When it comes to salmon recovery, decommissioning and removing dams grabs the headlines. But decaying roads are equally damaging to endangered salmon populations and may just get the attention-and funding-they need.
In June, the House of Representatives approved a $65 million expenditure to decommission, repair and maintain Forest Service roads throughout the country in order to protect community water sources and threatened, endangered and sensitive species.
"If we do not fix our roads, we will have to drink our roads - after they slide into our streams." That's how Representative Norm Dicks (D-WA) appropriately framed the problem, a problem that can be attributed to chronic under-funding of Forest Service road management. Rep. Dicks, from the Olympic Peninsula, sponsored HR 2643 where the $65 million allocation is found. The bill passed the House with bipartisan support. If approved by the Senate, the allocation would fund watershed restoration by paying for road decommissioning and culvert upgrades that improve fisheries and making urgent repairs to storm damaged roads.
A chronic lack of investment in aging forest roads endangers public lands, clean water and fish populations. Thousands of miles of Forest Service roads in Washington and other northwest states block salmon passage and are at risk of triggering destructive landslides. Sediment from these roads smother salmon and other fish eggs with sediment and dirty our drinking water.
Two Seattle television news programs recently featured this issue. Watch the videos broadcast by KING-TV [1] and KOMO-TV [2] on YouTube.
Prominent leaders have also editorialized in support of the bill:
- Deterioration of forest roads threatens our drinking water, an Op-Ed by Mike Dombeck [3]. Mike Dombeck for the San Jose Mercury News. October 18, 2007.
- Guest columnist: Feds must live up to commitment to maintain failing logging roads [4]. Jay Manning, director of WA Department of Ecology, special to the Seattle Times. September 13, 2007.
"Thankfully Congressman Dicks is leading the effort to get Washington State on track to address the problems derived from the legacy of logging roads. Without Congressional support, failing Forest Service roads will seriously undermine state efforts to restore the Puget Sound and the rivers that feed the Sound," said Sue Gunn, Washington state representative for Wildlands CPR.
Seasoned Congressman Norm Dicks stands at the helm of this initiative but relies on the brain trust and footwork of a diverse collection of interests committed to salmon recovery and watershed restoration. These parties include Washington state officials, Indian tribes of western Washington, Wildlands CPR and several other conservation groups in Washington and elsewhere around the west.
If adopted by the Senate, this $65 million investment would be the largest direct allocation that the Forest Service has ever received for watershed restoration through road decommissioning. Rep. Dicks has spearheaded this effort because failures in Forest Service roads in Washington state have resulted in violations of the Clean Water Act; many of the agency's roads are in such disrepair that they don't even meet state road standards. The Forest Service estimates that it needs $300 million to decommission and repair its roads in Washington in order to meet the state's standards.
Nationally, the Forest Service estimates that they need to remove an estimated 186,000 miles of roads to bring the road system down to a manageable, maintainable system that still meets the needs of the agency and forest users. A 2003 Wildlands CPR study [4] found that it would cost approximately $93 million per year for about 20 years to implement a national road removal plan. That $93 million would provide between 2,000-3,000 high-wage, high-skill jobs in rural communities, making such an appropriation good for the land, and good for the communities that depend on the land.
If the Dicks' appropriation is approved in the Senate version of the appropriations bill as well, it would be the first direct appropriation towards that long-term restoration goal and the first serious effort to address the massive backlog of maintenance for forest roads. But Senate passage is not a done deal, as the current Senate version, S. 1696, sponsored by Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), does not allocate the additional funding needed for watershed restoration.
"The backlog of failing national forest roads in Washington grows daily," said Washington Governor Chris Gregoire. "Congress has an opportunity, and an obligation, to act now and provide adequate funding. The longer we wait, the more expensive the cure for our ailing watersheds and salmon habitats on national forest lands." The state may actually be forced to sue the Forest Service for not complying with the Clean Water Act if the agency does not begin to improve fish passage by upgrading culverts and removing unnecessary, damaging roads.
Wildlands CPR is part of the coalition that helped craft and build support for Dicks' proposal. Wildlands CPR recently contracted with Sue Gunn to represent the organization in this impressive coalition. Sue has a PhD in isotope geology and years of experience working on conservation appropriations and public land issues. Wildlands CPR brings experience with hands-on road decommissioning, funding such projects, and, perhaps most importantly, prompting cooperation among a diversity of interests. In Montana, Wildands CPR has helped bring restoration businesses, the Forest Service, universities, public agencies, labor unions and conservationists together to identify, prioritize and pursue state-supported restoration projects.
Other Washington coalition members include the state Department of Ecology [5], Department of Fish and Wildlife [6], treaty Indian tribes in western Washington [7], and 10 other conservation groups: the Olympic Forest Coalition [8], Pacific Rivers Council [9], American Whitewater [10], The Wilderness Society [11], Cascade Chapter Sierra Club [12], Alpine Lakes Protection Society [13], North Cascades Conservation Council [14], Pilchuck Audubon Society [15], The Mountaineers [16]and Washington Wilderness Coalition [17]. Other conservation groups around the country are also actively supporting Congressional efforts to remediate legacy roads on public lands.
For more information on the Washington Watershed Restoration Initiative:
- Contact Sue Gunn by emailing her at sue@wildlandscpr.org;
- Read the case statement [18] for this initiative prepared by the Washington coalition;
- Visit the information-rich webpages on this initiative [19] maintained by the Washington Department of Ecology;
- Read the House language by searching here [20] for "H.R. 2643" and clicking on the "Capital Improvement and Maintenance" section;
- Read the Senate language by searching here [21] for "S. 1696" and clicking on the "Capital Improvement and Maintenance" section.
- Read Senator Cantwell's letter [21] to the Forest Service re: their roads program, the Forest Service response, and our assessment of their response.