NEPA

 Dear Chief Tony Tooke,

As a Timber Sale Contract Administrator from 1975 to 1995 on four National Forests, including the Six Rivers, Plumas, Siskiyou and Umpqua Forests, I saw first hand the need for NEPA and public input in the planning process of timber sales.   Even back then many environmental and ecological concerns slipped through the cracks causing damage to the ecosystem, especially to the watersheds and fishery resource.  

Attached is a letter to Congress on my thoughts in regards to short-cutting the NEPA process through HR 2936.

December 10, 2017

To:  Oregon Congressional Delegation

Re:  Resilient Federal Forest Act (HR 2936)

 We are experiencing catastrophic wildfires for the following reasons:  (1) suppression of fires for the last century (2) decades of even-aged management producing overgrown plantations prone to fires, and (3) drier and warmer summers due to a changing climate.  We don’t want to repeat past management practices that got us into this situation, in addition to the declining fisheries, landslides, loss of wildlife habitat and degradation of our watersheds.   In many ways we are still paying for decades of mismanagement of our public forests.

Categorical Exclusions (CE) have their place where there are no environmental concerns.  But placing an upper acreage limit for using a CE (for example, allowing up to 10,000 acres for salvage logging without an environmental analysis with the excuse that there are no environmental concerns in that size project area) is ludicrous.  What about the effects of any new road construction, reconstruction, watershed analysis and other resource protection needs?  Using a CE in this way is a prescription for disaster and destroys the public’s trust.   A CE should not be used to appease the timber industry with mass production of timber sales which could lead to speculation, as in the 1980’s, or to supplement the overcutting of their own timber lands and/or the export of those private logs to China.

There is a need for separate funding for wildfire suppression through FEMA and more appropriated funds to land management agencies for:  fire prevention by thinning, prescribed burning, development of fuel breaks, and harvest prescriptions for controlling insect and disease infestations. 

Please keep me informed on the status of this act as it progresses in the Senate.

 

Mike Burke

855 Wildflower Lane

Oakland, OR 97462                          

 farmhand.mike@gmail.com