Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, August 8, 1995 TAG: 9508080040
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: J.A. SAVAGE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Because this herbicide kills everything but commercially valuable conifers, the spraying was called ``vegetation management.'' Designed to force future lumber to grow faster, spraying carcinogens was deemed ``in the public's interest.''
In the early 1980s, the Forest Service attempted to increase tree growth through vegetation management by experimenting with concussion bombs to clear land and napalm to set backfires.
In the 1990s, the government also sold off much of the remaining public forest in the Pacific Northwest and Northern California to be clear-cut. This was also at the behest of legislators ``in the public's interest'' for timber supplies and timber-industry economic stabilization.
Just when environmentalists thought forest management could get no worse, it did. President Clinton has quietly signed a bill requiring the Forest Service to log the public's forests to prevent forest fires - in the public's interest.
The new requirement is termed ``salvage sales,'' a twisted label that allows timber companies and the Forest Service to get around all environmental laws, including the Endangered Species Act. The impossible logic of the government is that industry must be allowed to cut down the forests to avoid the potential of fires. No trees, no fires.
There is no limit on the amount of trees that are now required to be sold to industry to be cut down. In fact, the new law says that even if it costs taxpayers more to have the trees cut than it receives from their sale, it's still a required sale.
Here is how salvage-timber sales are defined in the bill:
The term ``salvage-timber sale'' means a timber sale for which an important reason for entry includes the removal of diseased or insect-infested trees, of dead, damaged or down trees, or of trees affected by fire or imminently susceptible to fire or insect attack.
Such term also includes the removal of associated trees or trees lacking the characteristics of a healthy and viable ecosystem for the purpose of ecosystem improvement or rehabilitation, except that any such sale must include an identifiable salvage component of trees described in the first sentence.
The determination is at the discretion of the U.S. Department of Agriculture or the Interior Department. It's not subject to administrative review.
As in the late 1970s, the only thing the government is really salvaging here is timber-industry profits.
Some forests are at risk for fire. But that, too, is the government's fault. For decades, the government has not allowed nature's small fires to clear low-lying brush. This natural cycle helps prevent catastrophic forest fires. Blame the Forest Service's Smokey-the-Bear mentality - extinguish flames at all costs.
Other methods can reduce fire hazards. Setting small brush-clearing fires or manual removal of brush does not, however, line the pockets of timber-industry giants and campaign contributors.
Predictably, environmentalists are furious. Sierra Clubbers went to the extreme of bringing chain saws to a press conference, although they did not say if the saws were from their own toolsheds or rented props.
They promised to fight the salvage sales in the courts and make it a high-profile campaign issue.
Meanwhile, expect timber companies to dust off their own chain saws and take full advantage of the booty the president just handed them.
J.A. Savage, a former forest firefighter, is a business and environment reporter based in Oakland, Calif.
- New York Times News Service
by CNB