Quincy, Plumas County -- As details of the Bush administration's wildfire hazard reduction plan leak out, critics are going ballistic, claiming it will greatly increase logging in the Sierra Nevada, California's signature mountain range.
That was made clear during discussions late last week in this north Sierra hamlet, the birthplace of one of two accords that govern logging in the Sierra.
The Bush plan, supported by Republican allies in the House and Senate, could be introduced as an amendment to the Department of the Interior's appropriations bill as soon as today.
Some Democrats, including California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, have said they may support the Republican plan.
As the details are now shaping up, the plan would allow national forest managers and western governors to suspend all environmental review and legal appeals for at least a year for fuel reduction programs on 10 million acres of federal wildlands.
The Bush initiative will have a far-reaching effect on the heavy coniferous forests that surround Quincy. Some locals welcome the proposals, saying it will provide jobs while reducing the threat of wildfire.
But many others -- including some supporters of selective logging -- worry it is far too aggressive, and that it will undercut community input in the management of local federal forests.
Forest activists fretfully discussed Bush's Healthy Forests Initiative as they toured tree-thinning programs conducted under the Sierra Nevada Framework and the Quincy Library Group Project, the two management plans that currently govern logging in the Sierra.
Michael Jackson, a member of the Quincy group, said he liked the part of the proposal that streamlines the forest service appeal process.
"(But) insofar as the Bush program would suspend NEPA (National Environmental Protection Act), it goes too far," Jackson said. "If this changes NEPA, then it's the wrong approach."
Plenty of acrimony went into the forging of the Quincy project and the Sierra framework. Generally speaking, Sierra communities and the timber industry favor the Quincy plan while environmentalists support the framework.
Today, the framework manages timber harvesting in the 11 national forests of the Sierra. The emphasis is on endangered species protection and the preservation of old-growth trees.
The framework specifically addresses the Plumas, Lassen and Tahoe national forests, where there generally is increased cutting to enhance wildfire protection. The five-year project calls for the annual thinning of 40,000 to 60,000 acres of woodland.
But the Bush initiative will dwarf the Quincy plan. And that's tantamount to leveling the forest in order to save it, said Jay Watson, the western regional director of the Wilderness Society.
"It's very simple," said Watson, a Sierra framework proponent, as he reviewed recent fire hazard reduction projects with both Quincy and framework supporters. "Bush and the Republican Congress are trying to get the U.S. Forest Service back into the timber business, to return to the old policies that bankrupted our forests in the past. If these (current accords) are waived,
it will completely end the commonality of thought on rational forest management that we've achieved over decades of hard work. It will be a travesty."
On the surface, the accelerated logging called for by Bush would seem to jibe with Quincy group goals: less fire hazard, more logs for local mills, more money circulating in the community.
But that's not necessarily so. Framework supporters and Quincy project proponents alike fear their cherished plans already may have been undermined by Bush's agenda.
Linda Blum, one of the prime movers behind the Quincy project, was pointed in her evaluation.
The first projects implemented by the forest service under the Quincy plan were sound, said Blum, "but I've been horrified by the latest projects. They're absolute crap -- nothing at all like what we wanted."
Blum was referring to forest service administrative studies that would allow moderate to intensive logging -- including small clear cuts -- on tens of thousands of acres of California spotted owl habitat in the Plumas and Lassen national forests.
The goal of the studies is to determine the impacts of different harvest methodologies on the endangered owls. The administrative study projects could receive final approval from the service within a year.
Such studies are authorized under the Sierra framework, but Blum and others think the forest service is making liberal use of loopholes in the plan. The administrative study is environmentally unsound, says Blum, going far beyond the scope of the thinning called for under the Quincy plan.
Framework supporters are even more upset than Blum about the administrative study projects.
"The forest service has made these studies a No. 1 priority," said Craig Thomas, the director of the Sierra Nevada Forest Protection Campaign. "Bush has signaled this is just what he wants. The studies exist for one purpose -- to get the cut (increased)."
But Bernie Weingardt, the forest service's deputy regional forester for resources in California, said the studies are driven by a need for data, not a desire to maximize the timber harvest.
"These (studies) were peer reviewed, and they're meant to address a large gap in our information," said Weingardt. "In order to see the effects of logging on the owls, their habitat and their prey species, you have to cut the trees. . . . This is about collecting critical data, not cutting a bunch of timber and trying to get away with it."
And not everyone in the Sierra is leery of the Bush proposals. Professional foresters, in particular, are heartened by them.
"We need some common sense to prevail so we can have activity on the ground and get these fuels reduced," said Jay Francis, the forest manager for Collins Pine Company, a timber company based in Chester, about 40 miles north of Quincy.
As timber companies go, Collins is considered progressive. The owner of 94, 000 acres of California timberland, Collins was the first U.S. wood products firm certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, which provides its imprimatur only to those companies that can meet a rigorous set of criteria demonstrating their trees are harvested in an environmentally sustainable fashion.
"I really don't think Bush will go too gung-ho on this," said Francis, as he watched loggers operate yarders and a large chipper on a fuel reduction project east of Quincy.
"There are just too many watchdogs around for anybody to get away with much, " said Francis. "And the end result is going to be fewer catastrophic fires. If we have to selectively log a few hundred acres to save thousands of acres from fire, it's worth it."
For his part, Watson said there is wide agreement on all sides of the forest debate that fuels must be reduced.
"Many people, people on all sides, want to see the work done," he said. "But the Republican Congress and the administration is poised to blow it all up and repolarize people."
Environmentalists vow to hit the trenches if the Bush plan is adopted.
"It's going to be war in the woods," said Brian Vincent, the California organizer for the American Lands Alliance. "There will be tree sits, road blockades and occupation of lawmakers' offices. When you remove the public's ability to legally challenge timber sales, protest is all that's left."
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