Biscuit Fire Recovery Project
Analysis of Project Development, Salvage Sales, and Other Activities Gao ID: GAO-06-967 September 18, 2006In 2002, the Biscuit Fire burned almost 500,000 acres of the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest in southwestern Oregon. In its wake, the Biscuit Fire Recovery Project (Project) is one of the largest, most complex postfire recovery projects undertaken by the Forest Service. Considerable controversy exists over the Project and its salvage sales to harvest dead trees. GAO was asked to determine (1) how the Project compares with the Forest Service's general approach to postfire recovery, (2) the status of the Project's salvage sales and how the reported financial and economic results of the sales compare with initial estimates, (3) the status of other Project activities, and (4) the extent of reported improper logging and the agency's response. To answer these objectives, GAO reviewed Project environmental analysis documents, plans, and activity reports and interviewed agency officials.
The Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest staff followed the Forest Service's general approach to postfire recovery in developing the Biscuit Fire Recovery Project, but several unique circumstances affected the time taken and the alternatives it included. For example, the size of the burned area--and, subsequently, the size of the Project--complicated the environmental analysis and increased the time needed to complete and review it. Also, the regulations and guidance governing timber harvest and road building in the forest's inventoried roadless areas changed several times, in part due to litigation, affecting the amount of timber available for harvest. As of December 2005, the forest staff had nearly completed 12 salvage sales; however, incomplete sales and a lack of comparable economic data, among other things, make comparing the financial and economic results with the agency's initial estimates difficult. For fiscal years 2003 through 2005, the Forest Service and other agencies spent about $5 million on the sales and related activities. In the next several years, the Forest Service also plans to spend an additional $5.7 million to remove brush and reforest the sale areas. In return, the agency collected about $8.8 million from the sales. While the agency estimated that the salvage sales would generate about $19.6 million for restoration, 6,900 local jobs, and $240 million in regional economic activity, it is premature to compare these estimates with the results because the sales are not complete. The Forest Service will generate additional expenditures, revenues, and economic activity from two sales sold in the summer of 2006. Even when complete sales' results are available, however, a comparison will be complicated by a lack of comparable financial and economic data. Through December 2005, the forest staff began work on most of the other activities identified in the Project but completing them depends on the amount of salvage harvest, funding sources, and work schedules. For example, the amount of brush disposal work--estimated at 18,939 acres--will be reduced because the acres of salvage harvest have been reduced. Other activities, such as establishing fuel management zones to help fight future fires, depend on the Forest Service funding and scheduling the work over many years. In addition, a large-scale study and monitoring activities are still being planned and yet unfunded. Although the forest staff identified the importance of making Project results available to the public, they do not separately report on Project activities and results from other programs. During salvage harvest operations in 2004 and 2005, the Forest Service reported three incidents of improper logging and took action to prevent such occurrences in the future. Two of the incidents were caused by Forest Service errors in marking its boundaries. Forest staff have since developed procedures to better mark boundaries of sale areas. A third incident was caused by an error on the part of the company that purchased the sale; the company was fined $24,000, and the trees were left on the ground.
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Director: Team: Phone:GAO-06-967, Biscuit Fire Recovery Project: Analysis of Project Development, Salvage Sales, and Other Activities
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Report to Congressional Requesters:
September 2006:
BISCUIT FIRE RECOVERY PROJECT:
Analysis of Project Development, Salvage Sales, and Other Activities:
[Hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-967] AO-06-967:
GAO Highlights:
Highlights of GAO-06-967, a report to congressional requesters.
Why GAO Did This Study:
In 2002, the Biscuit Fire burned almost 500,000 acres of the Rogue
River-Siskiyou National Forest in southwestern Oregon. In its wake, the
Biscuit Fire Recovery Project (Project) is one of the largest, most
complex postfire recovery projects undertaken by the Forest Service.
Considerable controversy exists over the Project and its salvage sales
to harvest dead trees.
GAO was asked to determine (1) how the Project compares with the Forest
Service‘s general approach to postfire recovery, (2) the status of the
Project‘s salvage sales and how the reported financial and economic
results of the sales compare with initial estimates, (3) the status of
other Project activities, and (4) the extent of reported improper
logging and the agency‘s response. To answer these objectives, GAO
reviewed Project environmental analysis documents, plans, and activity
reports and interviewed agency officials.
What GAO Found:
The Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest staff followed the Forest
Service‘s general approach to postfire recovery in developing the
Biscuit Fire Recovery Project, but several unique circumstances
affected the time taken and the alternatives it included. For example,
the size of the burned area”and, subsequently, the size of the
Project”complicated the environmental analysis and increased the time
needed to complete and review it. Also, the regulations and guidance
governing timber harvest and road building in the forest‘s inventoried
roadless areas changed several times, in part due to litigation,
affecting the amount of timber available for harvest.
As of December 2005, the forest staff had nearly completed 12 salvage
sales; however, incomplete sales and a lack of comparable economic
data, among other things, make comparing the financial and economic
results with the agency‘s initial estimates difficult. For fiscal years
2003 through 2005, the Forest Service and other agencies spent about $5
million on the sales and related activities. In the next several years,
the Forest Service also plans to spend an additional $5.7 million to
remove brush and reforest the sale areas. In return, the agency
collected about $8.8 million from the sales. While the agency estimated
that the salvage sales would generate about $19.6 million for
restoration, 6,900 local jobs, and $240 million in regional economic
activity, it is premature to compare these estimates with the results
because the sales are not complete. The Forest Service will generate
additional expenditures, revenues, and economic activity from two sales
sold in the summer of 2006. Even when complete sales‘ results are
available, however, a comparison will be complicated by a lack of
comparable financial and economic data.
Through December 2005, the forest staff began work on most of the other
activities identified in the Project but completing them depends on the
amount of salvage harvest, funding sources, and work schedules. For
example, the amount of brush disposal work”estimated at 18,939
acres”will be reduced because the acres of salvage harvest have been
reduced. Other activities, such as establishing fuel management zones
to help fight future fires, depend on the Forest Service funding and
scheduling the work over many years. In addition, a large-scale study
and monitoring activities are still being planned and yet unfunded.
Although the forest staff identified the importance of making Project
results available to the public, they do not separately report on
Project activities and results from other programs.
During salvage harvest operations in 2004 and 2005, the Forest Service
reported three incidents of improper logging and took action to prevent
such occurrences in the future. Two of the incidents were caused by
Forest Service errors in marking its boundaries. Forest staff have
since developed procedures to better mark boundaries of sale areas. A
third incident was caused by an error on the part of the company that
purchased the sale; the company was fined $24,000, and the trees were
left on the ground.
What GAO Recommends:
Given the size and unique nature of this fire and continuing public
interest, GAO recommends that the Chief of the Forest Service direct
the Pacific Northwest Regional Forester and the Rogue River-Siskiyou
Forest Supervisor to report annually on the Project‘s status until
substantially complete. In comments, the Forest Service agreed with the
report findings but asked for a time limit for the recommended annual
report. GAO modified its recommendation.
Contents:
Letter:
Results in Brief :
Background :
Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest Staff Followed the Forest
Service's Postfire Recovery Approach, but Unique Circumstances Affected
the Time Taken and Alternatives Considered for the Biscuit Fire
Recovery Project :
Salvage Sales Are Nearly Complete, but a Full Comparison of Financial
and Economic Results with Initial Estimates Is Difficult:
Other Biscuit Fire Recovery Project Activities Are Under Way, but
Depend on Harvest Activity, Schedules, Sale Revenues, and Other Funding:
Forest Made Operational Changes and Assessed Fines to Address Improper
Logging That Occurred in Three Locations:
Conclusions:
Recommendation for Executive Action:
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
Appendixes:
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology:
Appendix II: Comments from the Forest Service:
GAO Comments:
Appendix III: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments:
Tables:
Table 1: Biscuit Fire Recovery Project Salvage Sale Locations and
Volumes through December 2005:
Table 2: Biscuit Fire Hazard and Deck Tree Salvage Sales and Volumes
through December 2005:
Table 3: Estimated Expenditures on Biscuit Fire Salvage Sales, Fiscal
Years 2003 through 2005:
Table 4: Revenues Collected from Biscuit Fire Salvage Sales through
December 2005:
Table 5: Work Planned and Completed through December 2005:
Figures :
Figure 1: Biscuit Fire Map, Vegetation Change:
Figure 2: Biscuit Fire Recovery Project Time Line Compared with the
Forest Service's General Approach to Postfire Recovery:
Figure 3: Unique Circumstances Affecting the Time Taken and
Alternatives Considered for the Biscuit Fire Recovery Project:
Figure 4: Map of Burned Area with Inventoried Roadless Areas:
Figure 5: Map of Salvage Sales Sold in the Biscuit Fire Recovery
Project:
Figure 6: Map of Biscuit Fire Recovery Project Fuel Management Zones:
Abbreviations:
EIS: environmental impact statement:
K-V: Knutson-Vandenberg:
NEPA: National Environmental Policy Act:
NOI: Notice of Intent:
September 18, 2006:
The Honorable Jeff Bingaman:
Ranking Minority Member:
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources:
United States Senate:
The Honorable Ron Wyden:
Ranking Minority Member:
Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests:
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources:
United States Senate:
The Biscuit Fire Recovery Project (Project), a large-scale project to
recover areas of the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest burned by the
Biscuit Fire, is one of the largest and most complex postfire recovery
projects the Forest Service has ever undertaken. The Biscuit Fire
burned almost 500,000 acres of federal land in Oregon and California in
2002, making it the largest fire in the nation outside of Alaska since
1997.[Footnote 1] In the last decade, the nation has experienced many
large fires that have burned increasing numbers of acres. The 2002 fire
season, one of the nation's worst fire seasons in the last 50 years,
burned 6.9 million acres of public and private forests and rangelands
in the United States--more than any other year except 2000 and 2005.
After large fires on federal lands, federal land managers identify
activities and projects that they believe will help recover forest
resources such as trees and vegetation, roads, recreation facilities,
wildlife habitat, and streams and rivers. Specifically, the Forest
Service within the Department of Agriculture--and other federal land
management agencies--have defined recovery activities to include
emergency stabilization, rehabilitation, and restoration. Emergency
stabilization is conducted within 1 year of a fire through the Burned
Area Emergency Response program to address threats to life, property,
or resources; it includes work such as seeding and mulching to reduce
soil erosion and runoff.[Footnote 2] Rehabilitation is conducted within
3 years of a fire and includes such work as repairing roads or trails,
reforesting or planting trees, and restoring wildlife habitat.
Restoration continues such rehabilitation activities as reforesting
beyond the first 3 years after a fire. The Biscuit Fire Recovery
Project focuses on the long-term rehabilitation and restoration of the
fire area, not emergency stabilization or Burned Area Emergency
Response activities.
During the postfire process, the Forest Service may also consider
whether to leave burned trees and allow the burned area to recover
naturally or to harvest some of the dead and dying trees--called
salvage harvesting--with the intention of generating jobs and economic
development, and generating funds to help pay for the recovery of
natural resources or Forest Service infrastructure, such as roads and
trails. According to the Forest Service, salvage harvesting should be
done relatively quickly after a fire, before the trees begin to decay,
which makes the wood less usable and valuable. Generally, smaller trees
lose their commercial value after about 2 years, and larger trees lose
most of their commercial value after 3 or 4 years. However,
considerable scientific controversy exists about whether and how
quickly harvested areas recover compared with unharvested areas, and
experts disagree about whether salvage harvesting the burned timber
provides economic development and generates funding for recovery in
addition to that needed to pay for planning, preparing, and
administering sales. For this reason, we recently recommended that the
Forest Service pursue additional research on the effects of salvage
harvesting.[Footnote 3]
While the Forest Service does not have a discrete program or agencywide
guidance for managing postfire rehabilitation and restoration
activities, its general approach begins with an evaluation of the
condition of forest resources. For large fires, Forest Service staff
can use photographs and images taken from airplanes or satellites--
collectively called remote sensing data--to identify burned and
unburned areas. Then, staff identify activities that they believe will
help rehabilitate and restore damaged resources, as well as
opportunities for salvage harvest. Depending on how severely or
intensely an area is burned, the effects to trees, water, wildlife, and
other resources can vary. According to agency officials, they may
determine that no rehabilitation or restoration work is needed because
natural recovery may be sufficient or the fire may have benefited some
resources that are adapted to wildland fire. Further, some areas that
have burned, such as wilderness areas, may limit management activities.
However, when the staff identify activities they want to undertake and
determine that the activities will significantly impact the
environment, they develop an environmental impact statement (EIS), as
required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The EIS
identifies the significant environmental effects of the proposed action
and a range of reasonable alternative actions. If the proposed action
includes salvage sales, the staff conduct a financial and economic
analyses of the sales for each alternative in the EIS; the financial
analysis estimates the agency's expenditures and revenues, and the
economic analysis estimates the jobs and economic income generated.
They then issue a record of decision stating the agency's decision and
identifying the alternatives considered and begin to implement and
monitor the selected alternative. Project activities are typically
implemented by the appropriate forest program, such as Forest Products,
Engineering, or Fish and Wildlife, as part of each program's annual
workload.
The Biscuit Fire burned nearly half of the Siskiyou National Forest,
which was administratively joined with the Rogue River National Forest
in 2004, and almost all of the Kalmiopsis Wilderness, which lies within
the Siskiyou forest.[Footnote 4] The area lies within the Klamath-
Siskiyou ecoregion, an area renowned for its abundant ecological
diversity and rugged geological features, as well as being one of the
largest areas without roads in the Pacific Northwest. These areas are
managed under the Siskiyou National Forest Land and Resource Management
Plan (forest plan), as amended by the Northwest Forest Plan--a plan
designed to protect species that rely on old-growth forests, while also
producing a sustainable level of timber from the national forests of
the Pacific Northwest.[Footnote 5] The Northwest Forest Plan designates
land allocations, or areas that must be managed for designated purposes
in accordance with specified standards and guidelines. These
allocations include late-successional reserves--areas designed to serve
as habitat for species, such as the Northern spotted owl, that depend
on late-successional and old-growth trees--as well as areas called
"matrix" lands in which most commercial timber harvest is to take
place. The Siskiyou forest plan designates some of these lands as
inventoried roadless areas--areas without roads that were identified by
the Forest Service in wilderness planning efforts. They are managed
according to underlying land allocations, some of which restrict road
construction and timber harvesting.
After the Biscuit Fire, the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest staff
developed the Biscuit Fire Recovery Project and an accompanying EIS. In
July 2004, the Forest Supervisor signed three records of decision for
the Project, one covering activities within inventoried roadless areas,
one covering activities in late-successional reserves outside roadless
areas, and one covering activities in matrix lands outside inventoried
roadless areas. In accordance with the Forest Service's decentralized
management structure--which includes 155 national forests, nine
regions, and a Washington Office--the Rogue River-Siskiyou National
Forest Supervisor decided which of the alternative actions to
implement. The activities in the records of decision included almost
20,000 acres of salvage logging with 367 million board feet of
timber;[Footnote 6] almost 20,000 acres of brush disposal--removal of
branches and other postharvest debris in the sale areas; 285 miles of
fuel management zones--areas in which trees and brush have been removed
to reduce "fuel" that might burn in future fires; almost 30,000 acres
of reforestation, including harvested acres; and about 7,500 acres of
wildlife habitat rehabilitation. The records of decision also called
for the Forest Service to monitor certain resource conditions, such as
water quality, and conduct a large-scale study of the effects of fire
on late-successional reserve habitat and the effect of various
management actions on postfire recovery.
The Forest Service's decision to include salvage harvest in the
recovery project, particularly in late-successional reserves and
inventoried roadless areas, was controversial. Experts disagreed on the
amount of timber to harvest, with some asserting that there were large
amounts of timber available to harvest in the fire area, and others
asserting that any salvage harvest would damage the forest. Numerous
lawsuits challenged different aspects of the NEPA analysis, including
the adequacy of the Forest Service's economic analysis of the sales;
these suits are still pending. Meanwhile, a timber industry group was
concerned about the time taken to conduct the EIS and salvage harvest,
while environmental groups said any delay was attributable to the time
taken to analyze additional salvage harvest. In addition, the Forest
Service's implementation of the Project's salvage sales is
controversial. As of the end of 2005, the Forest Service had sold burnt
timber in the matrix and late-successional reserve areas, as well as
roadside trees that were considered hazardous because they could fall.
