Opinion Forest hearing missed most important points

Congressman Walden's hearing in Sisters may have been a political success, but it failed as a forum on forest issues.

The bias of many of the speakers was so transparent that it will further polarize the issues. And only invited speakers could speak. We'll be lucky if the reaction to the propaganda doesn't destroy the hard-earned credibility forest managers have been nurturing.

Calling it a "hearing" was a misuse of the term. A public hearing means that the sponsor hears the public, not that the public hears the sponsor and those who've been invited because they fit the script. That's the way congressional hearings, particularly field hearings, used to function.

Political events shouldn't be funded with public money under false pretenses. Credible and diverse specialists should have been invited to present all sides of the issues.

The Forest Service representatives tried to be helpful, but didn't want to misrepresent the situation or the science. Ouch!

Since Congressman Walden seemed puzzled about why the Warm Springs Tribal Government could salvage logs so quickly as compared to the Forest Service, here are a few hints.

There are about 4,000 tribal members and many live on the Reservation. This is less than 0.002 of one percent of the over 250 million people from New York to Los Angeles who own the land and water that the Forest Service manages as the land steward. So it takes a longer and more complex process to define the options and get acceptance from a broad spectrum of public landowners and the groups that represent them.

As agents of the Warm Springs People, the Reservation foresters wouldn't dare compromise the fish, wildlife and cultural resources of their land for a few dollars more in timber receipts.

The scripted hearing totally missed the essence of the land, water and resources around Sisters. The Deschutes and Metolius watersheds contain marginal timber, but both are in the highest category for blue ribbon fisheries that have exceptional economic and ecological value.

If a developer proposed building amenities in this county with even one percent of the value of the Deschutes and Metolius Rivers, everything possible would be done to facilitate such "improvements." But since the Metolius, Deschutes, and their tributaries are natural they have been taken for granted and abused for decades. The Sisters hearing tilted badly toward compromising them even more.

I left a Forest Service tour of the B&B Fire area right before the hearing feeling confident that a good and conscientious job would be done in the scoping of a salvage proposal. But the staged hearing brought me back to the reality that logging "group think" continues to be encouraged.

The plans that are needed for the B&B recovery area should emphasize reducing the existing and future habitat problems for fish and wildlife, with wood removal secondary. Thinning and prescribed burning to protect Camp Sherman from fire are also essential.

Such an effort could gain national credibility and support and be a model for areas with a similar resource base.

In most Western forests, erosion associated with roads, fire or equipment used in fire suppression is the number-one cause of fish habitat loss through spawning gravel sedimentation. The method of removing logs can also cause severe soil and sedimentation problems.

Wildland areas typically have annual erosion rates of 25 to 30 tons per square mile. Following road construction and logging the rates are usually in the thousands of tons per square mile.

New forest roads are usually a mistake. We're spending millions of public dollars to restore streams, many of which were damaged by erosion from logging roads and log removal. We should learn from our mistakes and cut future losses.