Federal Land Management
Additional Guidance on Community Involvement Could Enhance Effectiveness of Stewardship Contracting Gao ID: GAO-04-652 June 14, 2004In their efforts to reduce hazardous fuels and the risk of wildfire on the nation's public lands, the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) expect that stewardship contracting will play a major role. Stewardship contracting involves the use of contracting authorities--such as the exchange of goods for services--first authorized in 1998 and intended to help the agencies achieve land management goals that meet community needs. GAO was asked, among other things, to determine (1) the contracting and financial controls the agencies use to ensure accountability in managing stewardship contracting projects and (2) the steps the agencies have taken to involve communities in the projects.
Although the Forest Service provided limited initial guidance on establishing contracting and financial controls, the eight stewardship projects GAO visited had incorporated such controls. (BLM was first granted stewardship authority in 2003 and had no projects under way at the time of GAO's review.) The projects generally used pre- and post-award controls, such as reviews of contractor bids using preestablished criteria, and performance and payment bonds to ensure completion of required activities. GAO's review of selected financial controls at the projects we visited showed that they appeared to have procedures in place to account for retained receipts, including tracking funds received and expended, and had incorporated procedures designed to ensure the completion of specific work tasks before contractors were paid. Both the Forest Service and BLM issued guidance in January 2004 containing such controls for future projects. The Forest Service initially provided minimal guidance on soliciting and incorporating public involvement in stewardship contracting projects and, as a result, the type and extent of efforts to involve communities varied considerably among the projects GAO reviewed. However, managers who did not incorporate public input may have missed valuable opportunities to strengthen their projects. For example, one project manager said that public involvement led to more stringent criteria for protecting water quality, and another reported that public involvement improved agency access to public lands needing fuel reduction. Although most managers GAO spoke with said they wanted additional guidance on public involvement, the Forest Service's recently issued stewardship contracting handbook does not contain specific guidance for obtaining community input--and BLM's recent guidance is similarly lacking. Without such guidance, each project manager must independently determine the type and extent of community involvement to solicit and then develop and implement community involvement procedures--an inefficient process that could lead to variation in community involvement across stewardship contracting projects in both agencies.
RecommendationsOur recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.
Director: Team: Phone:GAO-04-652, Federal Land Management: Additional Guidance on Community Involvement Could Enhance Effectiveness of Stewardship Contracting
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Report to Congressional Requesters:
June 2004:
FEDERAL LAND MANAGEMENT:
Additional Guidance on Community Involvement Could Enhance
Effectiveness of Stewardship Contracting:
[Hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-652]:
GAO Highlights:
Highlights of GAO-04-652, a report to congressional requesters
Why GAO Did This Study:
In their efforts to reduce hazardous fuels and the risk of wildfire on
the nation‘s public lands, the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land
Management (BLM) expect that stewardship contracting will play a major
role. Stewardship contracting involves the use of contracting
authorities”such as the exchange of goods for services”first authorized
in 1998 and intended to help the agencies achieve land management goals
that meet community needs. GAO was asked, among other things, to
determine (1) the contracting and financial controls the agencies use
to ensure accountability in managing stewardship contracting projects
and (2) the steps the agencies have taken to involve communities in
the projects.
What GAO Found:
Although the Forest Service provided limited initial guidance on
establishing contracting and financial controls, the eight stewardship
projects GAO visited had incorporated such controls. (BLM was first
granted stewardship authority in 2003 and had no projects under way at
the time of GAO‘s review.) The projects generally used pre- and post-
award controls, such as reviews of contractor bids using preestablished
criteria, and performance and payment bonds to ensure completion of
required activities. GAO‘s review of selected financial controls at the
projects we visited showed that they appeared to have procedures in
place to account for retained receipts, including tracking funds
received and expended, and had incorporated procedures designed to
ensure the completion of specific work tasks before contractors were
paid. Both the Forest Service and BLM issued guidance in January 2004
containing such controls for future projects.
The Forest Service initially provided minimal guidance on soliciting
and incorporating public involvement in stewardship contracting
projects and, as a result, the type and extent of efforts to involve
communities varied considerably among the projects GAO reviewed.
However, managers who did not incorporate public input may have missed
valuable opportunities to strengthen their projects. For example, one
project manager said that public involvement led to more stringent
criteria for protecting water quality, and another reported that public
involvement improved agency access to public lands needing fuel
reduction. Although most managers GAO spoke with said they wanted
additional guidance on public involvement, the Forest Service‘s
recently issued stewardship contracting handbook does not contain
specific guidance for obtaining community input”and BLM‘s recent
guidance is similarly lacking. Without such guidance, each project
manager must independently determine the type and extent of community
involvement to solicit and then develop and implement community
involvement procedures”an inefficient process that could lead to
variation in community involvement across stewardship contracting
projects in both agencies.
Forest Thinning and Prescribed Burning Undertaken Using Stewardship
Contracting Authority:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
What GAO Recommends:
To enhance the effectiveness of stewardship contracting and improve
public trust in the agencies, GAO recommends that the Secretaries of
Agriculture and the Interior direct the agencies to issue additional
guidance on community involvement identifying best practices in seeking
and incorporating community input, and establish minimum requirements
for seeking involvement on each project.
In commenting on a draft of this report, the Forest Service generally
agreed with its contents. The Department of the Interior did not
provide comments.
www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-652.
To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click on
the link above. For more information, contact Barry Hill at (202)
512-3841 or hillbt@gao.gov.
[End of section]
Contents:
Letter:
Results in Brief:
Background:
Most Pilot Projects Are Ongoing and Include Removal of Timber or Other
Vegetation to Improve Forest Health:
Despite Limited Initial Guidance, Forest Service Has Incorporated
Contracting and Financial Controls in Eight of Its Projects, and Both
Forest Service and BLM Have Included Such Controls in Their Recent
Guidance:
The Agencies Have Not Provided Substantial Guidance on Community
Involvement, and Efforts to Involve Communities Varied among Projects:
Both Agencies Have Additional Projects Planned and Intend to Assess the
Effectiveness of Stewardship Contracting:
Conclusions:
Recommendation for Executive Action:
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
Appendixes:
Appendix I: Forest Service's Responses to Environmentalists' Concerns
about Projects Identified as Problematic:
Appendix II: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology:
Appendix III: Pilot Project Names, Locations, Acres Treated, and End
Dates:
Appendix IV: Comments from the Department of Agriculture:
Appendix V: GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments:
GAO Contacts:
Staff Acknowledgments:
Tables:
Table 1: Selection Criteria Met by Each Pilot Project at Which We
Conducted Site Visits:
Table 2: Pilot Project Names, Locations, Acres Treated, and End Dates:
Figures:
Figure 1: Number of Stewardship Contracting Pilot Projects in Each
Forest Service Region:
Figure 2: Number of Stewardship Contracting Pilot Projects Expected to
Be Completed Each Calendar Year through 2014:
Figure 3: Helicopter Logging to Reduce Fuels at the Baker City Watershed
Rehabilitation Pilot Project, Wallowa-Whitman National Forest:
Figure 4: Limestone to Be Added to a Creek to Reduce Acidity at the
Burns Creek Pilot Project, George Washington-Jefferson National Forest:
Figure 5: Mechanical Thinning at the Antelope Pilot Project, Fremont-
Winema National Forests:
Figure 6: Prescribed Burning at the Antelope Pilot Project, Fremont-
Winema National Forests:
Figure 7: Installation of Public Toilet at the Treasure Interface Pilot
Project, Kootenai National Forest:
Figure 8: Number of Stewardship Contracting Pilot Projects Addressing
Each Land Management Goal to a Great or Very Great Extent:
Figure 9: Number of Stewardship Contracting Pilot Projects Reporting the
Use of Each Stewardship Contracting Authority:
Figure 10: Number of Stewardship Contracting Pilot Projects, by Project
Size:
Figure 11: Sawlogs at the Fernow Experimental Forest Pilot Project,
Monongahela National Forest:
Figure 12: Firewood at the Seven Mile Pilot Project, Arapaho-Roosevelt
National Forest:
Figure 13: Slash Pile at the Winiger Ridge Pilot Project, Arapaho-
Roosevelt National Forest:
Figure 14: Locations of Stewardship Contracting Pilot Projects Visited
during Our Review:
Figure 15: Multiparty Monitoring Team Reviewing Project Site at the
Clearwater Pilot Project, Lolo National Forest:
Abbreviations:
BLM: Bureau of Land Management:
ccf: hundred cubic feet:
CERT: Clearwater Elk Recovery Team:
CSFS: Colorado State Forest Service:
FACA: Federal Advisory Committee Act:
FFIS: Foundation Financial Information System:
HCPC: Hell's Canyon Preservation Council:
NEPA: National Environmental Policy Act:
TSA: Timber Sale Accounting:
USDA: U.S. Department of Agriculture:
Letter June 14, 2004:
Congressional Requesters:
Recent severe wildfire seasons have focused attention on the state of
our nation's forests. Many of these forests have become dense with
small, tightly spaced trees and thick brush, which--combined with
drought, wind, and other adverse weather conditions--have fueled
extensive wildland fires in recent years. Both the Forest Service in
the Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Bureau of Land Management
(BLM) in the Department of the Interior are placing greater emphasis on
thinning forests and rangelands to help reduce the buildup of
potentially hazardous fuels, partly in response to the Healthy Forests
Restoration Act of 2003.[Footnote 1] Among other things, the act
directs the Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior to give
priority to hazardous fuel reduction projects that provide for the
protection of at-risk communities or watersheds, or that implement
community wildfire protection plans. The Forest Service and BLM, which
together manage a total of about 450 million acres of federal land, are
focusing on a new tool they consider essential to their efforts to
reduce fuels: stewardship contracting.
Stewardship contracting involves the use of any of several contracting
authorities that were first authorized for use by the Forest Service on
a pilot basis in October 1998. The Omnibus Consolidated and Emergency
Supplemental Appropriations Act for 1999 established stewardship
contracting authority to achieve national forest land management goals
that meet local and rural community needs.[Footnote 2] Prominent among
the stewardship contracting authorities is the ability to (1) trade
goods--timber, for example--for contract services, such as thinning of
small trees and brush; and (2) retain for use in future stewardship
projects any receipts generated through selling forest products such as
timber, rather than returning the receipts to the Department of the
Treasury, which is required under traditional timber sales. The law
stated that the land management goals of stewardship contracts include
road and trail maintenance, watershed restoration, and prescribed
burning and noncommercial tree removal to improve forest health.
Although stewardship contracting was initially established as a
demonstration project that involved a limited number of individual
projects within the Forest Service and was to end in 2002, the
Consolidated Appropriations Resolution of 2003, among other things,
extended the use of stewardship contracting authority to 2013,
eliminated the limit on the number of projects, authorized commercial
tree removal for forest health purposes as a project purpose, and
extended the authority to BLM.[Footnote 3]
Because of your interest in the status of the Forest Service's and
BLM's implementation of stewardship contracting authority, you asked us
to determine (1) the status of stewardship contracting projects and the
land management goals they address; (2) the extent to which the
agencies have contracting and financial controls in place that ensure
accountability in managing stewardship contracting projects; (3) the
steps the agencies have taken to involve communities in designing,
implementing, and evaluating stewardship contracting projects; and (4)
each agency's plans for future stewardship contracting activities. In
addition, you asked us to determine the Forest Service's response to
concerns raised by environmental groups about six specific stewardship
contracting projects; the results of this work are contained in
appendix I.
In conducting our review, we met with Forest Service and BLM
headquarters officials and reviewed agency documents and guidance
related to stewardship contracting; conducted a Web-based survey on the
status of all ongoing and completed stewardship contracting projects as
of September 30, 2003; visited 8 stewardship contracting project sites,
where we reviewed project financial and contracting files for evidence
of selected management controls and met with Forest Service officials,
project contractors, and local citizens to obtain information about
project implementation, including community involvement in the
projects; conducted telephone interviews of officials at 25 project
sites regarding community involvement efforts; conducted telephone
interviews of representatives of six environmental organizations and
Forest Service officials regarding the 6 project sites of concern; and
spoke with representatives of several conservation and forestry
organizations to obtain their perspectives on stewardship contracting.
While the results of our telephone discussions and site visits cannot
be projected nationwide, they represent a mix of stewardship
contracting projects by virtue of their geographic diversity; the
stewardship contracting authorities being used; and project status,
objectives, and activities. Appendix II provides further details on the
scope and methodology of our review. We conducted our work between
April 2003 and April 2004 in accordance with generally accepted
government auditing standards.
Results in Brief:
As of September 30, 2003, the Forest Service had completed 9 pilot
projects, and another 68 were ongoing, with scheduled project
completion dates through 2014. BLM did not have any projects under way
at the time of our survey. The Forest Service pilot projects generally
focused on removing timber and other vegetation to reduce fuels or
improve forest health; some projects pursued other activities on
national forest lands to benefit local communities, such as improving
trails or installing new public toilets intended to protect water
quality. The projects had treated--that is, conducted stewardship
activities on--about 13,800 acres and were expected to treat about
158,000 additional acres.
The Forest Service provided limited initial guidance on how to
establish contracting and financial controls to provide accountability
in managing projects, in part to allow project managers to experiment
with different implementation approaches. Nevertheless, the 8 projects
we visited had incorporated such controls. The projects generally
included preaward activities, such as reviews of contractor bids using
preestablished criteria to ensure thoroughness and objectivity in
evaluating bids and awarding contracts, and meetings with potential
contractors to clarify project objectives and contract terms and
schedules. Similarly, awarded contracts generally included elements
such as performance and payment bonds designed to ensure proper
completion of required activities, and on-the-ground inspections of
contracted work intended to ensure that the work was conducted
appropriately. Regarding financial controls, the projects we visited
appeared to have established procedures to account for retained
receipts from the sale of forest products, including tracking funds
received and expended. Moreover, these projects had incorporated
procedures designed to ensure that contractors were paid only upon
completion of specific work tasks. Both the Forest Service and BLM
issued guidance in January 2004 containing such controls for future
projects.
