U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

58–515 u WASHINGTON : 1999

PUBLIC AND PRIVATE RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

AND PROTECTION ISSUES IN THE NATIONAL

FOREST SYSTEMS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON FOREST AND FOREST HEALTH

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

MAY 18, 1999, WASHINGTON, DC

Serial No. 106–29

Printed for the use of the Committee on Resources

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/house

or

Committee address: http://www.house.gov/resources

(II)

COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES

DON YOUNG, Alaska, Chairman

W.J. (BILLY) TAUZIN, Louisiana

JAMES V. HANSEN, Utah

JIM SAXTON, New Jersey

ELTON GALLEGLY, California

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

JOEL HEFLEY, Colorado

JOHN T. DOOLITTLE, California

WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland

KEN CALVERT, California

RICHARD W. POMBO, California

BARBARA CUBIN, Wyoming

HELEN CHENOWETH, Idaho

GEORGE P. RADANOVICH, California

WALTER B. JONES, JR., North Carolina

WILLIAM M. (MAC) THORNBERRY, Texas

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

KEVIN BRADY, