
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, March 15, 1991                   TAG: 9103150803
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A/10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: STEPHEN A. BENNETT
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

ONLY TIMBER SALES MAKE U.S. A PROFIT

IS THE timber-sale program in national forests a losing proposition, as this newspaper's Feb. 18 editorial asked? The Wilderness Society advocates wilderness areas where timber cannot be harvested, but left to die and rot. You can hunt, fish and hike in these designated areas of national forests, but you cannot harvest timber, construct roads, or do wildlife and fish habitat improvement work.

These areas also cost taxpayers dollars to administer and protect, but they do not return one cent to the federal Treasury. In other words, wilderness-area management is also below cost. These areas benefit only a few people and add little to the local or national economy. Only the timber-sale and mineral programs return more dollars to the Treasury than they take to operate. Nationally, the Forest Service timber program showed a profit of more than $300 million this past year.

The Forest Service is required to issue a financial statement annually on the timber program. The only part used by such groups as the Wilderness Society is known as a cash-flow report. It shows dollars spent vs. dollars received.

It does not show benefits derived from the program, such as fish and wildlife habitat improvements; jobs created locally; dollars added to the local and national economy; value of roads constructed, which also serve hikers, hunters, fishermen, provide access for fire suppression, etc. Construction costs of the roads are counted against the timber sale, even though the roads will be used for many things for the next 30 to 50 years.

The cash-flow report shows the Jefferson National Forest collected 44 cents for every dollar invested in its timber program in 1990. The recreation program probably returned less than 10 cents for every dollar invested. Other programs don't return one cent. Of course, nothing in the law requires any of the programs, including timber, to return a profit. Maybe the Forest Service needs to prepare a report on its other programs as it does for timber.

The problem is the way the Forest Service is directed to do accounting for timber. For instance: The Forest Service returns to the Virginia counties where the public land is located approximately 75 cents for each acre of land; this is counted as a cost. These dollars come from 25 per cent of the gross revenues and funds, called tax in lieu. They can be used by the state only for schools and roads. They would be paid even if no timber was cut.

Every dollar a logger spends in the purchase of standing timber will increase to about $27 by the time the finished product reaches the consumer. This is new money brought into the area where the trees were cut, and helps the local economy. Private landowners can sell their timber at a higher price, since they don't have to pay high costs for the items that the Forest Service does.

Many private timberland owners will not sell their timber for any reason. The last timber inventory in Virginia, in 1986, showed that the timber cut on private land was equal to the annual growth rate of the timber on private land. If more was cut on private lands, it would not be long before that source of commercial standing trees was gone. The cuts in the national forests don't remove even as much as natural mortality; more trees die in the national forest than are being cut.

Without the timber from the national forests, where would we get lumber for houses, paper for newspapers and magazines, and the many other wood products we use every day? Would we become an importer of forest products? Will the preservation attitude cause an increase in unsound management of timber resources of Third World countries?

Any accountant can take a set of numbers and prove what he wants by not providing all the facts. This seems to be the case with the Feb. 18 editorial.

by CNB