The Forest Service initially provided minimal guidance on soliciting
and incorporating public involvement in stewardship contracting
projects and, as a result, the type and extent of efforts to involve
communities varied considerably among the Forest Service projects we
reviewed. While some Forest Service project managers actively solicited
public input in designing projects or formed monitoring teams to
evaluate their implementation, others did relatively little to solicit
or incorporate public input. Unfortunately, managers who did not
incorporate public input may have missed valuable opportunities to
strengthen their projects. For example, one manager told us that public
involvement in her project led to more stringent criteria for
protecting water quality during project activities, and another manager
told us that public involvement in his project helped improve agency
access to public lands needing fuel reduction. Although many managers
we spoke with told us they wanted additional guidance on how to involve
the public, the Forest Service's recently issued stewardship
contracting handbook does not contain specific guidance for obtaining
community input, and BLM's recent guidance is similarly lacking.
Without such guidance, Forest Service and BLM project managers must
independently determine the type and extent of community involvement to
solicit and then independently develop and implement community
involvement procedures. Undertaking these activities individually is
inefficient and could lead to variation in community involvement across
stewardship contracting projects in both agencies.
The Forest Service and BLM plan to implement several additional
stewardship projects in fiscal year 2004 and beyond. While the Forest
Service did not specify the number of additional projects it expects to
undertake in 2004, BLM officials told us the agency has recently
initiated 2 projects and plans about 34 more projects in fiscal year
2004, and officials from both agencies reported that they expect
additional stewardship contracting projects in the years ahead. Both
agencies are planning to collect information on ongoing and future
projects to help them analyze the effectiveness of stewardship
contracting relative to other contracting tools.
To more fully realize the potential of stewardship contracting and
ensure that community involvement is incorporated into stewardship
contracting projects, we are recommending that the Secretaries of
Agriculture and the Interior direct the agencies to provide additional
guidance to field staff clarifying the types of community involvement
expected in stewardship contracting projects and identifying best
practices for soliciting such involvement. We provided a draft of this
report to the Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior for review
and comment. The Forest Service generally agreed with our report. The
Forest Service's comment letter is presented in appendix IV. The
Department of the Interior did not provide comments.
Background:
In managing federal lands, the Forest Service and BLM often contract
for services such as road maintenance, forest thinning, and other
activities. They also frequently contract to sell forest resources such
as timber or firewood. Traditionally, these contracts have been
executed separately--service contracts have generally been funded with
appropriated funds from the agencies' budgets, while timber has been
sold through contracts with private purchasers. The Omnibus
Consolidated and Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act of 1999
authorized the Forest Service to combine these contracting mechanisms
by entering into "stewardship end result contracts," under which the
agency could use the value of forest products sold to offset the cost
of contracted services.[Footnote 4] Under such goods-for-services
contracts, the Forest Service could, for example, pay for thinning
operations by using the proceeds from any commercial timber removed as
part of the project. Additional contracting authorities were also
included in the legislation; the full list of authorities follows.
(Stewardship contracting authority was initially granted only to the
Forest Service; in 2003 it was extended to BLM.)
* Goods for services allows the agency to use the value of commercial
products, such as timber, to offset the cost of services received, such
as thinning, stream improvement, and other activities.
* Designation by description or prescription allows the agency to
conduct a timber harvest by providing the contractor with a description
of the desired end result of the harvest. For example, the Forest
Service might require that all ponderosa pine less than 10 inches in
diameter be harvested. Ordinarily, cutting any standing tree before a
Forest Service employee has marked or otherwise designated it for
cutting is prohibited.
* Multiyear contracting allows the agency to enter into stewardship
contracts of up to 10 years in length. (Standard service contracts are
limited to 5 years, although timber sale contracts of up to 10 years
were already authorized.)
* Retention of receipts allows the agency to retain receipts generated
from the sale of commercial products removed through stewardship
contracts, rather than returning the funds to the Treasury. Receipts
are to be applied only to stewardship contracting projects.
* Less than full and open competition exempts the agency from the
requirement under the National Forest Management Act that all sales of
timber having an appraised value of $10,000 or more be
advertised.[Footnote 5] This allows the Forest Service to favor local
contractors when soliciting contract bids.
* Supervision of marking and harvesting of timber sales exempts the
agency from the requirement that USDA employees supervise the
harvesting of trees on Forest Service lands. This has allowed the
Forest Service to use one state agency to assist in stewardship
contracting.[Footnote 6]
* Best-value contracting requires the agency to consider other factors-
-such as past performance or work quality--in addition to price when
making stewardship contract award decisions.[Footnote 7]
The law authorized 28 stewardship contracts by the Forest Service, of
which 9 were to be in the Forest Service's Northern Region.[Footnote 8]
The authority of the Forest Service to enter into these contracts was
to end on September 30, 2002. Contracts were to "achieve land
management goals for the national forests that meet local and rural
community needs." The goals listed in the legislation included, but
were not limited to,
* maintaining or obliterating roads and trails to restore or maintain
water quality;
* maintaining soil productivity, habitat for wildlife and fisheries, or
other resource values;
* setting prescribed fires to improve the composition, structure,
condition, and health of stands or to improve wildlife habitat;
* noncommercially cutting or removing trees or other activities to
promote healthy forest stands, reduce fire hazards, or achieve other
noncommercial objectives;
* restoring and maintaining watersheds;
* restoring and maintaining wildlife and fish habitat; and:
* controlling noxious and exotic weeds and reestablishing native plant
species.
The law also required that the Forest Service establish a multiparty
monitoring and evaluation process to assess each stewardship contract.
Several subsequent laws modified the requirements of the initial
stewardship contracting authority. The Consolidated Appropriations Act
of 2000 changed the requirement from 28 stewardship contracts to 28
stewardship projects, allowing for the possibility that individual
projects may involve more than one contract.[Footnote 9] The following
year, the Department of the Interior and Related Agencies
Appropriations Act of 2001 doubled the number of authorized projects
for a total of 56, requiring that at least 9 of the newly authorized
projects be in the Forest Service's Northern Region and at least 3 in
the agency's Pacific Northwest Region.[Footnote 10] Similarly, a year
later, the Department of the Interior and Related Agencies
Appropriations Act of 2002 authorized an additional 28 projects (for a
total of 84), again requiring that at least 9 of the newly authorized
projects be in the Northern Region and at least 3 in the Pacific
Northwest Region.[Footnote 11] This law also changed the end date of
the demonstration project from 2002 to 2004. Most recently, the
Consolidated Appropriations Resolution of 2003 extended the authority
to enter into stewardship contracts to 2013, extended stewardship
contracting authority to BLM, removed the restriction on the number of
projects that could be implemented under this authority, removed the
emphasis on noncommercial activities among the land management goals
listed, and replaced the requirement for multiparty monitoring and
evaluation of each project with a requirement to monitor and evaluate
the overall use of stewardship contracting.
Stewardship contracting projects are subject to environmental and
resource management laws--such as the National Environmental Policy Act
(NEPA), the Endangered Species Act, and others--that also apply to
nonstewardship projects. Responsibility for administering stewardship
contracting authority at the Forest Service lies within two agency
offices: the Forest and Rangeland Management Group and the Acquisition
Management Group. Each of the nine Forest Service regions has
established a stewardship contracting coordinator to facilitate
stewardship contracting activities within each region. Within BLM,
authority for administering stewardship contracting authority resides
with its Forest and Woodland Management Group. Each of BLM's 12 state
offices also has a stewardship contracting coordinator.
Most Pilot Projects Are Ongoing and Include Removal of Timber or Other
Vegetation to Improve Forest Health:
As of September 30, 2003, the Forest Service had completed 9 pilot
projects, and another 68 were ongoing, with project completion dates
scheduled through 2014.[Footnote 12] Most projects included the removal
of timber and other vegetation to reduce fuels or promote forest
health, while other activities included trail construction, wildlife
pond restoration, and public toilet installation. The projects had
treated about 13,800 acres and were expected to treat about 158,000
additional acres. Expected project costs and forest product values
varied widely: Projects were expected to cost from $1,000 to $5.7
million, and the estimated value of forest products to be removed as
part of the projects varied from $124 to $6.3 million.
Sixty-eight of 77 Forest Service Pilot Projects Are Still Ongoing;
Projects Commonly Have Focused on Removing Vegetation:
Forest Service staff reported that as of September 30, 2003, 9 pilot
projects had been completed--i.e., all contracts associated with these
projects were completed and closed--and an additional 68 projects were
ongoing.[Footnote 13] Pilot projects were distributed throughout the
Forest Service regions, except for the Alaska Region, which had none.
As expected, given the requirements of the initial legislation, the
Northern Region had the most pilot projects. Figure 1 shows the
distribution of pilot projects by Forest Service region. (Appendix III
provides a list of all 77 projects and related project details,
including project acres and expected completion date.)
Figure 1: Number of Stewardship Contracting Pilot Projects in Each
Forest Service Region:
[See PDF for image]
Note: The Forest Service does not have a Region 7.
[End of figure]
The earliest reported completion date for a pilot project was May 2001,
while the latest reported completion date is expected to be 2014.
Figure 2 shows the number of pilot projects expected to be completed
each year from 2004 until 2014.
Figure 2: Number of Stewardship Contracting Pilot Projects Expected to
Be Completed Each Calendar Year through 2014:
[See PDF for image]
Notes: Of the 68 ongoing pilot projects, 52 provided an estimated
completion date.
[End of figure]
Data do not include two projects that were ongoing at the time of our
survey but were expected to be completed in late 2003.
The pilot projects encompassed a variety of activities. For example,
one project we visited--the Baker City Watershed Rehabilitation
project--involved thinning trees on Forest Service land that served as
the watershed for an Oregon town. The water provided by the watershed
was so pure that the town did not need a filtration facility, according
to project and town officials. However, the watershed was at high risk
for fire, which officials told us would degrade the watershed to the
extent that a multimillion-dollar treatment facility would be required.
The watershed was thinned to reduce the density of fuels and thus the
risk of fire, with the cost of logging partially offset by the value of
timber removed. Logging was done by helicopter to avoid degrading the
watershed by building roads. Figure 3 shows a helicopter using a cable
to lift and transport trees that were cut by workers on the ground.
Figure 3: Helicopter Logging to Reduce Fuels at the Baker City
Watershed Rehabilitation Pilot Project, Wallowa-Whitman National
Forest:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
Another project we visited--the Burns Creek project in southwestern
Virginia--involved cutting timber on Forest Service land and using an
elevated cable harvesting system to transport the cut logs across a
steep ravine to a sorting area, where they were stacked and sold.
Forest Service officials decided against using a traditional logging
approach because of the risk of environmental damage to the stream and
drainage system in the ravine. After the timber was removed, the cable
system was used to transport limestone to the creek at the bottom of
the ravine to reduce the creek's acidity. Project officials told us
that without the cable system, the Forest Service would have had to
spend considerably more money to transport the limestone to the creek
by helicopter. Figure 4 shows the cable system used to transport timber
and limestone on this project.
Figure 4: Limestone to Be Added to a Creek to Reduce Acidity at the
Burns Creek Pilot Project, George Washington-Jefferson National Forest:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
Across all stewardship contracting pilot projects, the most common
activities were removing timber to improve forest health or reduce
fuels and cutting slash, while other frequently cited activities
included road maintenance and prescribed burning. Less commonly cited
activities varied considerably and included culvert removal or
installation; trail construction, maintenance, or obliteration; tree
planting; wildlife pond restoration; and public toilet installation on
national forest lands to protect water quality. Figures 5, 6, and 7
show additional examples of the types of activities undertaken as part
of stewardship contracting projects.
Figure 5: Mechanical Thinning at the Antelope Pilot Project, Fremont-
Winema National Forests:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
Figure 6: Prescribed Burning at the Antelope Pilot Project, Fremont-
Winema National Forests:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
Figure 7: Installation of Public Toilet at the Treasure Interface Pilot
Project, Kootenai National Forest:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
In addition to these activities, several projects cited road
construction, maintenance, or obliteration among their activities. In
all, about 19 miles of permanent road are expected to be constructed as
part of the pilot projects and another 292 miles reconstructed;
[Footnote 14] conversely, 320 miles of permanent road are expected to
be decommissioned (that is, closed and stabilized) and another 89
obliterated.
The stewardship contracting legislation enumerated seven land
management goals. The goal most commonly cited by Forest Service
project managers was removing vegetation or other activities to promote
healthy forest stands, reduce fire hazards, or achieve other land
management objectives; 59 projects reported addressing this goal to a
great or very great extent.[Footnote 15] Figure 8 shows the number of
respondents reporting that their projects addressed the land management
goals to a great or very great extent.
Figure 8: Number of Stewardship Contracting Pilot Projects Addressing
Each Land Management Goal to a Great or Very Great Extent:
[See PDF for image]
Note: Sixty-five pilot projects reported their land management goals.
Some projects reported more than one goal.
[End of figure]
The stewardship contracting authority most commonly used to address
these land management goals was goods for services, reported by 54
projects. Least commonly used was supervision of marking and harvesting
of timber sales, reported by only one project in Colorado, where the
Colorado State Forest Service is administering the project contract.
Figure 9 shows the number of projects reporting the use of each
authority.
Figure 9: Number of Stewardship Contracting Pilot Projects Reporting
the Use of Each Stewardship Contracting Authority:
[See PDF for image]
Note: Sixty-six pilot projects reported their use of the authorities.
Several projects used more than one authority.
[End of figure]
Pilot Projects Have Treated about 13,800 Acres and Are Expected to
Treat about 172,000 Acres in Total:
The sizes of the pilot projects (measured by the number of acres
expected to be treated as part of each project) varied considerably,
with the smallest project reported at 3.6 acres and the largest at
20,000 acres. The total reported acreage was about 172,000, with a mean
project size of about 2,600 acres. As figure 10 shows, slightly more
than half of the projects involved less than 1,000 acres, while about
10 percent of the projects exceeded 10,000 acres.
Figure 10: Number of Stewardship Contracting Pilot Projects, by Project
Size:
[See PDF for image]
Note: Sixty-six pilot projects reported their size.
