GAO-01-1114R Fuel Reduction Projects

United States General Accounting Office

Washington, DC 20548

August 31, 2001

The Honorable Larry Craig

Ranking Minority Member

Subcommittee on Forests and Public Lands

Committee on Energy and Natural Resources

United States Senate

The Honorable Scott McInnis

Chairman, Subcommittee on

 Forests & Forest Health

Committee on Resources

House of Representatives

Subject: Forest Service: Appeals and Litigation of Fuel Reduction Projects

The nation’s forests have undergone significant changes over the last century and a

half. Human activities, especially the federal government’s decades-old practice of

suppressing all wildland fires, have resulted in the dangerous accumulation of

hazardous fuel on federal lands. To help address this problem, the Congress

appropriated over $205 million to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service

for fiscal year 2001 to be used to reduce these accumulated fuels. In an effort to put

as much of these newly appropriated monies on-the-ground as quickly as possible in

fiscal year 2001, the Forest Service identified and funded those hazardous fuel

reduction projects for which it had completed the necessary environmental analyses.

Concerned that appeals and litigation were delaying the implementation of these

projects, you asked us to identify (1) the number of hazardous fuel reduction projects

for which the Forest Service had completed the necessary environmental analyses

and funded implementation in fiscal year 2001, (2) the number of these projects that

had been appealed or litigated, and (3) who had appealed or litigated the project

decisions.

To obtain the information, we asked officials in the Forest Service’s headquarters and

in each of the agency’s nine regional offices to provide us with the number of

hazardous fuel reduction projects, by national forest, that were identified for

implementation in fiscal year 2001. We also asked them to provide the name of any

project that had been appealed or litigated, the national forest where the project was

located, the names of appellants or litigants, and the project’s status.
Page 2 GAO-01-1114R Fuel Reduction Projects

The Forest Service’s headquarters provided us with the number of hazardous fuel

reduction projects by region and national forest that were identified for

implementation in fiscal year 2001 as of July 18, 2001, the most recent date for which

this information was available (see encl. I). Each of the agency’s nine regional offices

provided us with the names of projects that had been appealed or litigated, the

national forest where the projects were located, the names of appellants or litigants,

and the project’s status as of early July 2001(see encl. II).

In summary, as of July 18, 2001, the Forest Service had completed the necessary

environmental analyses and had decided to implement 1,671 hazardous fuel reduction

projects in fiscal year 2001. Of these projects, 20 (about 1 percent) had been

appealed and none had been litigated. Appellants included environmental groups,

recreation groups, private industry interests, and individuals.

You asked that we provide you with the requested information as quickly as possible.

Therefore, as agreed, we did not verify the information that the Forest Service

provided to us.

- - - - -

We conducted our review in July and August 2001 in accordance with generally

accepted government auditing standards.

We are sending copies of this letter to the Chairman, Subcommittee on Forests and

Public Lands, Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources; the Ranking

Minority Member, Subcommittee on Forests & Forest Health, House Committee on

Resources; interested congressional committees; and the Chief, Forest Service. The

letter is also available on GAO's home page at http://www.gao.gov.

Please call me at (202) 512-3841 if you or your staff have any questions about this

letter. Key contributors to this letter were Charles Cotton and Alan Dominicci.

