish ecological objectives.
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Mr. PETERSON OF PENNSYLVANIA. OK. Last year I was out with the Speaker and the group that toured a number of states in the west and we flew over a 600,000 acre burn that had had a very heavy fuel load; I thought was the most devastating ecological disaster I had ever seen. You know, 600,000 acres where there wasn't anything green left; where the hillsides were sliding into the valleys; where the silt was unmeasurable. Wildlife not existent. Everything, everything had been killed. I'm sure insects were killed there. It took a long time to recreate a normal ecosystem, and I haven't seen Florida yet, but I hope to. When you have that kind of a fire, some may call it natural, but there's nothing much natural left when the fuel loads high and it burns with intensity. It destroys all life. It destroys plant life. In some places I'm told the soils are barren for many years, and so you're going to have huge amounts of siltation. And the ecological system is just destroyed and, I think some of those could have been prevented. I'd be interested to know, have you ever flown over a large area like that?
Ms. NELSON. Yes, I have, and I've worked in many of them. I've been doing forestry research for the last 10 years. I agree that fuels reduction is important. My concern is that commercial sales often exacerbate fuel problems. And so, I'm concerned——
Mr. PETERSON OF PENNSYLVANIA. How does that——
Ms. NELSON. How does that work
Mr. PETERSON OF PENNSYLVANIA. I guess I don't understand that.
Ms. NELSON. But what ends up happening——
Mr. PETERSON OF PENNSYLVANIA. I'm from the east. Our forest is different from yours. So, I understand the eastern forest better than I do the western forest.
Ms. NELSON. Yes, let me explain this to you. One, of the primary reasons why management can have the affect of increasing fuel loadings and then increasing hazard from future fires is that slash ends up on the ground, and managers don't have a good way of really dealing with that because in commercial sales the emphasis is on removing the live tree bowls.
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So, for instance, if you do a thinning, and a thinning as I said is a vague term and all different kind of things that can be done, the emphasis is on removing the larger trees and in the west often times the most fire-tolerant trees. What happens is the resulting trees have thinner bark. They're, you know, more flammable. They're a less fire-tolerant species. The height-to-life crown is lower, so crowning is more like to happen. And there's abundant fine fuels on the ground, and it's the fine, slashy fuels that really are the problem with fire spread.
So, those are reasons why if a thinning is not conducted properly and, in fact, many of the thinnings that are done in eastern Washington and Oregon fit the pattern that I just mentioned, then you end up with a stand that may be of greater fire risk. And even though the thinning purportedly was done to alleviate fire hazard.
Mr. PETERSON OF PENNSYLVANIA. Would anyone else on the panel like to grab that issue I mean, those of you that—I think you all deal with softwood forests. I'd be interested to hear your——
Mr. FERRIOLI. Madam Chairman, Representative Peterson, I am not a forest scientist, but I would like to take exception with a couple of comments that I've heard.
First of all, there is a prescription that won't allow harvest of trees larger than 21 inches diameter at breast height. It's called the eastside forest screen. So, we don't see the removal of large timber in almost any site on the eastside forest.
Secondly, the lop and scatter system of slash removal is very seldom used in my experience. Mostly it's bunch and burn which means that slash other than the large woody debris that left in profusion on those sites for nurse logs and for ecological function—most of the slash is gathered up and during the wet time of the year it's burned. So that we reduce the fuel loads for standing trees, then we reduce the fuel loads that would be residual fuel loads other than the large woody debris that serves an ecological function.
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So, it has been my experience that when we can get the Forest Service to do fuel-load reductions, and that is a rarity, that the prescriptions that are used to reduce the fuel loads actually do leave a far lower risk of fire. And if I could use a couple of photos to illustrate, this is an area where we have about 800 stems per acre. Actually, in this area it's about 60 percent dead. It was a beetle kill. There also was a fire that moved through here that did a lot of this tree mortality. This is the before picture of the Summit fire where the fire was in an area that was left untreated; where the fuel loads were not reduced. This is the after picture. This is part of the 38,000 acres that burned, and, as you can see, this is a devastated ecosystem. The ecosystem function here will be suppressed and reduced for generations. Fuel load reduction at this point in time could have prevented a hard burn, a more serious ecological disruption of the area. It was not done, and it has not been done. It's not been a regular feature of management in an intensive way for a long period of time. We really have ourselves to blame for that.
Fire suppression for a long period of time has allowed fuel loads to grow in our forests—in the pine forests of eastern Oregon and eastern Washington. The remediation of that is not to run around with a drip torch and just burn everything. The remediation of that is careful fuel loading and fuel load reductions on a systematic basis across that landscape followed by the reintroduction of slow, low-intensity, creeping fires, cleansing fires. We seem to want to go from the problem that we have, which is fuel load increases and relatively high stocking levels that are stressed, immediately through the process of devastating fires, to a process where we've reestablished a fire in the ecosystem. You can't get there from here. You need to go through the intermediary process of reduction of those fuel loads.
It seems to be a problem for many in the environmental community, because the bi-product of the reduction of fuel loads is supportive of timber-dependent communities, and the support of timber-dependent communities is something that's very close to local government. I particularly worry about that. I want to sustain the community. I can't sustain the community unless I sustain the ecosystem. I can't get income from the landscape unless I do fuel load reductions, and, therefore, there's no surplus to reinvest in ecosystem functions. The two are coefficient, and it seems like there are some folks in the world that want to completely disconnect the ecosystem costs which are high. Ecosystem management is expensive, and they want to disconnect the ecosystem costs with sustaining the local economy which produces the surplus for reinvestment. You can't take the two apart; they're coefficients.
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And, so I would say to you just that the fuel load reduction regimes that we would like to see implemented in the intermountain west would, to a great degree, fire-proof our forests; lower the danger of catastrophic fire, and allow the reintroduction of low-intensity creeping fires. It seems like we all want to get to the same place, and that is where fire has an integral part in the ecosystem, but we're being prevented from allowing that to happen, and the intermediary tool is actually salvage logging and fuel load reductions.
Mr. PETERSON OF PENNSYLVANIA. Ms. Nelson, do you want to respond?
Ms. NELSON. Yes, I would agree with what you said about your last statement about where we want to go, however, I don't agree that salvage and thinning will get us there unless prescriptions are done very differently than they are currently being done, and the reason is because, as you mentioned, right now, the Forest Service is not investing in the following up to the commercial activity which is dealing with activity slash, and I think as long as these commercial activities result in high levels of activity slash, then we're going to be exacerbating the problems that we have.
Mr. PETERSON OF PENNSYLVANIA. Mr. Peterson, is Florida that much different. I know it's not as old a forest, but would you care to respond to that?
Mr. L. EARL PETERSON. In many cases, in Florida, there is very little slash left in the logging operations. I believe that, in fact, that there needs to some organized way of reducing the fuel loads there, but many of our harvesting operations leave behind very little slash. Those that do is, generally, as he indicated, is piled and burned effectively in preparation for reforestation. So——
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. PETERSON OF PENNSYLVANIA. Sure.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you. I wanted to ask Ms. Nelson a follow up with regards to the prescriptions that you indicated that have not been properly employed, especially with regards to followup. I wonder if, for the record, you could be more specific about the prescriptions that you were talking about? What given situations do you think that there can be thinning and what kind of thinning and what kind of follow up?
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Ms. NELSON. Well, again, I wouldn't want to specify—I mean, it's hard to be specific about——
Mrs. CHENOWETH. But that's what we're asking—excuse me—that's what we're asking you for, specifics. We can't meet——
Ms. NELSON. Right, and that——
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Wait a minute, let me finish, please, if you don't mind. We can't meet your needs unless you help us understand specifically.
Ms. NELSON. And I was just about to do that. It's hard in the absence of a landscape and a specific forest example to talk in general, but I would have to say is that we need to be focusing on removal, in general, of small diameter material from the forest. These are the flashy fuels. These are the things that are, say in, below six-inch diameter. But when I was talking of large, I was speaking of trees that are much smaller than 20 inches still fit into my large category. So, that is what I think the emphasis should be on: removal of the very small stuff out there that's the flashy fuels. I think that thinning and salvage prescriptions that focus on removing the large fire-tolerant species will only create further problems.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. I understand that, especially in a green forest, and the thinning of the smaller diameter, low-level fuel load is very important, but given the example that Mr. Ferrioli used, where there was a huge stand of diseased timber that had been infested with insects—bark beetle, I think he said—60 percent of it was destroyed. It was large diameter timber, and so it was very susceptible to a very, very hot fire that devastated stream beds, and, like he said, will take generations to recover. How would you recommend, specifically, that the Forest Service and the local people deal with something like this?
Ms. NELSON. Well, I think that with bark beetle epidemics, they're tied to climatic factors, and they've occurred naturally in forests for long periods of time, and I think it's not possible to entirely remove mortality from bark beetle epidemics. In some cases, I think it may appropriate to remove or, say, the mountain beetle on large diameter trees to prevent spread into other areas, and I think it's just a case-by-case basis.
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Mrs. CHENOWETH. So, in some cases, it's appropriate to remove those trees.
Ms. NELSON. Yes. And under epidemic situations, but, again, I don't think it's appropriate to, in every case, focus on removal of large diameter trees to prevent, number one, risk of the infestation if there's just endemic levels, and, second, I don't think it's possible to completely reduce mortality from epidemic levels of bark beetles. I also think that we have to be careful about the adverse effects of removal activities post-disturbance. So, after windthrow or fire, these stands are particularly sensitive. Post-fire stands are very sensitive in terms of soils and sediment into streams and already taking a large hit, and I think we want to be very careful about increasing degradation of those stands.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Are you familiar with the Knudsen-Vandenberg funds?
Ms. NELSON. Yes.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. And those are specifically targeted for restoration, aren't they?
Ms. NELSON. Yes.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Yes, they are. So, I think that has been provided for, but, Mr. Ferrioli, do you have any followup?
Mr. FERRIOLI. Thank you, Madame Chairman. Only that it's been my experience, again, from personal observation that fuel load treatments are done after recovery projects and after salvage removal, so that by the forester's estimation and the project estimation that there is no increase in risk for fire for reburn. As a matter of fact, part of the prescriptions would be to lower the fuel loading for the fires which are flash fuels, so that they do not present a risk. So, I'm not familiar with the regime that Ms. Nelson's describing. What I've observed for myself on the ground following green sales and salvage sales is that we see fuel load reductions that would by far reduce the risk of reburn or the risk of catastrophic fires.
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Mrs. CHENOWETH. I do have to say that this has been extremely interesting to me, and while I've asked some very pointed questions, I do want to say—and I will yield to Mr. Boyd—but I do want to say that the exchange that has gone here has not only been interesting to me but will serve as a very valuable, permanent record, because until we can really understand how each other is thinking, can we really reach a successful conclusion. And I think that we're all very, very interested in making sure that our environment is protected for future generations, not only from one standpoint, but from a variety of balanced prescriptions and uses. So, although I have focused my questions primarily at Ms. Nelson and Mr. Ferrioli, I want to thank both of you for your very interesting and informative answers and for your time here.
And before I yield to Mr. Boyd, I do want to ask Mr. Hill a question about the Society of American Foresters. Has your organization done any studies or are you aware of studies on the effects of fuel treatments on fire?
Mr. HILL. The Society of American Foresters hasn't done studies themselves—ourselves, but many of the members are involved with agencies that are doing such work, particularly, the Forest Service. We have a position of statement on fire management that points to the seriousness of the urban-rural interface problem. But the question, directly, is no, we have not done any studies ourselves.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you very much. The Chair yields to Congressman Boyd.
Mr. BOYD. Thank you very much, Madame Chairman. I, too, have found this very interesting and want to thank all the panel members. I don't want this to become a beat up on Ms. Nelson meeting, but, Ms. Nelson, I listened to your testimony, and it's obvious to me that you oppose salvage operations or thinning or fuel treatments for reduction of fire danger; at least I've been unable to gather from your comments any specific instances where you would think those were OK. But what I do want to do here is tell you that in your remarks you describe the results of study of the Bear-Potato Analysis Area by the Wenatchee National Forest—I have a copy of that study here. Is that the study was referenced?
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Ms. NELSON. I can't see it from where you are, but——
Mr. BOYD. The Environmental Assessment Bear-Potato Analysis Area of the Tyee Fire Recovery Area?
Ms. NELSON. Yes.
Mr. BOYD. OK. You cited only one portion of that study; the part that compared the effects of fuel treatment with no fuel treatments in areas that had not been harvested. Then, you concluded that harvest treatment may increase the risk of fire damage, but since you were describing non-harvested areas, your conclusion appears to be misleading, if not, inaccurate, and I want to read to you the conclusion that the Forest Service wrote in the study that you quoted from: ''From this initial review of harvest fuel treatment on the fire effects of the Tyee fire, there may be an indication that harvested land had a better chance to burn black when compared to non-harvested land. However, the reader should be reminded that many factors were not included in this review; factors like the timing of the fire; intensity of the smoke column; weather; type of fire; head or backing fire; terrain; aspect and slope are all important in the resulting fire effect on a piece of land. This review only considered whether an area was harvested or not or fuels treated or not.'' And it continues: ''However, since a treated and non-treated harvested area from the same time period—1971 to 1994—would have an equal possibility to be burned at roughly the same time, the figures in table 2—which you did not cite—are a good indication''—I'm still quoting from the conclusions—''are a good indication that fuels treatment in a harvested area did reduce the fire effect.'' Let me say that again: ''The figures in table 2 are a good indication that fuels treatment in a harvested area did reduce the fire effect.
What is not as clear, however, is whether a harvest itself influenced fire behavior in any way. Perhaps, the largest study that included modeling weather, time of day, et cetera, could more accurately answer this question, but this is the best conclusion possible given the time and the resources for this study.''
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Madame Chairman, I would submit a copy of this environmental assessment that was quoted——
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Without objection, so ordered.
[The information may be found at end of hearing.]
Mr. BOYD. [continuing] for the record, and I would also say, Ms. Nelson, that on several occasions I've heard you refer to the science and technology on at least a few occasions I've heard you refer to being a scientist, and I would submit to you, Ms. Nelson, that a scientist would not come before this congressional committee and cite a scientific fact, just a portion of an environmental assessment to draw a certain conclusion, and I'm very sorry about that. I yield back.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Mr. Boyd. With that, I want to say this panel is excused. Thank you very, very much for your time and all the effort that each and every one of you have made to be here. You have been before the panel for nearly 2 hours, and I very much appreciate the expertise that you've brought to the record.
The Chair now asks that Chief Mike Dombeck, Chief of the U.S. Forest Service in Washington, DC; Mr. Robert Joslin, Deputy Chief, National Forest Service in Washington, DC, come forward along with Rhey Solomon, Deputy Director, Ecosystem Management, Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, DC. It's my understanding, Mr. Solomon, that you are simply accompanying Mr. Joslin and the Chief, right
Mr. SOLOMON. To my knowledge, yes.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. You do not have a prepared testimony.
Mr. SOLOMON. I have no prepared testimony.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Welcome back. It's been a long time since either one of you have been before the Committee, and we are looking forward to your testimony on this particular issue, and, as usual, we ask that all witnesses be sworn in. So, I wonder if you might stand and raise your hand to the square?
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[Witnesses sworn.]
Chief Dombeck.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL DOMBECK, CHIEF, FOREST SERVICE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. DOMBECK. Thank you, Madame Chairman. I'd like to start by saying to Congressman Boyd and our State forester, Earl Peterson, I just really commend the heroic efforts of the citizens of your State, the State employees, and the many Forest Service employees, BLM employees, and other Federal fire fighters that participated in the really tough situation you had in your State, and I think it's just absolutely phenomenal that they did the job that they did with a minimal amount of human injury and under the tremendous loss we had, and I think that demonstrates the effectiveness of the skills of our employees, and the fact is we in the United States do have the most effective and efficient wildland fire-fighting mechanism in the world. The incident command system is something that's been emulated and used in many, many cases, and it's something that we need to continue to improve upon and analyze every situation which we do.
Now, to the topic at hand: environmental analysis and NEPA compliance in emergency situations on national forest system lands, and my written testimony incorporates the concerns and comments of both the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. As has been stated here numerous times, the National Environmental Policy Act is our basic national charter for protection of the environment. It establishes policy, sets goals, and provides the means for implementing policy. The regulations issued by the Council of Environmental Quality in 1978, which implement NEPA, provide for alternative arrangements to the normal NEPA procedure in emergency situations.
The Forest Service and CEQ have used emergency provisions in the CEQ regulations three times, and BLM has used the alternative situations five times, and we're prepared to discuss those Forest Service situations if you wish, Madame Chairman. Generally, alternative arrangements are initiated where a clear emergency to human health, safety, or the environment is present, and the actions proposed is environmentally significant as defined by the CEQ regulations. Often, actions proposed to be taken in emergency situations do not arise to the environmental significance level, and, therefore, do not require alternative arrangements. For these situations, the Forest Service follows its normal NEPA procedures.
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The Forest Service and BLM believe that the procedures we use for requesting alternative arrangements to NEPA compliance for emergencies work. The existing authority is appropriate and adequate to administer our Nation's national forests and other public lands. We appreciate the Committee's interest in alternative arrangement provisions for NEPA, and we understand the Committee's desire to use extraordinary processes more broadly. We'd be happy to discuss any questions you have, Madame Chairman, Congressman Boyd.
I have with me, Deputy Chief of the National Forest System, Bob Joslin, who not only has worked on the ground level, the field level of the Forest Service in all parts of the country, including the South, but also administers the programs of the National Forest System, and Rhey Solomon is our Deputy Director of Ecosystem Management and is our technical expert when it comes to NEPA, the appeals process, and those kinds of things. So, we hope that between the three of us, the dialogue will be helpful, and we can be as responsive as possible to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Dombeck may be found at end of hearing.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you very much, Chief. The Chair recognizes Mr. Joslin.
Mr. JOSLIN. Madame Chairman, I did not have any statement to make. I come with the Chief to answer any questions that I can for you and the members of the Committee, and I appreciate the opportunity to be here.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you. Well, then I'll begin with questioning, and I'll direct my questions to the Chief. How many times has the Forest Service applied for alternative arrangements
Mr. DOMBECK. Three times.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. About three times. And can you cite those times and specific occurrences?
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Mr. DOMBECK. Yes, the first situation was Bull Run Lake near Portland, Oregon, and the purpose of that was for protection of domestic water supplies. The second time was the situation that you mentioned in your opening statement, Madame Chairman, the Eighth Street fire in Boise, and the third time was the removal of the blowdown damage in the red-cockaded woodpecker habitat in east Texas, and that was a situation where I personally toured to view the work in progress and was very, very pleased with what I saw just a few months ago.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. As you know, NEPA was written with the understanding that there are times when expedited processes are needed. Also, the National Forest Management Act was written with that in mind and even uses mandatory language that requires the Secretary to move through the processes so we can remove the timber that can create an explosion of disease or insect infestation. And this is just common sense.
What doesn't make sense to us is that the Forest Service doesn't see the need to ever use these expedited processes other than the three cited that were allowed for in the law. Apparently, there must be some reason, and we need to be able to try to resolve this, because, as I review the law, the law says the Secretary shall do certain things, and I know it's frustrating for you, Chief, not to be able to see your agency move quickly. We've had discussions about this, and I know how you feel, I believe. Would you state and advise us, for the record, why you're unable to follow the NEPA requirements as well as NFMA requirements for moving very quickly?
Mr. DOMBECK. Well, let me answer that question in a couple of parts. Concerning the alternative arrangements, as I understand it—and Rhey is more of an expert in this area—that the criteria that are used are the threat to human health and safety and violation of law is the two criteria that we apply when we ask for alternative arrangements. The second part of the question regarding the slowness of the process, I think we have to go a long way to find anyone that isn't somewhat frustrated by that, and I have continually instructed the Forest Service, and, in fact, of my time as a BLM employee, likewise, that BLM—we have to be relentless about simplifying the procedures that we have. That doesn't mean that they be simplistic or not based on science or in any way not comply with the letter of the law from the standpoint of NEPA or the public involvement process and that type of thing. And this is something that there has been progress made in some areas, and I would cite one example and that's the section 7—rather, the consultation process with regards to the Endangered Species Act when Jack Ward Thomas was Chief and I was the Director of BLM. We gathered and looked for alternatives to streamline that process, and, basically, what we did in that situation was took a process that was a serial process and changed it to a parallel process, and it reduced the time frames by almost half. And, in fact, as a result of that effort, we reduced the backlog of ESA consultations by—a backlog of about 1,200 consultations to 0 in just a matter of—what's it, about 2 or 3 years, Bob?
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Mr. JOSLIN. Yes.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. And, Rhey, I wanted to ask you since the Chief referred to you and with your permission, Chief.
Mr. DOMBECK. Yes.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. The Chief made mention of the two criteria—human health and life—and adhering to existing law as the criteria under which the Forest Service moves ahead on a expedited basis, and I'm specifically referring the National Forest Management Act in section 1611. Let me read that into the record, because it says nothing in the subsection of this section: ''Nothing in subsection A of this section shall prohibit the Secretary from salvage or sanitation harvesting of timber stands which are substantially damaged by fire, windthrow or other catastrophes or which are in imminent danger from insect or disease attack. The Secretary may either substitute such timber for timber that would otherwise be sold under the plan or, if not feasible, sell such timber over and above the plan volume period.''
Now, it seems under existing law that we've moved to other law and forgot the existing law that the Congress passed in the Forest Management Act. Can you help explain that?
Mr. SOLOMON. Well, Madame Chairman, in response to that, the way the Forest Service and all agencies in government have implemented the procedures of NEPA is we believe that we can do better decisionmaking by looking at environmental considerations that NEPA requires us to look at and integrated that into our processes. The provisions under NEPA that require the emergency provisions are really aimed for immediate emergencies and only working with the Council on Environmental Quality for the immediate problem of that emergency, and——
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Mr. Solomon, I asked you about the National Forest Management Act, and you're talking about another Act. I read to you from the Forest Management Act and asked you for your opinion with regards to what I read. It gives a clear indication that you can move ahead. I don't want to interrupt your thinking, but I want us both to be focused on the same thing, and then we can move to whatever else you'd like to focus on.
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Mr. SOLOMON. And we believe we can move with compliance with that law through the normal NEPA process.
Mr. DOMBECK. I'd like to add to that and that we do grant emergency exemptions of stay from the administrative appeals process, as was the situation with the Summit Fire, and I will agree that that is a situation that—in fact, the regional forester is looking at very, very closely as to the instructions that Regional Forester Williams gave them out here, as he told me, was the fact that we've got to get this moving as quickly as we can understanding that it's a situation that's beyond us, but then take a very close look at that situation and what could have been done differently, as we will be involved in similar situations in the future. So, I would just add that we do grant stay for administrative appeals on occasion for emergencies, specific situations.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Like what kind of emergencies?
Mr. DOMBECK. Well, the Summit was an example, and I might ask Bob if he might be aware of other situations.
Mr. JOSLIN. In particular, the Summit situation, the regional forester had come in and requested exemption of the stay that we have in effect which is up to a 45-day timeframe after the decision is made, so that they could go ahead and get on with that project and not go through another winter and another spring run-off as they already had to do as a result of what happened. So, rather than the—the forest supervisor also requested that, and, as a result, we agreed with him and granted him that exemption of that stay process.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Senator Ferrioli showed us some very telling and graphic pictures of a bark beetle kill over 60 percent of the standing trees, obviously, had already died from bark beetle, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that even the green-appearing trees had been infested with bark beetle. Why are we not seeing—in terms of prevention of catastrophic fire and destruction to the watershed—why aren't we seeing more implementation of 1611 prior to fires occurring?
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Mr. JOSLIN. Well, one of the things that we've talked about with you before—and I think that he explained that very well—that we have 40 plus million acres out there at risk of national forest lands that we do need to be taking a look at to see what we can do as far as reducing those fuels as he so well laid out in the Summit situation.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. But, Mr. Joslin, I'm growing increasingly impatient with this agency just taking a look, while our forests burn. I mean, I have been hearing that for years, and I see no on-the-ground change. You have had my personal respect, but I am saying to you that this—I am, personally, and this Committee is growing increasingly impatient with the fact that all we hear from those who may presumably oppose active on-the-ground fire prevention techniques, we're going to study it more; we want to look at it. We can't have that in this country any longer, because this agency has been given one of the Nation's most valuable resource, and we're losing it. I mean, Mr. Ferrioli testified to the fact that to fight that fire cost $25 million. He testified to the fact that when you add the environmental studies and the legal costs and so forth, that fire, alone, cost $30 million. Now, if you had to bear the burden of all of that on timber sales, your timber sales would look even worse than they do now, and it must be a source of embarrassment to see that the timber fund is now in the red, and we're not even applying all that could be applied against the timber fund sales. I don't mean to sound impatient, but I am. I want to see on-the-ground activity. I mean, out in the Northwest and now down in Florida, we are hurting. We have hundreds of thousands of acres of burned timber; hundreds of thousands of acres of devastated timber. What used to be magnificent stands of green timber that protected our watersheds and our streams are now being destroyed because of an inability to crash through and do exactly what the Congress said we should do; not rearrange what the Congress but exactly what the law states very simply that should be done.
Mr. JOSLIN. Madame Chairman, if I could, and I'd refer to Congressman Boyd's State of Florida and Earl Peterson, we have three national forests down there—we mentioned the Osceola and Appalachicola, and we also have the Ocala—and Congressman Boyd mentioned the acreages burned down there. I think that the Ocala National Forest is probably had more management for a longer period of time than any of the other national forests. Those things are going on there. We had a total, I believe—and Earl can probably verify that—383 acres is all that burned there, and I think if you have an opportunity to see that forest that it is one that's had some intensive work done as you're referring to. So, I understand your impatience. We have that impatience too, but there are some places where we are doing some of those things.
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Mrs. CHENOWETH. Well, I look forward to seeing more results also in the Northwest.
Mr. DOMBECK. Madame Chairman, I'd like to just make a couple of points that I think are important—Senator Ferrioli also commented on this—and that's that our fastest growth program is fuels treatment. In fact, we've gone from treating about .5 million acres a year to a 1.5 million acres a year, and we're ratcheting up our skills and pushing the budget in that direction and have had good support for that from the environmental community as well as the timber industry to do the thinning work, and we'd like to be up to about 3 million acres per year on the national forest system lands.
So, it's a program that we're not just looking the other way. We're continuing to push that, although there's a level of impatience there that we're not moving fast enough, and the magnitude of work in the urban wildland interface is very, very important. What we have to do is we have to do it in a way where we can maintain and build credibility and build a support base and move toward lighter on the land technologies. People are more and more opposed to soil disturbance activities, and the industry and the agency and other entities continue to see great strides in improvement of technologies, and we've got to increase the rate of application.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Chief, I'd have to share with you and share on the record the fact that each individual forest used to be responsible for making sure that the fuel load was reduced in their forest plan and that disease and insect infestation were taken care of. But when we have centralized planning and we have goals involving a certain number of acres and we expand those goals, that takes the authority away, it would appear, from the unit managers, that they are not able to implement the necessary programs that would prevent the emergencies that we're now dealing with. The horse is probably out of the barn in many of these areas, and, like Senator Ferrioli testified, it's going to take generations for, even with active management, for the forest to be rehabilitated. And I think part of it comes back to the fact that, Chief, you testified in your statement, you stated that rarely do these events constitute an emergency. Since the law is so clear as to what must be done and it isn't even—it's mandatory language; it uses the word ''shall.'' When you're involved in windthrow or disease or insect infestation or burns. The law has dealt with those as an emergency, because it gave you the expedited ability. What do you—don't you agree with that or what do you believe constitutes an emergency?
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Mr. DOMBECK. Well, as I indicated earlier, I believe the definition of emergency—and let me ask Rhey to verify this—is basically derived through the NEPA process. Is that correct
Mr. SOLOMON. It's been derived by——
Mr. DOMBECK. And by CEQ regulations.
Mr. SOLOMON. [continuing] by the 30 cases that CEQ has approved over the years have helped define what the nature of what they define as an emergency under the definition of NEPA.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. You know what we've seen here is through an agency that was not created and authorized by the Congress, we've see case law at whatever level of the courts that may have been rendered defining what an emergency is when the Congress defined already, and I just read it to you in 1611 when and how you must move in an expedited procedure; 1611. It is so clear, and it's being ignored, and my frustration, Chief, even with your legal folks, this is not pushed in terms of defending the Forest Services actions such as on the Malheur when they needed to get in and get that destroyed timber out. We're not seeing it come from the legal folks in terms of the defense that is needed, and when we start relaying decisions emanating from CEQ or other laws and ignore what is directly written as your responsibility, no wonder we lose in court, and no wonder we compound the problem. It creates so much frustration, I know, for you as well it does for me.
I'd like for you to take another look at this 1611 Rhey, and I would like to meet with you on it and discuss it with you.
Mr. SOLOMON. I'd gladly do that.
Mrs.
CHENOWETH. Congressman Boyd.
Mr. BOYD. Thank you, Madame Chairman; I can't wait. First of all, I think, gentleman, I know that we'll welcome you here, and I know that you're the messenger more so than the policymaker in this case. I want to disclose for all here some of my biases on this issue, and I want to do that by way of telling you what our situation is in the second congressional district or in north Florida. Mr. Joslin referred to three national forests in Florida which I'm all intimately familiar with; two of them reside in the district that I represent, and I worked for a couple of summers in college in the other in Ocala National Forest. Mr. Joslin, it's a beautiful area. It has some wonderful natural springs, natural resources in it that I spent many days, hours swimming and diving in.
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But the Appalachicola National Forest is totally contained within the Second Congressional District that I represent. It's about 565,000 acres of forest land. Actually, it was private land in the early 1900's; it was totally cut over, timbered out. The Federal Government bought it, and over the last 75 years or so—I don't know those exact numbers, but I assume it's about 75 years—has rebuilt and regrown into a wonderful, wonderful national forest that contains the world's largest populations of red-cockaded woodpecker, and many of us are very proud of that.
The Osceola National Forest is about 157,000 acres around Clean Lake City in Jacksonville. About half of that is contained in the Second Congressional District, and it contains probably the largest population of black bear left in the State of Florida which we also are very proud of and we manage and protect very carefully. Having said that, I can tell you that some of the practices we put in place in the last few years, after we established the world's population of the red-cockaded woodpecker, then we began to change the silvicultural practices which enabled us to establish that, and mostly had to do with how we managed that forest, and, as we were making those changes, which, actually, were ratcheting down the cutting, timber cutting, almost to zero, we did two things to alleviate the hardship on the local government. Obviously, there's several hardships, one has to do with ad valorem taxes to that government in which they fund their local governments and their schools, and the other, of course, is the economic activity in the local community.
We did two things: we put in place a PILK Program, Madame Chairman—which I'm sure you are familiar with, the payment of lower taxes—which works fairly well, but we also put in place a 25 percent program which we said to the community to replace what we've taken away from you, we're going to give you 25 percent in revenue of what we cut off of that land. Well, guess what over a period of a few short years after that, we ratcheted that cutting down to almost zero, and so it's our school system which was collecting—I have a school system which probably has 1,000 students in it, very small; maybe 1,500. Ten years ago, it was collecting in the neighborhood of $400,000 and now collects about $50,000. It's a very significant impact on that school system. So, I say that only to lay out my biases relative to some of these issues.
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Now, Chief Dombeck, if I could, go to a question and that is the specific criteria that must be present for you to apply for an alternative arrangement under NEPA—and I think you've answered that there was three instances that must—one of three that must exist: human health issues, human life, or a violation of law. Did I get that right
Mr. DOMBECK. Yes.
Mr. BOYD. OK. And that's been applied for three times, I think you answered, in the history of its existence.
Mr. DOMBECK. Yes.
Mr. BOYD. What was the Texas situation I mean, which one of those criteria was present to enable us to use the alterative arrangement in the Texas windstorm earlier this year
Mr. DOMBECK. I believe two of the three. No. 1, in working with the Fish and Wildlife Service on the red-cockaded woodpecker situation, we would have received the jeopardy opinion on damage to that habitat if the trees would not be removed, and, second——
Mr. BOYD. Let me interrupt you there. That you would have received damage to the RCW population
Mr. DOMBECK. That's correct.
Mr. BOYD. And, so that would fall under a threat to human health, human life, or a violation of law?
Mr. DOMBECK. Violation of law.
Mr. BOYD. So, it doesn't have to be mankind violation of law, it could be God's violation of law. Is that what I hear you saying?
Mr. DOMBECK. Well, I believe, I would interpret that to be the our ability to apply a management action to mitigate a situation; in this case, to avoid a jeopardy opinion on the red-cockaded woodpecker.
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Mr. BOYD. OK. Even though the fact that it was a disaster—what we call an act of God, I think would be the proper term—that would fall under your category of violation of the law. Is that what I hear you saying And that was the criteria you used to apply there to make sure that we got this done.
Mr. DOMBECK. I'm not going to be the one to pass judgment on an act of God and a violation of law, but the fact is that the management activity that we could apply could enhance red-cockaded woodpeckers habitat or prevent damage.
Mr. BOYD. What was the second criteria?
Mr. DOMBECK. The second criteria was safety from the standpoint of the roads were basically impassible and with all the trees that were down. So, there was the need to get in there and to clear trees from the roads, so the roads would be passable.
Mr. BOYD. But safety wasn't one of the three criteria—I'm sorry; didn't mean to interrupt.
Mr. DOMBECK. From the standpoint of human safety.
Mr. BOYD. Human safety wasn't one of the criteria that you mentioned. I don't know if those are written in stone or written in regulations or law or what, but human health, was that——
Mr. DOMBECK. Health and safety.
Mr. BOYD. OK, health and safety. Well, I'm very pleased that the folks in Texas had that opportunity to do what would seem to be the naturally right thing to do and that is go in and salvage and rehabilitate the forest area, but it seems like we certainly stretched the application of the criteria in that example, and it just leads me to wonder if we shouldn't revisit the criteria themselves and figure out if there are not other situations, for instance, the forest; the burns that we've had in Florida. And my next question really leads to that. Do you see any of those criteria that we can use to apply the expedited process in Florida, so that we don't lose the salvage operation
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Mr. DOMBECK. Well, what I would do is I would rely on Marcia Carney, the Forest Supervisor, and the district rangers that work there to make that determination and then to come forward if they believe that emergency exists.
Mr. BOYD. OK. Well, that gives me some comfort, because I had an opportunity—she's new, as you know, in our State, and I had an opportunity to spend some time with her last weekend, and I think she's a very professional and reasonable person who will consider all of the criteria.
We had 20,000 acres burn—Madame Chair, do I have additional time? We had about 20,000 acres burn in each of our national forests. In the Appalachicola, actually, it was all wilderness with the exception of about 15 acres, as you know. It's interesting how that came about. Actually, those two fires started simultaneously on the same day, and we went in the non-wilderness area with our—you did with your equipment and put that fire out, and it burned 15 acres. On the wilderness side, you couldn't go in to prevent—to stop the fire, and, as you know, it burned up about 20,000 acres of the wilderness, and my question is this: Is that what we anticipate or want to do with our statutes relative to the wilderness or do we have any waiver process relative to the rules in our wilderness like we do with the alterative arrangement that would allow us to react to that kind of situation to prevent the fire from spreading throughout the whole wilderness or do we consider that natural and we're comfortable letting it go ahead and burn?
Mr. JOSLIN. Congressman Boyd, what we've done in the wilderness, in particular, Florida's been a leader in that, because the State forester, Earl Peterson, and his folks, and the U.S. Forest Service have a long history there, and prescribed fire and fire management, as you well know, has been an important part of the ecosystem down there. We have plans for each one of those wilderness areas that spells out how we'll deal with fire; whether if it's a man-caused fire, we'll deal with it one way; if it's a natural fire that's caused by lightening may be dealt with another way, but there are always provisions there. If we're having threats to external areas, the fire going outside of the wilderness, prescriptions are all set up there, and there are provisions, yes, if we need to get in there with caterpillars or whatever we need to get in there as far as suppression; that are provisions that the regional forester can authorize their use in connection with fire suppression activities in a wilderness.
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Mr. BOYD. If I might, Madame Chairman, continue? You do have a legal authority to weigh those rules.
Mr. JOSLIN. Yes, we do.
Mr. BOYD. Do you have any indication of whether this was man-started in the Appalachicola National Forest or was it natural?
Mr. JOSLIN. I do not know that. We can find that out, but I, personally, I don't know whether that was created by lightening or it was arson or——
Mr. BOYD. Well, let me answer what I believe, and this is from having talked to the people that are on the ground down there and the location that it started. Both of those started on the highway, and they're reported to be arsonist, arson-started, and, of course, on one side the road was non-wilderness and the other side was wilderness, and we had 15 acres burn in the non-wilderness and the 20,000 acres burn in the wilderness. So, I don't have clear proof that it was arsonists, but the people who are there fighting the fires say that that's what it was.
Mr. JOSLIN. Well, I'm sure that they have conducted an investigation there to try to determine the cause of it, but, as I say, I personally don't know. I haven't talked with anyone or seen——
Mr. BOYD. So, does your flexibility in the rules that you have, when it's man-started does it allow you to—is that the situation where you would be allowed to take the equipment in to stop it?
Mr. JOSLIN. Where it says started by man, we would take aggressive action to suppress that fire.
Mr. BOYD. But that wasn't done in this case?
Mr. JOSLIN. Now, I don't know whether it was or wasn't.
Mr. BOYD. And that really brings me to a point. One of the things that I have learned and I've become convinced of after talking to the people on the ground and Marcia Carney and others, is that we really need to give our folks on the ground more authority to react quickly, and, obviously, you're going to have to react very quickly in that case, because that fire, I think, burned about 4,000 acres the first day. But we really need to give them more authority, and one of the things I would encourage you and Madame Chairman, this Committee, to work on is to make sure that our people on the ground have more authority to react quickly in those kinds of emergency situations.
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Madame Chairman, I'm sure I have other questions, but I'm going to stop there in the interest of time.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Mr. Boyd. I do want to let you know you are welcome to submit to us any questions you would like for us to submit to the witnesses. We usually keep the record open for 10 working days. And, so I'd be happy to work with you on that.
Mr. BOYD. Well, thank you, Madame Chairman, on behalf of the people that I represent who are really taking a beating in some of the counties where 75, 80 percent of their land is in the national forest. Sometimes, I don't want to go home on the weekends, because I know what's going to happen. They're going to beat on me. I get beat on every weekend from folks are affected by the activities or they go on in the national forest. And we really are proud of the world's largest RCW population, and we need to protect that, but we also need to take into consideration the needs of the humans who live in that area and who helped rebuild that forest from the time that it was cut 75 years ago. So, I'll close with that.
Mr. JOSLIN. Congressman, if I could, I know that Liberty County is one of those down there in your area that's heavily impacted.
Mr. BOYD. Well, I'm grateful that you know about Liberty County, because you're right. That's a county that I don't go into that I don't come back with many battle scars, wounds.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. I do want to also mention and announce that this Committee will be holding hearings in Florida on the fire suppression, fire prevention activities that are needed. And, Mr. Boyd, I want to invite you to be a part of that process. You are more than welcome to join us in your area and we're there to make sure that we hear from your constituents as well. So, thank you for joining us today.
I wanted to ask the Chief, it's my understanding the Forest Service wins 98 percent of all appeals upon administrative review. Isn't that correct, about 98 percent?
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Mr. DOMBECK. Let me ask Rhey.
Mr. SOLOMON. Madame Chairman, are you talking about the appeals that are reversed or remanded v. those that are upheld? Is that what you mean?
Mrs. CHENOWETH. I'm talking about those that are upheld.
Mr. SOLOMON. Yes, it's about 90 percent of those, now, are upheld by the reviewing officer at the higher level.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. And, then, of those 2 percent that go on up and are appealed on up, you win about 98 percent of the 2—or you win about 98 percent of those cases in the higher courts too.
Mr. SOLOMON. Well, no, I'm talking the administrative appeal process which is different than the litigation, the court process.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. I understand, Mr. Solomon, that it is different. I had moved from the administrative process. Of those 2 or 10 percent that are then appealed on into the court system, the Forest Service wins about 98 percent of those cases appealed into the district courts or on up into the higher level of the appellate courts.
Mr. SOLOMON. No, those are not the statistics that I have seen. The ones I have seen of recent cases is more around 60 percent.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. That's still not a bad win ratio, and, golly, with that in mind, I used to work on cases also before I came to the Congress. That's not a bad win ratio, and it makes me wonder why the Forest Service is so reticent to challenge the legal challenges that are threatened. For instance, in the Oregon situation, we've had the same type of situations in Idaho. We're seeing it all over. Why is the Forest Service so reticent to move ahead under 1611 or under the authority that Congress have given because of a threat of lawsuit Why aren't you being more aggressive in defending the law and defending your agencies?
Mr. DOMBECK. I would like to see the specific numbers myself, because I have not seen them recently. But what we see is that we see the most controversial come to the surface. As I look at the number of decisions that are made, for example, through the NEPA process each year, we have over 13,000 decisions are made either through the environmental impact statement process, environmental assessment process or categorical exclusion process. In fact, I appreciate the compliment, because like Congressman Boyd, some days in the Natural Resource Management business, we don't get many compliments, but the fact is we do have a good track record on the decisionmaking process, and the ones that come to the surface are really the ones that are the most controversial, and we need to focus on those and try to bring a resolution on those as well.
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Mrs. CHENOWETH. Chief, I know the feeling. There are some days even Congressman just all we hear are the complaints. So, I certainly can sympathize with that, but in Senator Ferrioli's testimony he said that with regards to the fire that he testified to in the Malheur—no, it was on the Malheur, yes—that the litigation that was brought in was, I think he termed it cookie cutter; you know, a 32 cent stamp type of appeal. And, so since the Forest Service deals probably in a large number of these, each one—I guess, common sense would just say you'd be getting used to dealing with some of these cookie cutter-type objections that come in. Isn't that true?
Mr. DOMBECK. Well, I guess I relied on the judgment of the regional forester and the staff in Oregon on that decision, but I'm not sure—do you have any additional information on the——
Mr. JOSLIN. I would say that what he referred to on the stamp was in regard to a filing of the administrative appeals, and in that particular case, it was the judgment of the regional office folks that there were some significant gaps in the initial environmental impact statement that was prepared and that the regional forester felt that the folks needed to go back and boost that up, recognizing full well that we'd have to go through a winter and a run-off as we have suffered so far going through but recognize that in order to make that decision that he would need to do some more work on it. So, that's where it came out back to the forester supervisor for redo.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. While I haven't had a chance, and normally you wouldn't you expect me to review your pleadings, nevertheless, in section 1611, subsection b, as I read into the record, the law clearly defines fire as being a catastrophe which is an occurrence that rises even beyond an emergency. It's a catastrophe. And then in the next line where the law deals with insect and disease attacks—attacks of disease and insects, it's a lower standard. But the law is pretty clear about how the Forest Service should deal with fire. It defines it as a catastrophe, and so, I guess that's why I get very frustrated, and I think we heard the frustration from Senator Ferrioli that we just hear, ''Oh well, we have to stop all the presses and stop everything from moving ahead and restoring to the sustained yield standard that the law requires; that we must under Knudsen-Vandenberg funds and authority begin to restore the forest,'' everything comes to a screeching halt, and the law could not be more clear, and whether we are pleading the law or what, I don't know, but based on your track record and based on the clarity of the law and the standard by which the law declares fire to be, we should be moving ahead not with carelessness at all, but with, I think, more determination.
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And I think that I'm just reflecting the frustration that we're all beginning to feel, and I hope that in Florida they don't have to go through the frustration of not seeing restoration projects and removal of fire destroyed timber and the years of having to face that everyday. And then you guys have to come up here and face me and the Committee. But my frustration level is growing much, much more intense, and I guess I would like to ask the Chief why the Texas situation was so different. It was windthrow which is not described in the law as catastrophic; fire is. But windthrow, this was a situation, and there was some windstorm and ice, disease and insects, of course, did set in eventually, but why was that dealt with differently than the other situations that we all have to face?
Mr. DOMBECK. Well, let me just repeat the two criteria that I talked about with Congressman Boyd. The human health and safety. The human health, in this case, windthrow, roads blocked throughout a fairly extensive area where people lived and they have to get into those areas. Secondly, the red-cockaded woodpecker situation. In a sense, the Endangered Species Act worked in reverse of the way most of us are used to seeing it work, and the fact is the way to prevent reduction of the red-cockaded woodpecker habitat——
Mrs. CHENOWETH. I'm giving you lots of time.
Mr. DOMBECK. [continuing] going in there and removing the trees around the clusters benefited the red-cockaded woodpecker. So, there were those two criteria, and I believe that's—so, there are a lot of significant differences between the Summit sale and the blowdown from that standpoint.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. I want to yield to Mr. Boyd, but I want to ask you, Chief, yes, we have the red-cockaded woodpecker down there, but we had steel hen; we had bow trout; we have endangered species all over the place in the Northwest, and the kind of pictures that Senator Ted Ferrioli showed us, it's patently obvious that that did not constitute habitat for any of those endangered species. In fact, the picture of the stream was devastating. I mean, there was no stream habitat left; nothing to shadow and shield those spawning salmon. Let me read again in section 1611 that ''Nothing in subsection (a) which requires that you manage the forest under a multiple yield, sustained yield basis—I mean, that's clear what the law says, and NEPA nor the Environmental Protection Act took that away. In fact, the Environmental Protection Act made this entire Act a part of that Act by reference; it didn't change it. And it says ''Nothing in this section shall prohibit the Secretary from salvage or sanitation of harvesting of timber stands which are substantially damaged by fire, windthrow, or other catastrophe, or which are in imminent danger from insect and disease attack, period.'' It doesn't say anything about another set of criteria that you, alone, are dealing with your decisionmaking. I mean, that seems to be the standard while the standard that is patently clear, and the law is being ignored.
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I don't mean to fuss about this, but as a Congressman, I cannot ignore this, and I think your feeling of success and your level of frustration would be less, feeling of success would be a lot of greater if we could simplify the focus of where your protection is. I guess I become very frustrated again when I see other criteria that you're making decisions that departs from the actual law. Chief, do you have any comment with regards to that?
Mr. DOMBECK. Well, the—again, I think we've said—and I certainly understand your frustration and can feel your frustration—the alternative arrangement does not circumvent NEPA. What it does is it expedites the activity——
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Yes.
Mr. DOMBECK. [continuing] and that's a very important point. The criteria for that alternative arrangement are what I've stated as the health and human safety, the violation of law criteria, and I would certainly be happy to, as the case in the Boise situation and the Texas blowdown situation, just like with the Summit situation, we're going—and the whole Florida fire situation that Earl Peterson commented, we're going to be taking a look at these in detail from the analysis and take a look at where are the problems. What can be done better What can be done different
what can we learn from this that we can apply to a situation in the future to avoid this kind of concerned frustration as we move forward.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Let me say I'm very glad that you're going to do that, but I want you to apply that same criteria and dedication to the Malheur and the Boise and all of the areas that have suffered the catastrophe that we all have as defined in 1611. Mr. Boyd.
Mr. BOYD. Thank you, Madame Chairman. Chief, I want to follow up on the Texas situation at some risk here of hurting my own particular situation, because what I want to ask you at the end is—and I want you to consider this—is there opportunity for us to get an expedition of the NEPA process in Florida and—but don't answer right now, because I want to address the issue in Texas again. How many acres were in the blowdown in Texas
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Mr. DOMBECK. Let me——
Mr. BOYD. We can turn to Mr. Joslin.
Mr. JOSLIN. We had approximately 103,000 acres.
Mr. BOYD. How many million board feet?
Mr. JOSLIN. Trees blew down in various degrees.
Mr. BOYD. How many million board feet of timber were harvested?
Mr. JOSLIN. That's still in process. It was estimated that the latest estimate I got from the forest supervisors there was about 225 million. The sales that they have up and what two or three that are left to put out would salvage about half of that, a little over 100 million.
Mr. BOYD. All right. Now, I want to consider this. We used the three criteria that you talked about. No. 1 is human safety, and you said the roads were an example. If human safety was the issue and the roads were blown over, you'd just clear the roads. You wouldn't go in and harvest 103,000 acres, and, second, the RCW. You're going do nothing for the RCW by removing the salvage timber, because RCW is going to have to have a standing tree. That RCW colony is going to have to move another location, and it won't be able to come back to that area for years until you're able to rehabilitate and reforest. And, so I guess I'm sort of making a case against myself here, but I'm making a case for having the law changed. I'm making a case in support of Mrs. Chenoweth's legislation here that those criteria—and they're not in the law evidently—need to be changed.
Now, there, obviously, were political considerations here, and I'm sure that you're not able to—I know that you're not able to come forward and say that as a witness to the congressional panel. But what—it's just too broad of an application of the human safety issue to say that because the trees are blown down the road, we've got to go harvest 103,000 acres, and it's too broad of an application of the RCW issue to say we've got to harvest because the RCW population is in danger. It's not going to be less endangered because you harvested, because those RCW, the way I understand it, at least in Appalachicola, they have to have a standing tree to be in, and you can't replace that standing tree over night.
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So, now, I want to go back to my question. Can we apply the alternative arrangement to the fire in Florida?
Mr. DOMBECK. Based upon the request that we get from the field, we'll look at every situation, so the answer to that, can you apply—can you request—can they request it? Absolutely, yes.
Mr. BOYD. Would Ms. Carney be the proper person to make that request?
Mr. DOMBECK. Yes.
Mr. BOYD. OK.
Mr. DOMBECK. What I'd like to just to clarify one point on the red-cockaded woodpecker situation there is now the—I'm everything but a technical expert of red-cockaded—a technical expert on red-cockaded woodpeckers, but the technical experts tell us—and I'd be happy to arrange a more detailed briefing for you on that—but the fact is that the actual removal of the downed trees and there's a—every, sort of, permutation of small areas where everything is down on the ground to where just there are some trees are bent over and some areas where there are clumps left, and it's sort of this sort of mosaic that they're dealing in, and when the Fish and Wildlife Service reviewed the quality of the habitat for the red-cockaded woodpecker, those kinds of things they take in a situation and clearly one of the criteria involved benefit to the increased enhancement of the survival of red-cockaded woodpecker colonies, and I'd be happy to arrange for a——
Mr. BOYD. I'm no technical expert either, so we probably have about the same amount or lack of knowledge, if you will, but I can tell that they apply in cases where we've had private lands where we've found RCW and they came and took jurisdiction and that in cases where wanted to cut that timber, we had to physically move those RCW, because once you cut that timber or once it's on the ground, that RCW cannot survive there; it has to move. I mean, I'm no technical expert, but you don't have to be an expert to know that they live inside of a hole in the tree, and if it's on the ground, they won't survive there.
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Mr. DOMBECK. Can you add to that?
Mr. JOSLIN. Yes, one of the things that I just—quickly, if I could, Madame Chairman—one of the things there that we learned when we had the hurricane that hit the Francis Marion National Forest a few years ago was inserts that we put in there, because you're correct that they have to have cavities. We immediately started doing some of that and had birds that came to those. The other part that's critical over there too is the removal of that material to reduce the risk of fire in not only the clusters but also in the foraging areas, and that's very critical in connection with red-cockaded woodpeckers.
Mr. BOYD. Thank you very much. I wish Ms. Nelson was still here to hear that, but she's, obviously, gone. No she's not, there she is. She slipped back in, thank you.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Mr. Boyd. Congressman Boyd, I hate to interrupt you, but I have just gotten word that the procession for the slain officers is now crossing the 14th Street Bridge, and they will be arriving at the Lincoln Memorial just momentarily, and I know both of us are required at other places, and so, with that, I do want to say under these sad circumstances, we're going to need to adjourn the meeting, and, as usual, the record will remain open for
10 working days. If any of you wish to supplement your testimony, you are welcome to. We will be submitting additional questions, and I do want to let you know that the procession will be on the Hill very shortly. With that, this hearing is adjourned. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 12:52 p.m., the Subcommittee adjourned subject to the call of the Chair.]
[Additional material submitted for the record follows.]
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STATEMENT OF TED FERRIOLI, STATE SENATOR, OREGON STATE SENATE
Madam Chairman, Members of the Committee, the purpose of my testimony will be to illustrate the current, dysfunctional response of the Forest Service under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to catastrophic events, illustrated by circumstances of the Summit Fire, located on the Long Creek Ranger District, Malheur National Forest in Grant County, Oregon.
The Summit fire was caused by lightning on August 13, 1996. Over 24 days, the fire burned across 37,961 acres of mixed conifer forestlands, damaging riparian and roadless areas, leaving a mosaic of fire-killed timber estimated at approximately 300 million board feet.
After reviewing the likelihood of appeal and litigation, Malheur National Forest Supervisor Carl Pence ordered preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), a costly and intensive procedure authorized under NEPA. At the same time, Mr. Pence elevated the Summit Fire Recovery Project to the top priority for the forest, set a deadline of September 1997 for its completion and discontinued planning efforts for most other management activities on the Malheur. Mr. Pence also called for temporary assignment of most district planning personnel to the recovery project.
During the draft phases of the Summit Fire Recovery Project, Malheur National Forest Planning Staff engaged in an extraordinary process of outreach and involvement with the community. Orientation tours of the fire area were contacted for Members of Congress, Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber's Citizen Advisory Panel on Eastside Forest Health, environmentalists, forest products industry representatives, Forest Service Regional Office staff, representatives of the National Marine Fisheries Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service staff.
Throughout this period, Malheur National Forest Planning Staff and the community received assurances from Region 6 Planning Staff that other than ''minor concerns,'' the Recovery Project was ''on track.''
On August 27, 1997, Forest Supervisor Carl Pence signed a Record of Decision that was immediately appealed by the environmental community using what can be described as a ''cookbook'' appeal. The alternative selected by Supervisor Pence would have treated approximately 9,500 acres, producing an estimated 108 million board feet of salvage.
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Despite unprecedented communication between Malheur National Forest and Region 6 Planning Staff, Supervisor Pence was notified that Regional Forester Bob Williams could not support the Recovery Project. Supervisor Pence was offered two choices, either have the Record of Decision (ROD) remanded to the Malheur National Forest, or voluntarily withdraw the ROD. Since voluntary withdrawal offered more flexibility for remediation, Pence chose the latter option.
Over the next six months, Malheur National Forest Planning Staff rewrote the Summit Fire Recovery Project and prepared a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement. Major revisions to the project included development of a Water Resources Management Plan, Consultation with U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service for Bull Trout, Informal Consultation with National Marine Fisheries Service for Steelhead and revision of the proposed treatment in riparian areas.
On July 12, 1998, more than 23 months after the Summit Fire, a new Record of Decision was issued calling for salvage and rehabilitation of approximately 6,600 acres producing about 50 million board feet of timber.
During the intervening months, insects and blue stain fungus have infested the stands and sever checking has occurred significantly reducing the value of salvageable timber. The project, if conducted in August 1997, could have produced $6,912,000 according to the Final Environmental Impact Statement (page 2-21). Today, if operated as proposed, the project will produce approximately one sixth of that amount, or $1,150,000 according to the Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement issued July 12, 1998 (page S-6).
The cost of suppression for the Summit Fire was $25,400,000. Planning for this project cost approximately $1,209,893 for the original DEIS and additional $356,432 for the Supplemental DEIS.
Madam Chairman and Members of the Committee, while the NEPA process works well for proposed management actions that are not time-sensitive it is wholly inappropriate for management actions in areas devastated by windthrow or infestations of insects and disease. The NEPA process is especially inappropriate for fire recovery projects where rapid deterioration and loss of value is the predictable outcome of delay.
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Madam Chairman and Members of the Committee, you know that a healthy economy and a healthy ecosystem are coefficients in the equation of sustainability. The NEPA process was intended to disclose elements of critical thinking and analysis leading to decision-making. Instead, it has become bureaucratized to the point where it threatens both the ecosystem and local economies. In reviewing the NEPA process, I would suggest three actions that could be of immediate benefit:
• Require the Council of Environmental Quality to provide an easily accessible mechanism for approval of ''Alternative Arrangements.'' The use of ''AIternative Arrangements,'' as was done in March, 1998 for salvage of nearly 300 million board feet of blowdown in Texas should become a model for meeting NEPA requirements when treating catastrophic fire, dead, downed and severely root-sprung trees whenever these conditions occur.
• Provide an expedited appeal and litigation process to resolve potential conflicts in a timely manner. Creating a shorter statutory appeal process with final adjudication, followed by brief judicial appeal period with a statutorily mandated deadline for final adjudication would not only provide heightened access for citizen appeals and litigation but timely resolution, as well.
• Modify the NEPA process to add full consideration of economic values affected by Federal decision making At present, NEPA requires full disclosure of environmental values and considerations but does not disclose economic values and considerations in Federal decision making. To be effective, NEPA must also feature full disclosure of economic considerations so that parties affected by Federal decisions will have assurance that the cost, benefits and affects will be fully disclosed.
These amendments to the NEPA process would greatly reduce delays in processing time-sensitive recovery projects following windthrow, infestations of insects and disease and catastrophic fire.
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Our experience has shown that catastrophic events require a planning response that preserves the net asset value of the resource, not only to sustain communities that depend on natural resource outputs, but also to capture the maximum value to pay for rehabilitation of resources damaged caused by wind, insects, disease and wildfire.