[End of figure]
But not all pilot projects had begun activities on the ground. Of the
77 ongoing and completed pilot projects, 31 reported that some
treatments had taken place. Only about 13,800 of the 172,000 acres
expected to be treated under the pilot projects had been treated by the
time of our survey. Among projects reporting some activity, the number
of acres treated ranged from 8 to 3,224, with a mean of about 445 acres
treated per project.
Reported Project Costs, Revenues, and Products Varied Widely:
The expected costs of the projects differed markedly. The lowest
reported total project cost was estimated at $1,000, while the highest
was about $5.7 million. The mean reported pilot project cost estimate
was about $850,000. The portion of these costs attributed to contracts
(that is, the amount paid to a contractor to perform services) also
varied--from about $1,000 to $4 million.[Footnote 16]
Similar variation was evident in the expected value of products removed
as part of the projects--primarily timber, but also firewood, wood
chips, Christmas trees, and other products. The lowest estimate was
$124, while the highest was about $6.3 million. These figures reflect
the estimated value of material to be removed, without considering the
contract costs required for its removal. The mean estimate of product
value was about $480,000 per pilot project.
Slightly more than half of the projects reporting both value and costs
expected that contract costs would exceed product value--in other
words, that the cost to pay a contractor to perform services would
exceed the value of the materials to be removed. Of the 45 projects
reporting both expected product values and expected contract costs, 24
(about 53 percent) reported that expected contract costs would exceed
expected product values. (The Forest Service may use appropriated
dollars to pay contract costs not covered by product values.) The
remaining 21 projects reported that expected revenues would equal or
exceed expected contract costs. Overall, net revenue estimates
(estimated product values minus estimated contract costs) ranged from a
negative $3.27 million to $2.47 million.
Similarly, the amount of products to be removed varied among projects.
The Forest Service's standard unit of measure for wood products is 100
cubic feet, or ccf. Thus, 100 cubic feet of wood would be measured as 1
ccf. Estimates of the volume of sawlogs (timber large enough to be
milled into lumber) to be removed as part of stewardship contracting
projects ranged from 0.7 ccf to 49,000 ccf.[Footnote 17] About 70
percent of the reporting projects are expected to remove less than
5,000 ccf, and about one fourth are expected to remove less than 500
ccf. Estimates of other products (such as firewood and wood for posts
and poles) varied from 4.2 ccf to about 67,000 ccf. Many projects also
anticipated removing material of no commercial value, such as brush or
small-diameter trees. Estimates of such noncommercial material ranged
from 50 ccf to 144,000 ccf. Figures 11, 12, and 13 show examples of the
material removed as part of stewardship projects.
Figure 11: Sawlogs at the Fernow Experimental Forest Pilot Project,
Monongahela National Forest:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
Figure 12: Firewood at the Seven Mile Pilot Project, Arapaho-Roosevelt
National Forest:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
Figure 13: Slash Pile at the Winiger Ridge Pilot Project, Arapaho-
Roosevelt National Forest:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
Despite Limited Initial Guidance, Forest Service Has Incorporated
Contracting and Financial Controls in Eight of Its Projects, and Both
Forest Service and BLM Have Included Such Controls in Their Recent
Guidance:
The Forest Service limited the amount of initial contracting and
financial guidance it provided to stewardship contracting pilot project
officials to allow them to experiment with different approaches to
managing the projects. Despite the limited guidance, the eight projects
we visited had contracting and financial controls in place, including
both preaward and postaward activities and controls to provide
accountability in managing the projects (see fig. 14 for the projects'
names and locations). Since the enactment of the 2003 legislation
expanding stewardship contracting authority, the Forest Service and BLM
have developed more specific guidance on designing and implementing
future projects and on accounting for project costs and revenues.
Figure 14: Locations of Stewardship Contracting Pilot Projects Visited
during Our Review:
[See PDF for image]
Note: Names in parentheses are locations of the Forest Service offices
conducting the projects.
[End of figure]
Initial Forest Service Contracting and Financial Guidance Was Limited,
Slowing Implementation of Some Projects:
The Forest Service provided limited initial contracting and financial
guidance on stewardship contracting to allow project managers to
experiment with different implementation approaches, according to an
official with the Forest Service's Forest and Rangeland Management
Group. The Forest Service provided a "Desk Guide for Contracting under
Existing Authorities for Service Contracts with Product Removal,"
intended to provide guidance to field staff on conducting pilot
projects, although the desk guide focused primarily on contracting
authorities other than those in the stewardship legislation. Other
guidance was provided by the Pinchot Institute for
Conservation[Footnote 18]--with which the Forest Service had contracted
to review stewardship contracting implementation, including the design
and management of monitoring, evaluation, and reporting processes. For
example, the Pinchot Institute facilitated stewardship contracting
workshops at Forest Service headquarters and several field locations to
explain the nature of the stewardship contracting authority. The
Pinchot Institute also provided technical assistance and general
program guidance through its three subcontracted partners.[Footnote 19]
Because of the limited guidance available to them, some project
managers also sought project design assistance from staff in the Forest
Service's Northern Region, which had the greatest number of pilot
projects and which had experience in and knowledge of stewardship
contracting techniques.
Because of the lack of specific centrally issued guidance, some
projects were slow to begin. Project managers attributed this delay to
the need to independently determine how to design and implement their
projects using their understanding of stewardship contracting and the
need to coordinate the efforts of timber sale and acquisition
contracting officers in developing a single contract. Under traditional
contracts, timber sales are handled by timber sale contracting
officers, while service acquisitions are handled by acquisition
contracting officers. With the exchange of goods for services under
stewardship contracting, only one contracting officer is needed for
both activities; but close cooperation and coordination between the
timber sale and acquisition offices are needed, which can be difficult
and time consuming. For example, one contracting officer at the
Antelope stewardship project said developing a contract combining a
timber sale with various services took approximately 6 months, in
contrast to the approximately 2 to 3 months that this official said
were required for a standard timber sale or service contract. This
official told us the delay occurred primarily because of the lack of
direction on how to achieve the necessary coordination between the
timber sale and acquisition contracting offices.
Projects We Visited Incorporated Both Preaward and Postaward
Contracting Controls:
The eight projects we visited generally included the preaward and
postaward contracting activities and safeguards we believe are
necessary for effectively awarding and administering stewardship
contracts. Preaward controls we looked for included widely distributed
contract solicitations, the use of pre-established criteria for
evaluating bids, and meetings with potential contractors to clarify
project activities and Forest Service expectations. Postaward controls
we looked for included the use of payment or performance bonds,
appropriate techniques for valuing forest products, and provisions for
on-the-ground inspections of contractor work. See appendix II for more
information about our selection of these criteria.
Projects Used Various Preaward Controls:
The project managers for the projects we reviewed undertook preaward
solicitation and advertisement activities to seek contract bids and
proposals. These efforts included solicitations in the form of mailings
to potential contractors, advertisements in local newspapers, and
national announcements in the Commerce Business Daily and on the
Federal Business Opportunities Web site.[Footnote 20] Such
solicitations are intended to maximize the number of potential
contractors aware of the project, and thus the pool of potential
bidders. When solicitations did not result in any bidders, the
solicitations were sometimes expanded to include a broader geographic
area. The project managers also held conferences with potential
contractors before they submitted bids or proposals, and sometimes
potential contractors made trips to the proposed project sites. These
"scoping" sessions served to clarify project objectives and contract
terms and schedules, as well as to solicit ideas from contractors and
to increase local awareness of projects. Project managers and other
agency staff also conducted bid reviews using predefined criteria to
ensure thoroughness and objectivity in evaluating each bid and awarding
the contracts. The evaluation criteria included such factors as
bidders' past performance and experience, proposed work schedules and
technical approaches, and cost or price factors. The Forest Service
evaluation teams generally were composed of experienced contracting
officers, project managers, and other key Forest Service staff.
Awarded Contracts Generally Included Bond, Valuation, and Inspection
Requirements to Provide Accountability in Project Management:
Contracts for the eight projects we visited generally incorporated
safeguards such as bond, valuation, inspection, and default
requirements. The contracts we reviewed contained clear definitions of
contract requirements, including work-site locations, access points,
and the size of work units. The contracts also generally defined the
roles of the various Forest Service staff, including those responsible
for oversight activities, such as the contracting officers and the
contracting officers' representatives. Before commencing work under the
contract, Forest Service project managers generally held orientations
with the contractors to clarify contract terms, work performance
requirements, and work progress schedules. These meetings sometimes
resulted in amendments to the solicitations and clearer contract
language.
Nearly all of the stewardship contracts we reviewed included payment
and performance bond clauses to ensure the satisfactory performance of
contract requirements. These bonds are written instruments executed by
the contractor to ensure fulfillment of its obligations. If the
obligations are not met, the bonds ensure payment, to the extent
stipulated, of any loss sustained. In particular, payment bonds, also
known as advance deposits or cash deposits, ensure that the government
receives payment for timber harvested. In the event that a contractor
harvests timber but then defaults on the contract or goes out of
business before paying for it, the agency can keep the cash value of
the bond as payment for the timber. Similarly, performance bonds ensure
that, in the event the government is required to conduct work to
remediate damage done by the contractor, the agency can use the value
of the performance bond to finance remediation activities. Although
most contracts included bonds, some did not. The Winiger Ridge
Restoration project, for example, did not include payment or
performance bonds. The project manager told us that she believed such
bonds were too onerous for small contractors, and agency officials
wanted to make the project as attractive as possible to small local
contractors. Additionally, according to the project manager, there was
little incentive for the contractor to cut commercially valuable timber
and then default on the remainder of the services because there was
very little valuable timber included in the project. This manager
characterized the contract as "$190,000 worth of services and $500
worth of timber." Another project--Antelope--did not require a
performance bond because of the expense and burden it would place on
the contractor, according to the project manager.
The stewardship contracts also included valuation clauses to establish
the volume and value of the forest materials to be removed and the
services to be provided. Volume is determined by a "cruise" of the
project area, which involves staff examining the area in different
locations to estimate the timber that is to be removed. Forest Service
managers at the projects we examined established the value of timber
through government cost estimates or appraisals. Government cost
estimates are simply indications of what the timber will bring on the
market based on previous sales, according to Forest Service staff.
Appraisals, on the other hand, involve calculations of not only what
the timber will bring on the market but also the cost of cutting and
hauling the timber, constructing or improving roads, and so forth, and
are thus more detailed, time consuming, and expensive. According to
staff, government cost estimates are appropriate when the value of the
material is known to be low, because in such cases the cost of a full
appraisal can exceed the value of the material. Of the eight projects
we reviewed, five conducted full appraisals while three used government
cost estimates.[Footnote 21]
The stewardship contracts we examined also included provisions for on-
the-ground inspections of contracted work to ensure that the work was
conducted in accordance with contract requirements and Forest Service
expectations. At the projects we reviewed, the contracting officers and
the designated contracting officers' representatives who served as on-
the-ground administrators documented their observations on inspection
forms and contract daily logs, which we examined. These logs included
information on whether the work was performed in an acceptable manner,
and the measures necessary to correct any deficiencies.
Additional effort was sometimes required to ensure that contractors
performed according to Forest Service expectations. For example, the
Winiger Ridge Restoration stewardship project contracting officer told
us that the project's initial contract had to be revised to make the
designation by description specifications clearer to the contractor,
after it became evident that the specifications as written did not lead
to the expected results. (Designation by description allows the agency
to conduct a timber harvest by providing the contractor with a
description of the trees to be cut or the desired end result of the
harvest, rather than by marking individual trees.) At this project, the
initial description directed the contractor to, among other things, cut
all trees with a certain level of dwarf mistletoe infestation.[Footnote
22] However, project officials realized that it was impossible to
verify that the contractor had cut only infected trees, and contract
provisions regarding mistletoe infestation were eliminated. Similarly,
contracting officers and contractors at other locations also told us
that the contractors sometimes had difficulty interpreting the language
in designation by description contracts, or that the language was not
specific enough to ensure that Forest Service expectations were met.
This unclear language sometimes required additional project oversight
to ensure that contractors were meeting contract requirements. At the
Clearwater stewardship project, for example, the project manager told
us that although they had planned periodic project inspections, the use
of designation by description authority required them to have
inspectors on site virtually every day for several weeks.
Finally, the stewardship contracts we reviewed also included breach or
default and dispute resolution clauses. These mechanisms allow the
Forest Service to address any issues or problems by issuing default
notices and stop work orders. However, aside from work delays, which
generally resulted from uncontrollable events such as excessive snow or
fire seasons, there were no significant problems with the contracts we
examined. In fact, several Forest Service contracting officers we
interviewed praised the relative ease of administering the contracts
once they were developed and awarded. Similarly, the contractors
conducting the work told us that, although the stewardship contracts
and the contracting process were somewhat new and time consuming to
them, implementation of the contracts themselves was relatively
straightforward.
We Observed Established Financial Procedures at the Projects We
Visited:
During our project site visits, we observed evidence of established
procedures in place for accounting for project funds, including
procedures for receiving and tracking timber payments and tracking
retained receipts and expenditures, as well as other steps taken to
provide financial accountability. Our review of selected items included
an examination of payment vouchers, receipts, and other expenditure-
related documentation to assess whether retained receipts and other
project funds had been spent on stewardship-related activities. We did
not review all financial controls for stewardship contracting.
The Forest Service uses two data collection systems--the Timber Sale
Accounting (TSA) system and the Foundation Financial Information System
(FFIS)--to track project financial activities. The TSA tracks data such
as the name of the purchaser and the quantity and species of timber to
be harvested, and is the principal system for recording revenues
related to timber sales. However, the TSA reflects only a portion of
stewardship contracting activity. While the TSA includes timber-
specific information such as species, it does not reflect the services
contracted for as part of stewardship contracting projects; instead,
these services are recorded and tracked at the local forest or regional
office. The FFIS, which incorporates some TSA data, is the system of
record supporting Forest Service billing and collection functions. As
with traditional timber sale contracts, actual payments are received
and processed through an independent "lockbox" system in San
Francisco.[Footnote 23] The payment receipts are recorded by job code
in a specified distribution account within the FFIS.