Although the forest staff identified the sale boundaries and visited
the sale sites during harvest operations, instances of improper salvage
harvest occurred. In particular, environmental groups reported that
salvage harvest occurred in a botanical area adjacent to one of the
salvage sale areas and stated that this indicated poor management of
the sales by the forest staff. These groups also dispute the Forest
Service's financial and economic estimates for the salvage sales.
In this context, you asked us to determine (1) how the development of
the Biscuit Fire Recovery Project compared with the Forest Service's
general approach to postfire recovery, (2) the status of the Biscuit
Fire Recovery Project salvage sales and how the reported financial and
economic results of the sales compared with the Forest Service's
initial estimates, (3) the status of other activities identified in the
Biscuit Fire Recovery Project, and (4) the extent and cause of improper
logging within the Biscuit Fire Recovery Project, as reported by the
Forest Service, and changes the agency made to prevent such occurrences
in the future.
In conducting our work, we reviewed minutes, briefings, and other
forest documents from the administrative file for the Biscuit Fire
Recovery Project and developed a time line of the decisions made by the
Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest staff. We discussed the time line
with officials and decision makers at the Forest Service's Rogue River-
Siskiyou National Forest, Pacific Northwest Region, and Washington
Office and the Department of Agriculture to further elaborate on events
that affected the time frames and alternatives considered for the
Project. To determine the status of the Project's activities, we
reviewed contracts for work that had been accomplished, reviewed plans
for work not yet accomplished, and discussed both the contracts and the
plans with the forest staff to reconcile any differences. We reviewed
financial and economic analyses of the salvage sales in the Biscuit
Fire Recovery Project EIS and discussed them with the Forest Service's
Regional Economist. However, because of ongoing litigation, we did not
evaluate the adequacy of the economic analysis. We obtained and
analyzed Forest Service expenditures and receipts from the Biscuit Fire
salvage sales, as well as expenditure data from the Department of
Justice and Department of Agriculture's Office of General Counsel,
which provided legal services related to the salvage sales. We obtained
expenditure data for fiscal years 2003 through 2005 and receipts
through December 2005, the last year for which complete data were
available. Finally, we examined internal and investigative reports on
improper logging and interviewed responsible officials about their
responses. As appropriate, we assessed the reliability of the data and
determined that it was sufficient for this report. We performed our
work between November 2005 and July 2006 in accordance with generally
accepted government auditing standards. Appendix I provides a more
detailed description of our objectives, scope, and methodology.
Results in Brief:
The Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest staff followed the Forest
Service's general approach to postfire recovery in developing the
Biscuit Fire Recovery Project; however, several unique circumstances
affected the time taken to develop the Project and the alternatives it
included. First, the size of the burned area--and, subsequently, the
size of the Project--complicated the environmental analysis and
increased the time needed to complete and review it. For example, to
assess resource conditions, such as identifying the extent of dead
trees, the forest staff had to rely on remote sensing data that were
difficult to interpret and time-consuming to verify. Second, before,
during, and after the development of the Project and EIS, the
regulations and guidance governing permissible timber harvest and road
building in inventoried roadless areas changed several times, in part
due to litigation. According to agency officials, these changes
affected the amount of timber available for harvest in the inventoried
roadless areas and, therefore, directly affected the range of
alternatives considered in the EIS and the time needed to develop them.
Finally, during development of the EIS, the forest staff reorganized
and downsized, although the effect on the EIS is difficult to quantify.
According to the staff, the changes increased their workload and
limited the amount of time they could devote to developing and
implementing the Project. However, according to the Forest Supervisor
and other managers, the forest had enough staff to develop and
implement the various alternatives identified in the EIS.
As of December 2005, the forest staff had nearly completed 12 salvage
sales in the matrix and late-successional reserve areas; however,
incomplete sales information and a lack of comparable economic data
make a comparison of the financial and economic results of the sales
with the agency's initial estimates difficult. For the sales conducted
through 2005, purchasers harvested almost 60 million board feet, which
is much less than the 367 million board feet proposed for sale in the
EIS. Forest staff overestimated the timber available for harvest and,
in addition, some timber decayed during the preparation of the EIS and
sales, further reducing the volume of available timber. For fiscal
years 2003 through 2005, the Forest Service and other agencies spent
about $5 million on the sales and related activities such as law
enforcement. In the next several years, the Forest Service plans to
spend an additional $5.7 million to remove brush, reforest, and conduct
other work in the sale areas. In return, the agency collected about
$8.8 million from the sales. In the EIS, the sale expenditures and
receipts were estimated to be about $24 million and $19.6 million,
respectively, and the salvage harvest was expected to generate about
6,900 local jobs and $240 million in regional economic activity.
However, it is premature to compare the results through 2005 with the
estimates because the Forest Service will generate additional
expenditures, revenues, and potential economic activity from two sales
in June and August 2006. Even if complete sale results were available,
methodological differences and lack of comparable economic data
complicate the comparison of the salvage sale results and EIS
estimates. For example, the financial comparison is complicated by the
fact that the reported expenditures through fiscal year 2005 include
different activities, such as the environmental analysis, than the EIS
estimates. Similarly, the economic comparison is complicated by the
fact that the Forest Service does not report the jobs or economic
activity resulting from sales. According to Forest Service officials,
the agency does not conduct the type of analysis needed to report the
results because the primary reason for preparing EIS estimates is to
compare the relative economic effects of salvage alternatives and not
to provide a precise prediction of the outcomes of the sales. However,
all else being equal, given that the volume of timber sold through 2005
is substantially less than the volume of sales assumed in the EIS for
the selected alternative, we would expect the actual economic results
to be less than the EIS estimate.
Through December 2005, the forest staff have begun work on most of the
other activities identified in the Biscuit Fire Recovery Project but
completing them depends on the amount of salvage harvest, funding
sources, and schedules. Three such activities, reforestation, brush
disposal, and road maintenance, are under way and have funding and time
frames associated with them, but the needed work will change with the
amount of salvage harvest. For example, the amount of brush disposal
work--estimated at 18,939 acres in the records of decision--will be
reduced because the number of acres where salvage harvest occurred has
been reduced. Other activities, such as establishing fuel management
zones and rehabilitating wildlife habitat--both in and outside salvage
sale areas--depend on the Forest Service funding and scheduling the
work over many years. In addition, a large-scale adaptive management
study and monitoring activities are still being planned and not yet
funded. As of June 2006, work contemplated in the study--such as
mapping monitoring plots--had not been started, and the forest staff
had not determined how the study would be funded. According to the
Forest Service, these activities can be funded and implemented many
years into the future.
During salvage harvest operations in 2004 and 2005, the Forest Service
reported three incidents of improper logging and took action to prevent
such occurrences in the future. Two of the incidents were caused by
Forest Service errors, and a third was an error on the part of the
harvest company that purchased the sale units. One of the Forest
Service errors was identified by a local environmental group, and the
second was caught by an independent researcher; the purchaser error was
reported to the Forest Service by the purchaser. Both of the Forest
Service errors resulted from mismarked boundaries, one at the boundary
of a botanical area and the other at the boundary of the wilderness
area. The forest staff have since developed procedures to better mark
boundaries of sale areas, and the regional staff have emphasized the
need to properly measure boundaries as well. In the case of the
purchaser's error, existing sale administration processes addressed the
mistake. Specifically, in accordance with the sale contract provisions,
the purchaser was fined $24,000, or $200 for each tree cut, and the
trees were left on the site. In addition to these errors, the forest
staff worked with local groups that monitored the sale areas before and
after harvest and followed up on numerous other claims of improper
logging, but determined that the logging was properly conducted.
Given the size, unique nature, and public interest and controversy
surrounding the fire and the Project, the potential for significant
research results on the effects of postfire management activities, and
potential future changes to Project activities, it is important that
the Forest Service be able to specifically track and provide
information on the Project's status and results. However, because the
activities are being implemented through the agency's regular programs,
the forest staff do not track or report the status of Project
activities separately from other program accomplishments. As a result,
although the forest staff indicated in the Project records of decision
that monitoring results would be made available to the public, they
cannot readily report on the status of Project activities--in
particular the activities that will be implemented over the long term.
To help keep the Congress and the public informed on the Project's
status and results--particularly the research study component of the
Project--we are recommending that the Chief of the Forest Service
direct the Pacific Northwest Regional Forester and the Rogue River-
Siskiyou National Forest Supervisor to publish an annual status report
on the Project through its completion. In commenting on a draft of this
report, the Forest Service generally agreed with our findings and the
recommendation but stated that the time period for providing the report
should be limited to the next 3-to-5 year period. Because of the long-
term nature of some of the activities in the Project, we believe the
reports should be provided until the Project is substantially complete.
We revised the recommendation accordingly.
Background:
The Biscuit Fire began in July 2002 as 5 separate fires in southwest
Oregon in the Siskiyou National Forest, which was administratively
joined with the Rogue River National Forest in 2004. The fire was one
of 12 or 13 large fires that burned throughout the Pacific Northwest
Region in 2002 due to severe drought conditions; in addition to the
Biscuit Fire, fires burned in the Deschutes, Umpqua, Malheur, and other
forests in the region. In Oregon, the Biscuit Fire burned mostly within
the Siskiyou Forest, which encompasses more than 1 million acres of
diverse, steep, and rugged landscape made up of the Klamath Mountains,
the Coast Ranges, the 180,000-acre Kalmiopsis Wilderness, and many
roadless areas.[Footnote 7] By September 2002, the fire was being
controlled, and Forest Service staff were conducting Burned Area
Emergency Response program projects to stabilize the most severely
burned areas. By November 2002, the fire was declared controlled, and
the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest staff were beginning their
postfire recovery efforts.
In evaluating conditions after the fire, the Rogue River-Siskiyou
National Forest staff determined that some areas were not so severely
burned as to warrant management action. However, in some instances, the
forest staff identified areas that were severely burned and resources
that would not recover as quickly as desired without forest
intervention. The fire burned in a mosaic pattern, with about 30
percent of the area burned lightly, with little vegetation killed, and
about 44 percent burned intensely, with more than 75 percent of
vegetation killed; the remaining acreage burned with mixed intensity
and mixed results (see fig. 1).
Figure 1: Biscuit Fire Map, Vegetation Change:
[See PDF for image]
Source: GAO analysis of Forest Service data.
[End of figure]
In evaluating postfire recovery projects and activities, the following
laws and regulations affect the approach that the Forest Service
generally takes:
* The National Forest Management Act of 1976 requires the Forest
Service to, among other things, (1) develop a plan to manage the lands
and resources of each national forest in coordination with the land
management planning process of other federal agencies, states, and
localities and (2) revise each plan at least every 15 years. Each
forest plan--called a Land and Resource Management Plan--establishes
how land areas within a forest may be used and governs individual
projects or activities that occur within the forest. Individual
projects or activities, such as building a road or harvesting timber,
may take place only if they are consistent with the plan and after site-
specific environmental review, which often includes public notice,
comment, and administrative appeal.
* Under NEPA, agencies such as the Forest Service generally evaluate
the likely effects of projects they propose using a relatively brief
environmental assessment to determine if an EIS is needed. If the
action would be likely to significantly affect the environment, a more
detailed EIS is required. An agency may exclude categories of actions
having no significant environmental impact--called categorical
exclusions--from the requirement to prepare an EIS.[Footnote 8] One
purpose of the EIS is to ensure that agencies have detailed information
available to inform their decision making. Agencies such as the Forest
Service give the public an opportunity to comment on draft
environmental assessments and impact statements. In addition, the
Forest Service has established procedures for administrative appeal of
its decisions concerning projects and activities on National Forest
System lands.[Footnote 9] As a general rule, once the administrative
appeals process is complete, the public can litigate in a federal court
a decision about a particular project.
* In 2001, the Forest Service issued a rule for managing its
inventoried roadless areas, which generally include areas without roads
that are 5,000 acres or larger, or smaller areas contiguous to
designated wilderness areas.[Footnote 10] This rule, which was intended
to provide lasting protection for inventoried roadless areas within the
National Forest System, generally prohibited road construction, road
reconstruction, and timber harvesting. However, U.S. District Court for
the District of Wyoming found the rule unlawful and struck it down in
2003.[Footnote 11] The government did not appeal this decision and
issued a new rule related to the roadless areas in 2005, also now in
litigation. The new rule allows states to petition the Forest Service
to issue regulations establishing management requirements for
inventoried roadless areas within their states. The opportunity for
submitting state petitions is available until November 13,
2006.[Footnote 12]
* Projects involving salvage harvests are governed by the Forest
Service's timber sales regulations and procedures. To sell timber, the
forest staff identify the areas that they want to harvest--called sale
units--identify the unit boundaries, and develop a timber sale contract
that contains many standard provisions, such as limits on which trees
can be harvested and requirements to prevent and control erosion. Sale
units can be located along roads to allow access by logging trucks and
equipment; logs are cut and hauled from the slopes by tractors or
pulled by cables suspended above the ground. Sale units that are
located farther away from roads--such as roadless areas--can be logged
using helicopters. In such cases, loggers cut the trees and the logs
are then flown out by helicopter. Timber sales are laid out by timber
planners and the sales are monitored by a timber sale administrator
that visits the site to review contract provisions and harvest
operations.
A large fire such as the Biscuit Fire can cause major changes to a
forest's resources and planned program of work such as the amount of
timber to be sold and harvested, campgrounds and trails to be
maintained, and areas of vegetation to be removed or reduced to help
avoid future fires. The Siskiyou forest plan establishes goals and
objectives for the desired future conditions of the forest that
describe management of forest resources and activities such as timber,
grazing, recreation, wilderness, and others. As with all land
management activities, postfire recovery projects must be consistent
with the forest plan. In the case of the Biscuit Fire, postfire
recovery projects need to comply with the Siskiyou forest plan, which
was approved in 1989. The projects also need to comply with the
Northwest Forest Plan, a comprehensive document amending several forest
plans adopted in 1994 for the management of federal forest land in
Washington, Oregon, and northern California. Old-growth forests are
valued as habitat that includes large standing, dead, and down--fallen-
-trees in various stages of decay. The plan includes a combination of
land allocations managed to protect and enhance habitat for late-
successional and old-growth related species, while providing a
sustainable level of timber sales, as well as standards and guidelines
for the management of these land allocations. These standards and
guidelines include requirements for retaining dead and decaying trees
on the ground, as well as standing dead trees, called snags, that are
essential habitat for many wildlife species. The standards and
guidelines also impose restrictions on timber harvesting and road
building in riparian areas--areas along streams, ponds, reservoirs, and
wetlands--to limit the amount of sediment running into them.
Postfire recovery projects are funded by various sources, principally
appropriations and trust funds. The Forest Service conducts its
rehabilitation and restoration activities through existing programs,
including its forest management, watershed, recreation, wilderness, and
construction programs, among others. To fund such activities, the
agency uses appropriations from sources that include its National
Forest System, capital improvement and maintenance, and wildland fire
management accounts.[Footnote 13] In addition, the Forest Service uses
the Knutson-Vandenberg (K-V) trust fund that collects receipts
generated from timber sales to pay for reforestation and timber stand
improvement in areas harvested for timber, as well as wildlife habitat
and other improvements in sale areas.[Footnote 14] It also uses the
Salvage Sale Fund, which collects receipts generated from salvage
sales, to pay for future salvage sales. Other sources of funds, such as
gifts, bequests, and partnerships, also fund postfire recovery
projects.[Footnote 15]
Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest Staff Followed the Forest
Service's Postfire Recovery Approach, but Unique Circumstances Affected
the Time Taken and Alternatives Considered for the Biscuit Fire
Recovery Project:
In developing the Biscuit Fire Recovery Project, the Rogue River-
Siskiyou National Forest staff followed the Forest Service's general
approach for postfire recovery efforts, but several unique
circumstances, combined, affected the time taken to develop the Project
and the alternatives included in it. First, the size of the burned
area--and subsequently the Project--complicated the environmental
analysis and the time needed to complete and review it. For example, to
assess resource conditions, such as identifying the extent of dead
trees, the forest staff had to rely on remote sensing data that were
difficult to interpret and time-consuming to verify. Changes in the
remote sensing data throughout the development of the Project caused
the salvage sale volumes in the different EIS alternatives to change.