STATEMENT OF L. EARL PETERSON, DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF FORESTRY, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE AND CONSUMER SERVICES
MADAM CHAIRMAN AND MEMBERS OF THE SUBCOMMITTEE:
Good morning, and thank you for the opportunity to tell you how the Florida Division of Forestry manages its timber resources and in particular how we deal with emergency salvage operations when struck by natural disasters.
The Florida Division of Forestry is one of the largest land management agencies in the State of Florida. We have been managing state forests for over 60 years and presently co-manage an additional half million acres of other public land. All of these tracts are managed under the multiple-use concept, which includes timber production.
There are 36 state forests managed under the Division's direct guidance and the land base of these tracts exceeds 740,000 acres. Approximately 55 percent of this total (410,000 acres) is suitable for pine silviculture. An active forest management program occurs on this pine acreage and includes prescribed burning, reforestation and timber sales. Trees are grown to an old age on state forests for a number of reasons, two of which are to provide a natural ecosystem that is rapidly disappearing from the State and also to provide a special experience to the public sector who visit state forests in order to enjoy a large number of resource-based outdoor recreation activities. Our state forests represent an investment by the citizens of Florida, and that investment should produce both a natural resource heritage for the future and an economic return.
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The practice of sustainability is a cornerstone in the management of the timber resource. By using current forest inventory data, we insure that state forests are not overcut and that growth will continue to exceed yield on an annual basis. Trees are harvested through a number of silvicultural techniques, including improvement thinnings and restoration harvests, the latter being the removal of off-site species so that the naturally occurring species can be restored to a particular site.
In a well-managed state forest, foresters for the Division strive to keep the trees in a healthy condition using such management tools as prescribed burning and improvement thinnings, which I previously mentioned. However, due to natural processes beyond our control, unexpected and undesirable tree mortality is continually occurring in the natural forest system. Examples are lightning killed trees, mortality from wildfire, insect and disease outbreaks and windstorm damage.
Because this is a natural process, if the level of tree mortality is considered light, then oftentimes no action is taken. The resulting dead snags provide homes for wildlife and help create biological diversity in the forest system. However, when tree mortality reaches levels where there is significant economic loss or there is the potential for insect and disease spread, then salvage and/or sanitation harvests are initiated to recoup monetary losses and to reduce the threat of additional tree mortality.
Although prompt action is often taken to salvage timber that has been damaged or killed at moderate levels or in a limited area, there is no question that the Division of Forestry will take action when major tree mortality events take place. This statement is based on recent occurrences on Florida's state forests. In October, 1995, Hurricane Opal made a direct hit on Blackwater River State Forest, which is Florida's largest state forest at 189,000 acres. Within 6 months we had salvaged an estimated 95 percent of the damaged timber, which was approximately 50 million board feet of sawtimber.
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In the spring and summer of 1997, Florida experienced the worst outbreak of southern pine beetle activity in the history of the State. The infestation was centered in the Marion and Levy County area of Central Florida. Loblolly pine was the major species being killed but considerable slash pine and longleaf pine also died. The insect was indiscriminate in attacking trees across all ownership lines including state parks, state forest, national forest, municipal, forest industry and lands owned by private individuals. The Division of Forestry took a lead role in taking actions to control this insect outbreak plus salvaged all infested timber in Goethe State Forest in Levy County and spearheaded salvage efforts on other state-owned lands.
Finally, the State of Florida has just gone through the most serious outbreak of wildfires to have occurred in recent times. Approximately 500,000 acres burned between June 1st and early July. Of this total an estimated 260,000 acres is commercial pine timberland. A conservative estimate is that 2,600,000 cords of damaged or fire-killed timber will require salvaging in the next four months. Besides being directly involved in the total salvage effort, the Division of Forestry had approximately 14,000 acres burn on Tiger Bay and Lake George State Forests in Volusia County. Once the wildfires were controlled, we immediately moved toward damage appraisal and initiating salvage sales on these 2 state forests. In two weeks we sold 4 salvage sales and had plans to sell 4 more during the third week.
Time is of the essence when selling salvage timber, especially sawtimber. In Florida's warm climate, dead sawtimber must be utilized within a few months or it will deteriorate to where it can only be used for pulpwood. Pulpwood will only last a few months longer. Because of this short time frame we expedite the bid process and only give potential bidders a week or less to submit their bid for a sale. Emergency salvage sales of this nature are almost always sold on a per unit basis, which means the wood is sold by the ton. A performance bond of $5,000.00 or more is usually required to insure sale compliance. Foresters spend considerable time administering the sales to insure all loads are accounted for and that all conditions of sale are being followed.
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A few key points for salvage operations conducted by the Division of Forestry are that they are done in a rapid fashion to insure maximum economic return, eliminate waste and to prevent further spread of pathogens or insects that might kill additional timber. All potential bidders are given a chance to bid on every sale so that we cannot be accused of unfair sale procedures, and ongoing sales are administered closely to insure loggers comply with the conditions of sale.
The Florida Division of Forestry is fortunate to have good latitude in making decisions about procedures and conditions for silvicultural applications, such as reforestation and timber harvesting. We have the responsibility and authority to utilize the best known science for taking inventory, projecting growth and yield, and scheduling harvests based on site productivity and ecosystem requirements. Internally, we have administrative procedures to ensure good business applications, provide equitable bidding processes, and satisfy audit scrutiny. However, during times of emergency as previously described, we are allowed to accelerate that process in order to minimize economic losses.
BID PROCEDURE FOR WILDFIRE TIMBER SALES
TIGER BAY AND LAKE GEORGE STATE FORESTS
JULY 15, 1998
Based on conversations with Rene' Ash (who talked with Mike Gresham), we can expedite the timber sales on these two state forests. I agreed with her that we would implement the following procedure:
(1) Fax or E-Mail a written sale specifications sheet to all interested bidders for each timber sale. We can also fax a sale map and bid form.
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(2) Give prospective bidders two days (or some other predetermined time) to fax their completed bid form back to Tiger Bay State Forest Headquarters.
(3) Waive the need for a minimum acceptable bid. Analyze the returned bids to make sure all bidders can meet the conditions of the sale. Contact the high bidder and confirm their bid and try to negotiate a higher price if the opportunity presents itself. If the top 2 or more bids are similar, or if there is no distinct winner, contact the bidders with the highest bid and negotiate the best price from one of them. Analyzation of bid results and any negotiations will be coordinated between TBSF/LGSF staff and State Lands Section staff.
(4) Prepare the approval memorandum to L. Earl Peterson and obtain his approval of the recommended high bidder.
(5) Waive the 3 day posting period if the successful bidder can start logging immediately. Otherwise, post the results for 3 working days.
(6) Overnight 4 copies of the executed timber sale agreement to the State Lands Section. We will deliver it to Mike Gresham's office the day it is received and notify TBSF Headquarters once it is fully executed.
By: John O'Meara
INSERT OFFSET FOLIOS 105 TO 108 HERE
STATEMENT OF CARA RITCHIE NELSON, CONSULTING ECOLOGIST, NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL
Good morning, Madam Chairman, and thank you for the opportunity to appear and address the Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health on the subject of emergency exemptions from the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) for salvage sales, and your discussion draft bill. My name is Cara Nelson. I have over ten years of professional experience researching the effects of management on forest ecosystems. For the last 4 years, I have worked both as a staff and a consulting ecologist for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). NRDC is a national, non-profit environmental organization dedicated, among other things, to the protection of forest resources. During this time, my work has largely focused on issues related to fire and fuels management in forests of the Interior Columbia River Basin in eastern Washington and Oregon. My educational background includes a B.S. in Ecology from the Evergreen State College in Washington State and a Masters degree in Forest Ecology from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. In addition, I am in the process of completing a Ph.D. in Forest Ecosystems Analysis at the University of Washington's College of Forest Resources in Seattle.
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In summary, despite persistent calls for emergency ''forest health'' treatments, current scientific understanding of forest ecosystems and data from past salvage projects do not provide a basis for aggressive post-disturbance logging. There is very little solid scientific support for claims that salvage and other removal of commercial timber for ''restoration'' purposes effectively restores fire resilience or ecosystem integrity. On the contrary, significant scientific evidence demonstrates that serious, adverse impacts can and do result from salvage and commercial thinning. For these reasons, careful design, analysis, and environmental review of post-disturbance management activities are especially important. Broad ''emergency'' exemptions from NEPA, as proposed in the discussion draft of July 7, 1998, would severely undercut this environmental review, thereby decreasing the likelihood of effective restoration of forest ecosystems and increasing the likelihood of continued forest degradation. A case in point is the recent NEPA exemption to expedite salvage logging on Federal forestlands in Texas, authorized after the February 1998 windstorms. The Forest Supervisor requested that emergency action be authorized to address concerns about wildfire and southern pine beetle damage. Hovever, the scientific record does not support that emergency waiver.
Very little empirical research has been conducted on the impacts of salvage, thinning, and fuels treatment on fire behavior. In spite of hypothesized benefits, the handful of studies that address these issues, as well as anecdotal accounts and analyses of recent fires, suggest that removal of dead, dying, and overstocked trees does not reliably reduce fire intensity or severity. In fact, in some instances treatments intended to reduce fire intensity and hazard may have the opposite effect.
For example, at least three recent studies of the relationship between thinning and impels treatment and fire behavior found that treatment exacerbated fire conditions. The results of one of these studies, conducted by Huff et al. (1995) in the Interior Columbia River Basin in Washington and Oregon, suggest that all logging, including thinning, tends to increase fire Howard: ''In general, rate of spread and flame length were positively correlated with the proportion of area logged. All harvest techniques were associated with increasing rate of spread and flame length . . . [emphasis added].'' Thinned stands generally were positively correlated with fire intensity as measured by rate of spread and flame length.
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Similarly, results from a study of the effectiveness of fuels treatment on previously non-harvested lands in the Bear-Potato Analysis Area of the Wenatchee National Forest, Washington provides evidence that harvest treatments may increase risk of fire damage. In this study, the Forest Service evaluated the effects of past fuel treatments on fire severity (U.S. Forest Service 1995). Before wildfire in 1994, approximately 2021 acres of the fire area that had not been previously logged were treated for fuels with mechanical removal and/or prescribed burning. Forty three percent of areas that were treated to reduce fuels experienced high mortality, compared with 37 percent of the areas that were not treated for fuels. Only 10 percent of the areas treated for fuels experienced low mortality, suggesting that fuels treatment on non-harvested lands may increase the risk of high severity fire.
There is also evidence from a study conducted in the Klamath region of California that stand density reduction through harvest treatments may not result in lower fire intensity and severity. Weatherspoon and Skinner (1995) found higher levels of crown scorch in thinned stands than in adjacent stands that had not been thinned. Unmanaged stands had the least severe fire effects.
Reports of successful fire hazard reduction focus on thinning of small diameter trees, but are almost entirely anecdotal. For example, thinned ponderosa pine forests in Tiger Creek, a 2,500-acre drainage on the Boise National Forest in Idaho, are reported to have survived the 1992 Foothill Fire with minimal tree mortality (Blatner et al. 1994). However, this anecdotal evidence is of limited utility, especially when counter-examples are readily available. For example, thinning was not effective at reducing fire intensity and severity during another fire on the Boise, the Rabbit Creek fire, which burned roughly 200,000 acres on the north fork of the Boise River drainage during the summer of 1994. The burn created a mosaic of forest conditions. Some open ponderosa pine stands, considered to be fire resistant, were destroyed. Some stands considered highly susceptible did not experience high intensity burns (Peter Kolb, pers. com.). I am only aware of one study in which thinning was found to moderate fire behavior. During the 1994 Tyee fires, Wenatchee National Forest study stands that were thinned to below a specified crown bulk density burned at lower intensity and with less severe effects than stands that had not been thinned (Agee 1996).
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Results of a recent modeling study in Sierran forests indicate that the type of ''restoration'' treatment employed, as well as the manner in which it is executed, will influence environmental conditions and fire hazard. In that study of six different ''restoration'' treatments that involved harvesting, only one treatment technique was predicted to reduce the number of acres burned or fire intensity (Van Wagtendonk 1996). Given that the study's conclusions are based on models that have not been tested in natural settings, results must be interpreted cautiously. However, findings such as these provide evidence that a careless or thoughtless approach to ''restoration'' treatments has a greater probability of increasing degradation and fire damage than of decreasing it.
Though a number of factors, some listed below, help to explain how salvage and thinning can exacerbate fire risks, one is worth singling out here. A natural divergence exists between what increases the profitability of logging operations and what might reduce fuel loading. Typically, rates of spread and intensity of forest fires are most affected by so called 'fine fuels,' the small branches, tree tops, and needles that have no commercial value. Unless careful and commercially unattractive treatment of these fuels is undertaken, removal of larger trees not only does not get at the primary engine of future fires, it concentrates fine fuels into potentially explosive ''logging slash.''
With respect to arguments about the need for salvage and thinning to reduce threats from insects, the scientific literature is more complicated. What is clear is that any credible claim about potential beneficial impacts from logging would have to account for numerous site-specific factors. These include (1) tree species composition, age and size structure, and spacing, (2) the biology, ecology, and population levels of the insect species that occur or are predicted to occur on the site, including the interactions among species, (3) the nature and extent of disturbance events, and (4) local climatic conditions. Thus, generalities about the need for and potentially desirable effects of salvage and thinning treatments across sites and/or conditions are not scientifically responsible. Detailed, specific, expert review and analysis are needed, and blanket solutions should not be expected to be successful.
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In addition to the speculative nature of claimed ecological benefits from removal of ''dead and dying'' trees, scientific evidence demonstrates that persistent, adverse impacts can and do result from these practices. These impacts include:
• loss of snag and down log habitat required by many wildlife species (Thomas 1979, Bull 1994) and soil organisms (Amaranthus et al. 1989);
• simplification of forest structure (FEMAT 1993);
• increased soil erosion and compaction (Klock 1975, Marton and Hare 1990);
• loss of important sources of nutrients and organic material, with the concomitant reduction of long-term productivity (Jurgensen et al. 1990; Graham et al. 1994);
• increased near term fire hazard due to high loads of fine fuels (needles, branches, and tree tops) associated with the removal of large stems; and
• increased spread of non-native plants into burned areas (Harrod 1994).
Other post-disturbance practices, particularly active planting and seeding of non-native species, also have been shown to be detrimental (Taskey et al. 1989, Amaranthus et al. 1993). In short, by removing important structures and exacerbating stresses caused by natural disturbance, post-disturbance logging and other management activities impair the ability of ecosystems to recover (Beschta et al. 1995).
Similarly, although our current understanding of the ecological effects of ''forest health'' thinning is incomplete available evidence indicates that thinning operations, even when carefully conducted, can and do result in significant adverse ecological impacts, including:
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• reduced habitat quality for sensitive species associated with cool, moist microsites or closed canopy forests (FEMAT 1993);
• damage to soil integrity through increased erosion and compaction (Harvey et al. 1994, Meurisse and Geist 1994);
• creation of sediment which may eventually be delivered to streams (Beschta 1978, Grant and Wolff 1991);
• increased mortality of residual trees due to pathogens and mechanical damage (Hagle and Schmitz 1993);
• increased near-term fire hazard, due to (1) addition of high levels of activity fuels (Fahnestock 1968) that may influence fire behavior for up to 30 years (Huff et al. 1995, Wilson and Dell 1971), (2) decreases in height to live crown ratios, mean diameter sizes, and bark thickness, resulting from removal of large diameter rather than small diameter trees, and (3) creation of warmer, drier microclimatic conditions (Countryman 1955, Rothermal 1983);
• dependence on an excessive number and density of roads (Henjum et al 1994, Megahan et al. 1994).
In the preceding paragraphs, I have discussed how (1) there is a lack of scientific consensus about the consequences of harvest-based ''restoration'' treatments, (2) in many instances, these treatments may increase fire severity and intensity, (3) some treatments have a greater probability of reducing fire intensity and severity than do others, and (4) commercial salvage and thinning have significant environmental downsides. These downsides need careful, conscientious evaluation and must be squarely presented to the public, sister agencies, Congress, and ultimately decision-makers, if a responsible judgment is to be made about where, how, and at what level to experiment with logging based forest ''restoration.'' This is particularly true given the indisputable role that past logging and 'professional expertise' has played in degrading Federal forests.
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Post-disturbance logging should be subject to stronger restrictions and environmental review procedures than those governing other logging and management activities. Additional guidelines are necessary because (1) post-burn soils are generally more sensitive to degradation than other soils, all else being equal (Perry 1995) and (2) protection of post-burn habitats may be critical for maintaining viable populations of species that rely on snags and coarse woody debris or are sensitive to watershed degradation (Beschta et al. 1995). Prior to treatment, there should be a full analysis of the potential for increased fire hazard and the short and long term effects of restoration treatments on soils, pathogen transmission, and terrestrial or aquatic species. Failure to analyze and disclose the environmental risks associated with these treatments may result in continued ecosystem degradation and may prevent the adoption of ecologically sound approaches to management of degraded stands.
The NEPA exemption that the Forest Service was granted due to a perceived emergency need for tree removal to control southern pine beetle populations and wildfire after the February 1998 Texas windstorm is an excellent example of the danger of emergency exemptions. Although the record does not support an ecologically valid need for emergency actions, the exemption short-circuited meaningful environmental analysis that could have influenced management decisions and prevented activities that are likely to further damage remnant stands.
A primary reason for the Forest Service's request for the exemption was concern over southern pine beetle (SPB). However, the Forest Service's Environmental Assessment (EA) for the Texas windstorm tree removal project recognizes that although SPB may invade individual damaged trees, there is no increased threat to the forest resource base of an SBP epidemic as a result of the windstorm: ''Previous large-scale storm damage in pine forests across the south has resulted in little or no increase in SPB activity over expected levels . . . Storm damage does not initiate or increase the severity of SPB epidemics, but may shift the distribution of infestations, as stands previously classified as high hazard may become low hazard stands due to storm impacts . . . In stands where a large percentage of pine overstory was blown down, SPB infestations initiated in leaners or other susceptible pines have little chance to spread (Clarke and Starkey 1998)''. Furthermore, removal of large down material will not affect population densities of SPB, as this species generally does not attack downed logs. Because the agency failed to show an impending risk of SPB epidemic as a result of the storm, its position that lack of access for beetle control due to dead and dying trees constitutes an emergency situation is unfounded.
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In addition to concern over southern pine beetle damage, the Forest Service also justified the need for expedited tree removal as wildfire protection. However, the Forest Service's proposed tree removal activity is not likely to reduce the flammability of these stands. Removing large stems of standing and downed wood this summer will not mitigate the primary fire hazard created by the large volume of fine fuels. Large coarse woody debris retains moisture, requires more energy to ignite and combust, and may reduce fire spread by smoldering rather than burning. While large debris has relatively low flammability, the increased loading of fine fuels (needles, tree tops, and branches), generated both from the storm as well as from the salvage operations, directly contributes to higher rates of fire intensity and rapid fire spread. Effective treatment of small diameter fine fuels would be a more reasonable approach to increasing fire resilience than removal of large diameter standing dead and downed trees.
Despite the importance of fine fuels to fire behavior, the Forest Service's emergency activities do not include an adequate plan for their treatment. Although the two action alternatives described in the EA do provide for fuel treatment activities, these alternatives do not specify that activity fuels must be addressed in all areas where tree removal occurs. In addition, the EA does not evaluate the environmental impacts associated with different fuel reduction techniques. Furthermore, the EA proposes using lop and scatter treatments that may actually exacerbate fire behavior. Research by Van Wagtendonk (1996) in the Sierran forests suggests that lopping and scattering fine fuels may be among the least effective fuel treatment methods and may result in stands with significantly higher rates of fire spread, fireline intensities, and flame lengths than both untreated stands and stands treated using other techniques.
The Texas tree removal project is not likely to have a beneficial effect on insect or fire risk or hazard. Moreover adverse effects associated with the removal of a substantial number of large diameter standing dead and downed trees, inadequate treatment of fine fuels, and adverse impacts of harvest practices suggest that salvage activities may substantially degrade remnant stands. Had further environmental review of proposed actions been conducted, there might have been an opportunity for the development and adoption of more ecologically sound management alternatives.
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In conclusion, sound scientific support does not exist for broad or generalized inferences that emergency logging operations will ameliorate fire or insect risks in our nation's forests. If anything, the opposite is true. I hope that my testimony will help dissuade the Subcommittee from proceeding with legislation that would abrogate the existing NEPA process in the name of ''forest health emergencies.'' Thank you again for the opportunity to appear and present this testimony. I would be pleased to answer any questions the Subcommittee may have, within my area of expertise.
REFERENCES
Agee, J.K. 1996. The influence of forest structure on fire behavior. Presented at the 17th Annual Forest Vegetation Management Conference, Redding CA, January 16-18, 1996.
Amaranthus, M.P, J.M. Trappe, and D.A. Perry. 1989. Long-term productivity and the living soil. Pages 36-52 in D.A. Perry, R. Meurisse, B. Thomas, R. Miller, J. Boyle, J. Means, C.R. Perry, and R.F. Powers, eds. Maintaining Long-term Productivity of Pacific Northwest Forest Ecosystems. Timber Press, Portland, OR.
—————, J.M. Trappe, and D.A. Perry. 1993. Moisture, native regeneration, and Pinus lambertiana seedling survival, growth, and mycorrhiza formation following wildfire and grass seeding. Restoration Ecology September: 188-195.
Beschta, R.L. 1978. Long-tenn pattems of sediment production following road construction and logging in the Oregon Coast Range. Water Resources Research 14:1011-1016.
—————, C.A. Frissell, R. Gresswell, R. Hauer, J.R. Karr, G.W. Minshall, D.A. Perry, and J.J. Rhodes. 1995. Wildfire and salvage logging: Recommendations for ecologically sound post-fire salvage logging and other post-fire treatments on Federal lands in the West. Unpublished manuscript, Pacific Rivers Council, Eugene, OR.
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Blatner, K.A., C.E. Keegan, J. O'Laughlin, D.L. Adams. 1994. Forest health management policy: a case study in southwestern Idaho. in R.N. Sampson and D.L. Adams (eds.) Assessing Forest Ecosystem Health in the Inland West. The Haworth Press, Inc.
Bull, E.L: 1994. Conserving wildlife habitat. Pages 37-38 in R.L. Everett, ed. Volume IV: Restoration of stressed sites, and processes. General Technical Report PNW GTR-330, U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station.
Clarke, Stephen and Dale Starkey. 1998. Forest health evaluation of storm damage on the national forests in Texas. Appendix B of the Environmental Assessment for Tree Removal from the February 10, 1998 Windstorm, Angela, Sabine, and Sam Houston National Forests. USDA Forest Service, Region 8.
Countryman, C.M. 1955. Old-growth conversion also converts fire climate. Pages 158-160 in Proceedings of the Society of American Foresters Annual Meeting.
Fahnestock, G.R. 1968. Fire hazard from pre-commercially thinning ponderosa pine. Research Paper 57, U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Region Station, Portland, OR.
Forest Ecosystem Management Assessment Team (FEMAT). 1993. Forest ecosystem management: An ecological, economic and social assessment. Report of the U.S. Forest Service, U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service, U.S. Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. National Park Service, and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Portland, OR and Washington, D.C.
Graham, R.T., A.E. Harvey, M.F. Jurgensen, T.B. Jain, J.R. Tonn, and D.S. Page-Dumroese. 1994. Managing coarse woody debris in forests of the Rocky Mountains. Research Paper INT-RP-477, U.S. Forest Service, Intermountain Forest and Range Experiment Station, Ogden, UT.
Grant, G.E., and A.L. Wolff. 1991. Long-term patterns of sediment transport after timber harvest, western Cascade Mountains, Oregon, USA. Pages 31-40 in Sediment and stream water quality in a changing environment: Trends and explanations. IAHS Publication 203. Proceedings of the Symposium, 11-24 August 1991, Vienna, Austria.
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Hagle, S., and R. Schmitz. 1993. Managing root disease and bark beetles. Pages 209-228 in T.D. Schowalter and G.M. Filip, eds. Beetle-Pathogen Interactions in Conifer Forests. Academic Press, New York.
Harrod, R.J. 1994. Practices to reduce and control noxious weed invasion. Pages 47-50 in R.L. Everett, ed. Volume IV: Restoration of stressed sites, and processes. General Technical Report PNW-GTR-330, U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station, Portland, OR.
Harvey, A.E. 1994. Integrated roles for insects, diseases and decomposers in fire dominated forests of the inland western United States: Past, present, and future forest health. Pages 211-220 in R.N. Sampson and D.L. Adams, eds. Assessing Forest Ecosystem Health in the Inland West. The Haworth Press, Inc., New York.
Henjum, M.G., J.R. Karr, D.L. Bottom, D.A. Perry, J.C. Bednarz, S.G. Wright, S.A. Beckwitt, and E. Beckwitt. 1994. Interim protection for late-successional forests, fisheries, and watersheds: National forests east of the Cascades crest, Oregon and Washington. The Wildlife Society Technical Review 94-2.
Huff, M.H., R.D. Ottmar, E. Alvarado, R.E. Vihnanek, J.F. Lehmkuhl, P.F. Hessburg, and R.L. Everett. 1995. Historical and current landscapes in eastern Oregon and Washington. Part II: linking vegetation characteristics to potential fire behavior and related smoke production. USDA Forest Service Pacific Northwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, GTR-355. Portland, Oregon.
Jurgensen, M.F., A.E. Harvey, and R.T. Graham. 1990. Soil organic matter, timber harvesting, and forest productivity in the Inland Northwest. In S.P. Gessel, D.S. Lacate, G.F. Weetman, and R.F. Powers, eds. Sustaining productivity of forest soils. Proceedings of the 7th North American Forest Soils Conference, 24-28 July, University of British Columbia, Vancouver.
Klock, G.O. 1975. Impact of five post-fire salvage logging systems on soils and vegetation. Journal of Soil and Water Conservation 30:78-81.
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Marton, R.A., and D.H. Hare. 1990. Runoff and soil loss following the 1988 Yellowstone fires. Great Plains-Rock Mountain Geographic Journal 18(1):1-8.
Megahan, W.F. L.L. Irwin, and L.L. LaCabe. 1994. Forest roads and forest health. Pages 97-99 in R.L. Everett, ed. Volume IV: Restoration of stressed sites, and processes. General Technical Report PNW-GTR-330, U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station.
Meurisse, R.T., and J.M. Geist. 1994. Conserving soil resources. Pages 50-58 in R.L. Everett, ed. Volume IV: Restoration of stressed sites, and processes. General Technical Report PNW-GTR-330, U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station.
Perry, D.A. 1995. Unpublished declaration on forest health. March 4, 1995. Oregon State University, Corvallis.
Rothermal, R.C. 1983. How to predict the spread and intensity of forest and range fires. General Technical Report INT-143, U.S. Forest Service Intermountain Forest and Range Experiment Station. Ogden, UT.
Taskey, R.D., C.L. Curtis, and J. Stone. 1989. Wildfire, rye grass seeding, and watershed rehabilitation. Pages 115-125 in N.H. Berg, ed. Proceedings of the Symposium on Fire and Watershed Management. 26-28 October, Sacramento, CA. General Technical Report PSW-109, U.S. Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station.
Thomas, J.W., ed. 1979. Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Navigation Wildlife Habitats in Managed Forests: The Blue Mountains of Oregon and Washington. Agriculture Handbook 553. U.S. Forest Service, Washington, D.C. U.S. Forest Service. 1995. Initial review of silvicultural treatments and fire effects on Tyee fire. Appendix A, Environmental Assessment for the Bear-Potato Analysis Area of the Tyee Fire, Chelan and Entiat Ranger Districts, Wenatchee National Forest, Wenatchee, WA.
Van Wagtendonk, J.W. 1996. Use of a deterministic fire growth model to test fuel treatments. Pp.1155-1166. In. Status of the Sierra Nevada, Vol II. University of CA, Davis, CA.
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Weatherspoon, C.P. and C.N. Skinner. 1995. An assessment of factors associated with damage to tree crowns from the 1987 wildfire in northern California. Forest Science. 41:430-451.
CURRICULUM VITAE JULY 1998
Education
B.S. Ecology. 1990. The Evergreen State College, Olympia, Washington.
M.S. Forestry. 1996. University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Ph.D. Forestry. Degree anticipated 1999. Ecosystem Science and Conservation Division, College of Forest Resources, University of Washington, Seattle.
Professional Experience
1994-present: Ecologist, Natural Resources Defense Council, San Francisco, California. Develop and promote plans for ecological management of forests in the Interior Columbia Basin (on staff through 1995, consulting from 1995 until present).
1995-present: Research Assistant, Ecosystem Science and Conservation Division, College of Forest Resources, University of Washington. Conduct research on the ecology, demography, and physiology of late-seral herbs native to mid-elevation forests of the western Washington Cascades.