At each location, we observed adequate separation of duties and
supervisory review responsibilities being handled by officials in the
timber and financial groups. For example, a project official at each
location was responsible for verifying the accuracy of all the charges
to the project account, and the financial group manager was responsible
for monitoring the project account balances. At the end of each month,
timber and accounting clerks completed reconciliations between the
timber and financial system data and their detailed local records. When
discrepancies were identified, the problems were researched and
corrected in a timely manner. For those projects we looked at, several
monthly reports were generated by the TSA and FFIS systems, which
managers in each group used to track project activities and to review
and verify the accuracy of the charges against project funds.
Two projects we visited, the Clearwater and Fernow Experimental Forest
projects, had expended retained receipts on additional stewardship
contracting activities. At these projects, we examined payment
vouchers, receipts, and other expenditure-related documentation to
ensure that retained funds had been spent on stewardship-related
activities, as required, and the funds appeared to have been spent
appropriately. Another project we visited, the Burns Creek project,
passed all retained receipts on to another stewardship project, the
Wayah Contract Logging project, in the same region; however, the Wayah
Contract Logging project (which we also visited) did not need to use
the funds because receipts and appropriated funds associated with that
project were sufficient to cover project expenditures. As a result, the
retained receipts were being passed on yet again to a third stewardship
project, the Sand Mountain project, also in the same region. At the
time of our review, a portion of these funds had been obligated to
cover the cost of a contract for work on this project, but had not yet
been expended.
Forest Service staff at the locations we visited took additional steps
to provide financial accountability. For example, we noted procedures
in place to prevent timber harvesting activities from significantly
exceeding service activities under goods for services contracts. To
this end, two projects (the Clearwater and Warm Ridge/Glide projects)
established "land management credits" to record service activities
completed. Once the contractor earned such credits, they were then
applied to the value of the timber being harvested. At these projects,
contractors were not permitted to harvest timber until they had earned
the required credits through service work--thus preventing contractors
from harvesting commercially valuable timber and then failing to
perform needed restoration activities.
Forest Service and BLM Recently Developed Stewardship Contracting
Guidance That Includes Contracting and Financial Controls:
The Forest Service and BLM issued jointly developed guidance in January
2004 to provide direction in implementing stewardship contracts. The
Forest Service's new handbook and BLM's new guidance address the use of
contracting controls, such as appraisals, and the use of two
authorities--designation by description and less than full and open
competition; include contract templates for field staff; provide
guidance on financial accountability; and outline the responsibilities
of agency staff. According to an official with the Forest Service's
Forest and Rangeland Management Group, their handbook is intended to be
a working document that will change as necessary. For example, if the
results of ongoing monitoring of stewardship contracting show a need
for changes, the handbook will be revised accordingly.
The agencies' guidance includes some of the same elements we examined
during our site visits to provide project accountability. For example,
both agencies' guidance includes provisions requiring appropriate
valuation of service work to be performed and timber to be harvested.
To this end, the Forest Service handbook states, "The appraisal for
timber and other forest products shall be conducted using appraisal
methods as specified in the Timber Sale Preparation Handbook . . . and
Regional guidelines." Both agencies also provide guidance on required
bonding. For example, the BLM guidance states that "payment protection
in the form of payment bonds should be used to protect the value of the
byproduct to be removed when the product will be removed prior to cash
payment or the contractor's earning of conservation credits." BLM's
guidance further states that "contracting officers are encouraged to
strive toward the concept of a single bond to cover 'performance,'
which would include the product value (payment) and the service work
rolled into one bond.":
The agencies' guidance also provides expanded discussions on the use of
two additional authorities--designation by description and less than
full and open competition. Regarding designation by description, the
guidance specifies that the amount of material removed from the forest
must be verifiable and accountable. For example, the Forest Service
handbook generally requires that for commercial material (such as
sawtimber), trees to be removed must be identified based on
characteristics that can be verified after removal--for example, the
contractor might be required to remove all lodgepole pine less than a
specified stump diameter. Agency personnel could subsequently measure
remaining stumps to verify that contract provisions were met. For
noncommercial material, the handbook allows less specific designations
setting forth the desired end result of treatment (sometimes referred
to as designation by prescription)--for example, the contractor might
simply be required to leave a certain number of trees on each acre,
with an average spacing between them.
Regarding less than full and open competition, which exempts the agency
from the requirement that all sales of timber having an appraised value
of $10,000 or more be advertised, the Forest Service handbook specifies
that forest supervisors must document and submit to regional foresters
the reasons for the selection process used. Documentation must include
the level of competition to be used in the contracting process.
As part of their guidance, the agencies also are developing contract
templates that field staff can use as examples when developing their
own contracts--potentially improving the efficiency and applicability
of stewardship contracts. These are standard contract formats that
incorporate timber sale and service components. The Forest Service has
also conducted additional training sessions, and staff from both
agencies told us they plan to expand their intranet sites to provide
more ongoing stewardship contracting project information, including
details about successful stewardship contracting projects that can
serve as models for staff who are developing projects.
The agencies' guidance also contains direction on financial
accountability. According to the Forest Service handbook, the proper
use and management of stewardship contracting receipts must be assessed
as a normal part of regional-and forest-level renewable resource
program and activity reviews. Through the guidance, both agencies have
assigned responsibility for various financial activities, including
providing technical advice, reviewing and approving retention of
project receipts, and ensuring that associated financial data are
accurate and reconciled to the financial statements. In addition to
specifying responsibility for various activities, the agencies'
guidance notes the approved funding source for project-related
activities. For example, stewardship contracting preparation,
overhead, and project-level monitoring costs normally are to be funded
through appropriated funds. According to the guidance, stewardship
contracting retained receipts shall not be used for overhead,
administrative, or indirect costs or for the completion of
environmental studies. The guidance indicates these retained receipts
can be used for another stewardship project or to fund national
programmatic multiparty monitoring. Although both agencies' guidance
states that multiparty monitoring of individual projects is encouraged,
the Forest Service handbook states that it is inappropriate to conduct
project monitoring with revenues received from a stewardship contract.
Finally, both agencies' guidance outlines the responsibilities of the
various headquarters, regional, and state office officials in the
implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of stewardship contracting
projects. The agencies also have appointed stewardship contracting
coordinators at each Forest Service regional office and at each BLM
state office. These staff serve as resources for all projects under the
respective Forest Service regional offices and BLM state offices and
are expected to enhance communication between the agencies'
headquarters and the field. Their specific responsibilities include
clarifying stewardship contracting guidance, monitoring project status
and soliciting feedback, and making recommendations on how to improve
the effectiveness of stewardship contracting.
The Agencies Have Not Provided Substantial Guidance on Community
Involvement, and Efforts to Involve Communities Varied among Projects:
Despite the stewardship contracting legislation's emphasis on meeting
community needs, the Forest Service initially provided little guidance
on incorporating community involvement in stewardship contracting pilot
projects; as a result, the type and extent of field staffs' efforts to
involve communities in projects varied considerably among the projects
we reviewed. Some project managers actively sought community
involvement in planning or implementing their projects, while other
managers took a less active approach--potentially leading to missed
opportunities for meeting local community needs. Although the majority
of the project managers we spoke with touted the potential benefits of
community involvement in stewardship contracting projects and expressed
their desire for additional guidance in this area, neither the Forest
Service nor BLM included such guidance in their January 2004
stewardship contracting guidance documents.
Because the Forest Service Initially Provided Little Guidance on
Community Involvement, the Type and Extent of Community Involvement
Varied Significantly among Projects:
Although the stewardship contracting legislation explicitly stated that
stewardship projects are "to achieve land management goals for the
national forests that meet local and rural community needs," the Forest
Service initially provided only minimal guidance on soliciting and
incorporating community involvement in stewardship contracting
projects, and most managers we spoke with articulated their frustration
with the overall lack of guidance on community involvement. Managers
told us that little or no formal training on involving the community
had been provided, and in some cases reported that the only guidance
they had received was in the form of a brief discussion of the topic
during a meeting. The most frequently identified source of community
involvement guidance was in the form of advice from the Pinchot
Institute for Conservation's regional subcontractors, which reportedly
provided some consultation on community involvement efforts. The
managers' desire for guidance or training resulted primarily from two
concerns: first, that they were wasting time "reinventing the wheel"
because they were unaware of effective or innovative community
involvement strategies developed by managers of other projects, and
second, that they were potentially violating the Federal Advisory
Committee Act (FACA) by incorporating community involvement into their
projects.[Footnote 24]
Because of the lack of guidance, the steps taken by Forest Service
managers to involve communities varied widely. Most of the community
involvement we learned about was incorporated through multiparty
monitoring teams, which were required by the stewardship contracting
legislation. However, the legislation did not specify, and the Forest
Service provided little guidance on, the teams' roles and
responsibilities, leading to uncertainty among field staff about what
was expected and how to proceed. Some projects simply did not have
monitoring teams, and some managers told us they did not realize such
teams were required. The project managers who assembled monitoring
teams did so using very different approaches. For example, some
managers formed teams of primarily Forest Service employees, while
others sought to involve a cross section of the community. The Yaak
project manager in Montana even transferred the responsibility for
assembling the project monitoring team and completing an annual report
on the project to the contractor, by making these efforts a requirement
in the contract. Some managers formed small teams composed of a few
interested local individuals, while the manager at the Priest-Pend
Orielle project in Idaho formed a large monitoring team consisting of
about 30 members organized into several specialized subcommittees
focusing on specific issues such as roads, watershed, wildlife, and
noxious weeds. This project manager also coordinated with the team to
ensure that a Forest Service specialist was available to consult with
each of the subcommittees as needed.
The project monitoring teams also played varying roles and undertook
varying activities. Team members included university professors, local
government officials, environmental advocates, industry
representatives, and other interested citizens, and the composition of
the team often helped to determine the level and type of work the team
undertook. For example, several project managers noted that their teams
focused on assessing the effectiveness of specific ecological work or
evaluating the project's impact on the local economy, while other teams
focused on assessing the stewardship contracting process, believing
that their assessment of the tool would help the Congress evaluate the
pilot program. The monitoring teams conducted such activities as
inspecting project sites, testing soils and water, establishing photo
points,[Footnote 25] and gathering and analyzing economic information.
Figure 15 shows a multiparty monitoring team meeting at a project site.
Figure 15: Multiparty Monitoring Team Reviewing Project Site at the
Clearwater Pilot Project, Lolo National Forest:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
In a few instances we noted other forms of community involvement. Some
managers took steps such as meeting with local contractors and
environmentalists to hear their concerns and answer questions, or
setting up demonstration areas that would show local residents how the
project site would look once the work was done. However, such steps
were not common, and in fact some managers told us that the NEPA
process alone allows for sufficient public participation in their
projects.[Footnote 26] They said that as a result--and without guidance
to the contrary--they did not feel that additional efforts to involve
communities were necessary or justified. In fact, one Forest Service
official at the Burns Creek project site in Virginia told us that
management of the forest might be better left to forestry professionals
than to a collaborative group of well-meaning--but untrained--community
members.
Many Agency Officials Believe Collaboration Enhances Project
Effectiveness and Provides Other Benefits:
Some project managers may be missing opportunities to improve their
projects, as the majority of the project managers we spoke with touted
the benefits of involving the community in stewardship contracting
projects. Although some project managers noted that community
involvement activities require an additional investment of time and
effort upfront, several believe that this effort will pay off in the
end.
Project managers cited a variety of benefits from community
involvement, including improved project design and implementation,
better lines of communication with the public, and enhanced public
trust in the agencies. Several project managers indicated that they
valued the project monitoring teams' expertise and input, and some
noted improvements to their projects as a result of team and other
community input. For example, the manager of the Upper Blue project in
Colorado told us that public involvement in her project led to the
development of more stringent criteria for protecting water quality
during project activities. The Main Boulder project manager in Montana
told us that public involvement in his fuels reduction project led to
improved relations with the public, which in turn persuaded a
neighboring landowner to offer the agency access across his land to an
isolated parcel of public land needing fuel reduction. This allowed the
manager to add an additional 40 acres to the project's planned fuel
reduction activities.
Some managers viewed their interaction with the project monitoring team
as an opportunity to get back in touch with the community and improve
the agency's credibility, and some sought to involve a cross section of
the community--including environmentalists and loggers--on their
monitoring teams to improve the agency's relationship with the
community. The manager of the Sheafman Restoration project in Montana
said she wanted a cross section of the community on her project's team
because she believes "any time you can get people from different sides
of an issue together to talk, good things happen." The Priest-Pend
Orielle project manager observed that in his community--as in so many
others--the Forest Service had lost touch with the local community. He
sees tremendous benefits in the agency's new collaboration process with
the community, and suggested the agency will have greater opportunities
to build credibility with the community on future projects because
local individuals have seen the agency responding to their input. The
manager of the Red-Cockaded Woodpecker Habitat project in Georgia told
us that by attending the meetings of other community organizations and
taking an active interest in what those groups are doing, she has
improved communications with the community--leading to increased public
input on Forest Service projects, which in turn helps the agency better
focus its projects to meet community needs.
However, benefits were often limited because most of the monitoring
teams were formed after the projects completed NEPA requirements,
meaning that these teams generally participated only during the
implementation phase of the projects rather than during project design.
Several project managers suggested that stewardship contracting
projects could be more effective if the community were brought to the
table during the earliest project discussions to assist in drafting
proposals of needed work.
Neither Agency's 2004 Guidance Clarifies How Community Involvement
Should Be Incorporated:
Despite the many project managers who told us they wanted additional
guidance on obtaining and incorporating community involvement, the
Forest Service's recent stewardship contracting handbook does not
contain specific guidance in this area, and BLM's guidance document is
similarly lacking. In commenting on a draft of this report, Forest
Service officials noted that the agency's intent was to allow local
agency officials the flexibility to determine the appropriate level of
collaboration for their communities. Although the agencies' 2004
guidance documents repeatedly mention "community involvement" and
"collaboration," they do not specify what these terms mean or how
agency staff are to accomplish them. For example, the Forest Service
handbook indicates that forest supervisors should ensure that all
stewardship contracting projects are developed "using collaboration
with Tribal governments, local governments, nongovernment
organizations, individuals, and other groups, as appropriate." However,
the handbook neither provides guidance on how to effectively involve
these various groups and individuals nor defines "appropriate"
collaboration. (In contrast, the handbook's guidance on contracting and
financial activities includes defined lists of appropriate and
inappropriate activities.) In fact, the closest either guidance
document comes to saying what form this collaboration should take is a
statement about what collaboration is not. According to the Forest
Service handbook, "The use of scoping letters alone does not meet the
intent of collaborative efforts for stewardship contracting projects."