Second, before, during, and after the development of the Project and
the EIS, the regulations and guidance governing activities that could
occur in the inventoried roadless areas changed several times, in part
due to litigation. Changes that allowed salvage harvest in the
inventoried roadless areas directly affected the alternatives
considered in the EIS and the time needed to develop them. Third,
during development of the EIS, the forest staff were reorganized and
downsized, although the effect on the EIS is difficult to quantify.
According to the forest staff, the changes increased their workload and
limited the amount of time they could devote to developing and
implementing the Project. However, according to the Forest Supervisor
and other managers, the forest had enough staff to develop and
implement the various alternatives identified in the EIS.
Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest Staff Followed the Forest
Service's General Approach for Planning the Biscuit Fire Recovery
Project:
In the wake of the Biscuit Fire, the Rogue River-Siskiyou National
Forest staff followed the Forest Service's general approach to postfire
recovery planning for large fires. The Forest Service does not have a
national program directing postfire recovery efforts or nationwide
guidance on the development of recovery projects after a fire. However,
according to Forest Service officials, regions and forests that had
experienced past large fires with severe damage to their resources
followed a general approach of assessing the conditions of forest
resources after the fire, identifying projects needed to rehabilitate
and restore damaged resources and opportunities for salvage harvest,
and following the steps documented in the Forest Service's NEPA manual,
which include implementing and monitoring the chosen project. Figure 2
shows the time line of events in the development of the Project
compared with the Forest Service's general approach.
Figure 2: Biscuit Fire Recovery Project Time Line Compared with the
Forest Service's General Approach to Postfire Recovery:
[See PDF for image]:
Source: GAO.
[End of figure].
Generally, to determine management actions to recover a burned area,
forest staff assess the postfire conditions and evaluate various
actions that could help to achieve their forest plan's desired
conditions. For large fires and recovery projects specifically, as
shown in figure 2, forest staff (1) assess the resources in the burned
areas; (2) develop a proposed action to recover resources, which can
include multiple activities; (3) issue a Notice of Intent (NOI) to
prepare an EIS; (4) develop and analyze alternatives to the proposed
action; (5) issue a draft EIS and solicit public comments on the draft;
and (6) issue a final EIS and record of decision to make a formal
decision about the project.[Footnote 16] At this point, the forest
staff implement and monitor the project, although it may be appealed or
subject to litigation. Some projects can be finished within a few years
after the fire; others may be implemented years after the fire.
In the case of the Biscuit Fire Recovery Project, the forest staff
wrote a formal postfire assessment, published in January 2003, 3 months
after the fire was declared controlled. The Biscuit postfire assessment
was conducted by a team of forest resource specialists, with expertise
in forestry, recreation, engineering, hydrology, soil science, and fish
and wildlife. The team visited key areas burned by the fire to view and
measure the effects of the fire and to determine how severe the effects
were on different resources. They then identified potential work to
repair damaged resources. During this assessment, the team also held
multiple meetings to gather the public's input on what to do to repair
the damage caused by the fire.
In January 2003, after the Biscuit postfire assessment was completed,
forest officials began the NEPA process by identifying members of an
interdisciplinary team made up of about 30 resource specialists from
the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest and other units of the Forest
Service. Over the next few months, the team developed the purpose and
need for the recovery work and then developed a proposed action, or a
set of activities to be conducted in the area. In March 2003, the
forest staff published an NOI in the Federal Register announcing that
it would prepare an EIS for the Biscuit Fire Recovery Project. In it,
the forest staff identified the purpose and need for action in the
Biscuit Fire area: recovery of potential economic value through salvage
harvest; restoration of vegetation altered by the fire--in particular,
reforestation; protection of late successional habitat from future fire
and insect damage; protection from future fire through hazardous fuel
reduction; and learning about postfire management activities. The
Project originally proposed in the NOI included salvage harvest on
about 7,000 acres of matrix lands, totaling 90 million board feet; fuel
reduction on 16,000 acres including late-successional reserve lands;
meadow habitat treatments; road closures and repair; and reforestation
on about 30,000 acres.
As shown in figure 2, from March through October 2003, the
interdisciplinary team developed alternatives for the proposed action
and analyzed their effects on the environment. According to forest and
regional officials, the team sought to develop a range of alternatives
that were reasonable, including a range of salvage options, fuel
reduction alternatives, and other activities. According to the
Department of Agriculture's Office of General Counsel, the agency is
given discretion in developing a reasonable range of alternatives but
typically develops two or more alternative ways of meeting the purpose
and need of the proposal--in addition to an alternative that considers
no action. During the process of developing alternatives, the team also
identified projects in the Biscuit Fire area that could be conducted
under categorical exclusion, including repairing recreational trails
and sites; road maintenance such as replacing culverts; reforestation
of burned areas identified as plantations--areas managed for harvest;
and salvage harvesting trees that posed a hazard along roads. The team
and the forest staff documented these categorically excluded projects
separately and conducted them in 2003 and 2004 as the EIS for the
Biscuit Fire Recovery Project was being developed. In addition, the
forest staff held "deck" sales in which they sold trees that had been
cut by firefighters during suppression activities and piled up or
"decked." According to Forest Service officials, because the
environmental effects of cutting the trees occurred during the
firefighting, an emergency activity, and the hauling would have limited
environmental effects, the deck sales were not subject to a NEPA
analysis.
The Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest staff issued its draft EIS for
the Biscuit Fire Recovery Project in November 2003, a year after the
fire was controlled, and allowed public comment through January 2004,
as shown in figure 2. Approximately 23,000 public comments were
received, summarized, and incorporated into the final EIS, which was
issued in June 2004. A month later, in July 2004, the forest staff
issued three records of decision--one each for the inventoried roadless
areas, the matrix areas outside inventoried roadless areas, and late-
successional reserves outside inventoried roadless areas. According to
Forest Service officials, the decision to issue three records of
decision was made to separate the more controversial projects--
specifically the salvage sales in the inventoried roadless areas--from
the less controversial projects to allow the latter to move forward
without appeal and litigation. With the issuance of the final EIS and
records of decision, an emergency situation determination approved by
the Pacific Northwest Regional Forester in June 2004 became effective
for the salvage sales in the matrix and late-successional reserve
areas. The determination stated that the government would lose
approximately $3.3 million if the sales were delayed for the full 105-
day appeal period. The decision did not apply to the inventoried
roadless area sales because, according to agency officials, the forest
staff were not ready to conduct these sales at the time of the
decision. Although the region was the first in the country to define an
emergency under the economic criteria in the Forest Service
regulations, the Biscuit Fire was not the first recovery project to
which the region applied this argument.[Footnote 17]
Overall, the general approach to postfire recovery efforts does not
have specific time frames associated with it. According to Pacific
Northwest Region officials, the NEPA analyses conducted in the region
can take from 1 to 3 years to complete. Figure 2 shows that the
development of the Biscuit Fire Recovery Project took about 1 ¾ years,
after the fire was controlled, to complete, from November 2002 through
July 2004. The records of decision were issued in July 2004, and the
forest staff awarded the first of several salvage sales the same month.
The emergency situation determination allowed the forest staff to begin
implementing the Project immediately, without waiting up to 105 days
for the appeal process to conclude. However, according to Forest
Service officials, because the harvest season in this region typically
ends in September, the purchasers did not have time to schedule the
Biscuit Fire harvest into their workloads, and most of the salvage sale
harvest occurred in 2005--3 years after the fire. This delay in the
salvage harvest concerned all parties involved because of the
additional loss of the commercial value of the trees. One of the key
lessons identified in a regional evaluation after the 2002 fire season
was that the identification of potential salvage sales should begin
immediately after a fire. At the national level, in December 2004, an
interregional committee published a strategy for postfire recovery,
which identified challenges for managing postfire environments and
proposed potential actions to improve the identification of salvage
sales after large fires. According to Forest Service Washington Office
officials, these actions have not yet been implemented because the
agency has instead been focused on formulating broader restoration
policy that encompasses postfire recovery actions.
Unique Circumstances Affected the Time Taken and Alternatives
Considered for the Biscuit Fire Recovery Project:
While the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest staff followed the
general approach for postfire recovery on Forest Service lands, three
unique circumstances affected the time taken to develop the Project EIS
and the alternatives that were included in it. First, the size of the
fire and proposed recovery activities increased the complexity of the
analysis and review of the overall Project. Second, changes in the
regulations and guidance for inventoried roadless areas that occurred
during development of the Project caused alternatives to be added to
the analysis and increased the time taken for the analysis. Third, the
forest staff planned and implemented a major reorganization and
downsizing during the development of the Project. Combined, these
unique circumstances affected the time taken to develop the Project
EIS, although it is difficult to distinguish the individual effect of
each circumstance. In addition, the size of the fire and the changes to
the management activities allowed in the inventoried roadless rules
caused changes in the amount of timber considered for salvage sale in
the Project alternatives and added two alternatives to the EIS. Figure
3 shows the events surrounding each unique circumstance compared with
the events in the development of the Project.
Figure 3: Unique Circumstances Affecting the Time Taken and
Alternatives Considered for the Biscuit Fire Recovery Project:
[See PDF for image]:
Source: GAO.
[End of figure]:
Size of Burned Area and Project Increased Complexity of Analysis and
Attention to and Review of Project:
The first circumstance unique to the Biscuit Fire that affected
development of the Project was the size of the area burned by the fire
and, subsequently, the size of the area included in the Project. The
size increased the complexity and amount of work needed to analyze and
review resource conditions, Project alternatives, and potential
impacts. While the fire burned almost 500,000 acres, the forest staff
excluded the Kalmiopsis Wilderness in the postfire recovery work,
leaving about 320,000 acres of nonwilderness area for evaluation.
Normally, to assess the conditions of resources burned in a fire,
forest staff conduct site visits, take measurements and samples of
different resources and conditions, and identify potential
rehabilitation and restoration activities. For large fires, they can
use aerial photographs and satellite images. However, the Biscuit Fire
was much larger than other fires that were considered large, causing
the forest staff to conduct the postfire assessment and to use
different sources of remote sensing data to assess the condition of
forest resources. The size of the fire and Project also increased the
attention and amount of review the Project received.
The forest staff decided to conduct a postfire assessment of the
Biscuit Fire because of the large area that had been burned and needed
to be assessed to determine what recovery actions were needed. However,
according to forest and regional officials, while the data gathered and
analyzed during the assessment were useful in moving forward with
recovery, writing the formal report added time to the process. Forest
officials involved in the Biscuit postfire assessment stated that
because the fire was so large, and access was limited due to the lack
of roads and steep terrain, they could only conduct limited site visits
to gather information on the condition of forest resources that had
been burned and those that remained unburned. The assessment, according
to the officials, was useful for the purposes of getting a head start
on gathering data on these resource conditions, which were ultimately
useful in the NEPA analysis. At the same time, forest and regional
officials acknowledged that the assessment did not help them narrow the
range of projects to be conducted and was time-consuming and expensive,
causing several weeks of delay in the NEPA analysis. According to these
officials, the postfire assessment--while useful in soliciting public
comments about what should be done to recover the burned area--
contained a wish list of projects that could be done regardless of
funding sources and schedules. As such, the assessment may have set
expectations too high about what could be practically accomplished,
given funding and time. According to the Forest Supervisor, the
postfire assessment should have focused on time-sensitive projects to
facilitate the NEPA process. In response to the lessons learned from
the 2002 fire season, the region will conduct postfire assessments
separately from the assessment of salvage opportunities and will deploy
a rapid assessment team to quickly identify salvage opportunities after
a fire to prevent delay and decay of trees that can be harvested.
The size of the burned area and the increased complexity of the
assessment was also reflected in the need to use remote sensing data to
adequately assess the resources in such a large area. Changes to the
sources of data added time to the EIS development and affected the
salvage harvest volumes being considered in different alternatives.
Given the size of the burned area and Project area, the forest staff
used aerial and remote sensing data, in addition to site visits to
verify the data, to assist in the analysis of vegetation conditions,
burned timber available for salvage, and wildlife habitat conditions.
Overall, the data helped the staff in covering a large area but also
required additional analysis work that added to the time needed to
develop the EIS. The interdisciplinary team started using aerial
photographs taken at the end of the fire, as shown in figure 3, to
identify potential areas for salvage harvest. The team used these
photographs to identify patches of dead trees that were a certain size
and density; however, because the locations seen in the photographs
were inaccurately identified and details were insufficient at times,
the forest crews did not always find enough dead trees when they
visited the sites. By June 2003, the wildlife staff on the team
determined that satellite images taken of the burned area more clearly
showed areas of dead timber than the aerial photographs. Because the
team did not want to use two sets of data--the aerial photographs and
the satellite images--the team selected the satellite images as the
data set for the EIS analysis. This added time to change the underlying
maps in its Geographic Information System, which the forest staff used
to prepare maps for the EIS analysis. In addition to adding time for
analysis, the data changes had an effect on the EIS alternatives being
considered by the team. For example, the maximum amount of timber
estimated as available for salvage harvest decreased from about 1
billion board feet in the draft EIS issued in November 2003 to about
600 million board feet in the final EIS issued in June 2004, due to the
use of more accurate satellite data, more field verification of data,
and application of strict salvage guidelines for the late-successional
reserves.
Finally, the size of both the fire area and the Project resulted in
additional review by Forest Service regional officials and Department
of Agriculture officials, as well as increased attention by state
officials. The additional review included two evaluations by the
region's Environmental Review Committee--a group responsible for
examining more complicated EIS documents in the region for substantive
concerns and to ensure compliance with Forest Service regulations. The
Environmental Review Committee reviewed the EIS in February 2004 and
again in April 2004 before its issuance. According to regional staff,
the evaluations identified the need to revise the document, and these
revisions required a few additional weeks to complete. In addition, the
review included visits and several briefings for the Undersecretary and
Deputy Undersecretary of Agriculture for Natural Resources and
Environment and key state and tribal officials to apprise them of the
status of the EIS (see fig. 3). According to the Undersecretary, large,
controversial fires and recovery projects such as the Biscuit Fire
Recovery Project elicit additional attention from department officials
because of increased congressional interest. These briefings took some
time, but according to the Forest Supervisor, did not affect the time
needed to produce the EIS.
Authorized Management Activities in Inventoried Roadless Areas Changed
over the Course of Planning for the Project:
The second circumstance unique to the Biscuit Fire that affected the
development of the Project was the uncertainty of the regulations and
guidance governing road building and salvage harvest activities in
inventoried roadless areas, which affected the alternatives in the
Project EIS and the time needed to analyze them. Figure 4 shows the
inventoried roadless areas in the fire area.
Figure 4: Map of Burned Area with Inventoried Roadless Areas:
[See PDF for image]
Source: GAO analysis of Forest Service data.
