Mixed news for watershed restoration in the President’s budget
The President’s budget was just released, and with it came increased attention to restoration within the Forest Service, unfortunately that was coupled with what appears to be a decrease in focus on the Legacy Roads and Trails Remediation Initiative. After a cursory view, it also seems that the increased attention on restoration continues a long-running trend within the Forest Service of creating new euphemisms for the old habit of logging.
It’s not all bad… the Forest Service portion of the President’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2011 (FY11) includes $50 million Legacy Roads and Trails, the same number he included in his proposed budget for FY10. We’re very pleased that the White House recognized that this program is valuable by keeping it in the budget. However, in FY10, Congress actually funded Legacy Roads and Trails at $90 million (nearly twice what the President’s budget proposed), and we had hoped the White House would propose to keep Legacy Roads and Trails at $90 million in FY11.
Rather than increasing Legacy Roads and Trails funding, the FY11 budget includes a new initiative for protecting water and creating jobs, but the language about that initiative is focused on landscape level activities like logging, biomass production and renewable energy as a way to protect and restore water quality. These are not the things that come to the top of my list when it comes to watershed and water quality protection. The new initiative doesn’t even mention the idea of road decommissioning. Here’s an excerpt:
We worked hard to establish the Legacy Roads and Trails program as something separate from timber management, and this has largely succeeded so far. But road reclamation and culvert upgrades must still be part of any comprehensive restoration approach (addressing forest stand structure, uncharacteristic fire danger, drought, etc.) the agency takes on. Thus our dismay that the new Integrated Resource Restoration program fails to mention the importance of reclaiming roads as part of this new “comprehensive” approach –even in the part of the new program that focuses specifically on water.
Instead, though I hope I’m wrong, this new Priority Watersheds and Job Stabilization program seems like a thinly veiled extension of the Forest Landscape Restoration Act (FLRA). (The FLRA provides funding for 10 landscape level restoration projects per year on FS lands – the focus is to reduce fire management costs and restore more natural fire regimes – much of which will likely be done through logging and prescribed burning. But projects can and should be more comprehensive, thus road reclamation and other activities are allowed. There are many good components of the FLRA, but it's focus and purpose is entirely different from Legacy Roads and Trails.)
In October 2009, we met with FS Chief Tidwell and asked him how he intended to implement Agriculture Secretary Vilsack’s vision for the Forest Service, which emphasizes water quality and watershed health. Chief Tidwell immediately pointed to the FLRA as the first step (though FLRA was about to be funded at $10 million, compared to $90 million for Legacy Roads). We were disappointed, but not surprised, that the Forest Service continues to gravitate towards what they know best – silviculture.
If this budget is adopted by Congress as written, logging and associated forest stand treatments will likely remain center stage, with Legacy Roads and Trails now seeming like a drop in the $694 million integrated resource restoration bucket.
We’ll be working hard to continue to elevate Legacy Roads and Trails to the position it deserves, especially in relation to Secretary Vilsack’s vision and the opportunity the Forest Service has to commit to projects that will have entirely beneficial effects on watersheds and water quality over the long term. In 2008 and 2009 alone the Forest Service projected that Legacy Roads and Trails funds would result in more than 2000 miles of road reclamation, more than 1000 miles of stream habitat restoration and more than 125,000 acres of watershed restoration – without any logging as part of the process! Expanding that work should be one of the key approaches the agency takes toward achieving the Secretary’s vision.
It’s not all bad… the Forest Service portion of the President’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2011 (FY11) includes $50 million Legacy Roads and Trails, the same number he included in his proposed budget for FY10. We’re very pleased that the White House recognized that this program is valuable by keeping it in the budget. However, in FY10, Congress actually funded Legacy Roads and Trails at $90 million (nearly twice what the President’s budget proposed), and we had hoped the White House would propose to keep Legacy Roads and Trails at $90 million in FY11.