Barry T. Hill

Director, Natural Resources

 and Environment

Enclosures (2)
Page 3 GAO-01-1114R Fuel Reduction Projects

Enclosure I

Forest Service Hazardous Fuel Reduction Projects With

Completed Environmental Analyses, as of July 18, 2001

Region Forest name Fuel reduction projects with completed

environmental analyses, as of July 18, 2001

Beaverhead 26

Bitterroot 11

Idaho Panhandle 14

Clearwater 11

Custer 8

Flathead 13

Gallatin 2

Helena 35

Kootenai 38

Lewis And Clark 14

Lolo 29

Nezperce 16

1

Dakota Prairie Grasslands 1

Total Region 1 218

Bighorn 15

Black Hills 19

Grand Mesa/Uncompaghre/Gunnison 19

Medicine Bow/Routt 13

Nebraska 10

Rio Grande 9

Arapaho-Roosevelt 7

Pike-San Isabel 28

San Juan 18

Shoshone 11

2

White River 12

Total Region 2 161

Apache-Sitgreaves 30

Carson 13

Cibola 24

Coconino 21

Coronado 24

Gila 12

Kaibab 16

Lincoln 27

Prescott 6

Santa Fe 35

3

Tonto 30

Total Region 3 238
Page 4 GAO-01-1114R Fuel Reduction Projects

Ashley 4

Boise 8

Bridger-Teton 12

Dixie 15

Fishlake 7

Manti-La Sal 1

Payette 3

Salmon and Challis 7

Sawtooth 7

Targhee 6

Humboldt-Toiyabe 8

Uinta 3

4

Wasatch-Cache 1

Total Region 4 82

Angeles 7

Cleveland 13

Eldorado 23

Inyo 18

Klamath 19

Lassen 27

Los Padres 9

Mendocino 12

Modoc 31

Six Rivers 44

Plumas 28

San Bernardino 10

Sequoia 17

Shasta Trinity 10

Sierra 26

Stanislaus 33

Tahoe 32

5

Lake Tahoe Basin Mgmt Unit 30

Total Region 5 389

Deschutes 40

Fremont 13

Gifford Pinchot 1

Malheur 22

Mt Hood 0

Ochoco 15

Okanogan 12

Rogue River 2

Siskiyou 1

Siuslaw 1

Umatilla 15

Umpqua 7

Wallowa Whitman 27

Wenatchee 13

Willamette 2

Winema 11

6

Colville 9

Total Region 6 191
Page 5 GAO-01-1114R Fuel Reduction Projects

NFS Alabama 18

Daniel Boone 20

Chattahoochee and Oconee 11

Cherokee 6

NFS Florida 51

Kisatchie 15

NFS Mississippi 18

George Washington/Jefferson 10

Ouachita 26

Ozark-St Francis 34

NFS North Carolina 11

Francis Marion and Sumter 13

8

NF Texas 11

Total Region 8 244

Chippewa 10

Huron Manistee 50

Mark Twain 14

Ottawa 3

Shawnee 3

Superior 5

Hiawatha 12

Hoosier 1

Chequamegon-Nicolet 6

Wayne 1

Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie 5

Allegheny 2

Green Mountain 5

Monongahela 7

9

White Mountain 20

Total Region 9 144

10 Chugach 4

Total Region 10 4

Total in National Forest System 1,671

Source: GAO’s analysis of Forest Service data.
Page 6 GAO-01-1114R Fuel Reduction Projects

Enclosure II

Forest Service Fiscal Year 2001

Hazardous Fuel Reduction Projects

Appealed, as of Early July 2001

Region National forest

Fuel reduction

project name Appellant Project status

1 Idaho Panhandle Lakeface-Lamb Ecology Center et al Ready for

implementation.

1 Kootenai Foothills Ecology Center et al Ready for

implementation.

1 Helena Clancy-Unionville Ecology Center et al, Native

Ecosystem Council, Offhighway vehicle recreation

groups

Environmental analysis

requires more work and

a new decision.

2 White River Upper Blue National Forest Protection

Alliance, Colorado Wildlife,

Breckenridge Ski Area

Withdrawn pending

revision of the forest

plan.

3 Coconino Grand Canyon

Partnership

Assessment

Southwest Center for

Biodiversity, Southwest

Alliance, Forest Guardians

Withdrawn and replaced

with smaller projects.

4 Salmon/Challis Buck-n-Bird Ecology Center Being implemented.

4 Boise Dankskin Ecology Center Appeal withdrawn.

Project to be

implemented in fiscal

year 2002 because

current weather

conditions prevent

prescribed fire.

5 Plumas Cold Private Individual, Forest

Conservation Council

Pending a decision of the

appeal.

5 Plumas Kingsbury Rush Private Individual, Forest

Conservation Council

Pending a decision of the

appeal.

5 Plumas Lower Slate Forest Conservation Council Pending a decision of the

appeal.

5 Plumas Upper Slate Private Individual, Forest

Conservation Council

Pending a decision of the

appeal.

5 Plumas Waters Forest Conservation Council Ready for

implementation except

on 500 acres of original

8,000-acre project.
Page 7 GAO-01-1114R Fuel Reduction Projects

5 Plumas Stony Ridge Forest Conservation Council,

Plumas Forest Project,

National Forest Protection

Alliance

Ready for

implementation.

5 Lassen Pegleg A-21 Forest Conservation Council,

National Forest Protection

Alliance

Pending a decision of the

appeal.

5 Tahoe End-of-the-World National Forest Protection

Alliance, Forest Conservation

Council, Private Individual

Ready for

implementation.

5 Tahoe Liberty Forest Health

Improvement

Forest Issues Group, Sierra

Nevada Forest Protection

Coalition, Forest Conservation

Council, National Forest

Protection Alliance, Private

Individual

Was revised and

submitted as Project

Liberty II.

5 Tahoe Liberty II Forest Issues Group, National

Forest Protection Alliance,

Forest Conservation Council,

Private Individual

Ready for

implementation.

8 Daniel Boone Salvage Harvest Due

to 1998 Storm

Damage

Heartwood Group Being implemented.

8 Sabine Prescribed burning

for wildlife habitat

improvement and fuel

reduction

Texas Committee on Natural

Resources

Being implemented.

9 Chippewa Storm 2000 Superior Wilderness Action

Network

Ready for

implementation.

Source: GAO’s analysis of Forest Service data.

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