[Footnote 27] Moreover, while the Consolidated Appropriations
Resolution of 2003 eliminated the requirement for multiparty monitoring
teams to assess each project, it did not specify what form of community
involvement should take its place.
Project managers are concerned that without guidance on best practices
from other projects, they may be inefficiently developing community
involvement mechanisms independently. Guidance on the minimum
requirements for community involvement in each stewardship project,
including examples of best practices, could increase both the
efficiency of managers' efforts and the extent of community involvement
in the projects. By providing more definitive guidance, the Forest
Service and BLM could reasonably expect to enhance the effectiveness of
stewardship contracting and more fully realize its potential.
Both Agencies Have Additional Projects Planned and Intend to Assess the
Effectiveness of Stewardship Contracting:
Both the Forest Service and BLM plan to use stewardship contracting in
the future. The Forest Service expects to award at least 67 stewardship
contracts in fiscal year 2004. BLM, which was granted stewardship
authority only in 2003, has begun 2 projects and plans about 34 more in
fiscal year 2004. The agencies did not provide specific data for years
beyond 2004, but agency officials said they intend to continue
expanding the use of stewardship authority in the future. According to
Forest Service and BLM officials, both agencies plan to collect
information on stewardship contracting projects to assess the utility
of stewardship contracting relative to other contracting mechanisms.
Both Agencies Plan Additional Use of Stewardship Authority in Fiscal
Year 2004:
According to an official with the Forest Service's Forest and Rangeland
Management Group, the agency awarded 49 stewardship contracts in fiscal
year 2003 and 7 more as of March 2004, and expects that an additional
60 or more contracts may be awarded during the remainder of fiscal year
2004. However, the Forest Service does not track the authority under
which it awards stewardship contracts, and as a result the agency could
not determine how many of these contracts pertain to new projects and
how many pertain to the 77 pilot projects we analyzed.
BLM has begun two stewardship contracting projects, both in Oregon. One
project, in Applegate, is expected to be completed in 2004; the other,
near Baker City, does not yet have an estimated completion date. Two
additional projects--one in Idaho and one in Utah--are being developed,
and two more (one in California and one in Oregon) have been approved.
BLM plans to begin about 30 additional projects in fiscal year 2004.
Both Agencies Plan to Assess the Use of Stewardship Contracting:
Each agency's recent guidance contains provisions for monitoring and
assessing the use of stewardship contracting, and agency officials told
us that monitoring and assessment serve two purposes--they enable the
agencies to provide information both to the Congress on stewardship
contracting and to field staff responsible for stewardship contracting
projects. BLM's guidance states that "one objective of this monitoring
effort is to analyze the effectiveness of stewardship contracting
relative to other management tools." The Forest Service's handbook
states that "results from the longer term programmatic monitoring
generate information about the utility of stewardship contracting
authority."
Officials with both agencies told us that the results of the monitoring
will be used to construct the agencies' required annual reports to the
Congress on stewardship contracting. The agencies are required to
report on the status of development, execution, and administration of
stewardship contracts; the specific accomplishments that have resulted;
and the role of local communities in development of contract plans.
Officials also told us that the results of the monitoring will be
provided to agency field staff to assist staff in designing and
implementing projects. For example, a Forest Service official told us
that information on both successful and problematic projects would be
shared with field staff to help them determine whether certain types of
projects are more suitable for stewardship contracting than others, or
whether certain stewardship contracting procedures are more effective
than others in certain situations.
To carry out their monitoring efforts, the agencies are jointly
developing a request for proposal for a contractor to develop and
implement a mechanism for monitoring and evaluating stewardship
contracting projects. Agency officials estimated that the request would
be issued in spring 2004 and expect to issue a single monitoring
contract covering stewardship contracting projects in both agencies.
Conclusions:
As the Forest Service and BLM undertake projects to achieve land
management objectives--particularly their efforts to reduce fuels under
the Healthy Forests Restoration Act--they are likely to rely
increasingly on stewardship contracting. This tool has the potential to
help the agencies achieve their objectives while meeting community
needs. Community involvement is a critical component of stewardship
contracting: It enables the agencies not only to construct projects
that are targeted toward community needs but also to develop community
relationships, thereby enhancing future efforts to collaborate with
communities.
However, while we observed contracting and financial controls in place
that we believe will provide accountability in managing projects, we
believe that the agencies could do more to assist individual project
managers as they seek to incorporate public involvement in their
projects. Community involvement in the pilot projects most often took
the form of multiparty monitoring teams, but these teams are no longer
required for each stewardship project, and neither agency provides
substantive guidance on incorporating community involvement. Many
Forest Service project managers said they wanted more guidance in this
area, but managers looking to the agencies' 2004 stewardship
contracting guidance for direction on community involvement will likely
find little of use. Unless the agencies establish a minimum requirement
for community involvement in stewardship projects (to replace the
expired requirement for monitoring teams) and provide project managers
with examples of successful community involvement practices other
projects have used, the agencies may fail to capitalize fully on the
potential of stewardship contracting.
Recommendation for Executive Action:
To enhance the ability of stewardship contracting projects to meet
local needs and improve public trust in the agencies, we recommend that
the Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior direct the agencies to
issue additional guidance on community involvement. Such guidance
should identify, and encourage the use of, best practices in seeking
and incorporating community input, and establish minimum requirements
for seeking community involvement on each stewardship contracting
project.
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
We provided a draft of this report to the Secretaries of Agriculture
and the Interior for review and comment. The Forest Service generally
agreed with our report and provided technical suggestions that we
incorporated, as appropriate. The Forest Service's comment letter is
presented in appendix IV. The Department of the Interior did not
provide comments.
We are sending copies of this report to the Secretary of Agriculture,
the Secretary of the Interior, the Chief of the Forest Service, the
Director of BLM, and other interested parties. We will also make copies
available to others upon request. In addition, this report will be
available at no charge on GAO's Web site at [Hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov].
If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please
contact me at (202) 512-3841. Key contributors to this report are
listed in appendix V.
Signed by:
Barry T. Hill:
Director, Natural Resources and Environment:
List of Requesters:
The Honorable Tom Harkin:
Ranking Democratic Member:
Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry:
United States Senate:
The Honorable Nick J. Rahall II:
Ranking Minority Member:
Committee on Resources:
House of Representatives:
The Honorable Jay Inslee:
Ranking Minority Member:
Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health:
Committee on Resources:
House of Representatives:
The Honorable Jeff Bingaman:
United States Senate:
The Honorable Maria Cantwell:
United States Senate:
The Honorable Patrick J. Leahy:
United States Senate:
[End of section]
Appendixes:
Appendix I: Forest Service's Responses to Environmentalists' Concerns
about Projects Identified as Problematic:
As requested, we reviewed six stewardship contracting pilot projects
identified as problematic by members of various environmental groups:
the Buck, Hungry Hunter Ecosystem Restoration, and Sprinkle Restoration
projects in the Forest Service's Pacific Northwest Region; the Meadow
Face and North Fork Big Game Habitat Restoration projects in the
Northern Region; and the Granite Watershed Protection and Enhancement
project in the Pacific Southwest Region. According to the environmental
group members, these projects either did not allow for sufficient
public involvement or adversely affected the environment in some way.
Four of the six projects were cited for insufficient public
involvement, which took the form of limited public input or lack of
Forest Service commitment and support, according to environmental group
members we spoke with. Ecological concerns were raised about several
projects and included impacts on wildlife habitat and water quality,
high road densities, and soil compaction, as well as the perceived
failure of the Forest Service to consider all costs and benefits in its
project analyses, including impacts on local communities and big-game
habitat. The Forest Service project managers we interviewed generally
agreed that public involvement was lacking at the four projects where
this was cited as a concern. However, their responses to environmental
concerns varied.
In this appendix, we provide, for each of the six projects, a
description of the project, a discussion of the concerns expressed by
environmentalists, and the Forest Service's responses to those
concerns. We do not take a position on the validity of the concerns or
responses.
Buck Pilot Project:
The Buck project is located in Oregon's Wallowa-Whitman National Forest
in the Forest Service's Pacific Northwest Region. It was designed as a
timber sale in 1998 before the initial stewardship contracting
legislation was enacted. The project was subsequently altered to
incorporate activities to reduce wildfire risk and was completed in
2004.
Environmental Group Concerns:
According to a member of the Hell's Canyon Preservation Council (HCPC),
a local environmental group, HCPC was generally concerned about the
lack of public input in the project's design and implementation and
about the lack of restoration activities. Specifically, this HCPC
member told us the project was simply a repackaged timber sale that was
not planned or designed with up-front community involvement beyond that
required as part of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)
process, which the member did not consider a substitute for true local
collaboration. Further, although the Forest Service created a
monitoring team for the project, the team was formed after the NEPA
process was completed and the contract awarded, minimizing the
opportunity for public input. The HCPC member added that the project
was too narrowly focused on the sale of timber and involved only
limited restoration activities, such as culvert and road replacement.
Forest Service Response:
The Forest Service's Buck project manager agreed that community
involvement was lacking on the project, noting that public involvement
was particularly limited during the project's planning and design
stages. He emphasized that future projects will likely involve more
public input, especially during planning and design.
With respect to concerns that the project's focus was too narrow and
involved limited restoration activities, the project manager noted that
once the NEPA process was completed, the Forest Service was limited in
the changes it could make to the project because significant
alterations would have required going through the NEPA process again.
Given the project's initial focus as a timber sale, the amount of
restoration activity that could be added after NEPA was limited.
Hungry Hunter Ecosystem Restoration Pilot Project:
The Hungry Hunter Ecosystem Restoration project is in Washington's
Okanogan and Wenatchee National Forests in the Forest Service's Pacific
Northwest Region. The project was designed to remove small-diameter
trees, conduct prescribed burning, rehabilitate roads to improve
habitat, and reduce erosion. The Forest Service project manager told us
he expected the project to get under way in early 2004, following
completion of the NEPA process.
Environmental Group Concerns:
A board member of the Methow Forest Watch, a local grass roots
environmental group, expressed concerns about the Forest Service's lack
of commitment to and support for the project, which has delayed project
implementation, as well as limited public involvement. Regarding the
lack of commitment and support, she said the Forest Service has paid
more attention to timber sale projects than to the Hungry Hunter
project, citing a local timber sale as an example of a project that is
already under way while the Hungry Hunter project is moving forward
slowly. She stated that although she understands that forest fires have
contributed to project delays, the Forest Service has not made the
Hungry Hunter project a high priority. Concerning limited public
involvement, the board member noted that although the Forest Service
initially incorporated public involvement on the project, this
involvement was reduced after the Consolidated Appropriations
Resolution of 2003 eliminated the requirement for local monitoring
teams. She also noted that although the Forest Service initially
proposed 1.3 miles of road as part of the project, the agency currently
proposes constructing seven miles of new road, some of it in areas that
are currently roadless.
Forest Service Response:
The Hungry Hunter project manager disagreed with the contention that
there was a lack of commitment to the project. The manager noted that
the comparison to the local timber sale does not demonstrate lack of
commitment because the two projects did not start at the same time and,
further, that the timber sale will be about 3 years late when it is
finally completed. However, the project manager acknowledged the
project's delays and stated that he understands public frustration over
these delays. He noted that in addition to severe fires that have
directed Forest Service resources elsewhere, lack of clear agency
guidance on how to implement the project has also contributed to
delays. For example, he said the permissible use of retained receipts
was initially unclear, but the new legislation and guidance clearly
specifies what they can be used for. In addition, he noted that time-
consuming soils analyses required as part of the project's
environmental assessment also caused delays.
The manager agreed that public involvement on the project has been
reduced in recent months. He attributed this reduction to several
factors. First, there was confusion over the requirements of the
Consolidated Appropriations Resolution of 2003, including the extent of
public involvement. Additionally, he was concerned about violating the
Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) by working too closely with the
project's monitoring team; partly as a result, he reduced the team's
involvement. Finally, a potential conflict of interest arising from
monitoring team members who were potential bidders on the project
contract also contributed to the project manager's decision to curtail
monitoring team involvement. The manager emphasized, however, that once
the environmental assessment is finalized and the project is under way,
more direct and extensive public involvement will be resumed.
Regarding the concern about high road densities in the Hungry Hunter
project area, the project manager stated that no decision has yet been
made regarding the number of miles of road in the project. He noted
that four alternatives are outlined in the project's environmental
assessment, one of which would involve no new road construction. Once
the public comment period is completed, he said, a decision will be
made on which alternative to select.
Sprinkle Restoration Pilot Project:
The Sprinkle Restoration project, like the Buck project, is in Oregon's
Wallowa-Whitman National Forest in the Forest Service's Pacific
Northwest Region. The project's specific objectives are to provide
long-term forest health, reduce the severity of future insect
infestations, restore the forest to historical conditions, and provide
for wildlife habitat. A contract for the project was awarded in July
2003, and the contractor began working on the project in the spring of
2004.
Environmental Group Concerns:
A member of the Hell's Canyon Preservation Council (the same member we
spoke with regarding the Buck project) told us the group is mainly
concerned about the lack of collaboration on the Sprinkle Restoration
Project, but also has concerns about the project's narrow focus on
timber harvest activities to the detriment of restoration activities
and the limited use of receipts retained.
Regarding collaboration, the HCPC member told us that the local
monitoring team was formed only after the project had been through the
NEPA process and the contract had been signed and that community input
on the project through NEPA is insufficient. However, he noted that the
Forest Service is addressing some of the monitoring team's concerns.
For example, the team had noticed that a road that was to be
decommissioned as part of the project required no action because the
road area had adequately restored and regenerated itself. When the team
pointed out that decommissioning the road would be unnecessary and
would add sediment to a nearby creek, the Forest Service accepted the
team's suggestion and withdrew the plan to decommission the road. The
HCPC member pointed out that if the Forest Service had involved the
community up front, this oversight would not have occurred.