1991-1994: Research Assistant, Botany Department, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Conducted research on the decline of eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis), white cedar, and Canadian yew (Taxus canadensis) in the upper Midwest.
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1988-1991: Forest Ecology Consultant, Olympia, Washington. Conducted research related to protection of old growth forest stands on national forests in Washington and Oregon based on ecological significance, for implementation of Forest Service Land and Resource Management Plans.
Grants, Honors, and Awards
1998: Washington Native Plant Society grant for research on the physiological and demographic consequences of timber harvest for late successional forest herbs.
1994: Leopold Chapter, Society for Conservation Biology, Conservation Award.
1995: Co-author of USDA competitive grant to study declines in hemlock, cedar and yew in the upper Midwest.
1992-1993: Graduate scholarship in Conservation Biology from the Pew Charitable Trust Foundation and the University of Wisconsin.
1992: USFS North Central Forest Experiment Station grant to study hemlock regeneration failure.
1991: National Audubon Society Distinguished Service Recognition.
Professional Societies
Society for Conservation Biology Society of American Foresters
Ecological Society of America
American Institute for Biological Sciences
Publications and Reports
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Belsky, J.B., Evan Frost, Nathaniel Lawrence, and Cara R. Nelson. 1998. Comments on the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project's Eastside Draft Environmental Impact statement. 65 pages.
Halpern, C.B., S.A. Evans, C.R. Nelson, D. McKenzie, D.E. Hibbs, E.K. Zenner, and M.A. Geyer. (In press) Response of forest plant communities to varying levels and patterns of green-tree retention: an overview of a long-term experiment. Northwest Science.
Nelson, C.R. 1996. Hemlock regeneration failure in the Nicolet National Forest, WI. MS Thesis, University of Wisconsin—Madison. 96 pages.
Nelson, C.R., J. Belsky, R. Brown, E. Frost, B. Keeton, P. Morrison, M. Scurlock, G. Wooten. 1995. Key elements for ecological planning: management principles, recommendations, and guidelines for Federal lands east of the Cascade crest in Oregon and Washington. Public record. Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project. Walla Walla, WA. 113 pages.
Nelson, C.R., N. Lawrence, R. L. Peters, R. L. Dewey, W. J. Snape, S. Yassa, T. Uniak. 1995. Revised comments on the proposed rule for national forest system land and resource management planning; 36 C.F.R. Parts 215, 217, and 219; 60 Fed. Reg. 18886 et seq. (April 13, 1995). Public record. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C. 58 pages.
Nelson, C.R., and W. Mahler. 1990. An ecological survey of the late-seral stage forests surrounding the Nolan Creek watershed. Unpublished report to the Washington DNR's Old Growth Commission, Olympia, Washington. 34 pages.
STATEMENT OF LAWRENCE HILL, DIRECTOR OF FOREST POLICY, SOCIETY OF AMERICAN FORESTERS
Madam Chairman, my name is Larry Hill. I am the Director of Forest Policy for the Society of American Foresters (SAF). The more-than-18,000 members of the Society constitute the scientific and educational association representing the profession of forestry in the United States. SAF's primary objective is to advance the science, technology, education, and practice of professional forestry for the benefit of society. We are ethically bound to advocate and practice land management consistent with ecologically sound principles. I am especially pleased to submit comments on the NEPA Parity Act. I wish to thank the Committee for its continued support of professional forestry and its continued support of SAF's priorities.
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The NEPA Parity Act highlights a key provision of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) that SAF supports. The regulations issued by the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ or Council) in 1978 provide for alternative arrangements to normal NEPA procedure in an emergency situation. The CEQ regulations state:
Where emergency circumstances make it necessary to take an action with significant environmental impact without observing the provisions of these regulations, the Federal agency taking the action should consult with the Council about alternative arrangements. Agencies and the Council will limit such arrangements to actions necessary to control the immediate impacts of the emergency. Other actions remain subject to NEPA review. 640 C.F.R 1506.11)
In addition to this direction, we understand that individual Forest Service and BLM units are required to consult with their respective Washington offices about emergencies that may result in a request for an alternative arrangement from CEQ. Additionally, Federal agencies seeking alternative arrangements should provide CEQ with a complete description of the needs for such an arrangement at the time of the request.
These provisions are worthwhile and allow for rapid yet cautious responses to situations that clearly should be treated as emergencies. The environmental laws of this nation are some of the most comprehensive in the world, yet at times they can slow actions intended to mitigate harm to the environment. The wisdom of the authors of these laws and regulations is clearly shown in these emergency provisions. At times, the environment is better with action than with inaction. Unfortunately, procedures developed with the best of intentions to protect the environment have resulted in some harm.
What appears to be absent from the alternative arrangement procedures granted by CEQ is some sense of direction and criteria for how and when these procedures should be applied. The best person to determine whether the situation warrants alternative arrangements from CEQ is the on-the-ground land manager. The people intimately involved in the day-to-day management of a forest know what the situation needs, and how quickly it needs correction. The additional guidance CEQ is required to develop under this bill should provide land managers in all the Federal agencies with a better understanding of when and how they should request these expedited procedures. Therefore SAF supports these provisions of the bill. This guidance would also ensure that these decisions are made consistently over time, and that all parties interested in the decisions have a clear understanding of how and why they were made.
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We cannot comment on the specific locations in the National Forests for which this bill requests that CEQ and the Forest Service develop alternative arrangements under NEPA. We are, however, encouraged that the bill merely requests, and does not require, the agencies to develop alternative arrangements for these areas and public domain lands. Although SAF has heard from some of its members that there are locations in need of emergency treatment, we believe the decision to seek alternative arrangements from CEQ should rest with the Forest Service and its on-the-ground managers on a case-by-case basis.
Thank you for this opportunity to testify. I would be pleased to answer any questions you may have at this time.
INSERT OFFSET FOLIOS 109 TO 110 HERE
STATEMENT OF MIKE DOMBECK, CHIEF, USDA FOREST SERVICE
MADAM CHAIRMAN AND MEMBERS OF THE SUBCOMMITTEE:
Thank you for the opportunity to join you to discuss your legislation for alternative arrangements for environmental analysis and NEPA compliance in emergency situations on the National Forest System. My testimony also incorporates the concerns and comments of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).
The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is our basic national charter for protection of the environment. It establishes policy, sets goals, and provides the means for implementing the policy. The regulations issued by the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) in 1978 which implement NEPA provide for alternative arrangements to the normal NEPA procedure in an emergency situation. The CEQ regulations state:
Where emergency circumstances make it necessary to take an action with significant environmental impact without observing the provisions of these regulations, the Federal agency taking the action should consult with the Council about alternative arrangements. Agencies and the Council will limit such arrangements to actions necessary to control the immediate impacts of the emergency. Other actions remain subject to NEPA review. (40 C.F.R. 1506.11).
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The Forest Service NEPA procedures supplement this guidance by instructing Forests to consult with th Washington Office of the Forest Service on emergencies, other than fire, that may require consultation with CEQ about an alternative arrangement. The BLM also requires Washington Office and Departmental clearance prior to requesting alternative arrangements with CEQ.
Examples of Emergencies
The Forest Service and CEQ have used the emergency provision in the CEQ regulations on three occasions, and the BLM has used it five times. My testimony will highlight the Forest Service's examples.
Due to severe drought in the summer of 1992, the City of Portland requested permission from the Mt. Hood National Forest to pump 1.7 billion gallons of water from Bull Run Lake to meet the emergency needs of the City for domestic water supplies. The Forest Service believed that such action would create increased sediments within the drinking water supply as well as reduce lake levels sufficient to kill fish and significantly alter the ecology of the lake.
CEQ concurred with the Forest Service that an emergency situation existed, and agreed that the Forest Service could proceed with a drawdown of the lake prior to NEPA documentation. The alternative arrangements were for the Forest Service to prepare an Environmental Assessment (EA) after the emergency action was taken. An EA was prepared during the drawdown period, but after the initial action was begun.
Pumping of Bull Run Lake began on September 12 and continued until September 28, 1992. Approximately 0.5 billion gallons were pumped from the lake during that period. Much needed rain fell during late September through early October removing the need for further emergency withdrawals. The lake began to fill to pre-emergency levels by mid-October.
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In 1996, the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) found it necessary to take immediate action in the Cascade Resource Area and the Boise National Forest in Idaho. These areas included multiple watersheds adjacent to the City of Boise. Over fifteen thousand acres of Federal, state, and private lands were burned in the human-caused Eighth Street Fire which started on August 26, 1996. After the fire was extinguished, immediate rehabilitation was needed to minimize the threats to human life and property, deterioration of water quality and loss of soil productivity that could have resulted from flooding, mudslides and debris torrents from the burned area. The area was critical because of its location in a key watershed which functions as the primary ground water recharge area for the Boise Front aquifer, the source of groundwater wells for municipal use for the City of Boise and other municipalities. In addition, increased runoff potential threatened buildings and homes immediately below the burned area.
Application of the emergency NEPA provisions to the Eighth Street Fire was supported by a combination of unique circumstances. First, recent historic events showed the potential for damage. Fires in the same general area in the 1950's followed by a moderate rainstorm resulted in flooding of a large portion of Boise, including the downtown corridor. Second, local and state governments were consulted and supportive of the actions proposed. Third, the project received extensive public review and support. Finally, as would have been required under NEPA, alternative treatments were discussed and potential impacts to wilderness and threatened or endangered species were reviewed.
This year, the Forest Service again requested alternative arrangements with CEQ for emergency actions to restore immediately portions of the approximately 103,000 acres of forested lands on the National Forests and Grasslands in Texas damaged by the February 10, 1998, windstorm. The windstorm caused varying degrees of damage. The agency believed it would take up to six months using normal NEPA procedures before actions would be initiated to restore the damaged ecosystem including red cockaded woodpecker and bald eagle critical habitat. This delay could have resulted in further habitat loss for these threatened and endangered species by potential fires and bark beetle attack. The Forest Service was concerned that delayed action would critically impact 1998 success rates with the red-cockaded woodpecker and bald eagle nesting habitat, and we were also concerned that the delay would cause undue risk to adjacent private property from potential fire and insect damage.
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Alternative arrangements initiated with CEQ concurrence are only appropriate when a clear emergency to human health, safety or the environment is present, and the action proposed is environmentally significant as defined by the CEQ regulations. Often, actions proposed to be taken in emergency situations do not rise to the environmental significance level, and therefore, do not require alternative arrangements. For these situations, the Forest Service follows its normal NEPA procedures.
Generally, there are three components of a proposal by the Forest Service to CEQ for an alternative arrangement. First, the public is provided an opportunity to comment on the project. Second, the environmental analysis that goes into the decision making process is documented. And third, there are provisions for monitoring and adjustments as we proceed with the project, including an evaluation of the project once it is completed. The BLM follows similar procedures and such review is well documented as in the case of the Eighth Street Fire.
In each of the three cases where this alternative arrangement was requested, a catastrophe had created an emergency situation requiring immediate and significant action. Each case clearly demonstrates interagency coordination and agreement regarding the urgency of the need for immediate action and clear disclosure to the public of that need. There was also strong support from involved State and Federal agencies for the proposed activities.
Numerous catastrophic events occur each year affecting National Forest System and other public lands. Rarely, however, do these events constitute an emergency. The fact that only three referrals for alternative arrangements have been made by the Forest Service to CEQ since 1978 is evidence that such referrals are only done in unique circumstances. I am proud that these alternative arrangements were well coordinated with CEQ and allowed for a quick response.
Discussion of Legislation
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While the Forest Service recognizes the catastrophic nature of some of the events described in the bill, we do not support the approach of elevating these areas to an emergency status which would require alternative arrangements for NEPA compliance because they are not emergencies. The NEPA requirements have been valuable in integrating environmental considerations into agency planning for the past 30 years. The Forest Service has only used the alternative arrangements three times in the last 20 years, demonstrating that this provision is not necessary for a broad array of projects.
In conclusion, the Forest Service and BLM believe that the procedure we use for requesting alternative arrangements to NEPA compliance for emergencies works. The existing authority is appropriate and adequate to administer our nation's 192 million acres of National Forests, and other public lands. We appreciate the Committee's interest in the alternative arrangements provision of NEPA, and we understand the Committee's desire to use this extraordinary process more broadly. But, we believe the current process is working well. Thank you, Madam Chairman, I would welcome any questions the Subcommittee may have.
INSERT OFFSET FOLIOS 111 TO 118 HERE
OVERSIGHT HEARING ON FIRE SUPPRESSION
TUESDAY, AUGUST 4, 1998
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health,
Committee on Resources,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m. in room 1334, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Helen Chenoweth (chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding.
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Mrs. CHENOWETH. The Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health will come order.
The Subcommittee is meeting today to hear testimony on fire suppression. Under rule 4(g) of the Committee rules, any oral opening statements in hearings are limited to the chairman and the Ranking Minority Member, and this will allow us to hear from our witnesses sooner and help our members keep to their schedules. Therefore, if other members have statements, they can be included in the hearing record under unanimous consent.
This Subcommittee has held several hearings on wildfire issues, usually with a focus on forest health conditions and forestry practices. But today, we are going to take a close look at the activities surrounding firefighting itself, mostly from the aspect of interagency coordination and cooperation. How well do the various State and local agencies work together? How well do they work together with the Federal agencies? Who is responsible for staffing levels, employee training, fire forecasting, equipment availability, and all other aspects of wildfire preparedness and suppression?
We will examine that today, as well as, what did we learn from our experiences in the State of Florida? These are the types of questions that we will be exploring today.
I am very happy to welcome to this Committee my colleagues Corrine Brown and Allen Boyd who are both here representing their good State, the State of Florida, who just recently experienced the devastating fires down there. So we are very happy to welcome them and concentrate today, focusing on what happened in Florida.
This is an extremely important and timely topic for a number of reasons: first, because it represents a huge cost to the American taxpayer. The GAO reports that Federal land management agencies spent over $4 billion in the last 5 years in firefighting activities, and this doesn't include the military costs of borrowed personnel and equipment, the costs to our States, or the costs in regards to the loss of private property.
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This issue is important, however, not just because of the costs in terms of dollars, but for the costs in terms of wildlife habitat that is lost, and most importantly, for the loss of human lives, which we have experienced in the West in firefighting. We have a moral responsibility to make sure that we are doing absolutely everything we can to effectively prepare and fight wildfires, and I am looking forward to working with the agencies in this regard.
[The prepared statement of Mrs. Chenoweth follows:]
STATEMENT OF HON. HELEN CHENOWETH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF IDAHO
This Subcommittee has held several hearings on wildfire issues, usually with a focus on forest health conditions and forestry practices. Today, we are going to take a close look at the activities surrounding firefighting itself, mostly from the aspect of interagency coordination and cooperation. How well do the various state and local agencies work together? Who is responsible for staffing levels, employee training, fire forecasting, equipment availability, and all the other aspects of wildfire preparedness and suppression? And what did we learn from our experiences in Florida? These are the types of questions we will be exploring today.
This is an extremely important and timely topic for a number of reasons: First, because it represents a huge cost to the American taxpayer. The GAO reports that Federal land management agencies spent over four billion dollars in the last five years in fire fighting activities—and this does not include the military costs of borrowed personnel and equipment, the costs to states, or the costs in regards to loss of property. This issue is important, however, not just because of the costs in terms of dollars, but for the costs in terms of wildlife habitat lost, and most importantly, for the loss of human lives. We have a moral responsibility to make sure that we are doing everything we can to effectively prepare for and fight wildfires—and I am looking forward to working with the agencies in this regard.
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BRIEFING PAPER
SUMMARY
Various forest and weather conditions have greatly increased the vulnerability of America's forests to wildfire. In recent years, the total number of wildfires, including the number of large complex fires, has increased dramatically. The costs associated with fighting these fires has risen proportionally, representing hundreds of millions of tax-payer dollars annually. These efforts also require an ever-increasing need for well orchestrated communications and cooperation among volunteer and municipal fire departments, State forestry agencies, and Federal agencies with wildfire management and suppression responsibilities. The purpose of this oversight hearing is to review these and other factors that influence the effectiveness of government efforts in wildfire preparedness and suppression.
BACKGROUND AND ANALYSIS:
Already this year, nearly two million acres have burned, many of those occurring in the well reported fires in Florida. At a Forests and Forest Health Subcommittee hearing last week, Earl Peterson, the State Forester of Florida, gave high marks to the coordinated fire fighting efforts in his state but did suggest that better coordination would have been helpful in the ordering and distribution of equipment. He also said that better long-range planning would help in order to more effectively station people and equipment in areas of highest risk.
The GAO recently reported that wildfire preparedness and suppression expenditures by Federal land management agencies are at all time highs—over $4 billion for the last five years. Given the recent comments by the Chief of the Forest Service that approximately 40 million acres of agency lands are at a high risk of catastrophic fire, there is little question that these high costs are going to persist—and very likely continue to increase—for the next couple of decades. As wildfires become larger, hotter, and more numerous it is not only becoming more expensive to suppress them but the logistics of organizing communications and coordination among the various state and Federal agencies is becoming exponentially more complex. The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) in Boise, Idaho serves as ''The Pentagon'' for these suppression efforts. Located at the NIFC is the National Interagency Coordination Center (NICC), whose primary mission is the cost-effective and timely coordination of national emergency response. It is through NICC that all agency requests to mobilize personnel and equipment across regions are managed.
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Our nation's ability to prepare for and suppress wildfires is of extreme importance, not only because these efforts represent such a huge cost to taxpayers, but because without a maximum effort, property, and most importantly, lives will be lost. The intent, then, of this oversight hearing is to discuss the effectiveness of our preparedness and suppression efforts, and to try to answer a number of questions, such as:
• What did we learn from the Florida fires? In retrospect, what could we have done better, and conversely, what worked well? What rehab efforts are underway in the aftermath of the fires?
• How do we fund the various suppression activities? Do we spend too much in some areas and not enough in others? Are we adequately monitoring costs? Are we utilizing cost control measures such as contracting out certain activities to private enterprise?
• How accurately are we predicting the location, timing and severity of wildfire occurrences? What technologies and computer modeling are being used?
• How effective is interagency cooperation—at every level?
• What agencies or organizations are responsible for staffing levels, employee training, equipment availability, public education, maintenance of facilities, fire management planning. Who, ultimately, is responsible for suppression efforts, and does this vary by land ownership?
WITNESSES
A witness list is attached
STAFF CONTACT
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Doug Crandall at ext. 5-0691
Mrs. CHENOWETH. I will depart from any normal procedure here and I would like to recognize, without objection, Mr. Boyd and Ms. Brown for any opening comments that they may have.
STATEMENT OF HON. CORRINE BROWN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA
Ms. BROWN. Good morning and thank you, Madam Chairperson, for holding this meeting. I am grateful for the opportunity to offer testimony today.
As you know, Florida has suffered from disastrous wildfires, the worst that we have had in 50 years. More than 500,000 acres have burned in Florida over the past 2 months, and the economic impact has been incredible. Firefighters from across the country have helped us out in Florida, and we are grateful for their efforts. The coordinated effort was exceptional. I know that there were many nights that the agency chiefs did not even begin to conference with each other until 2 or 3 in the morning, and I talked to several of them during that time. They did a yeoman's job, and we in Florida are proud that all of the agencies were so successful.
For the purpose of this morning's hearing, I have contacted several of the fire chiefs from Florida who know best how the response to their natural disaster actually worked, and I would like to submit my full remarks for the record. I would like to take this opportunity to highlight some of the issues that they have raised to me.
For the most part, the fire chiefs said that the coordination between local, State and Federal agencies worked exceptionally well. This was by far the most common response that I have heard. There were very few problems they shared, but those that they shared I will share with you today.
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It appeared that the No. 1 problem involved communications between all of the parties involved. There was no communication link established specifically for the firefighters' efforts, so we had many firefighters carrying several radios at a time in order to maintain a line of communication. My understanding is that each department worked with equipment that was not compatible, so there was no single frequency to use.
Another problem involved liability. I understand that some of the firefighters brought in from other parts of the country were actually not allowed to assist because they did not have a red card, which can only be received after a week-long training session. I was told that most of the firefighters participating didn't hold this particular card.
Also the most useful resource was the helicopters because they saved valuable time, although there were not always enough helicopters on hand. This was the resource most in need.
Finally, because it was always the local team that responded for the
first several hours to any emergency, there is a big need for additional training and resources at this level. I have heard from several chiefs that more direct funding to local communities to better prepare for these emergencies would be beneficial to the communities.
Many of our local firefighters had to fight the wildfires in gear that was made for structural fires. This caused a frequent occurrence of heat exhaustion for those who didn't have the light gear to fight the fire outside.
In closing, I would like to say that our firefighters were, for the most part, pleased with the U.S. Forest Service and were incredibly grateful for the nationwide assistance.
Thank you for the time and the attention that you are providing this morning for this meeting, and I have more lengthy comments that I would like to submit to the record.
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Mrs. CHENOWETH. Without objection, so ordered. I thank you, Ms. Brown. Those were very interesting comments.
[The information referred to may be found at end of hearing.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Boyd.
STATEMENT OF HON. ALLEN BOYD, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA
Mr. BOYD. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman. I would like to submit my written statement which is more lengthy than the one I will give orally.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. BOYD. Thank you for allowing me to participate in this hearing, and thank you for calling this oversight hearing on Federal fire suppression activities and efforts which obviously, as Ms. Brown has stated, is a very timely issue in our State due to the recent wildfires that have affected Florida. The State of Florida has experienced wildfires that burned over half a million acres, destroyed 125 homes, timber and property with an estimated dollar value loss of nearly $400 million.
Unlike Ms. Brown's district, where most of the fires were on State and private land, in the Second Congressional District, which I represent, the majority was on Federal lands. District Two has the entire Apalachicola National Forest within its borders, and also encompasses part of the Osceola National Forest. The wildfires have burned thousands of acres of timberland within these national forests. The reason that I am here today is to listen to these panel experts about suppression efforts and activities.
I would be remiss if I did not at this point express the gratitude of all of the people of the State of Florida for the efforts made on their behalf to put out the fires by firefighters from all over the Nation. There was not a Friday that I did not go through my airport in Tallahassee when I didn't bump into dozens and dozens of firefighters coming in from all over the country. This happened 6 or 7 weeks in a row, and I want the rest of the country to know how grateful we are for your assistance in coming and putting out those fires, or else our damage would have been much greater.
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I look forward to the testimony of the witnesses today, and I believe, working together, we can take another policy step in the stewardship of our wonderful natural resources.
Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Mr. Boyd. We have tried to take numerous steps to try to prevent the kind of catastrophe that we saw in Florida and have seen in California in the past. I welcome your participation.
[The information referred to may be found at end of hearing.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Now I will introduce our first panel.
The Chair welcomes Mr. Barry Hill, the Associate Director of Energy, Resources and Science Issues for the General Accounting Office; and Mr. Hill is accompanied by Linda Harmon, Assistant Director, Energy, Resources and Science Issues, also from the General Accounting Office.
As explained in our former hearings, it is the intention of the chairman to place all outside witnesses under the oath. This is a formality of the Committee that is meant to assure open and honest discussion and should not affect the testimony given by witnesses. I believe all of the witnesses were informed of this before appearing here today, and they have each been provided with a copy of our Committee rules.
Now if the witnesses—Mr. Hill and Ms. Harmon, if you would please stand and raise your arm.
Mr. Hill.
STATEMENT OF BARRY HILL, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, ACCOMPANIED BY LINDA HARMON, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, ENERGY, RESOURCES AND SCIENCE ISSUES, GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE
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Mr. HILL. Thank you, Madam Chairman. We are pleased to be here and to have the opportunity to discuss wildfire activities and expenditures of the major Federal land management agencies, that being the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the Fish and Wildlife Service. If I may, I would like to briefly summarize my prepared statement and submit the full text of my statement for the record.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. HILL. First, let me discuss the amount of funds spent on wildfire preparedness and suppression activities, and then I will discuss the assistance provided to state firefighting efforts.
Federal land management agencies spent about $4.4 billion on wildfire activities for fiscal years 1993 through 1997. Of this amount, $2.1 billion was spent for preparedness and $2.3 billion for suppression. Wildfire preparedness activities are those actions taken before the onset of a wildfire. These activities include providing fire management programs through training, planning, staffing and providing firefighting equipment. Wildfire preparedness also includes programs to reduce flammable materials on the forest floor, such as fallen trees and dry underbrush.
As you can see from the chart on my immediate right, total expenses for wildlife preparedness increased from $371 million in fiscal year 1993 to $483 million in fiscal year 1997. During this period the Forest Service spent the most, $1.4 billion, followed by the Bureau of Land Management at $350 million.
The largest preparedness expenses were for personnel, $1.2 billion, while the second largest expense category was for services and supplies, $541 million.
Suppression activities include actions taken to put out wildfires, including the use of firefighting personnel and equipment. For fiscal years 1993 through 1997, the land management agencies spent about $2.3 billion on wildfire suppression. As shown by the other chart that we brought, wildfire suppression expenditures varied greatly, depending on the number and intensity of wildfires during a given year, and ranged from a low of $187 million in fiscal year 1993 to a high of $858 million in fiscal year 1994.
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Of these five Federal land management agencies, the Forest Service spent the most on wildfire suppression for this period, about $1.7 billion, followed by the Bureau of Land Management at $360 million. The largest expense category was for services and supplies, about $1.2 billion, while the second largest expense category was for personnel at $941 million.
Now, allow me to discuss Federal assistance to states.
For fiscal years 1993 through 1997 the five land management agencies provided assistance to state and local firefighting efforts through cooperative agreements, provided grants valued at $83 million and loaned excess Federal property worth about $700 million. The activities covered by these grants and cooperative agreements include fire prevention, environmental education, training, and developing procedures for fighting fires. The Forest Service administers two grant programs that provide funds for states for wildfire preparedness activities: the Rural Fire Prevention and Control and the Rural Community Fire Protection programs. Both programs are matching programs; that is, the entities receiving the grants must match them in dollar amounts or in in-kind contributions. For fiscal years 1993 through 1997, the Forest Service provided a total of $69 million to the states through these two programs.
The Forest Service also manages the Federal Excess Personal Property Program which loans excess property to s
tate and local firefighters. The types of excess property range from shovels to helicopters. Most of this property are trucks that can be readily converted to tankers or pumpers. Other common items loaned include generators, pumps, fire hoses, breathing apparatus and personal protective clothing.
During fiscal years 1993 through 1997, the Forest Service loaned excess Federal personal property valued at about $700 million to states for use in wildfire preparedness activities.
Madam Chairman, this concludes my statement, and I would be happy to respond to any questions that you or other members may have.
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[The prepared statement of Mr. Hill may be found at end of hearing.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you.
The Chair yields to Mr. Boyd for questions.
Mr. BOYD. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman, and just a couple of questions to clarify what we have before us.
Mr. Hill, the chart that you have closest to you there, the preparedness portion of that, I assume, is fire prevention activities such as prescribed burning and any other kinds of activities. Would you be prepared to go into a little more detail about that or would I need to ask somebody from the Forest Service?
Mr. HILL. I don't have a breakdown of those expenses. It would certainly include planning, staffing, putting equipment in place; and it would also include some fuel management efforts as well.
Mr. BOYD. Prescribed burning?
Mr. HILL. That's right.
Mr. BOYD. Do you derive anything from this in terms of the money spent on the preparedness side compared to the suppression side? Obviously, the number of fires that we have are directly related to the weather and other activities, primarily weather. But do you derive anything from the figures in terms of relation between preparedness and then losses or suppression, cost of suppression?
Mr. HILL. Well, as you can see, in preparedness, there is more stability. There has been an increase over the 5-year period because you can plan for those level of activities a little better than for the suppression costs, which basically you are at the mercy of Mother Nature.
You have good fire years and bad fire years. And as you can see by the other chart, 1994 and 1996 were particularly bad fire years which would drive those suppression costs up. But there has been an increase over the 5-year period for the preparedness costs, which shows you that there are increased efforts at fuel management and prescribed burns in order to reduce the risk of catastrophic fires, which drive costs up when they do occur.
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Mr. BOYD. Mr. Hill, I assume that your conclusion would be, and it is not too scientific, but when we have done a better job with preparedness, the suppression costs go down, which they have appeared to do over the last 4 years?
Mr. HILL. There is no question that the better you do on the preparedness, presuppression end of it, the better off you are going to be in terms of minimizing the catastrophic fires. But I should say that the inventory of fuel that is on the floor now—I think the Forest Service estimates it at 39 million acres—that needs fuel management efforts, and so there is still a lot to be done on that front.
Mr. BOYD. Madam Chairman, one more question if you might indulge me?
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Certainly.
Mr. BOYD. There are no figures on rehab after wildfire. Do you have anything to share on that, and the costs?