[End of figure]
As can be seen from figure 3, the regulations and guidance governing
activities in inventoried roadless areas changed several times. The
first change occurred in December 2002. Regulations promulgated in 2001
would have limited road building and timber harvest in inventoried
roadless areas; however, in May 2001, the U.S. District Court for the
District of Idaho prohibited the Forest Service from implementing the
regulations. Subsequently that year, to help provide guidance for
addressing road and timber management activities until land and
resource management plans are amended or revised, the Forest Service
issued an interim directive that allowed some road building and timber
harvest activities in the areas with the approval of the Chief of the
Forest Service or a Regional Forester. In December 2002, immediately
after the fire was controlled and as the forest staff developed the
postfire assessment, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
reversed the Idaho district court's decision, effectively reinstating
the 2001 regulations. The plaintiffs petitioned the appellate court to
rehear the case, which the court denied in April 2003. During this
time, the interdisciplinary team was developing its proposed action and
began developing its EIS alternatives. In April 2003, the team had
identified seven alternatives, the largest of which included 386
million board feet of salvage harvest from matrix, late-successional
reserve, and inventoried roadless areas. However, by May 2003, after
the appellate court declined to rehear the plaintiff's case, the team
narrowed the alternatives to five, the largest of which included 104
million board feet from matrix lands and fuel reduction work and did
not include salvage harvest in the inventoried roadless areas.
In July 2003, a convergence of events led the forest staff to develop
two new alternatives with larger salvage harvest amounts, including
amounts in the inventoried roadless areas. That month, the 2001
regulations were again enjoined, this time by the U.S. District Court
for the District of Wyoming.[Footnote 18] Second, the Forest Service's
interim directive on inventoried roadless areas expired and was not
reinstated until July 2004. During this time, forest supervisors were
authorized to make road and timber management decisions within
inventoried roadless areas consistent with the applicable land
management plan. And third, an Oregon State University report
identified 2 billion board feet as available for salvage harvest in the
Biscuit Fire area, many times greater than the largest draft EIS
estimate. According to Forest Service officials, the amounts differed
because the purpose of the Oregon State University report was to
identify all timber available for salvage regardless of legal or other
restrictions on harvest. The district court's decision came a week
after the Oregon State University report and during the same week that
the Forest Supervisor and Project leader visited Washington to brief
Forest Service Washington Office staff, Oregon congressional delegation
members, and Department of Agriculture officials on the five
alternatives in its EIS--none of which included salvage harvest in the
inventoried roadless areas. The forest officials providing the briefing
received several comments about the need for more logging that would
include harvest in the inventoried roadless areas. According to forest
and regional officials, the failure to consider at least one
alternative proposing salvage harvest within inventoried roadless areas
might have made the EIS vulnerable to legal challenges based on the
idea that the alternatives the Forest Service considered did not
include a reasonable range of alternatives. Despite concerns about
completing the EIS quickly to allow any salvage harvest to occur as
quickly as possible, forest and regional officials determined that an
estimated 8-week delay to conduct the analysis of new alternatives
would be acceptable. Between the end of July and October 2003, the
interdisciplinary team developed two additional alternatives that
included about 1 billion board feet and about 500 million board feet of
salvage harvest respectively for the draft EIS.
Forest Reorganization and Downsizing Began during Planning for the
Project:
The third circumstance unique to the Biscuit Fire that affected the
development of the Project was a reorganization and downsizing of the
Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest staff. Since the 1990s--before and
after the two forests were administratively combined--the Siskiyou and
Rogue River National Forest workforce declined as timber harvest
amounts declined. Their annual operating budget dropped from $33.6
million in fiscal year 2001 to $25.1 million in fiscal year 2006. The
number of staff also dropped, falling from 619 at the beginning of
fiscal year 2002 to 400 at the start of fiscal year 2005.[Footnote 19]
Beginning in January 2003, just as the forest staff issued its postfire
assessment, the staff reorganized to address decreasing budgets and
staff numbers. As shown in figure 3, the forest staff issued a
strategic business plan in November 2003, just as the draft EIS was
released and the two forests joined as one administrative unit. More
than 150 positions were identified that could be officially abolished
to achieve the reorganization option the Forest Supervisor selected.
The forest staff began identifying positions to be abolished in August
2002, identifying 35 positions to be placed on the Forest Service's
Workforce Reduction and Placement System list, which allows the
employees to receive priority in moving to vacant positions elsewhere
in the Forest Service. After its strategic business plan was issued,
the forest staff began officially abolishing positions in June 2004.
From that month through October 2004, 48 positions were abolished.
The effect of this downsizing and reorganization on the development of
the EIS is difficult to quantify. According to forest staff involved
with the interdisciplinary team that developed the EIS, they worked on
both the EIS and Project in addition to their ongoing daily
responsibilities. They contrasted this experience with a previous large
fire on the forest's lands--the Silver Fire in 1987--for which there
was dedicated staff for the EIS and recovery project. However,
according to the Forest Supervisor and other managers, the forest had
enough staff to develop and implement the various alternatives
identified in the EIS. The Forest Supervisor stated that he directed
staff to place priority on the Project and, according to the Regional
Forester, additional staff were available to help the team, if needed.
Salvage Sales Are Nearly Complete, but a Full Comparison of Financial
and Economic Results with Initial Estimates Is Difficult:
As of December 2005, the forest staff had nearly completed 12 salvage
sales in the matrix and late-successional reserve areas; however,
incomplete sales information and a lack of comparable economic data
make a comparison of the financial and economic results of the sales
with the agency's initial estimates difficult. For the sales conducted
through 2005, purchasers harvested almost 60 million board feet, which
is much less than the 367 million board feet proposed for sale in the
EIS. Forest staff overestimated the timber available for harvest and,
in addition, some timber decayed during the preparation of the EIS and
salvage sales, further reducing the volume of available timber. For
fiscal years 2003 through 2005, the Forest Service and other agencies
spent about $5 million on the sales and related activities such as law
enforcement. In return, the agency collected about $8.8 million from
the sales. From these receipts, the Forest Service plans to spend an
additional $5.7 million in the next several years to remove brush,
reforest, and conduct other work in sale areas. In the EIS, the sale
expenditures and receipts were estimated to be about $24 million and
$19.6 million, respectively, and the salvage harvest was expected to
generate about 6,900 local jobs and $240 million in regional economic
activity. However, it is premature to compare the results through 2005
with the estimates because the Forest Service will generate additional
expenditures, revenues, and potential economic activity from two sales
in June and August 2006. Even if complete sale results were available,
methodological differences and a lack of comparable economic data
complicate the comparison of the salvage sale results and EIS
estimates. For example, the financial comparison is complicated by the
fact that the EIS expenditure estimates are based on different
activities than the reported expenditures through fiscal year 2005;
adjustments can be made to allow a comparison, but they are
complicated. Similarly, the economic comparison is complicated by the
fact that the Forest Service does not report the economic results of
sales. The analysis needed to report such data can be done, but
according to Forest Service officials, the agency does not conduct this
type of analysis because the primary reason for preparing EIS estimates
is to compare the relative economic effects of salvage alternatives and
not to provide a precise prediction of the outcomes of the sales.
Forest Service Has Nearly Completed 12 Salvage Sales, but the Volume
Harvested through 2005 Was Substantially Less Than Estimated:
As of December 2005, the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest staff
completed 12 salvage sales identified in the Biscuit Fire Recovery
Project EIS and records of decision. After the EIS and records of
decision were released in July 2004, the forest staff finished
preparing and completed 12 sales totaling about 67 million board feet
of timber on almost 3,700 acres of land in the matrix and late-
successional reserve areas, as shown in figure 5.
Figure 5: Map of Salvage Sales Sold in the Biscuit Fire Recovery
Project:
[See PDF for image]
Source: GAO analysis of Forest Service data.
[End of figure]
One sale occurred in 2004; the others occurred in 2005. Although
several lawsuits were filed against the sales, they generally did not
delay the implementation of the salvage sales in the matrix areas. A
timber industry trade association and timber companies filed the first
case against the Project alleging, among other things, that the Project
violated the National Forest Management Act by failing to implement
required reforestation activities. Environmental groups also filed
lawsuits against the Project alleging, among other things, that the
Forest Service: (1) allowed unauthorized personnel to mark trees for
harvest, (2) performed an inadequate NEPA analysis, and (3) lacked
authority to issue the emergency situation determination.[Footnote 20]
Two court orders stemming from this collection of cases affected the
timing of Project activities. First, the U.S. District Court for the
District of Oregon issued a preliminary injunction on August 3, 2004,
prohibiting certain salvage activities from proceeding because the
sales contracts failed to require Forest Service personnel--rather than
purchasers--to identify standing dead trees within the sale area that
were not to be harvested for environmental reasons. The court lifted
this injunction on August 20, 2004, after the agency amended the
contracts. Second, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
issued an emergency stay prohibiting the late-successional reserve
sales from proceeding pending resolution of an environmental group's
appeal of a district court ruling in favor of the Forest Service. The
emergency order was in effect from September 7, 2004, through March 7,
2005. This period included the winter months during which sales
activity can be impossible because of weather conditions and, when
possible, may be restricted to limit the risk of spreading a particular
fungus along wet roads. The forest staff provided a waiver to begin
harvesting in March 2005 rather than June, the usual end of the
restrictions on salvage harvest activities.
Table 1 shows the volume of timber sold and harvested on the 12 sales
as of December 2005. According to Forest Service staff, the majority of
the timber volume harvested occurred in 2005. In general, the volume
harvested was less than the volume sold because the sales were "scaled"
sales that allowed the purchasers--with the concurrence of the timber
sale administrator--to leave trees that did not have good timber and
pay only for the timber removed from the sale units. In the case of the
Horse sale, the harvested volume was greater than the sale volume
because additional trees died after the sale contract was awarded but
before the harvest was complete. According to a forest official, these
trees posed a hazard to the loggers in the sale unit, so the timber
sale administrator added them to the sale contract.
Table 1: Biscuit Fire Recovery Project Salvage Sale Locations and
Volumes through December 2005:
Sale name: Matrix lands: Briggs Cedar; Date sold: December 2004; Volume
(in thousand board feet): Sold: 2,341; Volume (in thousand board feet):
Removed: 1,823; Volume (in thousand board feet): Remaining: 0.
Sale name: Matrix lands: Chetco; Date sold: August 2004; Volume (in
thousand board feet): Sold: 289; Volume (in thousand board feet):
Removed: 217; Volume (in thousand board feet): Remaining: 0.
Sale name: Matrix lands: Flat Top; Date sold: November 2004; Volume (in
thousand board feet): Sold: 6,622; Volume (in thousand board feet):
Removed: 3,537; Volume (in thousand board feet): Remaining: 0.
Sale name: Matrix lands: Horse; Date sold: July 2004; Volume (in
thousand board feet): Sold: 2,415; Volume (in thousand board feet):
Removed: 2,800; Volume (in thousand board feet): Remaining: 0.
Sale name: Matrix lands: Indi; Date sold: July 2004; Volume (in
thousand board feet): Sold: 6,305; Volume (in thousand board feet):
Removed: 4,244; Volume (in thousand board feet): Remaining: 300.
Sale name: Late-successional reserves: Berry; Date sold: July 2004;
Volume (in thousand board feet): Sold: 12,834; Volume (in thousand
board feet): Removed: 9,923; Volume (in thousand board feet):
Remaining: 0.
Sale name: Late-successional reserves: Fiddler; Date sold: July 2004;
Volume (in thousand board feet): Sold: 14,482; Volume (in thousand
board feet): Removed: 10,613; Volume (in thousand board feet):
Remaining: 0.
Sale name: Late-successional reserves: Hobson; Date sold: July 2004;
Volume (in thousand board feet): Sold: 7,319; Volume (in thousand board
feet): Removed: 3,810; Volume (in thousand board feet): Remaining: 0.
Sale name: Late-successional reserves: Lazy; Date sold: August 2004;
Volume (in thousand board feet): Sold: 5,581; Volume (in thousand board
feet): Removed: 875; Volume (in thousand board feet): Remaining: 4,706.
Sale name: Late-successional reserves: McGuire; Date sold: June 2005;
Volume (in thousand board feet): Sold: 2,104; Volume (in thousand board
feet): Removed: 866; Volume (in thousand board feet): Remaining: 0.
Sale name: Late-successional reserves: Steed; Date sold: August 2004;
Volume (in thousand board feet): Sold: 6,074; Volume (in thousand board
feet): Removed: 4,572; Volume (in thousand board feet): Remaining: 0.
Sale name: Late-successional reserves: Wafer; Date sold: August 2004;
Volume (in thousand board feet): Sold: 688; Volume (in thousand board
feet): Removed: 436; Volume (in thousand board feet): Remaining: 0.
Sale name: Total; Date sold: ; Volume (in thousand board feet): Sold:
67,054; Volume (in thousand board feet): Removed: 43,716; Volume (in
thousand board feet): Remaining: 5,006.
Source: Forest Service Automated Timber Sale Accounting System.
[End of table]
Through 2005, the agency had sold nothing in the inventoried roadless
areas but decided in spring 2006 that it would offer two sales--Mike's
Gulch and Blackberry--in these areas. In the records of decision, the
forest staff had identified salvage harvest units in the inventoried
roadless areas of the forest with a total of 194 million board feet
available. In laying out salvage sales, the forest staff planned to
offer about 38.1 million board feet in the two sales and determined
that the remaining harvest units did not have enough merchantable
timber left for sale. The forest staff selected the sale areas that had
the better timber volume and would have the least effect on roadless
and potential future wilderness values. Mike's Gulch was advertised and
sold in June 2006; the forest staff sold 261 acres with about 9.3
million board feet for about $300,000. In August 2006, the forest staff
sold almost 7.9 million board feet on 274 acres in the Blackberry sale
for almost $1.7 million.
In addition to the salvage sales that resulted from the Biscuit Fire
Recovery Project EIS and records of decision, the forest staff
completed eight salvage sales of timber using a categorical exclusion
that did not require the preparation of an EIS. These sales involved
trees that the forest staff identified as hazardous because they could
fall on roads. In addition, the forest conducted six deck tree sales.
The hazard and deck tree sales were sold in 2003, while the development
of the Biscuit Fire Recovery Project was ongoing. The deck sales were
completed in 2003, while the hazardous trees were harvested primarily
in 2004. Table 2 shows the individual sales and timber volumes
harvested.
Table 2: Biscuit Fire Hazard and Deck Tree Salvage Sales and Volumes
through December 2005:
Sale name: Hazard sales: Raspberry; Volume removed (in thousand board
feet): 2,565.
Sale name: Hazard sales: Indigo; Volume removed (in thousand board
feet): 1,798.
Sale name: Hazard sales: Qcamp; Volume removed (in thousand board
feet): 11.
Sale name: Hazard sales: River Six; Volume removed (in thousand board
feet): 1,851.
Sale name: Hazard sales: Baby Onion; Volume removed (in thousand board
feet): 1,517.
Sale name: Hazard sales: Bald Bear; Volume removed (in thousand board
feet): 3,251.
Sale name: Hazard sales: Game Horse; Volume removed (in thousand board
feet): 3,105.
Sale name: Hazard sales: Chetco; Volume removed (in thousand board
feet): 594.
Sale name: Deck sales: North; Volume removed (in thousand board feet):
339.
Sale name: Deck sales: South; Volume removed (in thousand board feet):
198.
Sale name: Deck sales: Chetco; Volume removed (in thousand board feet):
32.
Sale name: Deck sales: North End II; Volume removed (in thousand board
feet): 138.
Sale name: Deck sales: Buckskin II; Volume removed (in thousand board
feet): 45.
Sale name: Deck sales: Dasher II; Volume removed (in thousand board
feet): 46.
Sale name: Deck sales: Total; Volume removed (in thousand board feet):
15,489.
Source: Forest Service Automated Timber Sale Accounting System.
[End of table]
Although all salvage sales planned in the EIS and records of decision
are not complete, the acres and amount of timber salvaged in the matrix
and late-successional reserve areas were much less than anticipated by
the forest staff in the EIS. In the records of decision, the forest
staff estimated that it would sell about 367 million board feet of
salvage timber, which would be removed from 18,939 acres. Through
December 2005, 44 million board feet have been removed from 3,700
acres, and an additional 15 million board feet have been removed from
the hazard and deck tree sales. In a March 2006 report,[Footnote 21]
the forest staff identified the following two reasons that the amount
sold is much less than they had estimated:
* Overestimation: The original amount of timber available for harvest
was overestimated for three reasons. First, the forest staff had
difficulty applying the legal requirements in the Northwest Forest Plan
to protect late-successional reserve habitat and riparian corridors.
