Congress Passes $50 Million for Watershed Restoration

We’ve heard a lot in the news over the past few days about finalization of spending bills for the remainder of Fiscal Year 2009 (FY09).   At long last, the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009 was signed into law today.  The act includes a spending measure for a handful of committees that were unable to pass their bills at the end of 2008 including the Interior Appropriations bill.  We’re very happy to report that the final bill included $50 million in funding for the Legacy Roads and Trails Remediation Initiative, an increase of $10 million over FY08 funding levels.

The Legacy Roads program is funded as part of the Forest Service’s Capital Improvement and Maintenance budget line item and is not considered one of the “earmarks” that have been so hotly debated in congress and the media this year.  The Forest Service projected that in 2008 the $40 million Legacy Roads program funding would:  

• decommission 303 miles of road;
• restore or enhance 581 miles of stream habitat;
• maintain or improve to standards 1,783 miles of trails;
• maintain or improve 1,907 miles of high clearance vehicle roads;
• construct or reconstruct 407 stream crossings to restore fish passage, and
• improve a minimum of 60,831 acres of habitat.  

The extension of this funding in 2009 will allow the expansion of critical watershed restoration work in forests across the nation.

In addition, thanks to the efforts of a broad coalition of groups, led by Wildlands CPR, forest watershed restoration funding was also included in the economic stimulus bill.  $650 million was allocated to the Capital Improvement and Maintenance line item for “priority road, bridge and trail maintenance and decommissioning, including related watershed restoration and ecosystem enhancement projects; facilities improvement, maintenance and renovation…”  It is not clear at this time what portion of that stimulus funding will be committed to Legacy Roads type activities but recommendations have been made to dedicate about half of the $650 million to road and trail work.  Since stimulus funds must be spent rapidly, the backlog of shovel ready projects will be depleted soon.  For this reason, we have recommended that FY09 and FY10 Legacy Roads funds prioritize NEPA planning expenditures to develop the shelf stock of projects that are ready to roll as funds come in.  Prioritizing the funds this way will also enable the agency to finally begin identifying their minimum road system, and the decommissioning needed to achieve that minimum system.