The HCPC member also told us that the project focused on timber harvest
activities and did not address the issue of high road density, which
jeopardizes wildlife security. More broadly, he told us that the
project did not contain sufficient restoration activities and noted
that additional activities (such as replacing culverts or
decommissioning roads) could have been added to the project to fully
use the expected $300,000 in retained receipts, which had not been
used.
Forest Service Response:
The Sprinkle project manager told us he agrees that collaboration on
the project has been lacking and that NEPA had been completed and the
project designed before the monitoring team was formed. He stated that
the Forest Service is trying to improve collaboration on planning
various forest projects.
Concerning high road density, the project manager said that although
road removals were planned as part of the project, road density remains
high, contributing to reduced elk habitat. He noted, however, that the
area is flat, making vehicle use difficult to manage. If the Forest
Service closes a road, forest users are likely to simply take their
vehicles off road to get where they want to go. Because it may be more
ecologically sound to leave the roads in place and keep forest traffic
on established roadways, there is some reluctance on the part of the
Forest Service to close roads.
Finally, regarding retained receipts, the project manager informed us
that the agency has consulted with the monitoring team on the use of
the receipts. He said the Forest Service plans to use the funds on
nearby stewardship projects as well as on the Sprinkle and adjacent
watersheds. For example, the agency plans to use the funds to replace
culverts within the Sprinkle area.
Meadow Face Pilot Project:
The Meadow Face project is located in Idaho's Nez Perce National Forest
in the Forest Service's Northern Region. The project objectives are to
return vegetation to its historical range; reduce fire risk, invasive
plant species, and sediment; and improve stream channel conditions and
recreational opportunities. No contract has been awarded on the
project, and the project manager did not provide an estimate of its
completion date.
Environmental Group Concerns:
Members of Friends of the Clearwater and the Idaho Conservation League,
two local environmental groups, expressed concerns about insufficient
public involvement in the project, insufficient restoration activities,
overstatement of the results of project activities, and site-specific
amendments made to the 1987 forest plan that allow environmental
degradation.[Footnote 28] Regarding public involvement, the Idaho
Conservation League member said that the Stewards of the Nez Perce, an
advisory group composed of representatives of the timber industry, the
Idaho Department of Fish and Game, the Nez Perce tribe,
environmentalists, and others, presented the Forest Service with a
project proposal that was unanimously agreed upon by the group.
However, the Forest Service ultimately ignored the group's
recommendation and came up with its own project, and the environmental
group members do not believe the project will result in the completion
of all restoration elements that were proposed.
The Friends of the Clearwater member also commented on one element of
the service work--an attempt to reduce sedimentation into area
waterways--involving the stabilization of a slide area resulting from
past timber harvesting. The member argues that the Forest Service is
double counting the sediment savings resulting from this activity--that
is, representing the savings as the effect of mitigating the prior
timber harvest as well as the effect of the current Meadow Face
project.
Finally, the environmental group member expressed concern over three
amendments that were made to the forest plan in order to allow project
activities. He told us his group is concerned over forest plan
amendments that will allow (1) higher levels of sedimentation in area
waterways, (2) increased soil compaction in the area, and (3) logging
activities within old-growth timber stands.
Forest Service Response:
Regarding the concern about ignoring the recommendations of the
Stewards of the Nez Perce, local Forest Service officials noted that
about 90 percent of what was contained in the Stewards' recommendations
is included among the activities the Forest Service intends to
undertake and that, in any case, the group was told repeatedly that its
recommendations would not necessarily be implemented without further
adjustment or review. Further, the Stewards' recommendations were vague
in certain respects, making it difficult to determine exactly what
activities the group expected.
Project officials also noted that the stewardship project itself will
encompass only a portion of the activities the Forest Service intends
to undertake and that other contracting mechanisms--such as timber or
service contracts--may also be implemented. Thus, the omission of
certain activities from the stewardship project does not mean the
restoration work will not be completed; rather, it simply means the
Forest Service will complete the work using other means.
With respect to the Meadow Creek slide area, the project manager said
that the area is the result of ponds created by a homesteader, not the
result of past timber harvesting. The area was included in a timber
sale in order to remediate the slide area; the sediment savings
resulting from this remediation were to offset the increased sediment
that would result from logging activities. The timber sale is currently
being implemented, but the slide area has not yet been treated, so it
was included in the Meadow Face project. However, the official added
that the Forest Service will not count the slide area remediation
toward any "sediment savings" in the Meadow Face project.
Regarding the amendments to the 1987 forest plan, the project officials
told us that the water quality amendment actually tightens the water
quality requirements for two watersheds in the project area, meaning
that less sediment will be permitted to flow into those streams. In the
case of a third waterway, sediment restrictions were eased after forest
staff determined that the streambed can handle more sediment than was
initially believed when the forest plan was developed.
The soil compaction amendment allows greater flexibility in conducting
projects, according to project officials. The forest plan originally
stated that upon completion of any forest activity, the soil in the
area must be less than 20 percent compacted, displaced, or puddled.
However, many areas in the forest had undergone significant logging or
other activities in the past and were already affected well beyond the
20 percent standard. Consequently, those areas were, in effect, off
limits to any additional activities--whether timber harvesting or
restoration activities--because remediating the soils to below the 20
percent standard would be difficult when they were substantially above
the standard to begin with. The amendment to the 1987 forest plan
states generally that the level of compaction, displacement, or
puddling after a project is completed must be lower than the level
before the project--which in turn would allow activities, as long as
the soils are left in better condition after the project than they were
before it.
Finally, the officials told us that the old-growth logging amendment
applies to about 710 acres of old-growth forest and allows treatment of
the stands in order to maintain old-growth characteristics. The stands
are becoming dense with small trees and underbrush that could serve as
ladder fuels and possibly contribute to a stand-destroying fire. As a
result of the amendment, the Forest Service can thin the stands,
benefiting old-growth trees by reducing both ladder fuels and
competition for water and nutrients.
North Fork Big Game Habitat Restoration Pilot Project:
The North Fork Big Game Habitat Restoration project (also known as the
Middle Black project) is located in Idaho's Clearwater National Forest
in the Forest Service's Northern Region. The project will involve
thinning on about 640 acres, and the project manager expects it to be
completed in 2009.
Environmental Group Concerns:
A member of Friends of the Clearwater (the same member we spoke with
regarding the Meadow Face project) told us that his organization is
concerned that the project focuses more on increasing the elk
population than on other environmental issues and will involve thinning
trees and brush in roadless areas.
Forest Service Response:
The project manager told us that, while the Forest Service is seeking
to restore the elk population, it is also engaged in restoration
activities. He acknowledged that the project began as a study
undertaken at the request of a local group called the Clearwater Elk
Recovery Team (CERT), which was concerned about declining elk numbers.
However, he emphasized that despite its origin, the project is being
conducted as an ecosystem restoration effort that will restore the
forest to a more typical historical condition and reduce the likelihood
of fire. As evidence that the project has not paid undue attention to
the elk recovery issue, the project manager told us that CERT members
"complained vigorously" about the proposed plan for the project, even
filing an appeal, because the project did not adequately address their
concerns about elk habitat. The manager stated that although thinning
will take place in roadless areas, no new roads will be built. Thinning
will be conducted manually using chainsaws.
Granite Watershed Protection and Enhancement Pilot Project:
The Granite Watershed Protection and Enhancement project is located in
California's Stanislaus National Forest in the Forest Service's Pacific
Southwest Region. The project is designed to achieve several
objectives, including watershed and enhancement, spotted owl habitat
improvement and protection, noxious weed control, and reforestation.
The project is ongoing, and the project manager expects it to be
completed in 2010.
Environmental Group Concerns:
Members of the Sierra Club and the Forest Conservation Council told us
that their overall concern about the project is the Forest Service's
failure to account for all costs and benefits when designing the
project. The members told us that while the project will open or
reconstruct 63 miles of road to remove forest products, the Forest
Service did not consider the project's impacts on other issues, such as
sedimentation and big-game habitat, and the financial and nonfinancial
costs and benefits of these potential impacts.
Forest Service Response:
The Granite project manager agreed that there are many costs and
benefits associated with timber sales and other forest projects beyond
those assessed for the Granite project, but he stated that quantifying
all costs and benefits would be impossible. For example, he noted that
timber harvests might deter people from using forest lands for
recreational purposes. Although forest visitors may provide financial
benefits such as gasoline purchases from nearby communities, visitors
also leave trash behind, creating a nonmonetary cost by degrading the
recreational experience of others and potentially creating a monetary
cost for cleanup expenses. In addition, visitors' vehicle use may also
contribute to watershed damage by increasing sedimentation. Given that
project effects are so mixed and involve so many elements that are
impossible to quantify, according to the project manager, it would be
impossible to account for all costs and benefits in a project analysis.
With respect to the specific impact on big-game habitat, the project
manager noted that the project, as designed, would add less than one
mile of road to existing roads in the forest. He added that if roads
do, in fact, reduce habitat, the one additional mile of road will have
little impact on this reduction. He said that the area is not known for
big game; the only such game are deer and bears, and neither population
has been thriving under existing conditions.
[End of section]
Appendix II: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology:
Based on the congressional request letters of July 2002 and March 2003,
and subsequent discussions with your staffs, we agreed to determine (1)
the status of each stewardship project and the land management goals
they address; (2) the extent to which the agencies have contracting and
financial controls in place that ensure accountability in managing
stewardship projects; (3) the steps the agencies have taken to involve
communities in designing, implementing, and evaluating stewardship
projects; (4) each agency's plans for future use of stewardship
contracting; and (5) the Forest Service's response to concerns raised
about 6 specific stewardship projects.
Stewardship Project Status and Land Management Goals:
To identify ongoing and completed stewardship pilot projects, we
contacted officials at the Forest Service and BLM to obtain a list of
such projects. The Forest Service provided a list of 81 pilot
projects;[Footnote 29] an official with BLM's Forest and Woodland
Management Group stated that no projects were ongoing.
To determine the status of these stewardship projects and their land
management goals, we conducted a Web-based survey of all ongoing and
completed stewardship projects. The survey asked respondents to provide
data on project activities, costs, time frames, size, and other
information, as well as the land management goals addressed by each
project.
Because we surveyed all stewardship projects, no sampling error and
confidence intervals are associated with our work. However, the
practical difficulties of conducting any survey may introduce other
types of errors, commonly referred to as nonsampling errors. For
example, differences in how a particular question is interpreted, the
sources of information available to respondents, or the types of people
who do not respond can introduce unwanted variability into the survey
results. We included steps in both the data collection and data
analysis stages for the purpose of minimizing such nonsampling errors.
We pretested the survey at three project sites and conducted a fourth
pretest by telephone. In addition, we provided a draft version of the
survey to Forest Service headquarters officials familiar with the
stewardship contracting program in order to obtain their comments on
the draft. We modified the survey as appropriate to reflect the
questions and comments we received during the pretests and Forest
Service headquarters review.
Project managers at 4 of the 81 projects identified by the Forest
Service told us that their projects had been terminated by the time of
our survey or were no longer being conducted under stewardship
authority, leaving 77 projects. Of these 77 projects, 7 did not provide
information in our survey. The managers for 3 projects--Butte South,
Midstory Removal in Red-Cockaded Woodpecker Habitat, and Red River--
told us that their projects were too preliminary to reasonably provide
information. The manager of the Grassy Flats project told us that she
was required to serve on firefighting duty and did not have time to
complete our survey. The manager of the West Glacier project told us
that because of demands on his time resulting from the 2003 wildfires
in his state, he was faced with a substantial backlog of work and would
not be able to complete our survey. Finally, the managers of the Grand
Canyon and Yaak projects did not respond to our requests to provide
data.
We attempted to corroborate survey responses in two ways. First, to the
extent possible, we compared survey responses from the projects we
visited with information (such as contracts or other documents) we
collected during those visits. The survey data generally concurred with
the site visit documentation we gathered. When we encountered
substantial differences we could not reconcile, we used the more
conservative figure. Such discrepancies occurred in four instances, two
involving the estimated value of products removed, one involving the
estimated volume of products removed, and one involving estimated
contract costs. We also identified one source of data--the Forest
Service's Timber Sale Accounting (TSA) system--that contains data about
the volume of timber removed as part of Forest Service timber sales.
Because in our survey we asked about timber volumes removed during
stewardship projects, we attempted to corroborate survey responses
regarding timber volumes by comparing them to TSA data. The comparison
was not meaningful, however, because of differences in the way the two
sets of data (ours and TSA's) were collected, and because the
preliminary nature of many of the stewardship projects meant that,
while they provided us with estimates of their timber harvest volumes,
such data were not yet entered into TSA.
However, based on our comparison of survey responses to project
documentation, we believe the data are sufficiently reliable to be used
in providing descriptive information on project size, activities, land
management goals, and the like.
Contracting and Financial Controls:
To assess the contracting and financial controls in place at
stewardship projects, we conducted site visits to a nonprobability
sample of 8 ongoing or completed project locations--about 10 percent of
the 81 projects initially reported to us.[Footnote 30],[Footnote 31] We
used numerous criteria to select project locations to visit. First, to
respond to your interest in the Forest Service's use of retained funds
and its controls over contractor activities, we narrowed our scope to
include only projects using receipt retention or designation by
description authorities. From such projects we selected all of those
that had been completed--a total of 4 projects. (One additional project
had been completed but did not use either receipt retention or
designation by description authority.)
To select the remaining 4 projects to visit, we first eliminated from
our consideration any remaining projects in the Forest Service regions
where the 4 completed projects were located, in order to obtain
geographic spread in our nonprobability sample and obtain information
from various Forest Service regions. We then focused on projects that
were well under way, in order to ensure that sufficient contracting and
financial activities had taken place for us to evaluate. Our
application of these site selection criteria yielded the site visit
locations shown in table 1.