The staff had adjusted the timber volume estimates in the EIS to remove
late-successional reserve habitat and riparian reserves. After the
issuance of the EIS and records of decision, when the staff planned the
sales, they discovered more riparian areas that needed protection and
identified more trees that they needed to leave to meet habitat
requirements. Second, the forest staff discovered that the hazard
salvage sale volumes had not been removed from the EIS volumes. Third,
the volume estimates based on remote sensing data were inaccurate--when
the forest staff visited the sale sites and viewed the actual trees
rather than photos or images, the trees were either alive or not large
enough for sale.
* Decay: The amount of timber that would be lost to decay was
underestimated. Although the forest staff estimated decay rates
accurately, the EIS estimate was based on one-third of the timber
harvest occurring in 2004 rather than 2005, when most of the salvage
harvesting actually occurred. In planning the sales, the forest staff
determined that more trees had decayed than they had estimated in the
EIS. As such, they removed some sale units and acres because the trees
no longer had commercial value or there were too few trees with
remaining value to make the sale unit economical to harvest.
In addition, the March 2006 report identified 8,174 acres from
inventoried roadless areas that had not been harvested due to ongoing
litigation. In April 2005, the Forest Service agreed with plaintiffs in
one of the cases pending before the U.S. District Court for the
District of Oregon not to harvest in the inventoried roadless areas
until a new roadless rule had been finalized.[Footnote 22] The rule was
finalized in May 2005. In August 2005, the state of Oregon and two
other states--California and New Mexico--filed a lawsuit asserting that
the Forest Service rescinded the 2001 roadless rule without carrying
out the environmental analysis NEPA requires.[Footnote 23] Throughout
2005, the Forest Service held ongoing discussions with the Governor of
Oregon to delay action on inventoried roadless area sales to await a
decision on one of several lawsuits before the U.S. District Court for
the District of Oregon challenging the adequacy of the EIS for the
Biscuit Fire Recovery Project. According to Forest Service officials,
they were trying to avoid further litigation concerning the roadless
area sales. In February 2006, the district court rejected the
challenge. In June 2006, after the forest staff auctioned the first
inventoried roadless area sale--Mike's Gulch--an environmental group
challenged this sale in district court, alleging that the Forest
Service violated NEPA by not preparing a supplemental EIS to review
significant new information concerning adverse environmental effects of
salvage logging within inventoried roadless areas. The court refused to
issue a preliminary injunction against the sale, holding that the
environmental group was unlikely to prevail. In July 2006, the
plaintiffs in the states' roadless rule case moved for a temporary
restraining order against the sale. After the Mike's Gulch purchaser
agreed not to start operations until August 4, 2006, the plaintiffs
withdrew the motion. The purchaser began harvesting on August 7, 2006.
The purchaser of the Blackberry sale began harvest on August 28, 2006.
Forest Service and Other Agencies Spent an Estimated $5 Million for the
Biscuit Fire Salvage Sales from Fiscal Years 2003 through 2005, and
Forest Service Plans to Spend $5.7 Million of the $8.8 Million in
Receipts from Sales:
From fiscal years 2003 through 2005, the Forest Service reported that
it spent an estimated $4.6 million to plan, prepare, and administer the
salvage sales in the Biscuit Fire Recovery Project, while other
agencies spent an estimated $350,000. Forest Service expenditures
include NEPA planning, salvage sale preparation, and administration for
fiscal years 2003 through 2005, and indirect activities that support
the Forest Products program--such as information technology, budget,
financial, and public affairs activities.[Footnote 24] Other agencies'
expenditures were for activities related to Biscuit Fire salvage sales,
including Department of Agriculture and Department of Justice
attorneys' legal services in litigation over the salvage sales through
2005.[Footnote 25] Table 3 shows the Forest Service's and other
agencies' estimated expenditures on the Project salvage sales by fiscal
year. Appendix I discusses the methodology used to estimate Forest
Service expenditures.
Table 3: Estimated Expenditures on Biscuit Fire Salvage Sales, Fiscal
Years 2003 through 2005:
Agency: Forest Service[A]; 2003: $1,250,000; 2004: $2,489,000; 2005:
$906,000; Total: $4,646,000.
Agency: Agriculture[B]; 2003: 12,000; 2004: 13,000; 2005: 9,000; Total:
34,000.
Agency: Justice[C]; 2003: 0; 2004: 87,000; 2005: 226,000; Total:
313,000.
Agency: Total; 2003: $1,262,000; 2004: $2,600,000; 2005: $1,100,000;
Total: $4,993,000.
Sources: Forest Service, Department of Agriculture, and Department of
Justice.
Note: Numbers may not add due to rounding.
[A] Includes law enforcement overtime and travel, but not regular law
enforcement salaries because these are not tracked by sale. According
to Forest Service officials, the funds were not new funds but were
taken from existing budgets.
[B] Includes Office of General Counsel salaries, including 32.85
percent for benefits. According to General Counsel officials, the funds
were not new funds but were taken from existing budgets.
[C] Includes attorney salaries, including 29.54 percent for benefits
and travel. According to department officials, the funds were taken
from existing budgets.
[End of table]
As the Project's salvage sales are not complete and work will continue
through at least fiscal year 2006, additional expenditures for the
salvage sales can be expected. Also, the forest staff plans to spend
$5.7 million in the next several years to remove brush, reforest the
sale areas, and repair and maintain roads. This figure is based on
collections of salvage sale receipts collected and deposited into the K-
V Fund, Brush Disposal Fund, road maintenance account, and other
accounts to pay for work in the Biscuit Fire salvage sale areas. The
Brush Disposal Fund is a permanent fund created to allow the deposit of
funds to pay for certain brush disposal work on all timber sales,
including salvage sales. Forest Service staff complete brush disposal
work using funds collected as an additional charge to the purchaser
based on the amounts paid for the trees harvested. The funds are
deposited in the Brush Disposal Fund, and the agency generally seeks to
spend them within 3 years of the completion of the sale. The road
maintenance account is a trust fund created with purchasers' deposits
for roadwork that is then conducted by the Forest Service.
In total, for the 12 salvage sales and 14 hazard and deck sales
completed through 2005, the forest staff collected more than $8.8
million. Of this amount, about $3.7 million was collected from the
Project's salvage sales, while more than $5.1 million was collected
from the sale of hazard and deck trees. Table 4 shows the revenues
generated for the Project's sales, as well as the hazard and deck tree
sales.
Table 4: Revenues Collected from Biscuit Fire Salvage Sales through
December 2005:
Sale type: Hazard and deck sales; Sale receipts: $4,528,933; Deposits:
Brush disposal: $411,371; Deposits: Road maintenance: $175,074;
Deposits: Other: $33,285; Deposits: Total: $5,148,664.
Sale type: Matrix and late-successional reserve sales; Sale receipts:
$2,245,145; Deposits: Brush disposal: $826,424; Deposits: Road
maintenance: $362,507; Deposits: Other: $256,068; Deposits: Total:
$3,690,145.
Sale type: Total; Sale receipts: $6,774,078; Deposits: Brush disposal:
$1,237,795; Deposits: Road maintenance: $537,582; Deposits: Other:
$289,353; Deposits: Total: $8,838,809.
Source: Forest Service Automated Timber Sale Accounting System.
Note: Numbers may not add due to rounding.
[End of table]
Of the total receipts collected, about $6.8 million was collected as
revenue for the sales, and about $2.1 million was collected as deposits
for brush disposal, road maintenance, and other work. From the $6.8
million, the forest staff deposited $3.7 million into the K-V Fund for
reforestation and other rehabilitation work associated with the sale
and the fire; most of the remaining funds were deposited into the
Salvage Sale Fund to support future salvage sales in the region. Of the
$2.1 million in deposits, about $1.2 million was deposited into the
Brush Disposal Fund, $538,000 was deposited for road maintenance, and
about $290,000 was deposited for other purposes that include contracts
for companies that weigh and measure the harvested trees--called
scaling contracts.
A Comparison of the Financial and Economic Results with EIS Estimates
Is Difficult:
While the Biscuit Fire Recovery Project contains estimates of the
financial and economic results of the salvage sales for each proposed
alternative, a comparison of the estimates with the results is
difficult. First, the incomplete sales mean that financial and economic
data for the salvage sales are also incomplete, which makes a
comparison of the sales' financial and economic results with the EIS
results premature. Furthermore, even with complete sales data, the
comparison of the estimates with final sales' results is complicated by
methodological differences related to the way the expenditure estimates
and results are calculated and a lack of comparable economic data.
The Biscuit Fire Recovery Project EIS estimated that the salvage sales
planned under the alternative selected by the Forest Supervisor would
cost about $24 million to prepare, administer, and reforest and would
generate about $19.6 million in revenues for the government--about $13
million from sales receipts and $6.6 million for brush disposal
deposits. These funds, according to the Project EIS, would be available
to help pay for postfire recovery activities. In addition to financial
revenues for the federal government, the EIS estimated the economic
effects of the salvage sales for each alternative. The Project EIS
estimated the direct and indirect economic effects of the sales in each
alternative for five counties in southwest Oregon--Coos, Curry,
Douglas, Jackson, and Josephine--and examined the economic sectors
affected by the salvage sales, such as wood manufacturing,
construction, and retail trade. The EIS estimated that the salvage
logging in the selected alternative of the EIS would generate about
6,900 local jobs and $240 million to the regional economy related to
the harvesting and processing of the timber.[Footnote 26]
Because the Forest Service held two additional salvage sales for the
Project in 2006, it is premature to compare the forest's financial and
economic results with the estimates in the EIS. With additional sales,
the Forest Service will have additional, unknown expenditures and
revenues, making the total results on all sales unknown and
incomparable with the estimated results. A comparison of the results
through 2005 with the EIS estimates could be made if the estimates were
available on a sale-by-sale basis; however, according to a Forest
Service official, the EIS estimates are averaged across the sales and
are reported as a total only, not separately for each sale. Unlike
typical timber sales that have well-defined units and volumes, the EIS
estimates were necessarily formulated using several broad assumptions
about the salvage sale units and the timber volume available in them,
as well as harvesting methods and average purchaser costs. Because the
forest staff ultimately ended up changing sale units and recombining
units in different sales, the units in the EIS estimate differ from
those ultimately sold. According to a Forest Service official, these
assumptions and average prices would cause the estimate to be less
precise, but they had to be made because the size of the fire and the
number of sales prevented the forest staff from making more precise
estimates. Similarly, the economic estimates cannot be compared with
the sale results because the appropriate regional data, such as jobs
created by salvage sales, cannot be calculated until the sales are
complete.
Although a comparison of the financial results of the Project's salvage
sales is premature because the sale results are incomplete, an
examination of the volume and prices paid--both components of revenue-
-indicates that the EIS overestimated volume and underestimated prices
received for potential sales. The amount of timber volume sold and
removed from the 12 salvage sales was much less than the EIS estimated
was available. The EIS estimated that 173 million board feet out of the
total 367 million board feet, or 47 percent of the total timber volume
estimated for sale, would be available in the matrix and late-
successional reserve areas, while the remaining 194 million board feet
would be available in the inventoried roadless areas. By the end of
2005, the forest staff had sold 67 million board feet from the matrix
and late-successional reserves. With regard to price, the EIS estimated
that the timber sales would generate receipts of $37 per thousand board
feet. The actual price received for the 12 salvage sales averaged $47
per thousand board feet, while the actual price received for the hazard
sales averaged $293 per thousand board feet and for the deck sales
averaged $397 per thousand board feet. The difference in prices
received reflects some difference in quality due to the fact that the
hazard and deck trees were removed a year or so earlier. It also
reflects the fact that the hazard sales are near a road and deck sales
are already logged, which would mean a purchaser would have minimal or
no logging costs.
Even when the salvage sales are complete and final data are available
on sale expenditures, revenues, and economic results, certain
methodological factors complicate the comparison of the sale results
with the EIS estimates. Specifically, the Forest Service's estimated
expenditures and those estimated in the EIS were calculated for
different purposes and, therefore, do not contain the same items. For
example, the EIS estimates do not include expenditures on NEPA,
indirect costs, or law enforcement and litigation, while the forest's
estimated expenditures for fiscal years 2003 through 2005 do include
these expenditures. According to a Forest Service official, the purpose
of the EIS is to compare alternatives and assess the differences among
alternatives, therefore certain costs that are the same for each
alternative, such as NEPA and indirect costs, are not included. On the
other hand, the expenditures reported by the forest staff for fiscal
years 2003 through 2005 include those expenditures that can be allotted
to salvage sales--such as NEPA expenditures--for the purpose of showing
full expenditures related to the Biscuit Fire salvage sales. A
comparison of these amounts would be complicated by adjustments and
assumptions that would need to be made to facilitate the comparison.
With regard to the economic analysis, even at the completion of the
sales, the Forest Service does not conduct the type of analysis needed
to report the actual economic results of the sales, which would allow a
comparison with the estimates. The needed analysis would require the
collection of appropriate economic data, as well as formulation of
appropriate economic models to clearly separate the effects of salvage
sales on jobs and on the economy of the region from effects of other
concurrent regional and national factors. This retrospective analysis
is difficult but could be done; however, according to a Forest Service
official, the agency does not typically conduct the analysis needed to
report these results because the primary reason for preparing EIS
estimates is to compare the relative economic effects of salvage
alternatives and not to provide a precise prediction of the results of
the sales. However, given that the volume of timber sold through
December 2005 is substantially less than the volume of sales assumed in
the EIS for the selected alternative, we would expect the actual
economic results of the sales to be less than the EIS estimate, all
else being equal.
Other Biscuit Fire Recovery Project Activities Are Under Way, but
Depend on Harvest Activity, Schedules, Sale Revenues, and Other Funding:
The Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest staff have begun implementing
other activities in the Project's records of decision but completing
these activities depends on the extent of salvage sales, workload
schedules, salvage sale revenues, and other funding. In the Project's
records of decision, the forest staff included numerous activities to
help burned areas recover, including postsale activities such as
reforestation that would be conducted in salvage sale areas. Table 5
shows the key activities included in the Biscuit Fire Recovery Project
records of decision and the amount of work planned and completed for
each through December 2005. The forest staff have begun work on
reforestation, brush disposal, and road maintenance but the extent of
this work depends, in large part, on the amount of salvage harvest
activity that occurs. The forest staff have also begun work on fuel
management zones and wildlife habitat activities--which are planned for
both within and outside the salvage sale areas--but completing this
work depends on uncertain schedules and funding sources. In addition to
the activities in table 5, the records of decision for the Project
proposed a large-scale study of postfire management activities such as
salvage harvest and fuel management zones, and monitoring of the
Project's activities. The forest staff are still planning these
activities, which are not yet funded.
Table 5: Work Planned and Completed through December 2005:
Project activity: Brush disposal--activity fuel treatment (acres); Work
planned: 18,939; Work completed through December 2005: 554.
Project activity: Reforestation (acres); Work planned: 30,278; Work
completed through December 2005: 706.
Project activity: Road maintenance (miles); Work planned: 559; Work
completed through December 2005: 307.
Project activity: Fuel management zone creation (miles); Work planned:
285; Work completed through December 2005: 15.
Project activity: Wildlife habitat restoration--seeding (acres); Work
planned: 6,800; Work completed through December 2005: 715.
Project activity: Wildlife habitat restoration--meadow encroachment
reduction (acres); Work planned: 700; Work completed through December
2005: 0.
Source: GAO analysis of Forest Service documents.
[End of table]
Work Under Way on Brush Disposal, Reforestation, and Road Maintenance
Activities, but Extent of Work Needed Depends on Levels of Harvest:
Through December 2005, forest staff had begun work on brush disposal,
reforestation, and road maintenance activities. These activities have
funding sources because the Forest Service collects and deposits sale
revenues for brush disposal and reforestation activities and because
much of the road maintenance work is conducted by the sale purchaser.