Mr. HILL. They are included in the suppression costs. I don't have any on hand. I will defer to Ms. Harmon and see if she has anything.
Mr. BOYD. I'll tell you what, why don't we wait for her statement.
Mr. HILL. She will not have a statement.
Mr. BOYD. Then can you answer that?
Ms. HARMON. What we have from the Department of Interior, which does not include the costs associated with the Forest Service, for the period of 1993 to 1997, was approximately $52 million.
Mr. BOYD. In rehabilitation?
Ms. HARMON. Right. That would be included in the suppression costs.
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Mr. BOYD. Thank you.
That you, Madam Chairman.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Mr. Boyd; and we will return for another round of questions, if you have them for the GAO.
Mr. Hill, your staff is also in the process of doing a pretty comprehensive evaluation on the question of forest health conditions as related to many things—fire suppression and fire preparedness and so forth—but based on your preliminary observations, do you see a continuation of current fire trends and the associated costs in fighting the fires that we have had to deal with in the last 7 years?
Mr. HILL. It is certainly hard to predict that because a lot of that is dependent on weather conditions that you are going to face, but certainly that trend seems to be continuing. And the trend is caused by years and years of suppressing natural wildfires, which in the past 7 or 8 years Federal land management agencies have come to realize perhaps was not the best wildfire management technique to be using.
So there are a lot more of the prescribed burns, mechanical clearings, efforts to reduce the fuels that are laying on the forest floors right now, particularly in the western portions of the country, which seems to have the biggest buildup of those fuels on the floor right now.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Mr. Hill, your charts are very interesting and certainly very telling. We have also heard the number $4.4 billion for the overall expenditures over the last 5 years. In your best sense, how accurate do you think the figures are that we are using? Are you able to get the information that you need to give us an idea about how much is really being spent under these emergency conditions?
Mr. HILL. I can't say I have a lot of confidence in those numbers. The numbers we are presenting are the numbers that we were provided and were obtained from the Federal land management agencies themselves, and we have not had an opportunity to verify that data.
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I think it is further complicated by the fact that when you have these joint cooperative efforts and the Federal and state and local governments are sharing equipment, sharing resources, and basically whatever able bodies you can have go in there to fight these fires, it is sometimes difficult to sift through the costs and come up with some firm figures.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. How accurately do you think they are monitoring the costs, and what do you think we can do to help you to be able to get a better understanding of the exact costs? What needs to be done in terms of the kind of expenditures that are made during these emergency conditions in terms of analyzing costs?
Ms. HARMON. I think it is important to take a look at what is the process that both the Forest Service and the Department of Interior use to expend some of the money. What are their contracting procedures? Are there enough controls in place to ensure that the proper costs are being recorded and being reported?
Now, so far, we really haven't done any work in that particular area, but I think that would be something that would be very important, is taking a look at what are the processes and how are the funds being expended by the various agencies.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. That particular subject is of great interest to me, so I look forward to working with you on that.
Mr. Hill, in your opinion, are the land management agencies spending sufficient resources on land wildfire programs and are they, in your opinion, expending them efficiently?
Mr. HILL. It is hard to give a concrete answer in that we really did not audit or assess the spending levels; and it is also particularly hard when you consider the total costs involved in wildfire, including the preparedness activities and suppression activities, as well as fuel management and rehabilitation costs.
What we do know, though, is that there does seem to be a problem with the fuel loads on the forest floors; and Congress has responded, in all fairness, to that by increasing the appropriations provided over the last 5 years. And the land management agencies continue to increase their efforts on the presuppression fronts. However, when you want to determine the adequacy of funding, as Ms. Harmon mentioned, you have to look at how efficiently and effectively they are spending the money in terms of personnel, equipment—where are they deploying it? It is a difficult question that certainly warrants further investigation.
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Mrs. CHENOWETH. Along that line of thinking, Mr. Hill, does the Federal Government train the local and State firefighters? Are they involved in that training and preparedness aspect?
Mr. HILL. The Federal Government works with the states, and they put on national firefighting training courses. They have established a committee in which the states participate. These courses are put on at a national level, and the states do send their staff to attend these courses, but they do reimburse the Federal Government for the full cost of the training. However, I might mention that they are allowed to use the grant money to pay for some or all of these training costs.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Schaffer from Colorado for questioning.
Mr. SCHAFFER. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
I have a number of questions. Just in terms of the mechanics of suppressing and putting out forest fires, in the aftermath of these forest fires, what kind of exchange takes place between your operation and the Forest Service as a whole? Are there lessons that we learn in fighting fires that help us with respect to management?
Mr. HILL. I am not sure I understand your question. In terms of GAO's feedback that we get from the Federal land management agencies?
Mr. SCHAFFER. The fuels buildup information, what happens with that kind of information if we are able to determine, for example, that management and reduction and potentially hazardous fuel levels have a financial benefit to the American people from a suppression perspective, what happens? Does that information—is it packaged or compiled in a way that is useful for land managers within the Forest Service?
And a secondary question, in your estimation, is it ever utilized in an effective way?
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Mr. HILL. I can't give a firm answer to that; we have not looked at the program in that depth. But they do go through a planning process where they run various models based on fires that have occurred, fuels that are on the ground; and their budget requests and the equipment and the staff that they deploy are based in large part on these yearly plans that they put together. Now, how adequate those plans are, we have not investigated that at this point.
Mr. SCHAFFER. Let me ask then, in terms of an assessment of preventable expenditures of what could have been saved through sound land management practices, has the GAO ever taken any kind of look at which fires may have been preventable and how much might have been saved if we had been able to successfully prevent forest fires from occurring, again in the aftermath of analyzing certain fires that may have occurred recently?
Mr. HILL. GAO has never done that, to my knowledge. You might want to direct that question to the Forest Service and Department of Interior people.
Mr. SCHAFFER. In your report and in your testimony you indicated that the Forest Service manages the Federal Excess Property program that loans excess Federal property to State and local firefighters. Does the Forest Service have adequate controls over this equipment so it knows how much equipment is loaned to which States and is it able to get the equipment back when the States no longer need it?
Mr. HILL. We have not looked at the specific controls that they have in place in regard to this particular program. It should be noted, though, that they have had difficulty in—they have in the past and currently have difficulty in terms of the adequacy of their controls over inventory accounting of property, plant and equipment. Whether this particular excess property is included in that category or not, we are uncertain at this time.
Here again, I think—you should ask that question to the Forest Service officials. But they have had difficulty and continue to have difficulty accounting for all of their plant, property and inventory.
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Mr. SCHAFFER. Let me go back to the previous question that I asked and try it from a somewhat different angle; and that is, just when it comes to suppression costs, it varies pretty greatly from year to year. Is there any way to be able to determine or statistically discover any methods that might be utilized in stabilizing these costs for a year-to-year period?
Mr. HILL. I think the greater the investment you make in the presuppression area, the preparedness area, in terms of reducing that fuel on the ground, then the better chance you have of avoiding the large catastrophic fires.
I think we have learned over the last 7 to 10 years that these forest wildfires are a natural occurrence in our nation's forests, or in any forests, for that matter, and if you suppress them or presuppress them to the point you don't have them, when you do have a fire it is a large, catastrophic fire which destroys the forest. So the more you clear out that fuel, hopefully, the more control you will have over the suppression.
Mr. SCHAFFER. That issue really seems to be a key one in my mind. If there has not been any assessment of what we might save through sound forest management practices, removing excessive fuel buildup, also in the resource cost, ahead of time, in many other areas of government we are able to take legislation to the floor and have some idea of what the taxpayers may realize in savings if we take a certain preventive action up front; and it sounds to me like there has been no analysis on that basis, at least as far as GAO is concerned.
What would it take, in your mind, to move that process forward?
Mr. HILL. Well, I think you are going to have to get a good assessment as to what the situation is in our nation's forests, and we have not looked at what the Forest Service and other Federal land management agencies have done. We know that there is a problem out in the interior west—eastern Washington, eastern Oregon, Idaho, western Montana. There is a significant problem out there that they are trying to deal with.
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On the other hand, I think the southeast has been dealt with perhaps a little more effectively in terms of there have been more presuppression activities which have occurred that have prevented major fires. Obviously, Mother Nature does not always cooperate, as witnessed by the fire which occurred in Florida recently.
Mr. SCHAFFER. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Mr. Schaffer.
Your comments were very interesting, Mr. Hill, and I think it is a very interesting time that we are living through. Certainly the urban interface with the wildland areas is something that we need to look at very, very carefully, because these were the areas that Ms. Brown specifically referred to where there is a greater potential in losing private property, homes and a threat to human life.
While we were fortunate in Florida not to lose lives, Mr. Boyd indicated in his opening statement that there were 125 homes lost; and in recent California fires, there have been hundreds and hundreds of homes lost.
And so I know that the GAO is involved in doing a much greater in-depth study, especially based on what we are all learning here today, and I hope that we can concentrate first on that urban wildland interface; and, of course, moving into the situation where weather conditions, drought conditions, rain forest conditions, typical geographic conditions will lend itself to protecting an area from devastating forest fires as well as the fuel load on the forest floor or preventing them through Mother Nature's conditions. Certainly, Florida was ripe for that, and I look forward to hearing from our State Forester from Florida.
But based on what we are hearing today, Mr. Hill, I do look forward to working with you and putting our entire staff at your—if you need them, just call. This is a very, very important issue to us all, and I believe it is a very important national issue.
I always appreciate your good work, Mr. Hill, and I thank you for being with us. And Ms. Harmon, thank you very much.
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So with that, I will recognize the second panel which is only one witness, but we have been looking forward to hearing from Mr. James Garner, the State Forester, Virginia State Department of Forestry in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Mr. Garner, welcome. As is normally the situation here and as was explained in our—to our first panel of witnesses, we normally ask our witnesses to be sworn in, so I wonder if you might stand and raise your hand.
[Witness sworn.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Mr. Garner, please proceed.
STATEMENT OF JAMES W. GARNER, STATE FORESTER, VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF FORESTRY, CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA
Mr. GARNER. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I am Jim Garner, State Forester of Virginia, and I am here today representing the National Association of State Foresters. I served as President of the association in 1995, and I have served both as a board member and as chairman of the association's fire protection committee. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss the wildfire suppression efforts in the United States.
I have attached, for the record, a report entitled, ''Managing Forests, Managing Fire: A Report to the Congress on the Status of Wildfire Management in the United States.'' This was a cooperative effort of the National Association of State Foresters and the American Forest & Paper Association.
The Department of Forestry is the primary agency for wildland fire control in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Like my colleagues in other State forestry agencies, we work closely with local fire departments, State agencies and Federal wildland fire agencies, including the USDA Forest Service.
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We also work through an interstate compact agreement to share resources in times of critical need, and in my view, these relationships are a model of intergovernmental cooperation. There are few key points worth noting.
First, the local fire departments are the first line of defense against wildfire in this Nation. Volunteer departments predominate in the rural areas, and it is critical that they be well trained, staffed and equipped to provide that initial attack on wildfires.
The southern region of the United States, as was demonstrated dramatically in Florida, experiences more fire starts than any other part of the Nation. An effective network of trained local departments, however, helps keep the costs down by catching these fires when they are small. More importantly, as housing developments encroach into our forests, the jobs of these firefighters become more dangerous complicated and more expensive.
The second important feature is the well-trained and -equipped firefighting crews across the country that can be dispatched as needed. This is due to careful coordination by regional coordinating centers, interstate fire compacts and, when necessary, through the National Interagency Fire Center, NIFC, in your own home State of Idaho, Madam Chairman.
During the recent fire situation in Florida, every State except two had firefighters, equipment or overhead teams in Florida. My department sent four bulldozers, two Hummers and 42 people with all of the support equipment. We were also the leaders of a task force of fire department engine companies that went to Florida. We were assigned in northeast Florida and placed under a unified command under the direction of the Florida Division of Forestry.
Thanks to the efforts of the National Wildfire Coordinating Center, NWCG, the State and Federal firefighting agencies all train using the same standards and basically on the same equipment, so this allows our resources to use and be familiar with each other when we meet somewhere across this Nation.
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The third part of our effort is the State Foresters working closely with USDA Forest Service on several programs which keep this front line of defense active and well prepared: the State Fire Assistance Program and the Volunteer Fire Assistance Program. Both are managed by the USDA Forest Service Fire and Aviation.
And third, the Federal Excess Personal Property Program, which you have heard mentioned previously and in which we cooperate with the U.S. Forest Service.
I think the Excess Property Program is the most innovative of the three. Through a cooperative agreement with the Forest Service, provided by the Cooperative Forestry Assistance Act, State Foresters are able to screen property, primarily former military equipment, at the excess level and not the surplus level. This equipment, which ranges from aircraft to trucks to mobile command centers to clipboards, is reconditioned either by the State or by the local fire departments and put directly in service protecting homes and property from wildfire.
Last year, in Virginia, we were able to get $116,000 worth of excess property, which we turned over to local fire departments.
Two points of the Excess Property Program are worth bearing in mind. By using the program, we are greatly extending the life of vehicles and other equipment which the taxpayers have already paid for. States and localities add value to this equipment, and there is a tremendous pride in keeping their equipment in service. There is a—on the report that I mentioned, on page 15, there is a picture and an example of one of those trucks that was used by a small community in Virginia.
The last point I would like to make, Madam Chairman, is that we will never rid this Nation of wildfire. We can, however, take prudent steps through programs that we have mentioned to cut costs and save lives and property. We can manage our lands to reduce fire dangers. However, as the events have shown in Florida, sometimes many factors will come together which will nullify the positive impact of prescribed burning and proper forest management.
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The growth of the wildland-urban interface, which in and of itself causes numerous complicating factors, has turned what would have been a straightforward firefighting task into a tremendous exercise of emergency management. And until Mother Nature changes the weather pattern, the only thing that stood between the citizens of Florida and the wildfire was our national firefighting force. And situations like Florida push those forces to the limit.
We appreciate your support and we look forward to working with you and the rest of the Committee to see that these programs are supported. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Garner may be found at end of hearing.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Mr. Garner. Your testimony was very interesting, and I very much appreciate your comments about the imminent concerns that we have over the wildland-urban interface.
We do have some legislation pending before this Congress, that has made its way through this Committee, that would help take care of that, and so I would like to work with you personally on that particular legislation. It was suggested by the Forest Service, and it deals with a new form of management, an overall landscaping management, rather than a contract-by-contract management.
So I think it is very forward looking, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts about it.
Mr. GARNER. Thank you.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. I do want to say that your comments about the book put out by AF&PA are good. I noticed in here that there was a comment delivered by Department of Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt in Boise, Idaho, where he stated, ''By using all of the tools that we have—carefully thinning excess young trees, igniting prescribed fires, managing land for fire, controlling invasive and exotic weed species—we must take steps to reduce the fuels.''
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And Jack Ward Thomas in a hearing in Boise, Idaho, on August 29, 1994 made this statement and I think he really wraps it up. Fires are ''too hot, destructive, dangerous and too ecologically, economically, aesthetically, and socially damaging to be tolerable. We cannot, in my opinion, simply step back and wait for nature to take its course.''
I think that is very interesting, plus the comparative pictures that are in this book. It is very instructive. Thank you very much.
The Chair recognizes Mr. Schaffer for his comments.
Mr. SCHAFFER. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I have a number of questions.
You mentioned the importance of interstate agreements in firefighting. How often do you send crews out of State?
Mr. GARNER. Normally, we have at least one crew going somewhere out of State once a year. We, a week after Florida, sent a task force to Texas.
Mr. SCHAFFER. Is Virginia typical of other States in this regard, do you think?
Mr. GARNER. Yes, I think so. We are all available to help each other.
Mr. SCHAFFER. Where do you typically send your crews?
Mr. GARNER. In the past, most have been going to the Western States, but 2 years ago we sent a large contingency to Texas with equipment when Texas had their problem in 1996.
Mr. SCHAFFER. Is the training adequate so that firefighters trained in the Southeast, for example, are well prepared to fight forest fires of different types, say, in the Northwest or Southern California?
Mr. GARNER. I don't think training is ever totally adequate. We do the best we can. We try to prepare them to fight fires safely and know what is going on, but I don't believe that we are ever adequately trained to where I sleep all night when it is dry.
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Mr. SCHAFFER. You asked the Committee to help ensure that programs for wildland supplier programs are adequately supported. How are out-of-State programs funded?
Mr. GARNER. If it is through one of the compacts; the receiving State reimburses the sending State for expenses.
Mr. SCHAFFER. Does a State agency have to pay all of its crew expenses when crews are sent out of State? Or if your State receives help, do you have to cover all of their costs?
Mr. GARNER. Yes, sir.
Mr. SCHAFFER. Do the State-Federal assistance programs you mentioned help cover these costs?
Mr. GARNER. They help.
Mr. SCHAFFER. Are they adequately funded?
Mr. GARNER. No, sir.
Mr. SCHAFFER. Can you give us some sense of scale?
Mr. GARNER. It is relative. Florida, I doubt that they have even totaled up the bill yet, and that is on a scale of 10, and to other States it might be on a scale of 1.
Every case and every summer and every spring is going to be different, and I don't have a good answer except that when it happens to us in Virginia, I doubt that I have enough in my budget to handle it.
Mr. SCHAFFER. Are within-State operations adequately funded?
Mr. GARNER. Probably not.
Mr. SCHAFFER. Do the agencies have sufficient personnel?
Mr. GARNER. Probably not.
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Mr. SCHAFFER. Let me continue on some other questions that I have been waiting to ask you.
You mentioned the challenges of the wild and urban interface and how serious an issue that is. Can you elaborate on that?
Mr. GARNER. In my opinion, it is probably the most serious thing that has faced us in the wildfire arena in my 40 years of work, because when you place homes and property and lives in the forest, you immediately shift tactics of how you approach the fire. Instead of trying to drop back to what would be a safe fire line, you go immediately to protect homes and people and their property, and that puts you in harm's way in a different manner. Therefore, the training that I had in the agency, growing up in the agency, is no longer valid; and the technology—we have to grasp the technology.
Mr. SCHAFFER. Does any one agency bear the responsibility for the wildland-urban interface initial response?
Mr. GARNER. Generally, it is the State forestry agencies in the States that are predominantly private land. But that is a cooperative effort with the local fire department. It can't be done by one single group.
Mr. SCHAFFER. The Federal policy is consistent with what you just described. Do you think that is an appropriate policy and one that ought to be maintained?
Mr. GARNER. I believe so, yes, sir.
Mr. SCHAFFER. Are local agencies and fire departments adequately prepared for that challenge?
Mr. GARNER. No, sir.
Mr. SCHAFFER. And should there be some Federal response in addressing that level of preparedness that you just described, or is this one that ought to be left to the States?
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Mr. GARNER. I think we need some help. We need help and expertise and new technology and funding when the individual State needs it.
Mr. SCHAFFER. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you.
Mr. Garner, Mr. Schaffer's questions are ones that—as you have ascertained by now, are ones that the chairman is concentrating on, and while I still have you on the witness stand, I wonder if I might ask you to work with your other State Foresters in cooperation with this Committee to make sure that the Congress can pass legislation which will focus on that critical urban-wildland interface problem that we have.
Will you work with me and other members of this Committee and our staff?
Mr. GARNER. Yes, ma'am. We are at your disposal.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Do you share with me the belief that time is not on our side; that it is something that we need to deal with probably in a manner which will bring us results by next year?
Mr. GARNER. Yes, ma'am. Please do.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. It is very interesting that in my State of Idaho right now our former United States Secretary of Interior, Cecil Andrus, former Idaho Governor, is on television right now in paid spots by the Bureau of Land Management urging people to be very, very careful in making sure that fires are not set carelessly because we have such a high, heavy fuel load because of the cheat grass that can be grazed in the springtime, but after July it turns very brown and brittle and heavy and creates such hot fires that even 2 years ago we lost lives fighting just grass fires.
So as you can imagine, that is a concern that I share even with the former Secretary of the Interior, Mr. Andrus. So I look forward to working with you very closely on this issue.
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Mr. GARNER. Thank you.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Mr. Boyd.
Mr. BOYD. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman.
Mr. Garner, thank you for coming today.
I want to take a slightly different direction with my questioning, and first of all tell you that our State Forester Earl Peterson was here testifying before this Committee, and I want to take this opportunity to thank you personally on behalf of the people from the State of Florida for what you did.
You remarked in your previous remarks that you had sent as many firefighters as you could turn loose into Florida, and much of our destroyed property was on private and commercial timberlands. And the 126 homes that were destroyed, I am sure that we would have more destroyed if it wasn't for the efforts of the folks from around the country, including those from Virginia that came, and I just want to promise you if the shoe is ever on the other foot, that we will do our part in seeing that we share our resources, too.
Thank you.
Mr. GARNER. Thank you, sir.
Mr. BOYD. I wanted to take a direction here which is a little bit different. I am sure that Virginia is like most other States in that publicly held forest lands come under—I mean, there is a great deal of pressure to change the silvicultural practices and harvesting practices which have been traditional, once they come into public ownership.
What management tools or silviculture practices are you using in the Commonwealth of Virginia to keep your forest healthy and to keep fire suppression down?
Mr. GARNER. Are you referring to forest management practices?
Mr. BOYD. Exactly.
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Mr. GARNER. We are heavily promoting thinning, particularly as it relates to area around the interface. By reducing the number of stems, you have reduced the opportunity of fire to travel from treetop to treetop. We have an active program going on now with developers that we try to thin.
The prescribed burning program, we need to promote that and to enhance it and encourage it more. The national forests in Virginia started last year; they really have gone big guns on this.
Mr. BOYD. I am referring mostly to timber—to forest land that is in your jurisdiction, State forests, and what you do in your State forest.
Mr. GARNER. Thinning. Mostly thinning because part of our State forest is in the hardwood—on the hardwood sites, and therefore, we have to be very judicious how we prescribe burning hardwoods.
In many of our pine stands, we have started an active program of thinning and burning the understory. We are not quite as flat nor as pine-oriented as your State, Mr. Boyd, so therefore we deal mostly with smaller acreages, even in our State forest. But we are actively trying to get a prescribed burning program up and running in our State forest.
Mr. BOYD. So you have an active thinning program which is a very important management tool in terms of keeping your forest lands healthy?
Mr. GARNER. Absolutely.
Mr. BOYD. Mr. Garner, we heard testimony here last week from one of our witnesses that—and she tried to make the case that thinning, particularly thinning and even prescribed burning was not a practice that would assist in management of the possibility of fire. In other words, it didn't necessarily cause a situation that you would have less fires.
Would you care to comment on that from your perspective as a lifelong forester? You are certainly not in the position that you are in without having some scientific expertise in terms of forest management.
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Mr. GARNER. If I understand your question, it was, will thinning and active management connected with prescribed burning reduce fire?
Mr. BOYD. That is it.
Mr. GARNER. It will reduce the impact of the fire and severity of fire, and it gives you a fighting chance of stopping the fire when it is unwanted. I can't imagine why it wouldn't work.
Mr. BOYD. OK. That was sort of my reaction, too. I wanted to make sure that I got the expert's reaction.
One of the things that we recognized with the fires in Florida, in those areas where we had not prescribe-burned, and these were on private lands or State lands, we did not prescribe-burn because of public pressure around highways and around developments—and you are nodding and smiling. You are familiar with that kind of a situation?
We immediately recognized when we got into this terrible drought situation and the fires broke out, that the worst fires were in those areas where we had not prescribe-burned. Actually, since they were in the areas that were highly populated, that is where we lost our homes.
What are you doing in Virginia to deal with that kind of situation and that public pressure that comes from not to prescribe-burn?
Mr. GARNER. Not much more than your State Forester, unfortunately, because of the public reaction to the smoke, the fear of fire, the lack of understanding of prescribed burning is out there, and I think the biggest thing we can do is have support from members from your Committee—you certainly have more visibility than a State Forester—to say that it is OK, and it is a necessary thing for the forest health, and it is a necessary thing for the protection of their own property, and that we as professionals can and do know how to manage the smoke.
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Mr. BOYD. Well, I hope that we will do some followup and bring some data, some statistics from our own experience that will be helpful to States all around the country.
I have one more question, Madam Chairman, if you will indulge me.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Please proceed.
Mr. BOYD. Do you have a national forest in Virginia?
Mr. GARNER. One.
Mr. BOYD. Do you think giving increased flexibility to the local or State Forester who is in charge of that national forest is helpful in terms of managing or reacting to these kinds of situations like we had in Florida?
Mr. GARNER. Of course, that is an administrative decision over another agency, but I am one who believes in pushing decisionmaking right down to the lowest possible level because that is where you solve problems.
Mr. BOYD. Thank you very much, Mr. Garner. One thing that we learned from the fires in Florida on our national lands was, once the fire started and the local, on-the-ground forester had no authority to make decisions on how to deal with that, once it went up to the chain and came back, 24 to 48 hours had passed. We had fires that were burning upwards of 4- and 5,000 acres a day, once they started, so that was the point that I wanted to make.
You've answered it very succinctly, I think, in terms of lowest—push the decisionmaking down as low as you can is the proper way to respond?
Mr. GARNER. Yes, sir.
Mr. BOYD. Thank you.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Mr. Boyd.
The Chair recognizes Mr. Peterson from Pennsylvania.
Mr. PETERSON. Welcome, Mr. Garner. I am from Pennsylvania to the north of you; and I am sure that you have worked with Jim Grace, our forester from Pennsylvania.
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I come from the finest hardwood forests in America, northern tier Pennsylvania, where oak and cherry doesn't get any better than that, and I don't find many people willing to argue with me about that.
What do you think about the Forest Service recently stepped-up burn program of the hardwood forests, especially where they are trying to favor oak and hickory stands?
Mr. GARNER. I think it is a great thing.
Mr. PETERSON. You think it is working well?
Mr. GARNER. They are just getting started in our State, but I think it is needed. And if we want to maintain the CC composition and the diversity of the complex, I think it had to be.
Mr. PETERSON. When I was growing up, I was one—where I come from, they are not really mountains, but they are hills. I was one hill away from a stream where there was a railroad track, and every year there was a prescribed burn where the steam run locomotives would spew out sparks, and if you had a dry spring, we had smoke all spring for a week or two until those fires would be put out; and it is one of the finest oak forests in the region from that.
How do you work with volunteer fire companies? I come from the most rural part of Pennsylvania, most rural district east of the Mississippi, and volunteer fire departments are a vital part of fighting fires. Do you have some plan of working with your volunteers?
Mr. GARNER. Yes, sir. As I noted in my remarks, in our opinion, and I think this is true of all of the State Foresters in the South, the local volunteer fire departments are a front line of defense. They are the first out. They keep the acreage small. They are out there day and night, and we couldn't—I would be afraid to go back to Virginia without them.
Mr. PETERSON. Do you somehow help them with State resources in funding?
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Mr. GARNER. The biggest help that we give them is trucks, houses, equipment. That has got to be one of the most beneficial programs in the relationship between Federal Government and the State government. We have a small grant program that is administered by the U.S. Forest Service through the States. It is small one, but you can take a rural company and give them a few dollars, and you have seen what they can do.
Mr. PETERSON. I am going to be meeting in a few weeks—and the Allegheny National Forest, which is 550,000 acres, is in my district, and 20 fire departments are asking to meet with me, that are part of the forest and who fight fires there. And they have never been able to use the resources from the timber cuts; the 25 percent that goes back, that is not allowable use.
Would you support language changed to the Federal level that part of that money could go back to those fire departments to help them?
Mr. GARNER. I will come back to the way that I answered Mr. Boyd's question: Push the decision to the lowest level, and let the localities decide. At least give them the opportunity to have the flexibility.
Mr. PETERSON. It would be an allowable use for the local department if they wanted to buy equipment or provide training, because volunteer firefighters are a breed of their own. They give their lives. It is almost a religion with them.
If you teach them—fighting structure fires is altogether different than fighting forest fires, and I wonder if we concentrate enough on teaching them how to fight forest fires or giving them the tools?
Mr. GARNER. We don't.
Mr. PETERSON. See, they are a resource not on the payroll 52 weeks a year. A little money buys you an awful lot with volunteer fire departments. Would you recommend that we in Washington look at making sure that where the fires are in the districts, that the volunteers are a more integral part and receive the training and equipment that they need?
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Mr. GARNER. Yes, sir. Part of the Forest Service budget has a line for the volunteer fire assistance program which I think needs your support.
Mr. PETERSON. You would suggest expanding that?
Mr. GARNER. Yes, sir.
Mr. PETERSON. OK. How do you determine what funds and staffing levels you need for a given year?
Mr. GARNER. Hmm, I guess a lot of it is determined by our fire history and the acres that in Virginia I am responsible to protect. But the new factor has been, now, how many homes are in those acres that were not there years ago.