Table 1: Selection Criteria Met by Each Pilot Project at Which We
Conducted Site Visits:
Project location: Clearwater;
Region: 1;
Criteria met: Using receipt retention authority: Yes;
Criteria met: Using designation by description authority: Yes;
Criteria met: Completed project: No;
Criteria met: Geographically separate from completed projects: Yes;
Criteria met: Project activity under way: Yes.
Project location: Winiger Ridge Restoration;
Region: 2;
Criteria met: Using receipt retention authority: No;
Criteria met: Using designation by description authority: Yes;
Criteria met: Completed project: No;
Criteria met: Geographically separate from completed projects: Yes;
Criteria met: Project activity under way: Yes.
Project location: Warm Ridge/Glide;
Region: 4;
Criteria met: Using receipt retention authority: Yes;
Criteria met: Using designation by description authority: No;
Criteria met: Completed project: No;
Criteria met: Geographically separate from completed projects: Yes;
Criteria met: Project activity under way: Yes.
Project location: Antelope;
Region: 6;
Criteria met: Using receipt retention authority: No;
Criteria met: Using designation by description authority: Yes;
Criteria met: Completed project: Yes;
Criteria met: Geographically separate from completed projects: No;
Criteria met: Project activity under way: No.
Project location: Baker City Watershed Rehabilitation;
Region: 6;
Criteria met: Using receipt retention authority: No;
Criteria met: Using designation by description authority: Yes;
Criteria met: Completed project: Yes;
Criteria met: Geographically separate from completed projects: No;
Criteria met: Project activity under way: No.
Project location: Wayah Contract Logging;
Region: 8;
Criteria met: Using receipt retention authority: Yes;
Criteria met: Using designation by description authority: Yes;
Criteria met: Completed project: Yes;
Criteria met: Geographically separate from completed projects: No;
Criteria met: Project activity under way: No.
Project location: Burns Creek;
Region: 8;
Criteria met: Using receipt retention authority: Yes;
Criteria met: Using designation by description authority: No;
Criteria met: Completed project: Yes;
Criteria met: Geographically separate from completed projects: No;
Criteria met: Project activity under way: No.
Project location: Fernow Experimental Forest;
Region: 9;
Criteria met: Using receipt retention authority: Yes;
Criteria met: Using designation by description authority: No;
Criteria met: Completed project: No;
Criteria met: Geographically separate from completed projects: Yes;
Criteria met: Project activity under way: Yes.
Source: GAO.
[End of table]
At each site visit location, we reviewed the project's contracting and
financial files and interviewed Forest Service officials associated
with the project, including project managers, timber sale contracting
officers, procurement contracting officers, contracting officers'
representatives, supervisory accountants, and others, to determine
whether appropriate controls were in place to provide accountability in
managing the projects. We reviewed preaward and postaward contracting
elements we identified as important for providing management
accountability in awarding and administering stewardship contracts.
Regarding preaward activities, we looked for evidence of solicitations
and advertisements for the projects to provide public notice of work to
be performed and to maximize the number of potential bidders on project
contracts. We also looked for documentation of preestablished bid
evaluation criteria to show that the Forest Service selected
contractors fairly and equitably. In addition, given that stewardship
projects may involve new ways of contracting to achieve land management
objectives, we looked for evidence of meetings with prospective bidders
to clarify project activities and Forest Service expectations.
Regarding postaward controls, we reviewed contracts to determine
whether they contained clear definitions of contract requirements as
well as valuation, bond, oversight, and breach, default, and dispute
resolution clauses to provide accountability in managing the projects.
Clear definitions of contract requirements, accompanied by postaward
conferences with contractors, ensure that contractors fully understand
the Forest Service's requirements and expectations. Appropriate
valuation techniques, such as appraisals and government estimates,
ensure that the government is fairly compensated for the timber or
other products it is selling. Payment and performance bonds ensure that
the government receives payment for timber harvested and that
government funds are not required to remediate damage caused by
contractor activities. Oversight activities assure the government that
contractor activities are being conducted appropriately and according
to schedule. Finally, breach, default, and dispute resolution clauses
allow the Forest Service to address problems by issuing default notices
or stop work orders to prohibit further activity on a project until the
problems are resolved.
In addition, at 6 of the 8 sites we visited, we met with the contractor
performing the stewardship activities, in order to obtain the
contractor's perspective on the project. Finally, we spoke with
officials of the Forest Service's Forest and Rangeland Management
Group, BLM's Forest and Woodland Management Group, and various agency
field staff regarding the contracting and financial guidance provided
to staff implementing stewardship projects.
Based on our reviews of agency files, discussions with agency staff,
and interviews of contractors outside the agency, we believe the data
are sufficiently reliable to be used in reporting on the contracting
and financial mechanisms employed by the Forest Service in implementing
stewardship projects.
Community Involvement:
To determine the measures taken by the agencies to involve communities
in designing, implementing, and evaluating stewardship projects, we
reviewed project contracting files and interviewed agency officials at
each of our 8 site visit locations. At 5 of the 8 locations, we also
spoke with a member of the local monitoring team to obtain additional
information on the monitoring team's role in the project. The remaining
3 locations did not have monitoring teams.
In addition to these 8 projects, we conducted structured telephone
interviews with officials at a nonprobability sample of an additional
25 randomly selected projects. In order to select these projects, we
first eliminated from consideration those projects that (1) indicated
through our survey they were no longer viable stewardship projects, (2)
were included among our 8 site visits, and (3) were among the 6
included in our assessment of projects about which concerns had been
raised. Of the remaining 63 projects, 40 had completed NEPA, according
to Forest Service data, and 23 had not. From these 63 projects we
randomly selected a total of 25 projects to contact--15 that had
completed NEPA and 10 that had not. Our nonprobability sample of 25
projects was similar to our universe of 63 projects in the percentage
of projects that had and had not completed NEPA. We then contacted
officials at these 25 projects to ask a set of questions regarding
community involvement in the projects. Again, we included steps to
minimize nonsampling errors. In lieu of pretesting the questions, we
used the results of our site visits to ensure that the questions we
asked were understandable, balanced, and appropriate.
We also spoke with staff from the Pinchot Institute for Conservation
(the Forest Service contractor overseeing multiparty monitoring and
evaluation) regarding community involvement, and attended the spring
2003 meeting of the Pinchot Institute's national stewardship monitoring
team.
Because we gathered complementary data from multiple sources, including
Forest Service project managers, Pinchot Institute staff, and local and
national monitoring team members, we believe the data we gathered are
sufficiently reliable to be used in reporting on the measures taken by
the agencies to involve communities in stewardship projects.
Future Agency Activities:
To obtain information on future agency stewardship activities, we
reviewed both the Forest Service's and BLM's January 2004 guidance on
stewardship contracting. We also obtained from Forest Service and BLM
headquarters officials the number of projects they currently had under
way or had planned in addition to the 77 pilot projects undertaken by
the Forest Service. Finally, we spoke with headquarters officials at
both agencies to obtain their views on future use of stewardship
contracting authority and their plans for future monitoring and
assessment activities.
Projects of Concern:
To determine the Forest Service's response to specific concerns raised
about 6 ongoing stewardship projects by environmental group
representatives, we first obtained the concerns of environmental group
representatives for each of the 6 projects. To do so, we telephoned the
environmental contacts listed by your staff to obtain information on
their concerns. We also requested documentation such as appeal
documents filed, correspondence with Forest Service officials, or other
documentation that could provide information on concerns regarding the
projects. Subsequently, we telephoned the Forest Service managers for
each of these 6 projects to obtain their responses to the concerns that
had been raised. Based on our discussions with individuals concerned
about specific stewardship projects and Forest Service staff associated
with the projects, as well as our review of documentation regarding the
projects, we believe the data are sufficiently reliable to be used in
reporting on concerns about specific stewardship projects and the
Forest Service's response to those concerns.
We conducted our work between April 2003 and April 2004 in accordance
with generally accepted government auditing standards.
[End of section]
Appendix III: Pilot Project Names, Locations, Acres Treated, and End
Dates:
Table 2 provides pilot project information as of September 30, 2003, as
reported by project officials.
Table 2: Pilot Project Names, Locations, Acres Treated, and End Dates:
Region 1: Northern Region:
Project name: Bitterroot Burned Area Restoration;
National forest: Bitterroot;
Project acres[A]: 7,284;
Project: end date[B]: 9/30/2005.
Project name: Butte South;
National forest: Beaverhead-Deerlodge;
Project acres[A]: [C];
Project: end date[B]: [C].
Project name: Clancy-Unionville;
National forest: Helena;
Project acres[A]: --;
Project: end date[B]: --.
Project name: Clearwater;
National forest: Lolo;
Project acres[A]: 1,280;
Project: end date[B]: 11/30/2004.
Project name: Condon Administrative Site Fuels Reduction;
National forest: Flathead;
Project acres[A]: 17;
Project: end date[B]: 9/30/ 2003.
Project name: Dry Fork;
National forest: Lewis and Clark;
Project acres[A]: 300;
Project: end date[B]: 9/30/2005.
Project name: Dry Wolf;
National forest: Lewis and Clark;
Project acres[A]: 149;
Project: end date[B]: 9/30/2004.
Project name: Frenchtown Face;
National forest: Lolo;
Project acres[A]: --;
Project: end date[B]: --.
Project name: Game Range;
National forest: Lolo;
Project acres[A]: 2,221;
Project: end date[B]: 12/31/2007.
Project name: Iron Honey;
National forest: Idaho Panhandle;
Project acres[A]: 7,200;
Project: end date[B]: -.
Project name: Judith Vegetation and Range Restoration;
National forest: Lewis and Clark;
Project acres[A]: 218;
Project: end date[B]: 9/30/ 2006.
Project name: Knox-Brooks;
National forest: Lolo;
Project acres[A]: 802;
Project: end date[B]: 11/30/2007.
Project name: Main Boulder;
National forest: Gallatin;
Project acres[A]: 2,505;
Project: end date[B]: 4/30/2010.
Project name: Meadow Face;
National forest: Nez Perce;
Project acres[A]: 59;
Project: end date[B]: --.
Project name: North Elkhorns;
National forest: Helena;
Project acres[A]: --;
Project: end date[B]: --.
Project name: North Fork Big Game Habitat Restoration (also referred
to as Middle Black Ecosystem Restoration);
National forest: Clearwater;
Project acres[A]: 11,000;
Project: end date[B]: 9/30/2009.
Project name: Paint Emery;
National forest: Flathead;
Project acres[A]: 231;
Project: end date[B]: 11/30/2004.
Project name: Priest-Pend Oreille;
National forest: Idaho Panhandle;
Project acres[A]: 2,017;
Project: end date[B]: 2/5/2009.
Project name: Red River;
National forest: Nez Perce;
Project acres[A]: [C];
Project: end date[B]: [C].
Project name: Sheafman Fuels Reduction;
National forest: Bitterroot;
Project acres[A]: 104;
Project: end date[B]: 10/31/2004.
Project name: Treasure Interface;
National forest: Kootenai;
Project acres[A]: 765;
Project: end date[B]: 9/30/2004.
Project name: Westface Forest Management;
National forest: Beaverhead- Deerlodge;
Project acres[A]: 407;
Project: end date[B]: 10/31/2007.
Project name: West Glacier;
National forest: Flathead;
Project acres[A]: [D];
Project: end date[B]: [D].
Project name: Yaak;
National forest: Kootenai;
Project acres[A]: [E];
Project: end date[B]: [E].
Region 2: Rocky Mountain Region:
Project name: Beaver Meadows Restoration;
National forest: San Juan;
Project acres[A]: 902;
Project: end date[B]: 9/30/2008.
Project name: Ryan Park/Ten Mile;
National forest: Medicine Bow-Routt National Forests and Thunder Basin
National Grasslands;
Project acres[A]: 879;
Project: end date[B]: 12/31/2008.
Project name: Seven Mile;
National forest: Arapaho-Roosevelt;
Project acres[A]: 1,375;
Project: end date[B]: 6/30/2005.
Project name: Southwest Ecosystem;
National forest: San Juan;
Project acres[A]: 38;
Project: end date[B]: 9/30/2003.
Project name: Upper Blue;
National forest: White River;
Project acres[A]: 1,834;
Project: end date[B]: 12/1/2013.
Project name: Upper South Platte Watershed;
National forest: Pike-San Isabel;
Project acres[A]: --;
Project: end date[B]: --.
Project name: Winiger Ridge Restoration;
National forest: Arapaho- Roosevelt;
Project acres[A]: 1,066;
Project: end date[B]: 10/5/2005.
Region 3: Southwestern Region:
Project name: Cottonwood/Sundown;
National forest: Apache-Sitgreaves;
Project acres[A]: 210;
Project: end date[B]: 9/30/2002.
Project name: Grand Canyon;
National forest: Coconino;
Project acres[A]: [E];
Project: end date[B]: [E].
Project name: Montlure/Benne Thin and Fuels Reduction;
National forest: Apache-Sitgreaves;
Project acres[A]: 358;
Project: end date[B]: 12/31/ 2004.
Project name: Ranch/Iris Winter Range Restoration;
National forest: Apache-Sitgreaves;
Project acres[A]: 2,000;
Project: end date[B]: 12/ 31/2004.
Project name: Zuni-Four Corners;
National forest: Cibola;
Project acres[A]: 33;
Project: end date[B]: 9/24/2003.
Region 4: Intermountain Region:
Project name: Atlanta South Fuels Reduction;
National forest: Boise;
Project acres[A]: 582;
Project: end date[B]: 12/31/2005.
Project name: Duck Creek Village;
National forest: Dixie;
Project acres[A]: 12,000;
Project: end date[B]: 12/31/2008.
Project name: Warm Ridge/Glide;
National forest: Boise;
Project acres[A]: 3,500;
Project: end date[B]: 9/30/2007.
Project name: Monroe Mountain Ecosystem Restoration;
National forest: Fishlake;
Project acres[A]: 4,971;
Project: end date[B]: 11/30/2009.
Project name: North Kennedy-Cottonwood;
National forest: Boise;
Project acres[A]: 3,248;
Project: end date[B]: 12/31/2009.
Project name: Recap Density Management;
National forest: Dixie;
Project acres[A]: 155;
Project: end date[B]: 12/31/2003.