However, the amount of work that the forest planned to accomplish for
each of these activities has changed as a result of the amount of
timber sold and harvested in the Biscuit Fire salvage sales. For
example, the amount of brush disposal work--an estimated 18,939 acres
in the records of decision--will be reduced because the acres where
salvage harvest will be done have been reduced.
Brush Disposal:
As shown in table 5, the forest staff have accomplished 554 acres of
brush disposal, also referred to as slash disposal or activity fuel
treatment. After a salvage sale, forest staff are responsible for brush
disposal, which usually entails burning piles or areas that are covered
with vegetative debris from the sale such as stumps, chunks of wood,
broken tree tops, tree limbs and branches, rotten wood, or damaged
brush resulting from salvage logging operations. In general, under the
Biscuit Fire salvage sale contracts, the purchasers were required to
create piles of such debris on the acres logged before the forest staff
conducted their brush disposal work.
While the forest staff had planned to accomplish almost 18,939 acres of
brush disposal, they have revised the total amount needed to about
3,000 acres because the acres sold for salvage harvest were much less
than anticipated--about 3,700 acres through December 2005. The forest
staff do not need to conduct brush disposal if the anticipated salvage
sales do not occur. In addition, the forest staff said that they will
not conduct work on every single acre of a salvage sale unit because,
in some cases, the treatment is not needed. As of the end of December
2005, the forest staff have collected $826,000 in the Brush Disposal
Fund for the Biscuit Fire salvage sales.
Reforestation:
As of December 2005, the forest staff had planted 706 acres of trees.
The Forest Service plants trees to help reforest areas where trees have
been removed by natural events such as wildland fire, or by timber
harvest, that might not recover naturally. In the Project records of
decision, the forest staff estimated that they would plant trees on
about 30,000 acres, including 18,939 acres in the areas that would be
salvage harvested, and about 11,000 acres that had been burned but not
harvested. On the harvested acres, the forest staff plan to conduct
reforestation work after the salvage sales are closed and brush
disposal is completed. The estimated 30,000 acres of planting will be
reduced because the forest staff will not need to plant acres that were
planned for salvage but will not be harvested. In addition to the
reforestation activity identified in the Project records of decision,
the forest staff replanted 8,935 acres through 2005 under a categorical
exclusion to restore plantations--areas to be managed for future timber
harvest--destroyed by the Biscuit Fire. This work was funded from
appropriated funds and reforestation trust funds.
In general, planting work that occurs in salvage sale areas is funded
from sale revenues collected and deposited into the K-V Fund, while
planting outside of sale areas is funded through the forest's
appropriated funds for vegetation management. For sale area
reforestation, the K-V plans identified about $4.6 million worth of
work to plant the harvested areas. About $2.7 million was deposited
into the K-V Fund for planting activities, although the plans are not
yet final and, according to forest staff, funds can be shifted to
projects needing them until the plans are final. The Forest Service
retains these funds for use in the salvage sale area and generally uses
them within 5 years after the sale is closed to complete reforestation.
During the 5 years after a sale is completed, forest staff inspect the
areas to determine the extent of growth of planted seedlings and
naturally grown seedlings. In some cases, the Forest Service determines
that sufficient numbers of trees have grown in the area naturally, and
the planned reforestation work will not be needed. According to agency
guidance, if this occurs before the sale is administratively closed,
the K-V funds can be used to fund other activities planned for the sale
area, such as wildlife habitat restoration.[Footnote 27]
Road Maintenance:
As of December 2005, 307 miles of the 559 miles of road maintenance had
been completed. Road maintenance activities, which include blading,
grading, and gravel replacement on Forest Service roads, were conducted
by the purchasers as part of the salvage sale contracts. The 559 miles
identified in the records of decision include all the roads in the
forest's road system; however, according to forest engineers, not all
roads will receive treatment because only the roads used by purchasers
while they are harvesting the Biscuit Fire salvage sales are maintained
under contract. Furthermore, some roads may receive two or more
treatments because roads that are used for two or more sales are
maintained under each contract. In addition to the road maintenance
planned for the Project, 176 miles of roads were maintained by the
purchasers during and after the hazard and deck sales--some of them the
same roads that were treated under the Project sales.
In addition to the maintenance performed by the purchaser, the
purchasers made deposits into a road maintenance account. The forest
staff will use these deposits to pay for work, such as asphalt
resurfacing, on roads used by multiple purchasers. The deposits were
collected in addition to the price paid for the salvage sale and were
based, in part, on the volume of timber harvested from each sale. As of
December 2005, more than $360,000 had been deposited in the road
maintenance account to be used to maintain roads in the future.
Work Is Under Way on Fuel Management Zones and Wildlife Rehabilitation,
but Funding and Schedules Are Uncertain:
As of the end of 2005, the forest staff had also begun fuel management
and wildlife rehabilitation activities identified in the Biscuit Fire
Recovery Project records of decision, but completing these activities
will depend on the Forest Service funding and scheduling the work over
many years (see table 5). As of June 2006, the forest staff have not
specified funding sources or work schedules for completing these
activities.
Fuel Management Zones:
As shown in table 5, by the end of 2005, the forest staff had completed
almost 15 miles of fuel management zones.[Footnote 28] These fuel
management zones are concentrated along roads and ridges, as well as
the perimeter of the Biscuit Fire. They are areas where vegetation or
fuels--trees and brush that act as fuel for wildland fires--have been
reduced to help create a space where firefighters can be more
successful suppressing future fires. Maintaining them requires periodic
efforts to burn or cut down brush and trees that grow in the areas. The
Project's records of decision show that the forest staff plan to
maintain about 285 miles of these fuel reduction zones in the matrix,
late-successional reserves, and inventoried roadless areas, as shown in
figure 6.
Figure 6: Map of Biscuit Fire Recovery Project Fuel Management Zones:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
The forest staff do not have a schedule for developing fuel management
zones and have not requested additional funds for the work. According
to a forest official, most of the work to date has been incidental to
salvage sale work in areas where salvage sales touched on identified
fuel management zone areas. The official explained that creating and
maintaining fuel management zones identified in the records of decision
must be done in addition to fuel reduction work needed in areas
adjoining developed or urban areas, called the wildland-urban
interface. The official stated that funding priorities for fuel
reduction work are concentrated in the wildland-urban interface because
this is where human life and high value property are most at risk. The
forest staff has identified numerous projects in this area that need to
be completed, and the fuel management zone work would not have as high
a priority for funding.
Wildlife Habitat Rehabilitation:
By the end of 2005, the forest staff had accomplished 715 acres of
seeding--scattering grass seeds in meadows to increase the amount of
vegetation and enhance native grasses--to improve wildlife habitat. In
addition to seeding, wildlife restoration work can involve removing
trees and shrubs to reduce their encroachment into grasslands and
meadows. Such work provides forage for grazing wildlife, including deer
and elk, and provides habitat for birds such as the purple martin.
In the Project records of decision, the forest wildlife staff planned
to accomplish 6,800 acres of seeding and 700 acres of meadow
encroachment work. As with fuel management zones, the forest staff have
not scheduled or requested additional appropriated funds to accomplish
the work. While the staff included about $1.3 million of projects in K-
V plans for the Biscuit Fire salvage sales, salvage sale revenues were
sufficient to fund about one-third of the planned work. Forest staff
stated that it is still possible for K-V funds to become available to
fund wildlife projects if the funds are not used for reforestation or
planting work; however, if K-V funds are not available, the wildlife
projects planned for the Biscuit Fire area will compete for funding
with other wildlife projects outside the fire area.
Research and Monitoring Are Being Planned, but Funding and Schedules
Are Uncertain:
The Project records of decision include a large-scale adaptive
management study of postfire activities, such as salvage harvest and
prescribed burns, and monitoring of the progress and results of the
Project. These activities will be implemented over many years and
depend on other activities to be accomplished. The forest staff are
still planning these activities and completing them depends on
schedules and funding sources. Although the staff have developed a
tentative schedule for the monitoring program, they have not developed
a schedule for the adaptive management study. The study includes some
activities that are part of the forest's regular work but also includes
work that would be desirable if funding can be identified. Similarly,
while some monitoring work was intended to be conducted as part of the
forest's regular program work, several of the monitoring items have
been designated as desirable depending on funding sources.
Adaptive Management Study:
At the time of our review, the forest staff had just begun planning for
the large-scale adaptive management study included in the Project. The
study includes a management experiment to learn about and adapt
different management actions in postfire vegetation across a broad
landscape. The objectives of the study are to compare the results of
different postfire management strategies designed to restore and
protect habitat for late-successional reserves and old-growth related
species. With the help of Forest Service researchers, a study plan was
written to design the study, identify comparable areas of the forest in
which to conduct different treatments, design the vegetation
treatments, and identify monitoring needed for the projects. The
treatments include salvage and replanting, natural recovery, and
prescribed burns, which will set the areas on different pathways for
recovery that will be monitored for significant differences.
Completion of the study depends on the completion of other Project
activities. The treatments cannot be completed unless other activities-
-namely the salvage sales and fuel management zones--are completed. In
addition, one of the treatments included in the study involves
prescribed burning, but the forest staff have not yet issued a record
of decision for prescribed burning activities that it studied in the
EIS. Completion also depends on activities being conducted in the areas
chosen for the study. The EIS identified 12 areas of about 3,000 acres
each as locations for the study. At the time of our review, because the
acres of salvage sale had been reduced, about half of the study areas
were available. According to the researchers who designed the work, the
study is still viable, despite the reduction in areas subject to
different treatments.
Implementing the study depends on the forest staff scheduling the
activities identified as needed and determining which forest program
will conduct and fund the work. The Project EIS outlined the study's
activities and identified those that the forest staff could undertake
in their normal workload and additional activities that should be
accomplished but were not funded. The Pacific Northwest Research
Station paid for and conducted initial work in the area by gathering
remote sensing data of the burned area to establish a baseline for
future assessments of vegetation conditions and how the three different
treatments may affect the vegetation differently. While there is still
time to set up the study, the Pacific Northwest Research Station
recommended that a committee or board be established to ensure that the
needed activities are conducted. The forest officials had not taken
action on this recommendation at the time of our review.
Monitoring:
The Biscuit Fire Recovery Project records of decision identify a number
of monitoring activities, with three purposes: (1) to assure that all
aspects of the Project are implemented as intended, (2) to determine
that certain critical activities have the desired effect, and (3) to
allow changes to occur if activities are found to have been implemented
incorrectly or have undesired effects. The records of decision and the
final EIS identify some of the monitoring activities, as required to
meet policy or standards, while the final EIS identifies other
monitoring activities as desired, which refers to monitoring that would
provide important information for future projects and administrative
studies.
At the time of our review, the forest staff reported that they had
conducted some of the monitoring associated with salvage sales from the
records of decision, which included monitoring:
* planting sites and site preparation,
* the number of snags and down trees retained on salvage sale sites,
* activities to mitigate the effect of noxious weeds,
* marking used during salvage sales to ensure compliance with harvest
requirements and marking guides,
* activities to mitigate threats to threatened and endangered species,
and:
* specific aspects of activities identified for protecting threatened
and endangered species.
According to forest staff, this monitoring is carried out by timber
sale administrators as they visit and inspect sale sites. Their
findings are included in inspection reports that are part of the timber
sale contract files. The administrators can also determine whether best
management practices have been followed for the timber sales, which
include actions to reduce soil erosion and runoff from sale areas.
According to forest staff, these practices can be separate activities
or they can be part of the design of the timber sale. For example, a
best management practice can include designing a timber sale to use
cable or helicopter logging rather than tractor logging to reduce soil
disturbance and erosion.
For the other monitoring identified in the records of decision, the
forest staff have drafted a plan that states whether each activity is
required to meet policy or standards, suggests the frequency with which
monitoring should take place, and outlines monitoring parameters and
techniques. For example, the plan identifies the need to monitor
noxious weed treatments after 1 to 5 years and after 5 to 10 years by
using field visits to examine treated sites to determine whether
treatments have removed populations of weeds. The plan does not,
however, identify which forest staff will conduct the monitoring or
which forest funds will be used to accomplish the work.
The Project records of decision stated that monitoring results would be
made available to the public. The unique nature of the Biscuit Fire and
the significance of the Project activities underscore the importance of
this information for showing the Congress and the public the extent of
recovery work accomplished and remaining to be done. However,
monitoring the status of the Project's activities is not included in
the monitoring plan. Further, the forest staff do not report annual
accomplishments for the Biscuit Fire separately from their other
program accomplishments. The activities in the Project are being
implemented by the forest's regular programs, including Forest
Products, Natural Resources, and others. Although a forest monitoring
report for 2004 includes activities conducted in the Biscuit Fire,
forest staff did not comprehensively report on the status of activities
in the Project such as salvage sales, reforestation, road maintenance,
wildlife habitat rehabilitation, fuel management zones, and others.
Without such information, the forest staff cannot report on the status
and results of the Project, as described in the records of decision.
Forest Made Operational Changes and Assessed Fines to Address Improper
Logging That Occurred in Three Locations:
During the hazard and salvage sales conducted in areas burned by the
Biscuit Fire, the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest staff received
and investigated numerous complaints of logging in areas where it
should not have occurred. The forest staff confirmed three instances of
improper logging and determined that two were the result of errors on
the part of the forest staff, and one was an error by the timber
purchaser. The forest staff attributed most of the other alleged cases
of improper logging to disagreements over the definition of a riparian
area and, after further review, dismissed them. Forest Service
officials admit that the confirmed cases of improper logging were
serious errors and have taken steps to prevent such occurrences on
future salvage sales.
Forest Staff Made Mistakes Leading to Two Incidents of Improper Logging
but Plan to Better Mark Boundaries:
The forest staff acknowledge that mistakes resulted in improper logging
in two cases, one that occurred in the Babyfoot Lake Botanical Area
adjacent to the Fiddler salvage sale--one of the 12 salvage sales in
the Biscuit Fire Recovery Project--and another in the Kalmiopsis
Wilderness Area adjacent to the Bald Bear hazard sale. In both cases,
forest officials identified actions to improve the marking of
boundaries for timber and salvage sales.
Babyfoot Lake Botanical Area--Fiddler Salvage Sale:
Babyfoot Lake is a 350-acre area within the Siskiyou National Forest
designated as a botanical area because it contains several rare species
such as Brewer's spruce, a spruce that grows in southwest Oregon and
northern California. Botanical areas are specific management areas
designated in forest plans that require natural management and allow
researchers to study plants in their natural state. As such, timber
harvest should not occur in the area. However, during the Fiddler
salvage sale, about 16 acres of the botanical area adjacent to the sale
were harvested. This incursion was discovered by members of a local
environmental group in August 2005. A total of 292 tree stumps were
counted within the area.
According to the District Ranger in whose area the incident occurred
and who investigated the incident, a series of occurrences led to the
improper logging:
* During the fall of 2003 and spring of 2004, the Fiddler sale was
being planned on maps and on the ground. In December 2003, the timber
officer responsible for the Fiddler sale left the forest staff and from
that time through January 2005, the position was filled by two
detailees from different ranger districts and by the District Ranger.
* In the fall of 2003, the Forest Service staff used maps and a global
positioning system to paint and flag the boundary of the Fiddler sale
units, including a unit near Babyfoot Lake. During the winter, the
timber staff discovered that the botanical area was included in the
sale unit on the map. The boundary that should have followed a ridge
top next to a road was instead drawn farther down the hill in the
botanical area. The map was corrected, and the timber staff determined
that they would need to repaint and remove flags from the unit
boundaries in the spring when the weather improved and they could visit
the site.
* In the spring of 2004, the correct boundary of the Fiddler sale units
was painted by helicopter--a new technique that was being tested on the
Biscuit Fire areas--following the correct boundary from the map.
However, no one removed the flags and paint from the incorrect
boundary, resulting in two boundaries marked on the sale unit. The
timber sale administrator--the staff person responsible for monitoring
the sale units during the salvage operations--did not notice this
discrepancy while reviewing the sale units just before the sale.
