Roadless Proposal Doomed - Can you say elitism?


Recreational Access and Conservation - Conservation and Public Service Activities	Short Cuts
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By Dave Skinner

Article made possible by a grant from the Paragon Foundation

The so-called "environmental community" declared victory once Senator Larry Craig (R-ID) decided not to try to delay President Clinton's "roadless" initiative. Agriculture Undersecretary Jim Lyons crowed to AP, "Craig knows there's tremendous popular support for the (roadless) proposal." How can there be such "support" for a document that literally nobody has read? The draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) noted that only 30,000 people (out of 270 million Americans) actually made "original" comments. Only one in nine thousand people bothered to actively participate in the creation of the largest public lands policy initiative in decades...is that "tremendous popular support?" No. It's spin.

The popular support Lyons refers to is actually pre-written postcards and E-mails -- generated mainly through mass mailings and Website solicitations -- by environmental lobbying organizations. Millions in foundational grants have been spent to create the illusion of political support for this initiative.

But it's an illusion...the reality is that the only people who really support this document are those who wrote it behind closed doors, in violation of the law. Here are just a couple of random samples from the draft EIS: About the general impact of the "roadless" proposal will be, page S-36: "Prohibiting road construction and reconstruction in inventoried roadless areas would potentially have some important beneficial ecological effects." Would potentially, not WILL protect these lands.

Page 3-101: "Eight million acres of inventoried roadless areas are at risk of catastrophic fire. "

Page 3-106: "The current national average cost to mechanically treat and burn areas with heavy fuels is $176 to $276 per acre [but the initiative will increase that cost] as much as 50%." The trouble is, the Forest Service already cannot do needed work, and this will make it more expensive.

Page 3-129: In regard to implementing the roadless policy, the action alternatives maintain, "the most access for forest visitors and allows for the highest offer of special use permits." False. Forest Service data shows that 98% of forest users utilize means of access that will not be allowed under this proposal, access which currently needs no "special use permits" at all.

Page 3-176: "Roads also facilitate the poaching of many big game species such as caribou, pronghorn, mountain goat, bighorn sheep, wolf and grizzly bear." Now, are all hunters poachers? Is the only possible purpose of a road to "facilitate" crime? Never mind that wolves and grizzlies are listed as endangered, and goats and bighorns are usually spotted glued to the side of cliffs, far out of range of any road-bound "poachers."

Page 3-190: Timber communities have "high seasonal unemployment, high rates of population turnover, high divorce rates, and poor housing..." In addition: "Many people enter the wood products industry because it provides opportunities to earn high wages without having a high level of education." In their words, timber workers are divorce- prone, transient, slovenly, ignorant middle-class pretenders. Contrast that to data cited on page 3-168: "During 1994-95, 94.5% of the visitors to federally designated wilderness areas were white." "People who have completed college participate more in hiking and backpacking than those who have only high school education's, while the latter group participates more in off-highway driving." Can you say elitism?

Had enough? One more...Page 3-199-200: "All alternatives would remove the controversy over [roads and timber harvest]...This may reduce the number of future appeals and litigation at the forest level, which would reduce agency costs." Of course, there is no analysis (aside from "qualitative discussion") of how much environmentalist lawsuits have cost the taxpayer in delays and wasted staff resources.

It's clear that President Clinton's proposal is a very political document, completely lacking in scientific merit, created solely to serve special interests with an agenda. Maybe it could have survived a special-interest-beholden Congress scared of a presidential Appropriations veto. Nevertheless, those of us out here in the hinterlands who have actually read the 700-plus-page draft proposal and appendices understand, like Senator Craig, that there is no point in initiating a Congressional bloodbath when the initiative won't survive judicial scrutiny.

Dave Skinner lives near and plays in the Flathead National Forest in Montana.

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