Rather than increasing Legacy Roads and Trails funding, the FY11 budget includes a new initiative for protecting water and creating jobs, but the language about that initiative is focused on landscape level activities like logging, biomass production and renewable energy as a way to protect and restore water quality. These are not the things that come to the top of my list when it comes to watershed and water quality protection. The new initiative doesn’t even mention the idea of road decommissioning. Here’s an excerpt:
“The Forest Service is proposing to invest $50 million to improve watershed conditions through the new Priority Watersheds and Job Stabilization initiative as part of the Integrated Resource Restoration budget line item in the National Forest System Appropriation. Under this initiative, priority watersheds will be identified through a rapid watershed assessment. Large-scale (greater than 10,000 acres) watershed restoration projects within these priority watersheds will be selected through a national prioritized process which favors projects that demonstrate coordination with other Federal and State land management agencies or are in areas identified in State Forest Assessments; improve watershed function and health; create jobs or will contribute to job stability; and create or maintain biomass or renewable energy development. Restoration projects will clearly track accomplishments by evaluating change in watershed condition and counting the number of jobs created.”This excerpt includes two concepts to pay attention to – first, the creation of the new Priority Watersheds and Job Stabilization Initiative, and second, the new “Integrated Resource Restoration” budget line item (which is apparently cumulatively funded at $694 million, though it will take more time to figure out everything that is included in that number). With all the talk about restoration over the past few years, we’re not surprised that the agency is finally creating a budget line item to integrate their restoration activities. We’re very concerned, however, that this might mean that true watershed restoration work, with an emphasis on road reclamation and culvert upgrades, could once again become the ugly stepsister to scientifically controversial logging programs to “restore” forest structure while simultaneously providing board feet and biomass. While there are times where silvicultural projects can benefit watershed health, logging is not the primary tool for restoring clean water and healthy watersheds.
We worked hard to establish the Legacy Roads and Trails program as something separate from timber management, and this has largely succeeded so far. But road reclamation and culvert upgrades must still be part of any comprehensive restoration approach (addressing forest stand structure, uncharacteristic fire danger, drought, etc.) the agency takes on. Thus our dismay that the new Integrated Resource Restoration program fails to mention the importance of reclaiming roads as part of this new “comprehensive” approach –even in the part of the new program that focuses specifically on water.
Instead, though I hope I’m wrong, this new Priority Watersheds and Job Stabilization program seems like a thinly veiled extension of the Forest Landscape Restoration Act (FLRA). (The FLRA provides funding for 10 landscape level restoration projects per year on FS lands – the focus is to reduce fire management costs and restore more natural fire regimes – much of which will likely be done through logging and prescribed burning. But projects can and should be more comprehensive, thus road reclamation and other activities are allowed. There are many good components of the FLRA, but it's focus and purpose is entirely different from Legacy Roads and Trails.)
In October 2009, we met with FS Chief Tidwell and asked him how he intended to implement Agriculture Secretary Vilsack’s vision for the Forest Service, which emphasizes water quality and watershed health. Chief Tidwell immediately pointed to the FLRA as the first step (though FLRA was about to be funded at $10 million, compared to $90 million for Legacy Roads). We were disappointed, but not surprised, that the Forest Service continues to gravitate towards what they know best – silviculture.
If this budget is adopted by Congress as written, logging and associated forest stand treatments will likely remain center stage, with Legacy Roads and Trails now seeming like a drop in the $694 million integrated resource restoration bucket.
We’ll be working hard to continue to elevate Legacy Roads and Trails to the position it deserves, especially in relation to Secretary Vilsack’s vision and the opportunity the Forest Service has to commit to projects that will have entirely beneficial effects on watersheds and water quality over the long term. In 2008 and 2009 alone the Forest Service projected that Legacy Roads and Trails funds would result in more than 2000 miles of road reclamation, more than 1000 miles of stream habitat restoration and more than 125,000 acres of watershed restoration – without any logging as part of the process! Expanding that work should be one of the key approaches the agency takes toward achieving the Secretary’s vision.
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