* During harvest operations in 2004, the timber sale administrator and
the purchaser followed the flags and painted trees, not the helicopter-
painted boundary, which was the correct one.
The District Ranger determined that this was a mistake on the part of
the timber staff and that the amount of communication among the timber
staff and oversight over the salvage sales were insufficient. She
stated that the staff were working quickly to plan sales and to prepare
for sales as soon as the records of decision with an emergency
situation determination were signed. The sales were sold 2 weeks after
the records of decision were signed.
The District Ranger stated that several simple actions were needed to
avoid similar problems in the future. In a report to the Forest
Supervisor, she stated that future sales should ensure that botanical
areas are marked on the sale map and flagged to distinguish them from
the sale boundaries. It was further suggested that timber sale
procedures include a checklist of items--such as botanical areas--for
timber sale administrators' reviews. In November 2005, the Department
of Agriculture's Office of Inspector General confirmed the error on the
part of the forest staff and stated that the proposed solutions sounded
reasonable. According to forest timber staff, the staff used an updated
checklist to review the layout of the Mike's Gulch sale held in June
2006. The sale units did not contain a botanical area but bordered a
research natural area that is to be marked.
The District Ranger also asked for an assessment of actions that could
be taken to mitigate the damage that occurred from the salvage cutting
and has implemented some actions already. For example, the Forest
Service did not burn the slash in the area, as it normally would after
a salvage harvest, leaving the trees to decay naturally. As of June
2006, the assessment and several actions had been recommended. For
example, one of the recommendations is to expand the boundaries of the
botanical area to include several areas of live Brewer's spruce outside
the current boundary; agency officials say this action would require
the preparation of an environmental analysis or EIS and perhaps an
amendment to the Siskiyou forest plan.
Kalmiopsis Wilderness Area--Bald Bear Hazard Sale:
In 2003, the Forest Service sold hazardous trees along roads in the
Biscuit Fire area. One of the sales--the Bald Bear sale--occurred along
a road on the boundary of the Kalmiopsis Wilderness Area. Although
timber harvest and mechanized activities such as the use of chain saws
are not allowed in wilderness areas, about 16 trees within the
Kalmiopsis Wilderness Area were cut during the hazard sale. The
District Ranger who investigated this incident found the following:
* The road in the Bald Bear sale runs along the boundary of the
Kalmiopsis Wilderness Area; the boundary follows a ridgeline but where
the terrain flattens, the boundary is along the road. The boundary
signs were burned and difficult to see.
* The timber staff that marked the boundary for the sale called the
forest staff to verify the boundary and were told it was on the ridge.
The timber staff followed a line through the flat area, rather than the
road, and included a portion of wilderness in the sale area.
* The timber officer did not confirm at the site that the boundary was
accurate, which was important given its close proximity to the
Kalmiopsis Wilderness Area.
* An outside researcher informed forest staff about the boundary error.
The timber sale administrator directed the purchaser not to cut the
area until the boundary could be checked; however, when the
administrator arrived at the site, the trees had already been cut.
The District Ranger stated that the logging was a result of mistakes on
the part of the forest staff and the purchaser. Specifically, she noted
that checking the boundary was the timber officer's responsibility and
acknowledged that the timber staff did not discuss the proximity of the
Kalmiopsis Wilderness Area with the purchaser. Either of these
activities might have identified the mismarked boundary. In addition,
she said the purchaser failed to control its workforce after receiving
notification of the mistake.
The District Ranger asked the timber staff to identify actions to
prevent this problem in the future. She noted that the regional staff
issued a letter in 2004, prior to the incident, emphasizing the need to
better identify forest boundaries. According to forest timber staff, in
marking the Mike's Gulch sale in June 2006, the forest staff used
surveyors to identify the forest's boundaries with private lands, and
planned to have the surveyor mark the boundaries of the research
natural area. The District Ranger stated that she had her staff prepare
a range of options to mitigate the damage caused by the improper
logging and, as of June 2006, had decided to leave the trees and stumps
untouched since they are near the road and not part of the pristine
environment.
Timber Purchaser Improperly Cut Trees That Were Not Burned, and Forest
Staff Followed Contract Procedures in Fining Company:
During the Wafer sale--another of the 12 salvage sales from the Project
records of decision--the purchaser cut 120 live, or "green," trees in
error. The purchaser caught the mistake and brought it to the attention
of the Forest Service timber sale administrator. The timber sale
administrator halted the sale and put the purchaser in breach of
contract. The purchaser stated that the cutting crew was inexperienced
and, therefore, made the mistake. The forest's contracting office
required the purchaser to pay $200 per tree, or $24,000, in penalties,
and the green trees were left in the forest.
This incident of improper logging was investigated by a Forest Service
law enforcement officer. According to the law enforcement official,
because the purchaser reported the improper logging, it is not likely
that the purchaser was attempting to steal the green trees. In
addition, the forest staff took action in response to the improper
logging by putting the purchaser in breach of contract. The sale
contract clearly stated that all green trees were to be protected.
However, according to Forest Service officials, accidental harvest of
green trees can sometimes occur in large salvage sale operations. While
timber sale administrators inspect sales periodically, they neither
inspect the cutting operations on a day-to-day basis nor control the
purchaser's operations.
Forest Service Pursued Other Claims of Improper Logging:
In addition to these three incidents, Rogue River-Siskiyou National
Forest officials received numerous reports of improper logging from
local environmental groups who monitored the salvage sale operations.
According to a forest official, timber sale administrators and other
forest staff investigated these claims. The majority of these claims
involved logging in riparian reserves, which are 174-foot buffers on
each side of a stream or waterway that protect riparian habitat and
water quality. Forest officials stated that the agency's definition of
a riparian area differs from the definition used by the environmental
groups. The Forest Service defines a riparian area to be a channel with
some evidence of sediment having been moved, while the environmental
groups identify a riparian area as a depression in which water may
flow. In reviewing these areas, forest staff said they identified one
riparian area that had been salvage harvested and should not have been.
However, it is difficult to know when the stream appeared because
according to forest staff, after logging, the runoff from rain and
precipitation is much higher and new "streams" are created. Also,
during wet years, more streams are created from the increased runoff.
Another claim of improper logging had to do with salvage harvesting in
a botanical area. The same environmental group that discovered the
Babyfoot Lake harvest reported to the Forest Service that logging from
the Steed sale overlapped into the Sourgame Botanical Area. The forest
staff investigated this incident and determined that the environmental
group had used the larger of two boundaries, identified as
alternatives, in the EIS for the Siskiyou forest plan. The record of
decision for the plan chose the smaller area as the botanical area.
Conclusions:
The Biscuit Fire Recovery Project generated considerable public
interest and controversy, particularly over treatment of the postfire
landscape. With the near completion of the Project's salvage sales, it
is apparent that much less was sold and removed through the salvage
sales, changing the need for such projects as brush disposal and
reforestation. It remains to be seen how much of the other recovery
work--wildlife habitat rehabilitation, fuel management zones,
monitoring, and the adaptive management study--will be accomplished
given the lack of specific funding and schedules. As the Project's
activities are implemented over the next several years, accountability
for their accomplishment rests with the Rogue River-Siskiyou National
Forest staff. One of the Project activities with potentially
significant results is the proposed large-scale adaptive management
study, which offers an opportunity to gather scientific information
with broad implications for recovery actions and postfire salvage
harvest elsewhere on Forest Service lands. Successful implementation of
the study and other Project activities will take commitment on the part
of the forest staff to coordinate the work over several years. In light
of the size and unique nature of the Biscuit Fire, and continuing
public interest in the recovery of the area, it is important that the
forest staff communicate the results of the Project to the Congress and
the public. The forest staff--and the Forest Service--recognize the
importance of providing information on the Project's status and results
to the public but do not report results in such a way that makes the
information readily available. Regular tracking and reporting of the
status of the Project's activities and results are needed.
Recommendation for Executive Action:
To help keep the Congress and the public informed on the status of the
Biscuit Fire Recovery Project and the significant research work on the
postfire effects of salvage and nonsalvage management actions, we
recommend that the Chief of the Forest Service direct the Rogue River-
Siskiyou National Forest Supervisor and the Pacific Northwest Regional
Forester to provide an annual public report on the status of the
activities included in the Project. The report should provide an update
on the status of work accomplished and still planned for each of the
activities in the Biscuit Fire Recovery Project EIS and records of
decision: fuel treatments, prescribed burning, salvage harvest,
vegetation and wildlife restoration, roads and water quality, and the
large-scale study. The agency should produce such reports until the
Project is substantially complete.
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
We provided the Departments of Agriculture and Justice with a draft of
this report for review and comment. The Forest Service provided written
comments on behalf of the Department of Agriculture (see app. II). The
Department of Justice had no comments on the draft report. In its
comments, the Forest Service said that the report provided a good view
of the process, events, and Project through December 2005. The agency
generally agreed with our recommendation for the issuance of an annual
update on the status of Biscuit Fire recovery activities but suggested
that the time period for producing the report be limited to the next 3-
to 5-year period. We stated in the recommendation that the reports
should be produced annually until the Project is complete and that may
be 5 years or longer given the nature of some of the recovery
activities. For this reason, we hesitate to provide a specific time
limit but believe there is value to providing the agency with some
discretion about when they discontinue the report. Therefore, we
revised the recommendation to state that the reports should be provided
until the Project's activities are substantially complete.
The Forest Service also stated that an explanation of the litigation,
controversies, and protests that occurred since December 2005 would
provide the readers an understanding of the complexities of trying to
manage fire projects. The report describes the status of sales through
2006, the emergency situation determination used to expedite the sales,
the effects of litigation on the sales, and delays in the inventoried
roadless area sales. We believe this discussion is sufficiently
descriptive of these events and, therefore, did not make any changes to
the report in response to this comment. The Forest Service also said
that the report does not make it clear that the planning processes and
appeals do greatly reduce the final timber harvest volumes. While the
planning process was a factor in the time taken to develop the EIS, we
did not evaluate the effects of the process on timber volumes because
it was not one of the objectives of this report. Also, the report does
not discuss the appeals process because the Forest Service used an
emergency situation determination, which eliminated the appeals process
for 11 salvage sales. Finally, the Forest Service also provided several
clarifications of technical information that we incorporated in the
report as appropriate.
As agreed with your offices, unless you publicly announce the contents
of this report earlier, we plan no further distribution of this report
until 18 days from the report date. At that time, we will send copies
of this report to interested congressional committees, the Secretary of
Agriculture, the Attorney General of the United States, the Chief of
the Forest Service, and other interested parties. We will also make
copies available to others upon request. In addition, the report will
be available at no charge on the GAO Web site at h [Hyperlink, http://
www.gao.gov.] ttp://www.gao.gov.
If you or your staff have any questions, please contact me at (202) 512-
3841 or n [Hyperlink, nazzaror@gao.gao.gov] azzaror@gao.gov.
[Hyperlink, nazzaror@gao.gov] Contact points for our Offices of Public
Affairs and Congressional Relations may be found on the last page of
this report. GAO staff who made major contributions to this report are
listed in appendix III.
[Signed by]
Robin M. Nazzaro Director, Natural Resources and Environment:
[End of section]
Appendix I Objectives, Scope, and Methodology:
Our objectives were to determine (1) how the development of the Biscuit
Fire Recovery Project compared with the Forest Service's general
approach to postfire recovery; (2) the status of the Biscuit Fire
Recovery Project salvage sales and how the reported financial and
economic results of the sales compared with the Forest Service's
initial estimates; (3) the status of other activities identified in the
Biscuit Fire Recovery Project; and (4) the extent and cause of improper
logging within the Biscuit Fire Recovery Project, as reported by the
Forest Service, and changes the agency made to prevent such occurrences
in the future.
To determine how the development of the Biscuit Fire Recovery Project
compared with the Forest Service's approach to postfire recovery
efforts, we developed information on the (1) general approach used by
the Forest Service to assess postfire conditions and identify
rehabilitation and restoration projects and (2) detailed process used
by the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest to develop the Biscuit Fire
Recovery Project. To develop information on the general approach, we
first reviewed available Forest Service guidance and directives on
postfire management and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). There
is no final guidance on postfire rehabilitation and restoration
activities and, therefore, we reviewed guidance for the Pacific
Northwest Region and a draft national strategy developed by the
Interregional Ecosystem Management Coordination Group to describe the
general postfire recovery process. We also interviewed Forest Service
officials at headquarters, the Pacific Northwest Region, and the Rogue
River-Siskiyou National Forest about the general approach. To develop
the details of Project development, we reviewed meeting minutes of the
Project's interdisciplinary team and a forest advisory group during the
development of the Project and its environmental impact statement (EIS)
in 2003 and 2004. We also interviewed forest and regional staff
involved in the development and review of the Project and EIS. To
facilitate the interviews, we developed a time line of key events,
which we provided to officials before the interviews. We also
interviewed the key decision makers in the process--the Forest
Supervisor, Regional Forester, Deputy Chief for the National Forest
System, and Undersecretary and Deputy Undersecretary of Agriculture for
Natural Resources and Environment to determine their roles in the
process and in the final records of decision for the Project.
To determine the status of the Project's salvage sales, we obtained and
analyzed information on the sales proposed in the Project's records of
decision. We gathered sale data from the Forest Service's Automated
Timber Sale Accounting System including sale name, acres sold, volume
harvested, receipts, and receipts disposition. We also gathered this
information for sales held prior to the issuance of the Project EIS--
sales of hazard trees and trees cut from fire lines during the active
fighting of the Biscuit Fire. We gathered this information as of
December 2005 to ensure that we captured volume harvested and receipts
paid for timber harvested in the fall of 2005 but for which the
financial data were captured a month or two later. To determine whether
the timber receipts data were reliable for our purposes, we interviewed
Forest Service financial officials about the Timber Sale Accounting
System and operations and controls over data and data reliability, as
well as reviewing the system documentation. Through this process, we
determined that the data are reliable for reporting the status of the
Biscuit Fire salvage sales and receipts.
To gather information on the Forest Service's expenditures on the
Project's salvage sales, we had to identify what activities and budget
line items are related to salvage sales because the Forest Service does
not report financial data on a sale-by-sale basis. We gathered
information for fiscal years 2003 through 2005 because this was the
period during which the Forest Service conducted work to plan and
implement the Project and its salvage sales and because 2005 is the
last fiscal year for which complete financial data are available. To
identify what activities are associated with salvage sales, we reviewed
the Forest Service timber sale preparation handbook that describes what
activities to include in the financial analysis of a timber sale. We
also interviewed Forest Service personnel about what activities and
expenditures should be included in a full accounting for a timber sale,
including a salvage harvest sale. Finally, we obtained and reviewed
previous Forest Service reports that referred to the total cost of its
timber sale program and reviewed the activities and expenditures
included in those estimates.[Footnote 29] We then worked with the
financial staff of the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest to identify
the expenditures for a range of activities included in these reports:
NEPA planning, timber sale preparation, timber sale administration,
reforestation activities, timber stand improvement activities, and
forest indirect expenditures.[Footnote 30] Most of these expenditures
occurred from two budget line items--one for appropriated timber funds
and one for the Salvage Sale Fund. We also included an estimate of
regional and Washington Office expenditures. Because the Forest Service
does not account for the costs of timber sales, we had no basis to
allocate regional and Washington expenditures and as a result, used the
forest's assessment rate for regional and Washington Office costs for
the Salvage Sale Fund. The rate, 5.2 percent, was charged to all
Salvage Sale Fund plans by the forest staff in fiscal years 2001
through 2005 to collect funding to pay for regional and Washington
Office activities. Finally, because law enforcement and litigation are
activities directly related to salvage sales, we obtained expenditures
from the Forest Service's law enforcement regional office located in
Portland, Oregon, and from the Department of Agriculture's Office of
General Counsel and the Department of Justice's Environment and Natural
Resources Division for their work related to litigation and other legal
services for the salvage sales. The law enforcement expenditures
represent overtime and travel expenditures for officers who worked on
the Biscuit Fire salvage sales; the expenditures for the Departments of
Agriculture and Justice represent salaries for the attorneys involved
in litigation and other legal services. To determine the reliability of
the Forest Service data, we interviewed Forest Service financial
officials responsible for the Foundation Financial Information System
and the auditors responsible for reviewing the Forest Service's annual
financial statements to determine if there were any material weaknesses
relevant to the data. We determined that there were none and that the
data are reliable for our purpose of reporting Biscuit Fire salvage
sale expenditures. We are relying on the reported expenditures of the
Departments of Agriculture and Justice.