And so you look at history and you know your resources. You know the availability of other outside fire resources. It is an art, not a science, as to how you determine how well prepared are we. Then take what we have and focus on training and focus on outside resources, outside of government, the forest industry, volunteer fire departments, schools and universities. Any warm body you can find, and then train and equip them.
One of the biggest concerns that I have is giving them personal protection equipment. We all need to address that.
Mr. PETERSON. We have 50 senators in Pennsylvania and 250 house members, and we had about six people that gave a damn what was in the forest service budget, that even looked at it, that wouldn't scream—that would scream if there were cuts or kept flat-funded for a decade.
Do you find that in your State?
Urban America loves the forest. They love to travel and hike in the forests, but they don't want to spend any money making sure that they are whole?
Mr. GARNER. I think that there are only a few in the legislature who look at and understand and appreciate the forestry package in any budget.
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Mr. PETERSON. Thank you very much.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Mr. Garner, I want to conclude with just a couple of questions and followup with the line of questioning that Mr. Boyd began. And I would also yield to him after I finish these two questions for any additions that he may wish to make.
As a State Forester in Virginia, take a situation that I have been informed about that occurred in Florida, and I ask you, as a State Forester, to speak not just for Virginia but for the association or for other State Foresters who have been highly trained in terms of not only firefighting but State forestry and silvicultural science.
Mr. Garner, I have been informed that in Florida there were two fires that occurred almost simultaneously. Both occurred opposite of each other on a—across from one another on a road. On one side of the road there was an area that had more access and it could be accessed by multiple agencies, and so they lost a total of 18 acres in this area.
On the other side of the road, it was a wilderness area and fire could only be fought by the Federal Forest Service, so we had a turf question here. And while on one side of the road they lost 18 acres, on the other side of the road in a wilderness area where tourists like to come and view the wilderness, we allowed a situation to develop where the result was that 20,000 acres burned.
So we look at the difference between 18 acres in an area that was more easily accessible and probably by more than one agency. On the other side, it wasn't accessible and only one agency can handle it.
My question is this. Given that scenario—and that is tragic; I think anyone would have to admit that is tragic—and even though Florida's vegetation recovers more quickly than the east slope of the Cascades and on into the Rockies, because we are drier out there, nevertheless, it still takes its toll for several years. The landscape will never look the same.
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And so, given that scenario, wouldn't it be better if there could, ahead of time, be developed a cooperative agreement so that those agencies, whether it is the State or local agencies, are able to access any fire within the borders of the State to try to suppress it and contain it before it develops into such a huge fire that it is very destructive?
Is that an area that we in the Congress should be looking at, more agency cooperation between the State and the Federal Forest Service, so that if—as a State Forester who has command and control of fire suppression over your own State lands, if you could also be given the ability to, under some sort of contract, be able to contain fires on Federal land? Would you look favorably at that, or what would your thinking be, Mr. Garner?
Mr. GARNER. I would look favorably at that as one State Forester, and I suspect that many of my colleagues would also.
The wildernesses east of the Mississippi are a lot different than the wilderness in your area because they are smaller, they are more fragmented; and there is a tremendous—normally, a tremendous population around those smaller wildernesses. And so, therefore, whether it be insect, disease, fire, whatever, the impact of eastern wilderness spills over into the private arena, and that can be threatening, as we have seen with both fire, insect, and disease.
The lack of flexibility, the lack of the agencies to be able to deal with whatever is going on in that particular wilderness is really hamstringing all of us who are interested in natural resources, and I use that in its broadest context—forest health, for whatever endangered species.
It could be in the case that you outline simply because the fire could not be contained, we may have lost an endangered species that that land had been set aside to protect. And so policy issues sometimes need to rest with the man on the ground, or the woman on the ground, with the expert.
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And what fits West Coast doesn't fit East Coast in all cases when we are dealing with natural resources, and I think there is a real danger there.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. I do want to yield to Mr. Boyd, but I do want to say, in every case, whether it is the East Coast or the West Coast, the destruction of endangered species habitat is very sad when we are not able to contain fire or prepare ahead of time by removing unnecessary fuel load that—to see it destroy not only the habitat but the species itself.
Another thing that you touched on, and I do want to elaborate, is the fact that in Florida and in the Eastern States your wilderness designations are more fragmented and they do abut up to multiple-use and sometimes urban interfaces. And so, you know, in order to protect private property and human lives, as well as protect endangered species and their habitat, I do think that we need to be a little more forward looking in terms of looking ahead to prevent these very, very hot fires. And I do want to say that prescribed burnings under the proper conditions are very important, and—but I believe it has to be the proper conditions.
Mr. GARNER. Yes, ma'am.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. With that, I will yield for a couple more minutes to Mr. Boyd, if he has any final questions.
Mr. BOYD. I think you have asked the pertinent question, Madam Chairman, but let me just say to Mr. Garner and also to the next panel, because I think we would want to ask them some questions about this particular issue so they may prepare; the scenario that you just described, Madam Chairman, happened in the Apalachicola National Forest in Florida, which is in the Second Congressional District, and we believe that the fires which were both started adjacent to a highway running through the national forest were started by an arsonist, and the fire actually on the nonwilderness side we put out after it burned 15 acres.
The fire on the wilderness side, according to the numbers that I have in front of me, which are from the State of Florida, burned 24,600 acres.
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Again, we believe that since they were both started on the highway simultaneously, in the same area, that it was arson. We don't have solid proof of that, but I want to thank you, Mr. Garner, for your fine presentation.
Mr. GARNER. Thank you.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Mr. Garner, I just have one final question that I need to ask you while you are here.
How do you, as a professional manager, manage the smoke when you prescribe-burn on your State lands?
Mr. GARNER. Let me kind of qualify that first.
In Virginia, we have very few acres of State lands; 77 percent of the forest land in Virginia is owned by private individuals such as yourself. So we do a lot of burning for the private landowner, but smoke management is all formulated on weather conditions as well as the fuels of the floor, depending on the objective that you want to accomplish.
An understory burn for reduction of habitat, you don't need the intensity of fire as you do after a logging job to clean up the slash. You have to know your mixing height and your whole spectrum of atmospheric changes that is going on.
Is the smoke going to go up and dissipate, down and dissipate? Be careful that you don't burn in the fall of the year because at night you get an inversion and you get a lot of smoke on the road, which is dangerous.
We start with the weatherman, who predicts as best he can what the weather conditions are going to be; and knowing what that smoke will do under that given set of weather conditions is critical in managing not only the smoke, but the fire as well.
So we just don't go out and light a match and turn around and pick up a cup of coffee and watch it burn. It is a scientific process.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Mr. Peterson?
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Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Garner, if groups like the Sierra Club and Heartwood win the argument that they are making of zero cut on public land, what will happen to our public forests?
Mr. GARNER. I think that they will sit there and be used by a few for their own benefit, and that a lot of stewardship of natural resources will go to waste.
I think that as a second part of that, our products that we demand from the forest have got to come from somewhere and we, as a nation with the scientific and professional know-how and the climate to have productive forests, do we say that we lock up ours and then do we go to some undeveloped Third World country that can ill afford an ecological disaster because they don't have the resources? Is that right, that we lock up a resource that we know how to manage and know how to care for, and push that which—we are not going to change our need for forest products, I don't think, in this country.
As long as the demand is there, the wood has got to come from somewhere, and I think this Nation has the scientific and professional ability to nurture all of our natural resources without putting an ecological disaster on some other nation.
Mr. PETERSON. Coming from the East, I thank you, and we deal with more hardwoods than we do softwoods, but that varies up and down the coast of this country. But it is a product that we can be producing. Many of the outdoor sports deal with land where some timber has been marketed or some thinning has been done. In our area, we had the tornadoes in 1985 which took down mile-wide paths of mature oak and cherry trees, just twisted them apart and laid them on the ground. The thick forests that have grown there and the wildlife species that we didn't see before, because it is the kind of habitat that they need, it is interesting to watch that grow; and that is 20, 30 feet high a decade later, and the creatures that now use that as their home, it has been interesting to watch.
All of that happens, but the point that I want to make is that we have a very strong argument made in this country by groups that want zero cut on public land, and I thank you for your testimony on that.
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Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Mr. Garner, for your instructive and informative testimony.
Mr. GARNER. Thank you for having me.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. I thank you for this information, and it is a permanent part of our record. And I do want you to know that our record will remain open for 10 working days. Should you wish to add anything to your testimony, my staff would be happy to work with you on that.
With that, again I want to thank you for your valuable time here and I will now call the third panel.
Mr. GARNER. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. As they are taking the witness table, I want to say that our third panel will be comprised of Wally Josephson, Wildland Fire Specialist, Office of Managing Risk and Public Safety, U.S. Department of the Interior; Janice McDougle, Associate Deputy Chief for State and Private Forestry, Forest Service; and Ms. McDougle is accompanied by Denny Truesdale, Assistant Director of Fire Management for Operations, Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture.
You have all been here many times before, and so I will administer the oath.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. We open our testimony with Mr. Josephson.
STATEMENT OF WALLY JOSEPHSON, WILDLAND FIRE SPECIALIST, OFFICE OF MANAGING RISK AND PUBLIC SAFETY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Mr. JOSEPHSON. Madam Chairman and members of the Committee, I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the Department of Interior's planning and budgeting process of the wildland management program. The Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Indian Affairs and are four land management agencies within the Department of Interior with fire management programs. These agencies work in close cooperation on budgeting, planning and implementation activities related to fire management.
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The Department's Wildland Fire Management Program is guided by the principles and policies of the Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy and Program Review, adopted by the Secretaries of Agriculture and Interior in December 1995. The program ensures the capability to provide a safe and cost-effective fire management organization. Fires are suppressed at minimum cost, considering firefighter and public safety and benefit and values to be protected consistent with resource objectives.
Funds for the Department's Wildland Fire Management Program are appropriated to the Bureau of Land Management and are made available by allocation to the National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The Department's Wildland Fire Management Program is composed of two activities—wildland fire preparedness and wildland fire operations.
Fire preparedness involves the readiness and capability of the Department to suppress fire in a safe and cost-effective program. Staffing levels, training, fire planning, equipment, maintenance facilities, prevention activities and the interagency coordination all fall within the category of fire preparedness. The fire management plan is the guide for budgeting and managing wildland fire preparedness activity. The primary analysis tool of the fire plan is an economic marginal cost analysis, combined with a threshold analysis which is used to determine the most efficient level, which we call MEL. MEL represents the funding necessary to provide the most cost-efficient and technically effective fire management program that meets land management objectives while minimizing the total cost of both suppression and resource damage associated with wildland fire.
The fire operations portion of the program funds the development and implementation of the emergency suppression, emergency rehabilitation, hazardous fuel reduction operations, and fire severity programs. Emergency suppression includes all management actions taken to suppress wildland fires in a safe and cost-effective manner. Emergency rehabilitation is carried out to prevent any further land degradation and resource damage to lands impacted by unplanned wildland fire or suppression activities.
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Rehabilitation funds are also used to reduce any residual public health and safety risk that may result from wildland fires. Hazardous fuel reduction operations use fire and mechanical treatments as management tools to reduce fuel loadings and restore fire to its natural role in the ecosystem.
Commercial activities, such as timber harvest and small wood product sales, are used whenever commodity production can be used in an environmentally sound manner to achieve the same objectives.
Wildland fires occur unexpectedly and create an emergency in which firefighters must respond rapidly to minimize risk and damage. Despite public expectations, when the combination of excessive fuel buildup, steep topography, extreme weather conditions, multiple ignitions and extreme fire behavior occur, it is impossible to immediately suppress all fires. Firefighter and public safety must best be met with the adequate preparation and interagency coordination of supplies and services and safe, but aggressive implementation of fire control tactics provide for our ability to suppress fires.
To meet these needs, the BLM, in cooperation with other DOI bureaus, the Forest Service and the National Weather Service, maintains and operates the National Interagency Fire Center at Boise, Idaho. The NIFC provides logistical support through its coordination center for the coordinated movement of suppression resources when local capabilities are exceeded. Response to requests are based upon the concepts of closest forces and total mobility which seek to dispatch the closest available qualified resource regardless of agency affiliation.
We were asked by the Committee to identify both jobs well done and lessons learned as a result of the wildfires in Florida. While review of the past actions may lead to improvements, Florida fires did not indicate a major need to revamp our procedures. The Department of Interior and the coordination center, for the most part, served primarily as a support function. Most of the Florida fires, including most high profile and highly publicized fires were under the control of the State.
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Madam Chairman, I would like to thank the Congress for the direction and support that you have provided us in the Department of Interior. This concludes my statement.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. That you, Mr. Josephson. Very interesting.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Josephson may be found at end of hearing.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. And now the Chair recognizes Janice McDougle.
STATEMENT OF JANICE McDOUGLE, ACCOMPANIED BY DENNY TRUESDALE, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF FIRE MANAGEMENT FOR OPERATIONS, FOREST SERVICE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Ms. MCDOUGLE. Thank you, Madam Chairman and members of the Committee. I am Janice McDougle, Associate Deputy Chief for State and Private Forestry, with responsibility for fire and aviation, forest health and cooperative forestry programs. I am accompanied today by Denny Truesdale, who is our Assistant Director for Fire and Aviation Management for Operations.
I would like, Madam Chairman, to submit my formal testimony for the record and briefly summarize my remarks.
The wildfire suppression program in the United States is in partnership with a broad array of Federal agencies, State, tribal and local government and private companies. Its first priority is in protecting human life. When a fire occurs, we respond immediately. We implement attack strategies. We identify additional resources needed, and we expand the organization, as needed, to protect people and property.
Several factors influence an effective and safe fire suppression program, including the expansive wildland urban interface, hazardous fuel conditions, the increasingly broad array of partners involved in suppression, and the increased role for the Forest Service in providing international assistance.
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We have an outstanding track record. The Federal firefighting agencies have consistently suppressed 98 percent of all wildfires during initial attack; only 2 percent of all fires account for the greatest cost and the most acreage burned. The five Federal Wildland Fire Management Agencies: the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service and Bureau of Indian Affairs, are strengthening the common features of their respective wildland fire management planning processes.
Initial attack analysis and planning are the backbone of our success. The National Fire Management Analysis System is a model we use to identify the most efficient firefighting organization. Developed locally to determine what mix and distribution of initial attack resources will provide a cost-effective fire suppression program, the results of the local analysis are aggregated into the national program. This assures the most responsive organization possible.
When initial attack fails and local resources are not capable of controlling one or more wildfires, we shift to extended attack and assign national resources such as incident management teams and interagency Hotshot crews, and large airtankers.
In 1998, the Federal agencies are fully staffed for the fire season. We have adequate resources in every region for effective suppression, assuming that this is, and will be, an average year. The Florida effort affirmed the value of a prescribed fire program to create more fire tolerant ecosystems and better protect homes and improvements. It also reinforced the value of our safety program. In Florida we even had to educate crews from other regions of the health and fire threats unique to Florida.
The Forest Service's fire suppression program is professional. It is responsive to the concerns and needs of partners, and it is based on the continuous study of historical fire occurrences and risk. We are very proud of this program, its value to the public and the firefighters who work endless days and get great satisfaction from the protection of people and resources.
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Madam Chairman, this concludes my remarks, and I would be happy to answer any questions.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you Ms. McDougle.
[The prepared statement of Ms. McDougle may be found at end of hearing.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. And the Chair recognizes Mr. Schaffer, the gentleman from Colorado.
Mr. SCHAFFER. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Ms. McDougle, when it comes to the controlled burns, what kind of resources do you find that you need to devote to helping—assisting in managing these controlled burns? Is there any——
Ms. MCDOUGLE. You are talking about our fuels program? Is that what you are talking about?
Mr. SCHAFFER. On those occasions when we increase—for example, we increased rather dramatically, to the extent of about 400 percent, the amount of public lands that are slated for controlled burns. When we do that, I assume that there is some kind of prevention-suppression personnel that are needed to help contain and maintain and make sure that those burns are controlled.
I guess my question is, how much in the way of personnel do we consume in managing controlled burns?
Ms. MCDOUGLE. Acres are identified by our field personnel. We don't do that out of the Washington office.
We estimate that in fiscal year 1999 we will treat about 1.4 million acres out there nationally just within the Forest Service. But fuels treatment is an interagency priority, and other land management agencies will do that as well. By the year 2005, we estimate that we will be burning up to about 3 million acres a year—treating 3 million acres a year, and that is probably as much as we can do with smoke considerations.
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Mr. SCHAFFER. Let me ask you, in Colorado, for example, there are stakeholders who are constantly negotiating how many acres might be subject to active management. To your knowledge, have administrative appeals of forest plans or timber sales made action necessary to prevent dangerous fires?
Ms. MCDOUGLE. I am not clear what you are asking. Can appeals apply to all of our ground disturbing activities? That is just part of the process. Beyond that, I am not sure.
Mr. SCHAFFER. There are proposals to expand the acreage that would be under a managed category. As long as there are administrative appeals pending, presumably there is not much in the way of management that takes place on those occasions. Is this as a result of the policies of the departments that we are unable to go ahead and begin managing these lands for fire prevention in ways that might——
Ms. MCDOUGLE. I can't speak to specific activities in Colorado, but my overall answer is no.
Mr. SCHAFFER. The last part of your answer?
Ms. MCDOUGLE. My overall answer is no.
Mr. SCHAFFER. You don't believe that there are any?
Ms. MCDOUGLE. I really would prefer to speak to specifics, but I am not sure what you are talking about here.
Mr. SCHAFFER. You are not sure about the impact of the administrative appeals process on the ability to begin managing land?
Ms. MCDOUGLE. We have been living with administrative appeals process for many years, so I am struggling here.
Mr. SCHAFFER. Do you believe it has any delay at all on our ability to engage active management plans that might be useful in suppressing or preventing wildfires?
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Ms. MCDOUGLE. The process itself is not new. Maybe the number of appeals you are getting out there may have changed, but the process, we have lived with. We factor it into our day-to-day activities, and it is applied much broader than what you are talking about here.
Mr. SCHAFFER. So you don't believe that the length of time that these appeals take to be resolved has any impact?
Ms. MCDOUGLE. It depends on how many you get. Some, you get few and some you get lots. It varies from decision to decision.
Mr. SCHAFFER. What steps are we taking to better predict where forest fires are likely to occur?
Ms. MCDOUGLE. There are about 40 million acres that are at high risk for fires, big fires. We will have those numbers refined later on this fall and have a clearer idea of where they are. We also already have a map, a national map, that lays out across ownership those areas that are at high risk for mortality from insect and disease; and once we are able to merge that information, it will help us tremendously in determining our priorities.
Mr. SCHAFFER. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. The Chair recognizes Mr. Boyd.
Mr. BOYD. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman.
Ms. McDougle, I want to express my appreciation to the folks that work for you, all of the way down to the last firefighter. Certainly we don't have any quarrel with them. They do an outstanding job, and I know that is under your leadership and we are very grateful. We are not always pleased with the policy sometimes, and that is primarily what I want to discuss today.
I am not mean or bad or anything, I want you to know that, but I do have some very serious questions about the policy.
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First of all, I want to lay out the situation that we have in north Florida. One of the reasons that I ask Chairman Chenoweth, and she agreed to let me come sit because—we have three national forests in Florida, two of them are in the Second Congressional District, the Apalachicola National Forest, southwest of Tallahassee, and the Osceola National Forest, which is between Tallahassee and Jacksonville and Gainesville.
The Apalachicola National Forest is a very special place. You may or may not know that it contains—I forget the exact acreage—almost 600,000 acres. It was actually a piece of land that was clear-cut back in the early 1900's, in those days when we did some silly things in terms of our natural resources. But through a sensible management program over the last 70 or 80 years, we have managed to rehabilitate that and bring it back to a vibrant, live forest that today houses the world's largest red-cockaded woodpecker population, and we are very proud of that.
There have been—for your information, there has been a lot of controversy in north Florida about forest management practices there, primarily—well, basically how we manage it and how we have cut the timber. As you may know, there has been a restriction of timber cutting in the last few years; it has almost come down to nothing. Even though the fact that the plan we have been on for the last 70 or 80 years had gotten us to a very good point to wildlife habitat and a natural setting that we are very proud of in the last 10 or 15 years, we suddenly want to change that. And it has created some real problems in some of the communities that I represent, primarily with the local governments in terms of the tax revenue that they have been receiving.
As you know, we put in place two programs to offset those abnormal tax issues for the local communities. One was the PILT, Payment in Lieu of Taxes, Program, which still exists, and the other was a 25 percent program. But most of the people that you talk to about the 25 percent program, they will kind of laugh at you and say, the Federal Government really pulled one over on us; they said, we are going to give you 25 percent of everything that we cut, but then they reduced the cutting to practically nothing. And we have school systems—I have one school system which is in deep trouble because of the loss of those funds. I give you that as kind of a background to let you know where I am coming from.
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I have spent all of my professional life in agriculture. Part of that was forestry management. I managed for three specific purposes. One was for aesthetic value, economic production and wildlife habitat. I believe they are not incompatible. I believe they are compatible, and I have struggled understanding this great debate that we have going on between the extreme environmental community and the extreme economic community, if you understand what I mean.
Ms. MCDOUGLE. Yes, I do.
Mr. BOYD. Now, I get to the questions, and thank you, Madam Chairman, for indulging me on that. I wanted everybody to understand the lay of the land.
The situation that was described earlier about the two fires that started on the highway, what is your reaction to that? First, if you will, just give me your reaction and then let me ask some specific questions.
Ms. MCDOUGLE. My understanding of that situation was that it was not—it was not described to me as a wilderness issue. It was described to me as swamp burning and the inability to get equipment, heavy equipment, into the area, and it was also a safety issue. And that is why the decision was made to let it go.
Mr. BOYD. If it was described as a swamp issue, someone inaccurately described it. One side of the road was wilderness—and we can look at the maps afterwards—and the other side was not. Because of the inability of the person on the ground to understand what authority they had or didn't have, then we had a situation that burned about 24,000 acres. And actually at the end of that it was beginning to threaten some populated areas on the west side.
So that really leads me to the issue about the authority that people have on the ground, and I have had this discussion with Ms. Marcia Kearney, who is your new national State Forest Supervisor, and I spent some time 2 weeks ago looking and observing the burned areas.
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One of the things that I would like to see come out of this is more flexibility for the people on the ground who need to make decisions quickly, because it has to come to your office. It takes 24 to 48 hours. You have got something that is totally out of control by then. In 48 hours, those fires had burned 10,000 acres.
Give me your reaction to more flexibility on the ground.
Ms. MCDOUGLE. The things—and Denny can speak to the command issue. When things come to us, we send them back. We don't try to second-guess decisions out there. We can't. And we entrust our incident commanders with responsibility and authority to do the right thing.
And so, yes, people do come to us. We do get calls, but we send them to the field.
Mr. BOYD. Madam Chairman, if you will indulge me for one more question, then I will quit for the time being.
Under what circumstances are the wilderness rules—could we have gone in and stopped that fire with all resources that we had available when we first discovered it? Are there within the law provisions which allow us to waive rules?
Ms. MCDOUGLE. For a big fire, sure.
Mr. BOYD. Who would have to make that waiver?
Ms. MCDOUGLE. I am not sure, but we believe that the regional foresters have the authority to make that call.
Again, we don't.
Mr. BOYD. That is not what the regional foresters are telling me, and that is something that maybe we can work together on, to clarify that authority.
Ms. MCDOUGLE. OK.
Mr. BOYD. My point is that there ought to be clear rules about when we can use that waiver, and we ought to give that authority either to the local forester in charge of that forest or your State Forester who can be there in a matter of hours under any circumstances. Maybe that is something that we can work together on, because it definitely—in this case, we burned about 24,000 acres that probably could have been prevented.
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Madam Chairman, I will defer any other questions until later on if we have more time.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. All right, Mr. Boyd.
Mr. Peterson.
Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Josephson, we heard from the Forest Service that they estimate that 40 million acres of their land are at risk for catastrophic fires. What would be the figure on the land that you manage?
Mr. JOSEPHSON. I don't have a figure at this time, but I can provide one in the future.
Mr. PETERSON. That is not a figure that you have heard talked about? Is there is a process for developing one?
Mr. JOSEPHSON. Yes, we are in the process of coming up with a figure.
Mr. PETERSON. Do you think that it is sizable, like the Forest Service?
Mr. JOSEPHSON. I am sure that it is significant in acreage, yes.
Mr. PETERSON. Is there a plan being developed to shrink it? It seems like 40 million acres, one agency that is at risk for catastrophic fire, that is a destructive fire.
Mr. JOSEPHSON. Yes. We are trying to set in place a program to manage the fuels and reduce the fuel loading.
Mr. PETERSON. But as has been discussed here, there have been some policy shifts in the last few years that some feel make it really impossible to manage the fuel load. You can't remove fuel without cutting it or doing something with it. If we are moving toward a zero-cut policy, and there has certainly been a lot of evidence toward that, how do you manage the fuel load if, above you, decisions are being made that we are not going to cut trees?
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Mr. JOSEPHSON. I think you have to look at each situation and develop a plan to manage that particular piece of ground, and it has to be done at the local level.
Mr. PETERSON. But we have already found out that local people are not making those decisions, are not allowed to make those decisions.
Mr. JOSEPHSON. At least for the Department of Interior, the local manager is the one who develops the fuel management program and the plans to modify the fuels on the ground.
Mr. PETERSON. And then he has to get approval from Washington?
Mr. JOSEPHSON. No, it is generally the next level higher which signs off on the approval.
Mr. PETERSON. The regional?
Mr. JOSEPHSON. Depending on the agency, whether it is regional or State level.
Mr. PETERSON. If I can switch to Ms. McDougle.
I don't mean to sound harsh, because it is not personal, but there are those who give your agency just A-pluses in fighting fires and moving fast and working hard and coordinating; but they give very bad grades on the efforts to minimize fires.
Do you find policies that you have no control over prevent you from really doing that job?
Ms. MCDOUGLE. I am not sure that I understand what you are saying. What do you mean, efforts to minimize fires?
Mr. PETERSON. You admit you are 40 million acres at risk for catastrophic fires?
Ms. MCDOUGLE. Yes.
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Mr. PETERSON. There are many who feel that the Forest Service is failing at carrying out the role to lower that number and to prevent these catastrophic fires by doing what is necessary.
Ms. MCDOUGLE. I think that our acres targeted for reduction in our budgets reflect just the opposite, and Congress has been very supportive in supporting our budget increases to do that. And we are—yes, we are meeting the targets which we have identified.
Mr. PETERSON. That may be more current, but I am speaking of historic, in the last few years. Are you—you have had an increase in the last year or two?
Ms. MCDOUGLE. Yes.
Mr. PETERSON. So you are shifting policy and coming back to the burn policy?
Ms. MCDOUGLE. I think we know more about fire ecology now, and that is not unique to the Forest Service. That is true of all land management agencies. We have capped fire out of the ecosystem, and now we are paying for it. We thought that was the right thing to do at the time, and now we are learning differently. I don't think that it is a matter of being irresponsible; it is how much science we know about fire ecology, and we know more now.
Mr. PETERSON. I agree, but there are those who believe that never in the history of these agencies has there been as much influence from nonscientists who are in powerful policymaking decisions. Many feel that they have veered from science to political agendas, and that the Forest Service and the Department of Interior have not been able to manage, that sound science has been moved away from; and we are finding that didn't work.
Ms. MCDOUGLE. That hasn't been an issue in fire.
Mr. PETERSON. You don't think policies from leaders of this country have had an impact in preventing catastrophic fires?
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Ms. MCDOUGLE. The Forest Service is not out here by itself making these calls and establishing these priorities.
I think the fire business among the agencies is probably one of the best models of how this should work, and it works very, very well.
Mr. PETERSON. Well, I would agree with you once we have the fire. Many people do not agree with you in preventing those fires, and I will conclude with that.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Ms. McDougle, I am going to continue on that line of questioning, because we do have some very specific concerns about how the U.S. Forest Service reacts in its decisionmaking processes with those who are on the ground, those who are at the site of the fire, and the decisions that are made.
I do want to read the following questions, because they were questions that were submitted to me by Congresswoman Tillie Fowler, whose district also was impacted very heavily by the fires; and this goes to the line of questions that Mr. Peterson was involved in, and that is the Forest Service activities and decisionmaking on the ground when the fire is in process.
Ms. Fowler submitted the following question:
During the Florida fires, a Super Scooper aircraft, a can Canadair CL–215 firefighting aircraft was sent down from North Carolina to help fight the fires. Unfortunately, this asset was not properly used during the Florida fires. Although it is able to successfully complete over nine drops of water each hour, it was only used efficiently for 1 day. It spent 3 days on the ground and at least 1 day flying on the same schedule as the slower tankers.