Project name: Small Wood Utilization;
National forest: Boise;
Project acres[A]: 20,000;
Project: end date[B]: 9/30/2008.
Region 5: Pacific Southwest Region:
Project name: Granite Watershed Protection and Enhancement[F];
National forest: Stanislaus;
Project acres[A]: 7,075;
Project: end date[B]: 12/ 1/2010.
Project name: Grassy Flats;
National forest: Shasta-Trinity;
Project acres[A]: [G];
Project: end date[B]: [G].
Project name: Maidu;
National forest: Plumas;
Project acres[A]: 1,300;
Project: end date[B]: 11/30/2013.
Project name: Pilot Creek;
National forest: Six Rivers;
Project acres[A]: 164;
Project: end date[B]: 11/15/2007.
Region 6: Pacific Northwest Region:
Project name: Antelope;
National forest: Fremont-Winema;
Project acres[A]: 1,644;
Project: end date[B]: 9/23/2002.
Project name: Baker City Watershed Rehabilitation;
National forest: Wallowa-Whitman;
Project acres[A]: 628;
Project: end date[B]: 5/15/ 2001.
Project name: Buck;
National forest: Wallowa-Whitman;
Project acres[A]: 880;
Project: end date[B]: 3/31/2004.
Project name: Foggy/Eden;
National forest: Siskiyou;
Project acres[A]: 4,614;
Project: end date[B]: 9/30/2010.
Project name: Hungry Hunter Ecosystem Restoration;
National forest: Okanogan-Wenatchee;
Project acres[A]: 17,906;
Project: end date[B]: 2011.
Project name: Littlehorn Wild Sheep Habitat Restoration;
National forest: Colville;
Project acres[A]: 350;
Project: end date[B]: 11/30/ 2004.
Project name: McKenzie;
National forest: Willamette;
Project acres[A]: 250;
Project: end date[B]: 12/31/2006.
Project name: Metolius Basin Forest Management;
National forest: Deschutes;
Project acres[A]: 12,600;
Project: end date[B]: 12/31/2011.
Project name: Oh Deer;
National forest: Okanogan-Wenatchee;
Project acres[A]: 215;
Project: end date[B]: 3/31/2005.
Project name: Siuslaw Basin Rehabilitation;
National forest: Siuslaw;
Project acres[A]: 2,960;
Project: end date[B]: 9/30/2008.
Project name: Sprinkle Restoration;
National forest: Wallowa-Whitman;
Project acres[A]: 2,642;
Project: end date[B]: 10/31/2007.
Project name: Upper Glade;
National forest: Rogue River;
Project acres[A]: 396;
Project: end date[B]: 12/31/2006.
Region 8: Southern Region:
Project name: Burns Creek;
National forest: George Washington- Jefferson;
Project acres[A]: 32;
Project: end date[B]: 3/15/2002.
Project name: Comp 113 Red-Cockaded Woodpecker Habitat;
Improvement;
National forest: Chattahoochee-Oconee;
Project acres[A]: 7,000;
Project: end date[B]: 9/30/2010.
Project name: Elk and Bison Prairie Habitat Restoration;
National forest: Land between the Lakes National Recreation Area;
Project acres[A]: 50;
Project: end date[B]: 9/30/2005.
Project name: First Loblolly Pine Thinning;
National forest: Francis Marion-Sumter;
Project acres[A]: 10,734;
Project: end date[B]: 10/20/ 2006.
Project name: Fugate Branch;
National forest: Daniel Boone;
Project acres[A]: 1,376;
Project: end date[B]: --.
Project name: Longleaf Ecosystem Restoration and Red-Cockaded;
Woodpecker Habitat Improvement;
National forest: National Forests in Florida;
Project acres[A]: 2,389;
Project: end date[B]: --.
Project name: Longleaf Restoration;
National forest: National Forests in Alabama;
Project acres[A]: 4,222;
Project: end date[B]: 9/30/2010.
Project name: Midstory Removal in Red-Cockaded Woodpecker Habitat;
National forest: National Forests in Mississippi;
Project acres[A]: [C];
Project: end date[B]: [C].
Project name: Wayah Contract Logging (also referred to as Morgan;
Cut);
National forest: National Forests in North Carolina;
Project acres[A]: 14;
Project: end date[B]: 7/1/2003.
Project name: Sand Mountain Contract Logging Services;
National forest: National Forests in North Carolina;
Project acres[A]: 55;
Project: end date[B]: 4/30/2004.
Project name: Southern Pine Beetle Suppression;
National forest: Francis Marion-Sumter;
Project acres[A]: 58;
Project: end date[B]: 11/ 30/2003.
Project name: Wolf Creek;
National forest: Cherokee;
Project acres[A]: 250;
Project: end date[B]: --.
Region 9: Eastern Region:
Project name: Fernow Experimental Forest;
National forest: Monongahela;
Project acres[A]: 792;
Project: end date[B]: 9/30/2005.
Project name: Forest Discovery Trail;
National forest: White Mountain;
Project acres[A]: 10;
Project: end date[B]: 11/2001.
Project name: Kirtland's Warbler Recovery;
National forest: Huron- Manistee;
Project acres[A]: 1,749;
Project: end date[B]: 7/15/2007.
Project name: North Montowibo Vegetation Management;
National forest: Ottawa;
Project acres[A]: 100;
Project: end date[B]: 6/1/2008.
Project name: Snowmobile Trail 13 Reroute;
National forest: Ottawa;
Project acres[A]: 4;
Project: end date[B]: 6/1/2004.
Project name: White River Riparian Buffer;
National forest: Green Mountain-Finger Lakes;
Project acres[A]: 16;
Project: end date[B]: 2014.
Source: GAO.
Note: A dash indicates that project officials did not respond to this
question in our survey.
[A] Project acres include acres treated at the time of our survey and
acres expected to be treated in the future.
[B] Project end date reflects the date on which the pilot project's
final contract was, or is expected to be, closed.
[C] Project officials told us these projects were too preliminary to
provide meaningful survey responses.
[D] The West Glacier project manager told us that because of his heavy
workload resulting from 2003 wildfires in his forest, he did not have
time to complete our survey.
[E] Grand Canyon and Yaak project officials did not respond to our
survey.
[F] The Granite Watershed Protection and Enhancement project was
authorized by the Granite Watershed Enhancement and Protection Act of
1998 (Pub. L. No. 105-281, 112 Stat. 2695) rather than by the
stewardship contracting legislation. A project official told us,
however, that the project is being conducted under both authorities--
the stewardship contracting legislation and the Granite Watershed
Enhancement and Protection Act of 1998.
[G] The Grassy Flats project manager told us she did not complete our
survey because she was serving on firefighting duty in another
location.
[End of table]
[End of section]
Appendix IV: Comments from the Department of Agriculture:
United States Department of Agriculture:
Forest Service:
Washington Office:
14TH & Independence SW:
P.O. Box 96090
Washington, DC 20090-6090:
File Code: 1420:
Date: MAY 26 2004:
Barry T. Hill:
Director:
U.S. General Accounting Office:
Natural Resources and Environment, Room 2T23
441 G Street, NW:
Washington, DC 20548:
Dear Mr. Hill:
Thank you for the opportunity to review and offer comments on the draft
GAO audit report entitled "Federal Land Management: Additional Guidance
on Community Involvement Could Enhance Effectiveness of Stewardship
Contracting" - i.e., audit report # GAO-04-652. Our specific comments
are set-forth in the enclosure. In general, we found very little in the
draft report with which we disagree or object. The reality is that this
report comes at a most opportune time for us. Because we are still in
the early stages of implementing the 10-year stewardship contracting
authority provided by Section 323 of P.L. 108-7, we are well positioned
to take maximum advantage of the insights provided by your independent
look at our prior use of this management tool.
Any questions concerning our comments should be directed, as
appropriate, to program managers or technical specialists in our Forest
Management and Acquisitions Management staffs.
Sincerely,
Signed for:
DALE N. BOSWORTH:
Chief:
Enclosure:
[End of section]
Appendix V: GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments:
GAO Contacts:
Barry T. Hill, (202) 512-3841 David P. Bixler, (202) 512-7201:
Staff Acknowledgments:
In addition to those named above, Paul Caban, Nancy Crothers, Timothy
DiNapoli, James Espinoza, Steve Gaty, Kevin Jackson, Richard Johnson,
Diane Lund, Mary Mohiyuddin, Judy Pagano, and Alana Stanfield made key
contributions to this report.
(360332):
FOOTNOTES
[1] Pub. L. No. 108-148, 117 Stat. 1887 (2003).
[2] Pub. L. No. 105-277, § 347, 112 Stat. 2681-298 (1998).
[3] Pub. L. No. 108-7, § 323, 117 Stat. 275 (2003).
[4] The Forest Service is authorized to use either contracts or
agreements in implementing stewardship projects. In this report we
refer to all such arrangements as contracts.
[5] Under the National Forest Management Act of 1976, the Forest
Service develops land and resource management plans that guide all
natural resource management activities on the national forests. The act
includes provisions governing timber sales from national forest lands.
[6] The Department of the Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations
Act of 2001 authorized the Forest Service to permit the Colorado State
Forest Service (CSFS) to conduct watershed restoration and protection
services on national forest land in Colorado when the CSFS is
performing similar services on adjacent state or private land.
[7] In contrast to the other stewardship authorities, best-value
contracting was not newly introduced in the stewardship legislation.
The Forest Service and BLM had been permitted to procure services on a
best-value basis prior to the legislation. Under the stewardship
contracting legislation, however, the agencies are required--rather
than simply permitted--to use best-value contracting when awarding
stewardship contracts.
[8] The Forest Service is divided into nine geographic regions. See
figure 1.
[9] Pub. L. No. 106-113, 113 Stat. 1501A-201 (1999).
[10] Pub. L. No. 106-291, 114 Stat. 998 (2000).
[11] Pub. L. No. 107-63, 115 Stat. 471 (2001).
[12] Although 84 pilot projects were authorized, only 77 were ongoing
or completed at the time of our review. Additional pilot projects had
been initiated, but were terminated prior to our review.
[13] The 68 ongoing pilot projects include one, the Granite Watershed
Protection and Enhancement project, that was authorized by the Granite
Watershed Enhancement and Protection Act of 1998 (Pub. L. No. 105-281,
112 Stat. 2695) rather than the stewardship contracting legislation. A
project official told us, however, that the project is being conducted
under both authorities--the stewardship contracting legislation and the
Granite Watershed Enhancement and Protection Act of 1998.
[14] Permanent roads are those that are expected to remain part of the
National Forest road system after their construction. In contrast,
temporary roads are those built for a specific project and closed at
the end of the project.
[15] We asked respondents to indicate whether their project addressed
each land management goal to a very great extent, great extent,
moderate extent, some extent, or little or no extent.
[16] Contract costs are those paid by the Forest Service to a
contractor and would not include other Forest Service costs, such as
salaries or overhead, associated with planning and implementing
projects.
[17] Not all survey respondents measured volume in ccf. Some used board
feet, while others used tons. To facilitate conversion from board feet
or tons to ccf, the Forest Service provided conversion factors for each
measurement. However, a Forest Service official cautioned that these
conversion factors are approximate, and that individual conversion
factors are applied depending on product, species, and other factors.
[18] The Pinchot Institute for Conservation, located in Washington,
D.C., is a nonprofit organization specializing in natural resource
policy, research, and education.
[19] As part of its contract to assist the Forest Service in
implementing and monitoring stewardship contracting, the Pinchot
Institute hired three subcontractors to provide technical assistance
and general program guidance regarding projects within their regions.
[20] The Commerce Business Daily and the Federal Business Opportunities
Web site (http://www.FedBizOpps.gov) list notices of proposed
government procurement actions, contract awards, sales of government
property, and other procurement information. As of October 1, 2001, all
federal procurement offices are required to use FedBizOpps to announce
proposed procurement actions and contract awards if they are over
$25,000 and are likely to result in the award of a contract to a
subcontractor.
[21] Although we determined that appraisals or estimates were
conducted, we did not review these appraisals or estimates for
accuracy.
[22] Dwarf mistletoe is a small, seed-bearing parasitic plant that
infects several tree species. According to USDA, the infection causes
increased mortality, reduced growth rates, loss of vigor, lowered
timber quality, and reduced seed production.
[23] Lockbox banks establish post office boxes or electronic accounts
to receive payments made to federal agencies. The banks then transfer
the funds to the Treasury and submit collection reports to the
agencies.
[24] The Federal Advisory Committee Act was enacted in 1972. (See Pub.
Law No. 92-463, 86 Stat. 770, 5 U.S.C. app 2.) Among other things, the
act requires advisory committee meetings to be open to the public and
requires detailed minutes of each meeting to be kept and made publicly
available. (See 5 U.S.C. app 2, § 10.)
[25] Photo points are vantage points from which before and after
pictures are taken in order to document visual changes to a project
site.
[26] For major federal actions that may significantly affect the
quality of the human environment, the National Environmental Policy Act
requires all federal agencies, including the Forest Service and BLM, to
analyze the potential environmental effects of the proposed action.
(See 42 U.S.C. 4332(2)(C).) Regulations implementing NEPA require
agencies to involve the public in environmental decision making by,
among other things, making draft environmental reviews available to the
public for comment. (See 40 C.F.R. 1506.6(b).)
[27] Scoping letters, an element of the NEPA process, request comments,
questions, and suggestions from interested parties on the scope of
issues to be addressed in the NEPA analysis. (See 40 C.F.R. 1501.)
[28] The Forest Service is required by law to develop a comprehensive,
long-range management plan for each national forest. These plans,
commonly called forest plans, must provide for multiple public uses in
each forest, such as fishing, mining, and preserving wildlife.
[29] Although 84 pilot projects were authorized, several pilot projects
had been terminated at the time of our review.
[30] Results from nonprobability samples cannot be used to make
inferences about a population. This is because in a nonprobability
sample, some elements of the population being studied have no chance or
an unknown chance of being selected as part of the sample.
[31] We also visited stewardship projects near Flagstaff, Arizona, and
Fort Collins, Colorado. However, at these locations, we simply toured
the project sites and did not apply our site visit methodology.
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