We reviewed the Forest Service's estimated financial and economic
results for the proposed salvage sales in the Project EIS and discussed
specific aspects of the estimates with the Forest Service's Regional
Economist, the primary official responsible for these analyses. We
attempted to compare the financial results of the actual salvage sales
with the Forest Service's estimated financial results. However, because
during the course of our analysis the Forest Service held two more
salvage sales in the summer of 2006, the financial results--
expenditures and receipts--of the sales available to date were
incomplete. We also determined that there are methodological
differences in the calculation of expenditures. We determined that the
Forest Service does not report economic results, and we could not make
the comparison of economic results and estimates, although such a
comparison could be made if the appropriate analysis were conducted. We
attempted to adjust the EIS estimates to make a comparison based only
on the sales conducted through 2005 by disaggregating the EIS estimates
by sale. The disaggregated results would have enabled us to use only
the results of comparable EIS sales as the basis of comparison with the
results of sales actually sold though 2005; however, we determined that
the EIS estimates, which were based on broad averages across the land
types, could not be disaggregated and attributed to individual sales.
To determine the status of other recovery project activities, we
interviewed forest staff responsible for the activities included in the
records of decision and identified the sources of information available
to document the status. Different program staff are responsible for
conducting the activities in the Project, which include planting,
seeding, road maintenance, fuel management zones, research, and
monitoring activities. For activities other than research and
monitoring, we compiled and summarized the work conducted through
December 2005, reviewing contracts for planting work, accomplishment
reports for brush disposal work and wildlife rehabilitation activities,
and maps for fuel management zones. Where they were available, we
reviewed plans for work to be accomplished in the future. We presented
this information to the appropriate forest staff and confirmed the data
with them. To determine the status of the landscape-scale research
study, we interviewed the forest and Pacific Northwest Research Station
officials who developed the research proposal in the EIS. The officials
provided an update of the status, which we then confirmed with forest
officials. Finally, we obtained a copy of the most recent monitoring
schedule and discussed the monitoring program with the forest's timber
manager.
To determine the extent and cause of reported improper logging, we
obtained and reviewed Forest Service reports on the three incidents in
the Babyfoot Lake Botanical Area, Kalmiopsis Wilderness, and Wafer sale
to determine the facts of the incidents. We then reviewed an Office of
Inspector General report on the Babyfoot Lake incident and two law
enforcement reports on the wilderness and Wafer sale incidents to
determine other views of the incidents. We visited the Babyfoot Lake
site to view the correct boundary and the improperly harvested area. We
interviewed Forest Service officials responsible for the day-to-day
oversight and operations of timber sales, representatives of a local
environmental group monitoring the salvage sales and responsible for
discovering the Babyfoot Lake incident, and law enforcement and Office
of Inspector General officials who reviewed the cases to determine the
Forest Service's response to the incidents. To determine the Forest
Service's response to other claims of improper harvest, we reviewed a
file of letters and agency responses. We also reviewed reports from a
third-party monitor who visited sale sites that had been harvested and
viewed the results of operations.
We performed our work in accordance with generally accepted government
auditing standards from November 2005 through July 2006.
[End of section]
Appendix II Comments from the Forest Service:
USDA United States Department of Agriculture:
Forest Service:
Washington Office:
1400 Independence Avenue, SW:
Washington, DC 20250:
File Code: 1420:
Date: SEP 07 2006
Ms. Robin Nazzaro:
Director:
Natural Resources and Environment:
U.S. Government Accountability Office:
441 G Street, N.W.:
Washington, DC 20548:
Dear Ms. Nazzaro:
The Forest Service has the following comments on the Biscuit Fire
Recovery Project Draft, GAO-06-967. Most of the comments are an attempt
to clarify the document. Our suggestions are as follows:
PAGE 13:
First bullet; line 2: after the words environmental assessment, add "to
determine if an environmental impact statement is needed.." and at the
end of the sentence add "is needed."
First bullet; line 7: change environmental analysis to environmental
impact statement.
First bullet, lines 8-14: reword the last part of that paragraph to
read as follows: "The Agency gives the public an opportunity to comment
on draft environmental impact statements. In addition, the Forest
Service has established procedures for administrative appeal of its
decisions, concerning projects and activities on National Forest System
lands. As a general rule, once the administrative appeals process is
complete, the public can litigate in federal court a decision on a
particular project."
Last bullet, lines 1-4 (continues to page 14), reword as follows: "In
2001 the Forest Service issued a rule for managing its inventoried
roadless areas, which include lands that meet Forest Service roadless
area inventory criteria. In general these areas are 5000 acres or
larger, or if smaller, are contiguous to an existing Wilderness area.
These areas were previously considered for wilderness potential as part
of the Roadless Area Review and Evaluation (RARE) initiated in 1972 and
again in the 1979 RARE 11 study. Neither of these efforts was
successful in resolving issues that surround management of inventoried
areas. The 2001 rule was intended to provide lasting protection .."
(the rest of this sentence remains unchanged).
Footnote 8: begin the sentence with "Some" to make it clear that the
included list is not all exhaustive.
Caring for the Land and Serving People:
Printed on Recycled Paper:
PAGE 19:
Lines 11-12: we suggest that the phrase "one with the minimum work
needed to meet forest plan standards and guidelines .." could be better
worded. It might be more appropriate to say "but typically evaluates
two or more alternative ways of meeting the purpose and need of the
proposal.."
Overall the report provides a good view of what happened up to last
December. An explanation of the additional activities, including
litigation, controversies, and protests that occurred since then would
provide the readers an understanding of the complexities of trying to
manage fire projects. Also, although there is some discussion on the
differences in the projected volumes that might be harvested and those
that will ultimately be harvested, the report does not make it clear
that the planning processes and appeals do greatly reduce the final
volumes. The estimated volumes damaged are mostly fairly accurate. It
is the identification of resource values along with decay associated
with lapsed time that decreases the final harvest.
The recommendation to report progress to Congress will in some extent
take care of updating the information provide in the report which is
the status as of December 2005. As some minor work may be done in this
large area, we would recommend that the time frames on the report to
Congress be limited to the next 3-5 year period.
Sincerely,
[Signed by]
DALE N. BOSWORTH:
Chief:
The following are GAO's comments on the Forest Service's letter, dated
September 7, 2006.
GAO Comments:
1. We revised the report accordingly. We stated that the EIS is
required rather than needed.
2. We revised the report accordingly.
3. We revised the report accordingly.
4. We revised the report accordingly.
5. We revised the report accordingly.
6. We revised the report accordingly.
7. The report describes the status of sales through 2006, the
emergency situation determination used to expedite the sales, the
effects of litigation on the sales, and delays in the inventoried
roadless area sales. We believe this discussion is sufficiently
descriptive of these events and, therefore, did not make any changes to
the report in response to this comment. While the planning process was
a factor in the time taken to develop the EIS, we did not evaluate the
effects of the process on timber volumes because it was not one of the
objectives of this report. Also, the report does not discuss the
appeals process because the Forest Service used an emergency situation
determination, which eliminated the appeals process for 11 salvage
sales.
8. We disagree that the report should be limited to the next 3 to 5
years because some of the activities in the Project are likely to
extend beyond that period of time. For this reason, we continue to
believe that such a time limit should be based on the Project's
completion. We do believe there is value to providing the agency with
some discretion about when they discontinue the report. Therefore, we
revised the recommendation to state that the reports should be provided
until the Project's activities are substantially complete.
[End of section]
Appendix III:
GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments:
GAO Contact:
Robin M. Nazzaro (202) 512-3841 or [Hyperlink, nazzaror@gao.gov]
azzaror@gao.gov:
Staff Acknowledgments:
In addition to the individual named above, David P. Bixler, Assistant
Director; Susan Iott; Rich Johnson; Mehrzad Nadji; and Dawn Shorey made
key contributions to this report. Joyce Evans, Lisa Knight, John
Mingus, Cynthia Norris, Alison O'Neill, Kim Raheb, Jena Sinkfield, Jay
Smale, and Gail Traynham also made important contributions to this
report.
(360651):
FOOTNOTES
[1] GAO reported on the federal government's efforts to suppress the
Biscuit Fire in GAO, Biscuit Fire: Analysis of Fire Response, Resource
Availability, and Personnel Certification Standards, GAO-04-426
(Washington, D.C.: Apr. 12, 2004).
[2] GAO reported on this program in GAO, Wildland Fires: Better
Information Needed on Effectiveness of Emergency Stabilization and
Rehabilitation Treatments, GAO-03-430 (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 4, 2003).
[3] GAO, Wildland Fire Rehabilitation and Restoration: Forest Service
and BLM Could Benefit from Improved Information on Status of Needed
Work, GAO-06-670 (Washington, D.C.: June 30, 2006).
[4] There are 155 nationally proclaimed forests, some of which have
been joined administratively to enable better management, resulting in
123 administrative units.
[5] The Siskiyou National Forest and the Rogue River National Forest
have separate forest plans that were approved in 1989 and 1990,
respectively.
[6] A board foot is the volume of a piece of wood 1-foot square and 1-
inch thick.
[7] The fire also burned a small portion of the Six Rivers National
Forest in California and the Medford District of the Bureau of Land
Management.
[8] Some Forest Service activities that are subject to a categorical
exclusion include actions to (1) repair and maintain roads and trails,
(2) regenerate an area to native tree species, including site
preparation, and (3) maintain and repair recreation sites and
facilities.
[9] Under these regulations, an appeal must be filed within 45 days of
the public notice of decision and the appeal must be decided within 45
days after the appeal period closes. The project may be implemented on
or after15 days following the appeal decision. The regional forester
decides appeals of project decisions by forest supervisors within the
region. Regardless of appeals, that portion of a project determined to
be an emergency situation may proceed immediately. Emergency situations
include those where immediate implementation of a decision is necessary
to provide relief from hazards threatening human health and safety or
natural resources, or situations that would result in substantial loss
of economic value to the federal government if delays occurred.
[10] Under the Wilderness Act of 1964, the Forest Service undertook a
planning effort to identify roadless areas to be added to the
wilderness system and those to be opened to development, called the
Roadless Area Review and Evaluation. It undertook a second evaluation,
called the Roadless Area Review and Evaluation II beginning in 1977 and
completed it in 1979.
[11] Wyoming v. USDA, 277 F. Supp. 2d 1197 (D. Wyo. 2003), vacated as
moot 414 F. 3d 1207 (10TH Cir. 2005).
[12] As of July 2006, the Department of Agriculture had agreed to work
with three states--Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina--to
make state-specific rules governing inventoried roadless areas. Three
states--California, New Mexico, and Oregon--have filed a lawsuit
challenging the repeal of the 2001 rules, and Oregon and Washington
filed petitions with the Department of Agriculture asking that states
be allowed to follow the 2001 rules.
[13] We are exploring with the Department of Agriculture the
availability of these appropriations for the purpose of funding
rehabilitation and restoration projects.
[14] The Knutson-Vandenberg (K-V) Act of 1930 (16 U.S.C. 576-576b)
established a trust fund to collect a portion of timber sale receipts
to pay for reforesting areas from which timber is cut. The
reforestation projects eligible for such funding include growing trees
for planting, planting trees, sowing seeds, removing weeds and other
competing vegetation, and preventing animals from damaging new trees.
The act was amended in 1976 to allow the Forest Service to use these
funds for other activities, such as creating wildlife habitat. It was
amended again in 2005 to authorize expenditures within the entire
Forest Service region in which the timber sale occurred.
[15] The most significant partnership is the one established by the
Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000.
Under this act, the agency can use resource advisory committee funds,
which are provided to forests for local stewardship projects chosen by
resource advisory committees. Under the act, counties may receive
certain annual payments in lieu of those that the county would have
received for timber harvests occurring on national forests within the
county. The county may reserve a portion of these funds for special
projects that benefit federal lands. These projects are to be proposed
by local resource advisory committees and must be approved by the
Forest Service, which can then carry out approved projects using the
reserved funds.
[16] The agency may or may not follow similar steps for smaller fires
or fires with less controversial activities. In such cases, Forest
Service officials may plan smaller projects or they may not plan any
activities if they do not expect to receive funding.
[17] The use of an economic rationale to support an emergency situation
determination was upheld in November 2004 in League of Wilderness
Defenders v. U.S. Forest Service, Civ. No. 04-488-HA (D. Or. 2004). The
use of an economic rationale was deemed "not an impermissible reading"
of the Appeals Reform Act, Earth Island Institute v. Pengilly, 376 F.
Supp. 2d 994, 1008-1009 (E.D. Cal. 2005). The Pengilly decision struck
down the regulation authorizing regional foresters to make emergency
situation determinations. Id. at 1009. The Chief of the Forest Service
is now the only official authorized to make such determinations.
[18] In May 2005, the Department of Agriculture repealed the 2001
roadless rule, issuing a new one in its place. In July 2005, the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit vacated the district court
decision, holding that the dispute giving rise to the original opinion
had become moot with the repeal of the 2001 rule.
[19] The figures for fiscal years 2001 and 2002 combine the budget and
staffing for the two forests.
[20] The industry association case was mostly dismissed, while certain
parts were voluntarily withdrawn. Most of the environmental claims were
rejected by the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon. The
environmental groups' appeals are pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the Ninth Circuit as of September 2006.
[21] Forest Service, Response to Appropriations Committees' Questions
(Washington, D.C.: March 2006).
[22] The plaintiffs in turn agreed to a stay of the court's
consideration of claims that the Biscuit Fire Recovery Project
inventoried roadless area record of decision violated the 2001 rule.
[23] Washington and Wyoming joined the lawsuit later.
[24] Because the Forest Service does not account for expenditures on a
sale-by-sale basis, the forest staff identified expenditures based on
their knowledge of the work conducted during fiscal years 2003 through
2005 and estimated regional and Washington Office expenditures based on
the percentage charged for regional and Washington Office costs against
the forest's salvage sale plans. Under Forest Service direction,
forests collect an assessment for regional and Washington Office
activities for the Salvage Sale Fund. Each forest calculates its own
assessment rate. In fiscal years 2001 through 2005, the rate for the
Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest was 5.2 percent.
[25] Within the Department of Justice, the Environment and Natural
Resources Division defends Executive Branch agencies in environmental
challenges to government programs and represents the United States in
matters concerning the stewardship of the nation's natural resources
and public lands. The division paid attorney salaries and travel
expenses to defend challenges to the Project from existing resources.
[26] To generate these estimates, the Forest Service assumed that all
salvage-related activities would be located in the area, and the local
job market and wood-processing sector could respond to this new demand.
To the extent that the salvage-related activities displace other
regional work, these estimates would be reduced.
[27] In 2005, the Congress amended the K-V act to specifically
authorize the expenditure of funds for watershed restoration; wildlife
habitat improvement; control of insects, disease, and noxious weeds;
community protection activities; and the maintenance of forest roads
within the Forest Service region in which the timber sale occurred.
[28] These figures do not include work conducted for the hazard sales.
[29] The Forest Service used to report on the full costs of the timber
program using the Timber Sale Program Information Reporting System.
Changes to the agency's accounting system and lack of interest caused
the agency to stop producing the reports.
[30] We did not include the annual payment made to local governments
under the Secure Rural Schools and Community Security Act of 2000. The
act established an alternative payment for counties that share federal
timber receipts. For fiscal years 2000 through 2006, the counties could
choose to receive payment based on the 25 percent amount established
under the act of May 23, 1908 or an average of the three highest 25
percent payments made during 1986 through 1999.
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