Why was this firefighting aircraft used so inefficiently? And the fires began on Memorial Day weekend and the Super Scooper was not brought into those fires until a month later, when it only had to come from North Carolina. What was the reason for the delay in requesting this aircraft and bringing it down to Florida?
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Finally, although the company that makes this aircraft is based in Canada, it does have production facilities in the United States, and we should, as a matter of fact, be able to use any aircraft available to us that would be more responsive in terms of its capabilities in putting out large fires like the one that we have been referring to in the wilderness areas.
There seemed to be to Mrs. Fowler and to the people in Florida and the reports that the Congressmen there have gotten there seemed to be some resistance from the Forest Service to bring in these aircraft to fight the fires.
What was the reason for the objections to the use of this aircraft?
Ms. MCDOUGLE. Madam Chairman, I am going to let Denny Truesdale respond to that since he was down there. But I would like to say that I had several personal conversations with Ms. Fowler, not specific to the Super Scooper, but to the availability of helicopters, and I immediately called the incident commander and said, talk to this lady and he did.
So we were responsive to her in a number of ways, but as to—and I know that the State Forester for Florida was the one who initially requested the Super Scooper.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Therein lay the problem.
Mr. Truesdale, please proceed.
Mr. TRUESDALE. Thank you. I tried to take notes as you went through the questions, but if I miss one, please refresh my memory.
The first question regarded the efficiency or, in the Congressperson's words, the inefficiency when she asked the question. That was a very complex situation down there in Florida. I have talked to the State Forester, Earl Peterson, and I believe, according to his information, there was more firefighting aircraft in the State of Florida working at one time than has ever occurred in the history of firefighting within the State. Combine that with the smoky conditions, the weather conditions which make it very difficult to fly, and the inefficiencies of all kinds of aircraft, whether they are the large retardant bombers used extensively in the West, the small, single-engine airtankers which are similar to crop dusters, those sorts of things that are used throughout the East very effectively; and so inefficiencies are bound to occur under those situations because of the inability to fly.
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The aircraft itself had some difficulty getting pilots that were approved by FAA to fly in the U.S., and I believe FEMA was able to work with the FAA and get those pilots certified to work in Florida for that emergency. That took a few days in the delay.
We believe that the mix of aircraft which was ordered by the incident commanders on the ground, both Federal, State and local firefighters, needed to match the local conditions there; and we had that full range of aircraft there, including the loan of the Super Scooper from North Carolina. We still had many other aircraft available in the West that, because of the congestion of the air space there, we were unable to move into Florida. And we feel that the Canadian aircraft is a good product that, in some circumstances, has a very effective use in places in the United States; and it is used within the United States in such circumstances.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Mr. Truesdale. I am not sure that we got the answer that we were looking for with regards to how the question was framed.
It seems only logical that if air congestion of a number of aircraft was the question, if you have one aircraft that can do 10 times the work of other smaller aircraft, that we would utilize that one aircraft, especially when we have a wilderness area, for instance, that is on fire, we can only fight it from the air, there are 24,000 acres that ultimately were lost.
This appears to be the situation of maybe some turf battles. I hope that didn't happen. But it gives every appearance of being.
So for us, for the American people, Mr. Truesdale, I would love—I would not just love it, I would ask that you submit to this Committee and to Mrs. Fowler and to the rest of the congressional delegation a complete report on how aircraft were deployed and utilized, who was in control, who were making the command decisions down there, and who was cooperating with whom in terms of how the Federal and the State foresters were cooperating with one another.
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It will be very instructive to us in the future because I hear the same complaints in Boise sometimes. Aircraft are brought in and they are embargoed right there in Boise, and they cannot be used by their owners for other purposes and they sit on the ground. So this would be a very good opportunity to bring more understanding as to the problem that Mrs. Fowler has pointed out, and it will enable all of us to be able to avoid that problem in the future.
Even though it is a Canadian aircraft, there should have been very little reason for it to be used only a minimal amount of time; and there should have been very little reason for it to have taken a month for it to be called from North Carolina. So naturally the Committee has questions about it, and so we do look forward to a more detailed report.
Do you have any comments with regards to the detailed report that this chairman is asking for?
[The information referred to may be found at end of hearing.]
Mr. TRUESDALE. No.
First of all, we will be happy to respond to your request. We are in the process with the State agencies, the other agencies who responded, in looking at the entire mobilization down there, the process that brought the people from throughout the United States, as well as some of the individual fires; and we will add that into our list of items that we need to review and report back to you.
I probably was not very clear in some of my earlier statements here, and let me add just one more comment.
Even though the CL–215 is an aircraft, an airplane, it is most comparable in firefighting use with the large helicopters, the Sikorskys, the Sky Cranes, what we call Type 1 or heavy-lift helicopters; they drop at approximately the same speed. Although helicopters can actually hover, they usually maintain some forward speed. They fly slowly and have quick turnaround times. They can use the same water sources that the Super Scoopers use. They are more maneuverable than aircraft because they can be directed more precisely because of their ability to fly so slowly.
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My comparison with the need for the incident commanders to make a decision on the type of aircraft was a tradeoff for a similar category in dropping ability between the Type 1 aircraft and the Canadian aircraft. The Type 1 helicopters we have, I don't know what the numbers are, but 20, 30, 40 are on contract throughout the United States. There were numerous Type 1 helicopters in the State of Florida dropping both for the Forest Service on Federal fires, for the State on State-protected fires; and I think they were also used cooperatively with the counties. So our comparison would be more with the Type 1 helicopter than with the 2,000-, 3,000-gallon water retardant aircraft.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Mr. Truesdale. I look forward to receiving that report within 30 days.
Mr. TRUESDALE. We will get you a report within 30 days. The completeness and the specificity that you asked for, I am not sure that all of the reviews will be completed by that time, but within 30 days we will let you know the status of the information that we have. Thank you.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Within 30 days I would like to see in the report the evidence that you have worked with the State forester in trying to find out where the breakdown was or what is perceived as a breakdown.
So I would like to see in that report within 30 days the fact that you have coordinated with the State and what your report is.
I will also be working through Mr. Boyd to receive a like report from the State forester.
Would you be willing to assist the Committee in that, Mr. Boyd?
Mr. BOYD. Absolutely, Madam Chairman.
[The information referred to may be found at end of hearing.]
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Mrs. CHENOWETH. All right.
I have a couple more questions. It has been mentioned in the newspaper, Mrs. Fowler also wanted us to mention this, that perhaps the command structure for fighting the fires was in a state of confusion throughout some of the time that the fires were burning, and the communication between coordinating agencies was not all that it should be during an emergency situation. This was her last comment, and I do—would expect that in the report you will be able to respond to these concerns and what we can do in the future to improve it.
Now, going back to some of my questions, I have two questions for you. What role did we play this year in the fires in Mexico and last year in the fires in Indonesia, Ms. McDougle?
Ms. MCDOUGLE. Well, Denny Truesdale accompanied a group to Mexico, so I would like for him to speak to that.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. All right.
Mr. TRUESDALE. I will go to Indonesia first. I did not go to Indonesia. The assistance to Indonesia was a combination of Department of Defense, U.S. military assets, aircraft, the C–130's and MAFFS units—and I didn't come prepared with the acronym, but it is Mobile Aviation Firefighting Systems or something. It is the systems that slide into the C–130 which drop retardant, which make cargo-carrying aircraft retardant aircraft, and we supplied a few technical experts and personnel to assist the Indonesian Government in utilizing those aircraft, and we may have provided some other technical advice.
But for practical purposes, that was the extent of the assistance to Indonesia.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. What about the fire in Mexico this year?
Mr. TRUESDALE. The fire in Mexico this year was a little more extensive. The Mexican Government requested technical experts in the same issue we have just been talking about, the use of helicopters and aviation resources to fight fires and assist with planning, fire detection and mapping, that sort of thing. And then the use of the incident command system and the coordination process we use to manage fires.
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We sent approximately—and when I say ''we,'' it is the interagency wildfire community. This included State of Texas employees, government of Mexico employees, Department of Interior employees, not just the Forest Service. We sent approximately 100 people to Mexico over about a 6-week period to assist them.
The fires in Mexico, while related to the fires in Florida because of the commonality of the weather—extreme drought and the fact that fires had not occurred in Florida for 50 years—this was the worst, as Mr. Boyd stated. The same is true with Mexico except in the states of Chiapas and Oaxaca, and some of the areas down there, fires had never occurred to that extent in the history of the people down there. There is a wide range of reasons for that, which I am not an expert on, but because of the remoteness of the area—unlike Florida, Chiapas and Oaxaca are extremely mountainous and remote—and the use of helicopters was needed to get people to the fires and the use of the infrared mapping aircraft was necessary to assist the Mexican and the Guatemalan Governments in locating where the fires were.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Did we deploy personnel like our Hotshots down there?
Mr. TRUESDALE. No. All of the firefighters, the people like the Hotshot crews that go out and fight the fire were Mexicans. They did not request any assistance, just the technical assistance and those activities already described.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Mr. Truesdale, I will address this question to you or Ms. McDougle, whoever wishes to answer it.
Our Hotshot crews are the pride of the Forest Service, and as you know, Hotshot crews were deployed out of Boise into Florida even.
And as you know, the Boise Hotshot crew, which is in my mind the premier of the premiers, was put on hold, and I have a lot of my Hotshots in Boise counting needles on trees and doing landscape gridding, and I am not one bit happy about it; I am a very unhappy camper about that.
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I do want assurance from you, Ms. McDougle, that our Boise Hotshot Crew will be up and operating full speed again in a very short period of time. I would like to know how soon we are going to get them up and operating and get those very highly skilled and highly trained men back doing what they have been trained to do instead of counting needles and laying out landscape grids.
Ms. MCDOUGLE. We believe that they will be back next year. We don't think that we can do it any sooner than that, and as I understand, the investigations are still ongoing. So we have to let that play out, and then we can regroup.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. You know, let me just say for the record that this is very frustrating for me. There was an incident that could have been a criminal violation that happened between a couple of people, but that is absolutely no excuse for doing away with one of the best Hotshot crews in the Nation. The program should go on while investigating with regards to the conduct of two people who probably, or may have, conducted themselves inappropriately, that investigation should go on uninterrupted; and I have given the Forest Service several months' time and have urged the Congress to stay out of this, but I am growing increasingly impatient if I continue to hear that because of an ongoing investigation, because of the violation that two people were involved in, that that is not sufficient reason to give me—not to give me dates specific and times as to the degree that we are going to see this very, very important Hotshot crew reinstituted.
I am, as you can tell, growing increasingly impatient. I want to know dates. I want to know when those people are going to be back to work doing what they have been trained for. When will you have that answer for me?
Last time I asked for direct answers, I said, ''Close of business by tomorrow or I am going to have subpoenas ready.'' I am not prepared to do that yet, but I am getting awful close, because Boise has had a tremendous amount of fire. We have an area there where 600,000 acres have burned, and the fires on the Boise foothills threaten our homes every other year.
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Ms. MCDOUGLE. Well, Madam Chairman, I believe that we have been responsive to your capability in Idaho. We have supplemented what you have there. No, it isn't the Hotshot crew, but in terms of the equipment and the people that we have deployed to your State for this season, I thought that you were satisfied with what we have done today.
Now——
Mrs. CHENOWETH. I have been satisfied to date, but I do want to open it up again to find out when it is that we will have these people back on duty.
Ms. MCDOUGLE. I understand. And I am not convinced that it is two people. I don't know how this is going to turn out. I don't know who, if anybody, is going to be indicted. I know that it is out of our hands; it is in the Justice Department.
We have no control over it, so I am not comfortable at this point in time in moving ahead with that until I have some assurances that I am doing the right thing with the right people; and that is all that I am saying. I understand your desire, and I believe that we can be responsive to it in a way that you desire. But I am just not comfortable right now, because I don't know how this is going to play out. I have no idea.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. I just want us together as a Congress and as an agency to always keep the goal in mind, and I think we would have to agree on the fact that government's ultimate responsibility is to make sure that necessary services are fulfilled and—necessary services being fighting fire; and when we see skilled people who are not under indictment being laid off to count needles on trees, that does not make me very sanguine at all.
Ms. MCDOUGLE. I understand.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. So the program has to go on. Ms. McDougle, I know you share that with me, the fact that that necessary program is gone.
So I look forward to staying in touch with you and your staff on that as we proceed.
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Ms. MCDOUGLE. I would be happy to.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you very much.
Ms. MCDOUGLE. You are welcome.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. I would like to ask the gentleman from Colorado if he has any other questions.
Mr. BOYD. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I want to shift gears for just a minute.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. The gentleman from Florida. Please proceed.
Mr. BOYD. Ms. McDougle, do you agree with the press accounts that forest roads greatly assisted in the suppression of fires in Florida?
Ms. MCDOUGLE. I am sorry?
Mr. BOYD. Do you agree with the press accounts that forest roads greatly assisted with the fighting of the fires that we had in Florida?
Ms. MCDOUGLE. I don't know that. I have not seen those press accounts, but we do—we are aware that that access to fires is very important, yes.
Mr. BOYD. Mr. Truesdale is shaking his head, yes. I guess that means that you agree with those press accounts.
Mr. TRUESDALE. Yes. Again, I am not familiar with the specific ones, but roads are a very effective barrier many times in fighting fires.
Mr. BOYD. Having seen the—partially seen the fires in the Osceola National Forest, I can assure you that they were the key in us preventing the spread of that into private lands and into populated areas.
Ms. McDougle, I have had discussions with Mr. Peterson, who is our State Forester with your people, Ms. Kearney, who is your State Forester in the national forests of Florida, the people who came in from other States, the local firefighters, and I think overall that most everybody agrees that the coordinated effort that was made in Florida was good, and I want to lay that out, that we feel that way.
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I think any time that you do, that you experience—have a new experience, and in Florida that was something new for us. We haven't had a spread of wildfires of that magnitude in Florida since I can remember in my lifetime, so we are breaking new ground down there. Any time you break new ground, obviously you make some mistakes, and obviously you want to evaluate what happened and how you can do it better next time.
I have had this discussion with Mr. Peterson. As a matter of fact, Mr. Peterson came before this Committee last week and, overall, he gave high marks to the coordinated efforts that were done in Florida; and a lot of that was done through your office and the folks that work for you.
However, he did say that he felt that better coordination could be done in the area of equipment ordering and placement and that kind of thing, and that there was an ongoing evaluation with your folks. Also, long-range planning in order to more effectively pre-position people and equipment, particularly when we got into the situation where the fire started breaking out.
And I have had these discussions with Ms. Kearney, and it is something I think that you all have learned and I am sure that is going to be a part of your evaluation process and your report. So I won't ask any questions about that. I think that you all, I am sure that you all will have that evaluation process done, and you will get a report to us, and it will be a very positive thing for all of us.
Rehab efforts, I want to talk about rehab efforts, rehabilitation. Mr. Peterson stated before this Committee that rehabilitation efforts on State lands had begun even prior to the time that all of the fires were out. Salvage timber sales, for example, were already being prepared and he was about to let bids on salvage timber sales.
What is the status of rehab efforts on our national lands?
Ms. MCDOUGLE. We sent a team down—yesterday, in fact—to take a look; we sent our technical experts on that, to take a look at it. I think Osceola is probably the only one where there could be some salvage opportunities, but we don't know that yet. We will be meeting with our forest employees and Marcia Kearney, who is the Forest Supervisor for the national forest of Florida, as well as Mr. Peterson, to come up with some assessment of salvage opportunities.
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Mr. BOYD. Well, I think that is a pretty good analysis of an update, because I talked to Mr. Lawrence, who is an Osceola National Forest forester, probably 10 days ago—this is after all the fires were out—and he explained to me at that time that August 3rd would be the date that the assessment team came in. That was yesterday. You said they went in, and it would take them at least a week to 10 days to do that work, and then we had a NEPA process to go through.
I can tell you, Ms. McDougle, that in Florida when all of that is done, said and done, 60 days from now, there won't be any need for any salvage rehabilitation effort because the timber will be of no value, because that is the way it is in the Southeast; with our high humidity, we get the blue stain. And, you know, we haven't started this process.
The fires have been out for a month now. We are today beginning our assessment. We are going to do that assessment for 10 days, and then we are going to go through a 45-day NEPA process, and then we might as well not have done all that.
So my question to you is, is there something to be learned from this? Can we work together to change this process somehow or another, so that the rehabilitation effort will mean something to us?
Ms. MCDOUGLE. Oh, I don't know if the process needs changing or if we need to better engage those who have regulatory authority over some of these things, like we did for the Texas blow-down effort and others. There was some real partnership that occurred with, for example, CEQ and the Forest Service in that effort; and that was a forest health issue, and it worked.
So I think you just need, the folks you need to get involved, involved as soon as possible, and work something out that is meaningful. We do have red-cockaded woodpecker habitat down there that has been destroyed. There is a need to move urgently if that is at all possible, but I understand that the market has bottomed out down there.
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Mr. BOYD. Well, the market on the pulpwood side has bottomed out and probably not much there, but on the sawn timber side—and of course the pulpwood can stand for a long period of time, but on the sawn timber side, that is where our timing is of the essence; and the markets are still holding up pretty good because we can move that pretty far away at a reasonable cost.
So my question to you is, who is it—and you suggested that we work with the appropriate people. Tell me who the appropriate people are.
Ms. MCDOUGLE. First, we need to wait for the assessment to be completed to see what they really need. I don't know that yet.
Mr. BOYD. When will the assessment be completed?
Ms. MCDOUGLE. They are working on it now. I don't know. I can get back to you with that.
Mr. BOYD. OK. Mr. Lawrence told me it would take a week. Is that——
Ms. MCDOUGLE. I won't second-judge that. I don't know. It just depends on how much they are looking at.
Mr. BOYD. So then, next week sometime we could get back together and figure out who we need to go to to expedite?
Ms. MCDOUGLE. We can give you some sense of how long it is going to take to finish that this week, so we can do that.
Mr. BOYD. Thank you very much.
[The information referred to may be found at end of hearing.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Mr. Schaffer.
Mr. SCHAFFER. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
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I want to followup on that quickly, because in addition to the 60 days of assessment and evaluation that goes on, as this administrative appeals process that I mentioned in our last round of questioning, because that is the next stage that tends to tie up salvage operations for timber sales and so on, and the appeals process, the duration has nothing to do with how many appeals there may be.
It is a consistent process in every single case. When this timber is dead or is dying, the time for analysis, decisions and the appeals, and sometimes the litigation that you pile on top of that, can be so long that you lose any value in the timber.
Let me ask, do you agree with that? Previously you said you didn't agree or didn't believe that the administrative appeals process had any impact on the ability to treat damaged acreage, and so you have heard an immediate example in Florida.
And again, Congressman Boyd's example didn't really contemplate the appeals process where some environmental group, I guarantee, is going to come and submit—because somebody, I am sure, thinks that cinder-coated pieces of wood out in the middle of a dead forest is somehow useful and needs to stay as it is. But once that occurs, you are talking about I don't know how many months, but a long, long time.
I want to ask you one more time. Do you believe that there is some need to review or evaluate the appeals process at the administrative level?
Ms. MCDOUGLE. I don't think you should look at the appeals process in and of itself, alone, as a stand——
Mr. SCHAFFER. Let me just stop you there, because we agree on that point. I am talking about the total duration of time an immediate evaluation, which can take up to 60 days including NEPA process, and then an appeals process established that exists beyond that.
So let's not look at it in and of itself, let's look at it in its totality.
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Ms. MCDOUGLE. The Secretary of Agriculture already has a committee of scientists taking a look at recommendations to totally overhaul our planning process. I presume that that is one of the things that they are looking at as well, although I have not seen the result of their work.
They are slated to be done in a couple of months, I believe, but I am not absolutely sure on that. I think early fall they will have completed their work, and I would suggest that we give that process an opportunity to play out to see if they have done something for us.
Mr. SCHAFFER. Let me move on to some other questions.
One is, I would like to get a sense for where we are headed with budget requests, with budget outlays, and what is the value of a dollar we spend in your agency on suppression and preparedness for the public.
Let us talk in terms of trends. Where do you see the conditions across the country? Are we—it is my sense that we are seeing more volatile lands, more conducive to wildfires. Do you agree with that assessment?
Ms. MCDOUGLE. I just testified that we believe we have about 40 million acres that are at high risk of catastrophic fire.
Mr. SCHAFFER. Is that more than the previous year, more than previous years, if you can take a look at where we have headed over a longer period of time?
Ms. MCDOUGLE. We are in the process now of refining that number. It could be more, it could be less. I don't know yet.
Mr. SCHAFFER. Have we done these kinds of analyses 5 years ago, 3 years ago?
Ms. MCDOUGLE. Not as well as we are doing them now.
Mr. SCHAFFER. So do we have any sense whether there are more or less volatile wildlands that are susceptible to wildfires today than, let's just say, last year?
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Ms. MCDOUGLE. We have a better sense of where they are.
Mr. SCHAFFER. Well, what is that sense?
Ms. MCDOUGLE. Intermountain West.
Mr. SCHAFFER. No, I mean what is the sense of which direction we are headed? Are our national forests becoming more volatile, susceptible to wildfires, or less?
Ms. MCDOUGLE. Well, I would say, probably more, because fuels are continuing to buildup.
Mr. SCHAFFER. Has there ever been any effort to try to quantify the value of the 40 million acres? For example, I know how many acres that is, but in terms of the value of those acres to the American people, not just in resource value, but also in the cost of putting out wildfires in those areas, has there ever been any kind of analysis if we spend a dollar up front how much are we going to save potentially in the coming year?
Mr. TRUESDALE. If I may, sir, part of the analysis that we use in our budget, that Mr. Josephson talked about also for the Department of the Interior, uses a model that gives us a benefit cost of protecting the national forests. And the benefit is that if we are at the most efficient level organization, if we put a dollar—if we spend a dollar on protection, the presuppression organization, we are saving a dollar in suppression costs in resource damages. And that model has been used for 10, 15 years in order to determine an efficient level of budgeting for our presuppression organizations.
So we do the benefit cost from that sort of side of it.
Mr. SCHAFFER. In terms of various agencies, different Federal agencies, State agencies, and private lands, do we have any kind of an analysis of where our fire—our wildfire problems are worse and where they seem to be more easily contained or controlled, or maybe prevented altogether?
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Mr. TRUESDALE. A combination of things. With the 40 million acres that Janice just described that are at risk, the individual fire histories, most areas, including States and some local organizations, have fire history maps that they have used to determine lightning patterns, for example, or patterns that become obvious when you look at them, but where the roads go through the forests, where people have access where fires may start, where people live, where the wildlife interface is.
Mr. SCHAFFER. How about on an agency-by-agency basis? And the reason I ask—I will stop, because I have expired my allotted time here.
This Subcommittee did a field hearing in Idaho and Oregon, and one of the things that made a big impression on me was that I didn't realize that forest fires sometimes stop along a straight line and the only difference between where the fire burned intensely and where it stopped was that the Forest Service owned the land that burned to the ground and private interests owned the ground that is still green.
And what it suggests to me is that—right along the property line is where the fire stops, and what it suggests to me is that your job changes from property owner to property owner across the country. So this 40 million acres, can you tell me whether the majority of these acres are Federal lands and whether they are managed by the Forest Service or BLM or some other Federal agency, or by State-held lands, or whether it is possibly owned by private lands? My sense, without having done the research, is that the greatest risk of wildfires is on Federal lands, federally managed lands, and I guess I want to get a sense of whether I am close to the mark or whether we know that at all.
Ms. MCDOUGLE. That 40 million acres is Forest Service lands only.
Mr. SCHAFFER. So this is all forest that you have estimated here?
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Ms. MCDOUGLE. Yes.
Mr. SCHAFFER. OK. Step away from the 40 million then, and in terms of where our greatest risks of wildfires are across the country, do we know what category of ownership those lands fall into?
Mr. TRUESDALE. Well, if you look at the State of Florida, for example, the risk that occurred over the past 2 or 3 months, if you use acreage, 12.5 percent was national forest system's land and the rest was private or perhaps some other Federal lands down there. But the majority in Florida impacted State and private landowners instead of national forest systems.
In the West, probably just in some parts of your State, for example, where the majority of a particular area is Federal land, then the risk would be higher on the Federal. But in Florida, the risk was highest on the State lands.
Ms. MCDOUGLE. And to add to that, the State of Florida has one of the most aggressive fuels treatment programs in the country. Florida burns about 2 million acres a year. To give you some sense of Forest Service, for instance, we burn about 1.2 million acres a year, nationwide. Florida burns about 2 and still, they have this problem. Had they not had this aggressive fuels effort ongoing to the State, it could have been a lot worse than it was.
Mr. SCHAFFER. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Mr. Peterson.
Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Truesdale, would you share with the Committee the value of our volunteers and how we can help them?
Mr. TRUESDALE. I agree with the State forester from Virginia that they are an extremely valuable part of the fire protection throughout the United States. We—from a Federal agency standpoint, we rely on them also as partners in fighting fires on national forest system lands.
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The Department of the Interior—I know Wally will say the same thing—uses volunteer and State organizations, and we have found that they have been very effective as the initial attack on many, many wildland fires throughout the wild-urban interface, even on Federal lands.
Mr. PETERSON. What do we currently do to help them be prepared and equipped, because—well, next week, in the next 2 weeks at some point in time, as soon as I get a clear date, I am going to be meeting with 20 volunteer fire departments that protect the INF, and they are looking for help.
What should I tell them?
Mr. TRUESDALE. The two programs that were outlined in the GAO report that provide assistance, one, primarily to the State forester to assist in developing the training, communications equipment, those sorts of things for the organizations and the Rural Volunteer Fire Program, a program that specifically funds small rural volunteer fire departments; the Federal Excess Personal Property Program where those groups are able, through the State forester—and I apologize, I don't know your State forester, but he runs a very good program, I am sure—to manage that program that brings those Federal assets down to those volunteer areas.
I think those are some of the best programs that we have at our disposal to assist those folks not only in training and education to help them make that transition from a structural fire department to a wildland, but also to get the equipment, which is different.
I believe Ms. Brown in her statement said, one of the biggest problems they had in Florida, or maybe not the biggest, but one of the problems they experienced in Florida were the structural firefighters that, in many cases that you are speaking of, did not have the lightweight, no-mix fire protection clothing that they should have had for fighting wildland fires, and making that transition not just simply to use their structural protection equipment, but have specialized training. That is a very big help to those areas.
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Mr. PETERSON. So State foresters administer those programs?
Mr. TRUESDALE. Yes.
Mr. PETERSON. Back to the issue of prevention, the Forest Service uses an example—I don't have the numbers from the other agency, but you used to cut about 12 billion board-feet a year, and you have about—plus salvage, which was—2 to 3 billion board-feet is what I have been told. Currently, you are cutting about 3 billion board-feet a year, which includes salvage. And people tell me that we really don't cut much green timber anymore, salvage dominates the program.
I guess the question I want to ask, with that direction we are heading in, do you really have the ability to thin out forests that are overcrowded and impacted by insects and disease and drought?
Ms. MCDOUGLE. We are currently working on an effort to do just that, to deal with that issue, as well as the fuels issue. The problem is, we have done all of the easy stuff and what is left in there is the small-diameter wood that we don't have good markets for.
Our Madison, Wisconsin, lab is working and has done a lot of work, for instance, in Southeast Alaska with the communities to develop—help them develop markets for the small-diameter wood. And we are putting together for our—as we work on our fiscal year 2000 budget, a real initiative we believe, not only to deal with the forest health issue, but to create jobs in these communities.
Mr. PETERSON. But still, my question was a little different than that.
I asked you, with your cut being about 3 billion board-feet a year in your average salvage—that is, after the fact; that is, after timber has died for some reason, or dying, has historically been there—does that allow you—the amount of timber you are cutting per year, does that allow you to thin forests that need thinning?
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Ms. MCDOUGLE. In addition to that, sure, if we get the budgets to do so.
Mr. PETERSON. But you don't—if, you are not getting them presently?
Ms. MCDOUGLE. Well, I don't know that. I don't know that.
Mr. PETERSON. Well, how about last year?
Ms. MCDOUGLE. Well, last year we did not have this initiative, and we have been involving the administration in the development of it, and so we think that there will be support this time.
Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Josephson, would you like to speak to BLM land and the Interior Department?
Mr. JOSEPHSON. I would have to defer to the BLM. If you would ask that question, we will be glad to get back to you with an answer.
Mr. PETERSON. Would you get that information for me?
Mr. JOSEPHSON. Be glad to.
Mr. PETERSON. I have no further questions.
[The information referred to may be found at end of hearing.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. In followup to Mr. Peterson's line of questioning, actually in the Congress we have increases for Forest Service funding every year, so I urge those of you who have to take the hard questions here in this Committee to look to your administrative heads to make sure that the money we allocate is properly spent on those very necessary programs.
It is not always easy to be here in front of the Committee when the buck stops with you, but I appreciate your candid answers, and I look forward to receiving your reports.
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I do want to say, Mr. Josephson, I am not going to let you off the hook. I do have some questions for you. Your expertise is in fuels management and fire; isn't it?
Mr. JOSEPHSON. Wildland fires, that's right.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Wildland fires. I do want to say, in Idaho, right where we have the National Interagency Fire Command Center that deploys information, as well as personnel and equipment, all over the United States and sometimes, when it is required, beyond our borders, we have a situation that is developing that I mentioned earlier that has required our former Secretary of the Interior, Cecil Andrus, former Governor Cecil Andrus, to take to the airwaves with BLM public service spots admonishing people that because we have 400 percent fuel load in the cheat grass to be very careful about making sure that there is no human-caused fire. Well, that is good, but that is only a small part of the problem.
No. 1, we do have a 400 percent fuel load in that cheat grass that not only occupies the landscape south and east and west of Boise, but also north where fires that start can move very quickly into private land, and as we have seen in the past, move onto public Federal Forest Service land.
So when I was back there this weekend, we had the oddity of having rainstorms in August in Boise, which is normally very arid and dry. But when we have dry rainstorms or thunderstorms move through our areas, we take an awful lot of lightning strikes, and that is when so many of our fires are started in that cheat grass area.
Now, cheat grass, as you know, contains a certain chemical composition and a certain oil that when it burns, once it dries out, it burns very, very hot, and winds begin to perpetuate their own weather system because of the fire, and so it becomes a massive fire.
As you know, Mr. Josephson, when fire begins on Federal land, if it moves to State land or to private land, there is no liability on the part of the Federal Government as to whether they have properly tried to contain the fire early on in order to prevent it moving onto someone else's land. But if fire starts on private land or State land, if it moves into the Federal land, then the Federal Government has been given the authority to hold those people liable who did not contain the fire properly when it was on their private land or State land. That seems to be a situation that is way, way out of balance.
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So with that in mind, Mr. Josephson, wouldn't it be advisable for the Secretary to be given the authority to control those fuel loads while they are still controllable? For instance, in the interface between urban and wildland areas, wouldn't it be advisable for the Secretary of Interior to be given the authority by Congress to take care of those fuel loads, either by mowing or grazing or plowing fuel breaks, or whatever it is, around the areas so that fire would not move from the Federal land on to other lands, so fire will not move so quickly that we lose lives like we did a couple years ago? Would you agree that that is a proper authority to be given from this Congress to the Secretary?
Mr. JOSEPHSON. I believe the authority is already at the local level, and they can do interface work with the local communities; and if that includes plowing around the communities or doing prescribed burns in local areas, that is an option they can do at this time.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Perhaps they can, but it has not been spelled out clearly enough in the law that they are willingly using it, and that is why we have seen the fires in that very area that contains the National Interagency Fire Command Center. I mean, it is just ironic that right there in Boise, Idaho, we have had tremendously destructive fires. And so—because it has not been spelled out perfectly clearly that the Secretary has this authority to make those on-the-ground decisions, it has not been done; and so, therefore, we have lost property and we have lost lives with fires that began in those flatlands where there was a high fuel load of cheat grass.
And this, we are—we are naturally very concerned because of the 400 percent increase in the growth of cheat grass; and it has not been contained when it could have been, in the springtime, either by mowing or grazing or whatever it might be that the Secretary determines would be the proper method to control the fuel load.
So would you be willing to work with the Congress and a lot of people nationwide who are interested in making sure that that interface is protected? Would the BLM be willing to work with us on achieving that goal?
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Mr. JOSEPHSON. Yes, we would be willing to work with you to protect the local communities.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. And to control the fuel load that does buildup, in large part because of weather, either drought conditions or heavier than normal water years when we have a heavier fuel load? Will you work with us to control those fuels?
Mr. JOSEPHSON. Yes.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you very much, Mr. Josephson.
Before I close the hearing, I want to yield for another question from Mr. Boyd.
Mr. BOYD. Again, I thank the chairwoman for holding this hearing. I am glad that you have those questions for Mr. Josephson. I certainly didn't want him to feel like he had been slighted by this panel.
Ms. McDougle, I have one final question before we do close. Can you tell me that the United States Forest Service will seek alternative authorities for the Florida fire like they did in Texas?
Ms. MCDOUGLE. No, I can't tell you that, because I don't know what the need is yet. I have to wait until the field people identify them, and then we will take a look and see what is needed to do that. But I have not seen what they have identified yet; it has not been submitted.
I assure you that I will get back with you later on this week and let you know when we can expect something.
Mr. BOYD. OK. So that is the assessment team that is in there now doing that work, that went in yesterday, that Mr. Lawrence told me should take a week or so?
Ms. MCDOUGLE. Yes.
Mr. BOYD. OK. That is a reasonable answer, and if you would, if we could communicate later in the week as that assessment team does it work, that would be helpful, because I would like to work with you to do what is best for the health of that national forest.
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Ms. MCDOUGLE. Understood.
Mr. BOYD. And that includes salvage efforts before those stems rot. And I would like to be able to help you do that. Thank you.
[The information referred to may be found at end of hearing.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. I want to thank the panelists very much for your valuable time. We have held you here for a long time.
This has become an issue that is no longer just contained in the Pacific Northwest or the Southwest, but is now a nationwide problem. So we probably come together more often and for longer, extended periods of time than we had hoped for.
But, again, thank you for your time. I look forward to the reports being submitted to us, and I do want to remind the witnesses that we will have additional questions for you that we will submit in writing, and the record will remain open for 10 working days should you wish to add anything to your testimony.
[The information referred to may be found at end of hearing.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. With that, again I want to thank you, and the hearing is now adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 1 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
[Additional material submitted for the record follows.]
STATEMENT OF JAMES W. GARNER, STATE FORESTER, COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA, REPRESENTING THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF STATE FORESTERS
Good morning, I am Jim Garner, State Forester of Virginia, and I am here this morning representing the National Association of State Foresters. I served as President of the Association in 1995, and have served both as a member and chairman of the Association's Forest Fire Protection Committee. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss the role of the States in wildfire suppression and management, and to share our perspective on how the system works and how it could be improved. I have attached a copy for the record of a report, entitled Managing Forests, Managing Fire: A Report to the Congress on the Status of Wildfire Management in the United States. This report was a cooperative effort of the National Association of State Foresters and the American Forest and Paper Association. It lays out in layman's terms the basic structure of interagency cooperation and highlights the roles of local fire departments in fire suppression, and I commend it to your attention.
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The Department of Forestry is the primary agency for wildland fire control in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Like our colleagues in other State Forestry agencies, we work closely with local fire departments, other State agencies, and the Federal wildland fire agencies including the USDA Forest Service and agencies in the Department of the Interior. We also work through interstate agreements to share resources in times of critical need. In my view, these relationships are a model of intergovernmental cooperation. There a few key features worth noting.
First, local fire departments are the first lines of defense against wildfire throughout the Nation. Volunteer departments are predominant in rural areas, and it is critical that they be well trained, staffed, and equipped to provide initial attack on wildfires. The southern region of the United States, as was demonstrated dramatically by the recent events in Florida, experiences more fire starts than any other region. An effective network of trained local departments, however, helps keep costs down by catching most fires when they are small.
For instance, in Virginia we had 1,242 fire starts last year, but thanks to early and aggressive suppression, our average fire was only 4 acres. Without well-equipped and trained local departments, our average fire size, and the costs of suppression, would be much higher. Right now, in Texas, local fire departments are coping with literally hundreds of starts each day, and they have in many cases avoided large, expensive ''project'' fires.
There are over 26,000 rural volunteer fire departments in the United States. To convert these small departments into full time, paid firefighters would cost over $30 billion. More importantly, as housing developments encroach into wildlands, the jobs of these firefighters become more dangerous, more complicated, and more expensive.
The second positive feature of our cooperative program is that trained and well-equipped wildfire fighting crews from across the country can be dispatched wherever they are needed. This is due to careful coordination by regional coordination centers, interstate fire compacts, and, when necessary, through the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) in your home State of Idaho. During the recent fire situation in Florida, every State except two had firefighters, equipment, or overhead in Florida. My Department sent four bulldozer units, 2 Hummers, and 42 people with support vehicles to Florida. They were assigned to fires in Northeast Florida, and were placed under a unified command under the direction of the Florida Division of Forestry. Thanks to the efforts of the National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG), States and Federal firefighting all train our crews using the same standards and similar equipment. This enables firefighting resources to be used throughout the country, and helps states with frequent wildfires by giving their crews on the ground, practical experience.
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When a fire year becomes extremely busy, State crews and equipment can make up a large portion of the resources that are dispatched nationally. In 1996, for example, every State dispatched at least some overhead personnel to fires out of State. It is also important to keep in mind that many, if not most, of the firefighters who make up State fire crews are also volunteer firefighters in the communities.
Third, the State Foresters work closely with the USDA Forest Service on several programs that help keep our front lone of defense well equipped and trained. Three programs help us achieve this; the State Fire Assistance Program and the Volunteer Fire Assistance Program, both managed by the USDA Forest Service's Fire and Aviation Management staff, and, third, the Federal Excess Personal Property Program (FEPP), which we cooperate with the Forest Service in implementing.
The FEPP program is perhaps the most innovative of the three. Through a cooperative agreement with the Forest Service provided for by the Cooperative Forestry Assistance Act, State Foresters are able to screen property, primarily former military equipment, at the Excess level, rather than the surplus level. This equipment, which ranges from aircraft to trucks, to mobile command posts to clipboards, is reconditioned either by the State or by local fire departments and put directly into service protecting homes and property from wildfire. On average, about $140 million worth of FEPP is annually distributed to the State. For instance, in Virginia, we acquired $116,000 worth of equipment through the FEPP program last year.
Two other points about FEPP are worth bearing in mind. By using this program, we are greatly extending the useful life of vehicles and other equipment that the taxpayers have already paid for. States and localities add value to FEPP and have tremendous pride in keeping the equipment in service. Second, by allowing State forestry agencies to screen at the Federal level and distribute the equipment in their States, it is put to more effective use than would be the case if the nation's thousands of fire departments had to sift and screen through all of the items that are put on the excess list annually.
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The last point I'd like to make is that we will never rid this Nation of wildfire. We can, however take prudent steps through the programs I've discussed to reduce costs and protect lives and property. We can manage our lands to reduce fire dangers by thinning overstocked forests and carefully using prescribed fire. However, as events in Florida have shown, sometimes many factors will come together to create a dangerous and complicated wildfire situation. Unprecedented drought all but nullified the positive impacts of prescribed fire use and careful forest management. The growth of the wildland urban interface, which in and of itself is caused by numerous, complicated factors, turned what would have been straightforward fire fighting tasks into tremendously expensive exercises in emergency management. And until Mother Nature changes the weather pattern, the only thing standing between the citizens of Florida and the fires was our national fire fighting forces. Situations like Florida can push these forces to the limit.
We appreciate your support for wildland fire management, and we look forward to working with you and the rest of the Committee to see that the programs that help with this effort are adequately supported.
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF STATE FORESTERS
The National Association of State Foresters (NASF) has been-awarded the following Federal Grants and Cost Share Agreements:
1. Federal Award Grant No. 98-G-037 was awarded on January 12, 1998 in the amount of $15,000 to NASF from the State and Private Forestry Deputy Area of the USDA Forest Service.
2. Federal Award Grant No. 98-G-032 was awarded on December 8, 1997 in the amount of $251,000 to NASF from the State and Private Forestry Deputy Area of the USDA Forest Service.
3. Federal Award Grant No. 98-G-039 was awarded on January 12, 1998 in the amount of $10,000 to NASF from the State and Private Forestry Deputy Area of the USDA Forest Service.
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4. Federal Award Grant No. 98-G-038 was awarded on January 12, 1998 in the amount of $10,000 to NASF from the State and Private Forestry Deputy Area of the USDA Forest Service.
5. Federal Award Grant No. 95-G-201 was awarded on October 5, 1995 in the amount of $20,000 to NASF from the State and Private Forestry Deputy Area of the USDA Forest Service.
6. Challenge Cost Share Agreement No. #08-98-S&PF-CCS-01 was awarded on July 15, 1998 to NASF from the Southern Region of the USDA Forest Service.
Any further information concerning the above five Federal Award Grants may be directed to NASF at the above telephone number.
STATEMENT OF WALLACE JOSEPHSON, WILDLAND FIRE SPECIALIST, DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR, OFFICE OF MANAGING RISK AND PUBLIC SAFETY
Madam Chairman and members of the Committee, I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the Department of the Interior's planning and budgeting processes for the Wildland fire management program. The Bureau of Land Management, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National Park Service are the four land management agencies within the Department of Interior with fire management programs. These agencies work in close cooperation on budgeting, planning, and implementation activities related to fire management.
The Department's wildland fire management program is guided by the principles and policies of the Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy and Program Review, adopted by the Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior in December, 1995. The program ensures the capability to provide safe, cost-effective fire management by providing appropriate planning, staffing, training, and equipment. Fires are suppressed at minimum cost considering firefighter and public safety and benefits and values to be protected, consistent with resource objectives. The Wildland fire program also recognizes that fire is a critical natural process and must be integrated into resource-management plans and activities at a landscape scale, across agency boundaries, based on the best science and technology available. Whether discussing prescribed fire or emergency suppression of uncontrolled wildland fire, let me emphasize that the protection of human life and public safety is the number one priority in all aspects of the wildland fire management program.
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Funds for the Department's Wildland Fire Management Program are appropriated to the BLM and are made available by allocation to the Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, and Bureau of Indian Affairs. A small portion is also allocated to the Office of the Secretary for program coordination activities. The Department's Wildland Fire Management Program is composed of two activities, Wildland Fire Preparedness and Wildland Fire Operations, which I will summarize.
Wildland Fire Preparedness
Wildland fire preparedness involves the readiness and capability of the Department to provide safe, cost effective fire management programs. Staffing levels, training, fire management planning, equipment availability, provision and maintenance of support facilities (such as air tanker bases and supply warehouses), prevention activities (such as public awareness and education), and interagency coordination all fall within the category of fire preparedness.
The Fire Management Plan is the guide for budgeting and managing the wildland fire preparedness activity. The primary analysis tool in the Fire Plan is an economic marginal cost analysis combined with a threshold analysis which is used to determine the Most Efficient Level (MEL). MEL represents the funding necessary to provide the most cost-efficient and technically effective fire management program that meets land management objectives while minimizing the total cost of both suppression and resource damage associated with uncontrolled wildland fire. In other words, given the workload of an average annual fire season, we determine the most efficient organization and estimate the cost of supporting that organization at the least total cost to the taxpayer. Fire planning and the calculations of MEL are updated annually to reflect such things as changes in resource objectives, values to be protected, land acquisition, increasing human-caused fire occurrence associated with population growth, especially in the wildland/urban interface, continued hazardous fuels build-up, and the current year's field conditions. Fire Plans are developed by local field offices and aggregated at the Washington office to identify national needs.
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Whenever efficiencies can be gained, Interior agencies enter into cooperative agreements with other Federal, state, Tribal, and local governments to exchange protection responsibilities and share scarce resources. Preparedness resources are established in advance of fire emergencies based on analysis of historic needs to ensure our ''readiness to respond.''
Wildland Fire Operations
The Wildland Fire Operations portion of the wildland fire management program funds the development and implementation of the emergency suppression, emergency rehabilitation, hazardous fuel reduction operations, and fire severity programs. Emergency suppression includes all management actions taken to suppress wildland fires in a safe and cost effective manner. Emergency rehabilitation is carried out to prevent any further land degradation and resource damage to lands impacted by unplanned wildland fire or suppression activities. Emergency rehabilitation funds are also used to reduce any residual public health and safety risks that may result from uncontrolled wildland fires. Hazardous fuel reduction operations use fire and mechanical treatments as management tools to reduce fuel loadings and restore fire to its natural role in the ecosystem. Commercial activities, such as timber harvest or small wood product sales, are used whenever commodity production can be used in an environmentally sound manner to achieve the same objectives.
The organizational structure developed during the fire planning process is based on the average annual workload because it is not cost efficient to develop a fire organization for the most severe fire season that occurs in a decade. Therefore, when abnormal conditions do occur, suppression funds can be used upon request to increase local preparedness capabilities. Such extraordinary capabilities may include a temporary increase in firefighters or fire engines, propositioning of personnel and equipment in areas of abnormally high risk, or standby aircraft availability.
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The overall goal of wildland fire operations is to protect natural resources for defined management objectives and to preserve their capability to contribute goods, services, and amenities to the Nation. For fiscal year 1999, DOI's budget request of just over $140 million dollars for wildland fire operations is based upon the last ten-year average for emergency suppression and rehabilitation, plus an addition for projected hazardous fuel reduction projects.
Coordination and Dispatch of Suppression Forces
Uncontrolled wildland fires occur unexpectedly and create an emergency in which firefighters must respond rapidly to minimize risk and damage. Despite public expectations, when the combination of excessive fuel build-up, topography, extreme weather conditions, multiple ignitions, and extreme fire behavior occur, it is impossible to immediately suppress all fires. Firefighter and public safety, and the ability to contain the spread of fires, can best be met only with adequate preparation ahead of time, excellent interagency coordination of personnel, supplies and required services, and safe but aggressive implementation of fire control tactics. To meet these needs, the BLM, in cooperation with the other DOI Bureaus, the Forest Service, and the National Weather Service, maintains and operates the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) in Boise, Idaho. NIFC provides logistical support for the coordinated movement of suppression forces when local capabilities are exceeded. Other national services provided by NIFC include a cache for firefighting supplies, equipment and radios, a technical support group for communications, remote sensing programs, and the National fire training development center.
The National Interagency Coordination Center (NICC) resides at NIFC and is staffed jointly by the BLM and Forest Service. NICC sits at the top of a three-tiered firefighting coordination pyramid. When activity warrants, NICC operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week. NICC is also an ''all-risk'' coordination center, and can provide support in response to other emergencies such as floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes.
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The three-tiered coordination system operates under established ordering protocols. Federal, state, and Tribal dispatch centers located throughout the United States generally receive the first requests for personnel, equipment, and supplies in response to emergency situations. When local dispatch offices can no longer fill requests, they turn to one of eleven Geographic Area Coordination Centers (GACCs) to fill the requests. When GACCs can no longer meet the requests, either because they are supporting multiple incidents or are competing for resources, requests for equipment and supplies are referred to the NICC. NICC coordinates supplies and resources across the entire United States, and also has the authority to obtain or provide support for incidents in foreign countries. When the nation's fire business involves multiple geographic areas and resources are no longer plentiful, the National Multi-agency Coordinating Group establishes national priorities for personnel, equipment, and supplies. Response to requests is based upon the concepts of ''closest forces'' and ''total mobility'' which seek to dispatch the closest available qualified resource, regardless of agency affiliation. The Fire Center and its NICC component are recognized around the world as a premier organization for wildland fire management and the coordination and dispatch of resources, supplies, and technical knowledge in support of emergency situations.
Florida Support
We were asked by the Committee to identify both jobs well done and lessons learned as a result of the recent devastating uncontrolled wildland fires in the state of Florida. Review of the total Federal response to the Florida fires has barely begun. Wildfire season typically shifts around the nation in response to seasonal weather patterns. As is illustrated this year, fires in Florida have been followed by extreme conditions in Texas and Oklahoma. It appears the fire season is following the typical pattern and severe fire control conditions are shifting to the Northern Rockies, the Pacific Northwest, and the Great Basin states. Our focus at this time of the year is staying ahead of the curve. While review of past actions can always show us potential for improvement, the Florida fires did not indicate a major need for changing our programs or processes. The DOI and NICC, for the most part, served primarily in a support function. Most of the Florida fires, including most of the high profile, highly publicized fires, were under the control of the State. The NICC, with the support of both the military and private sector, did an excellent job of coordinating the transportation of western crews and equipment to support their actions.
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Conclusion
Madam chairman, I would like to thank the Congress for its direction and support for interagency coordination and collaboration in regard to the overall Federal fire management program. We continue to strive to conduct an integrated, intergovernmental approach to the management of wildland fire, as endorsed by our 1995 fire management policy program and review. It is our belief that we provide world class capabilities for the suppression of uncontrolled wildland fire. We hope to extend this highly successful approach into our prescribed fire program as well.
This concludes my statement. I'll be happy to answer any questions the Committee may have.
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STATEMENT OF JANICE MCDOUGLE, ASSOCIATE DEPUTY CHIEF, STATE AND PRIVATE FORESTRY, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, FOREST SERVICE
MADAM CHAIRMAN AND MEMBERS OF THE COMMITTEE:
I am Janice McDougle, Associate Deputy Chief for State and Private Forestry with responsibility for fire and aviation, forest health, and cooperative forestry programs. I am accompanied by Denny Truesdale, our Assistant Director of Fire and Aviation Management for Operations. The wildfire suppression program in the United States is a partnership with a broad array of Federal agencies, state, tribal, and local governments, and private companies; its first priority is protecting human life.
As you requested, I will briefly discuss the highly organized and strategic approach of the Forest Service's wildfire suppression program. When a fire occurs, we respond immediately, implement attack strategies, identify additional resources needed, and expand the organization as needed to protect people and property.
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BACKGROUND
The Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy resulted from a 1995 interagency review, which I have provided for the record. This policy is applied on all Forest Service and Department of Interior managed and protected lands and has four priorities: (1) firefighter safety and public safety is the highest goal; (2) we support the role of fire in restoring and sustaining healthy ecosystems; (3) we integrate fire management into land management planning, and (4) the policy stress of improving fire and aviation accountability within the Forest Service.
Several factors influence an effective and safe fire suppression program, including the expansive wildland/urban interface, hazardous fuel conditions, the increasingly broad array of partners involved in suppression, and the increased role for the Forest Service in providing international assistance.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
We have an outstanding track record. The Federal fire fighting agencies have consistently suppressed 98 percent of all wildfires during initial attack; only 2 percent of all fires account for the greatest cost and most acreage burned.
We rely on strong cooperation with the states, providing equipment and funds to help states help us. The USDA cooperative fire program currently has more than $800 million in surplus Federal property on loan to state and local governments for use in fire suppression. USDA annually provides approximately $15 million in cost-share grants to strengthen state programs, and an additional $2 million to help train and equip volunteer firefighters in rural towns.
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The Forest Service is a world leader in fire behavior and management research. We have an ongoing research program on the effects of fire on vegetation and wildlife, smoke management, and reducing fire hazard by finding markets for small diameter trees.
The five Federal wildland fire management agencies, the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, and Bureau of Indian Affairs, are strengthening the common features of their respective wildland fire management planning processes. This structure is a nationally recognized decision-making, planning, operational, and logistics structure that all wildland firefighters understand, and use. It includes an incident commander and their operations and support staffs, providing a framework for wildland firefighters to respond to any incident. It has the flexibility to expand staff and organization as an incident becomes more or less complex.
INITIAL ATTACK
Initial attack analysis and planning is the backbone of our success. The National Fire Management Analysis System (NFMAS) is a model we use to identify the most efficient firefighting organization. Developed locally to determine what mix and distribution of initial attack resources will provide a cost effective fire suppression program, the results of the local analyses are aggregated into the national program. This assures the most responsive organization possible.
The NFMAS model takes local suppression resource productivity, historical fire occurrence, hazards and values at risk, interagency commitments, and fire management objectives, and projects estimated fire suppression costs and net changes to natural resource values. Wildland/urban interface areas become a priority for the commitment of resources because of the private property values at risk. The budget for the most efficient preparedness organization identified by the analysis is the one that results in the lowest program cost, including losses, over time. This information is provided to decisionmakers in the development of program budgets and the effects of alternative budget levels can be analyzed.
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Once we identify the best mix of resources within available budget, forest supervisors provide the identified number of crews, engines, helicopters, or other initial attack resources, including airtankers needed to respond to the normal fire season. Average fire seasons have been established through our assessment and planning processes. That average season has a beginning and ending date, anticipated days of each kind of burning risk, as well as norms for the intensity with which a fire would burn.
Effectiveness of a suppression program is directly related to local fuel treatment efforts. The value of prescribed fire as a tool to change wildfire behavior was demonstrated in Florida where treated areas were defensible but fire crews had to retreat from flames in untreated areas.
When predicted or actual burning conditions exceed those we expect and wildfire ignitions are imminent, when fire season starts early, or extend beyond normal, local units can request additional funds from the Washington Office to increase their level of fire preparedness through our fire severity program, which allows for additional staffing for serious fire risk outside of the normal season.
EXTENDED ATTACK
When initial attack fails, and local resources are not capable of controlling one or more wildfires, we shift to extended attack and assign national resources such as Incident Management Teams, Interagency Hotshot Crews, large airtankers, and infrared detection aircraft to the fire.
We are conducting interagency studies regarding the national shared resources used in extended attack. We are assessing the most efficient staffing levels; best procurement methods of airtankers, medium and large helicopters, and smokejumpers; and the improvements we need to make to support facilities. Studies have been completed on the most efficient medium and large helicopters and large airtanker support needed for the national fire suppression program. The studies have also identified that the location and quality of base facilities is as important as the aircraft themselves. Other studies are underway that will provide managers with options for management of smokejumpers, helitack, and rappel crews as well as aircraft support and base locations. All will be used to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the national suppression program.
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NATIONAL INTERAGENCY PROGRAM
The protection of people and resources is very complex in today's world. Planning and coordination occur at all levels to assure the safe delivery of an interagency fire suppression program. The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) in Boise has dispatched over 35,000 people at one time in response to fires across the United States. NIFC, the heart of the national fire suppression program, serves as a coordination, dispatch, communications, and warehouse center for all wildland fire agencies. At the center, the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, and Bureau of Indian Affairs are collocated and work closely with state and tribal foresters. Center directors serve as a national Multi-Agency Coordinating Group to improve technology, skills, equipment, integrate wildland/urban interface concerns, and program delivery, resulting in better suppression response and reduced costs.
THE 1998 SEASON
In 1998 the Federal agencies are fully staffed for the fire season. We have adequate resources in every region for effective suppression, assuming that this is, and will be, an average year.
Florida has experienced extreme fire behavior and significant losses to property and resources due to extended drought, which caused highly flammable fuels. In late May and early June, Florida got a highly unusual amount of dry lightning, and suffered its most severe fire season since 1985. At the request of State Forester Earl Peterson, we provided Federal assistance which at the peak, totaled 1200 fire managers, 27 Interagency Hotshot Crews, 22 suppression crews, 165 engines, 4 tractors, and 98 aircraft. The Florida Division of Forestry and the local Forest Supervisor established a unified area command structure to assist in prioritizing suppression efforts and suppressed almost a half million acres of wildfire in very complex environment with minimal losses ant injuries. The success this year can be compared to the losses in the 1985 fires when more homes and businesses were lost in a day than over the 1998 month-long siege. The Forest Service still has 75 personnel assisting in closeout of the Florida fires.
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The Florida efforts affixed value of a prescribed fire program to create more fire tolerant ecosystems and better protect homes and improvements. It also reinforced the value of our safety program. In Florida, we had to educate crews from other regions of the health and fire threats unique to Florida.
The other high profile fire situation this year took place in Mexico and Central America. The U.S. Agency for International Development, Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance coordinated the U.S. response. Mexico requested the most assistance, including technical assistance, large helicopters, an incident management team, an infrared aircraft, 3,000 sets of personal protective equipment, and communications equipment. We also assisted Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica.
The 1998 fire season has occurred locally, with few situations where national incident command teams were dispatched in more than one region simultaneously. A total of 75,932 acres of National Forest System lands burned during the month of July which began with fire danger in the very high to extreme categories in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Georgia, Colorado, Utah, California, and Florida. In Florida the drought was one of the most severe experienced in the past 50 years, and firefighters battled on average of 70-80 new fires each day.
Three National Fire Prevention teams were active during the month of July in Florida, Utah, and Texas where team members worked with state, county, and local fire service organizations to reduce the potential number of human-caused fires.
Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado, Southern Arizona, Washington, and Oregon are currently experiencing increased fire activity. The 90 day outlook indicates that the extreme southern tip of California, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, western Texas, and southwestern Utah are most likely to have increased fire activity because they are predicted to be warmer and drier than normal over that period. We will take actions needed to assure that adequate resources are available for dispatch within, and to, that region.
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The remainder of the United States is experiencing fewer than normal wildfires for this time of year. More than one-half of the fires occurred in the southern part of the United States. In many areas, the lower than normal fire danger can be attributed to unusual spring rain and snow.
CLOSING
The Forest Service fire suppression program is professional, responsive to the concerns and needs of partners, and based on the continuous study of historical fire occurrence and risk. We are very proud of the program, its value to the public, and the firefighters who work endless days, and get great satisfaction from the protection of people and resources.
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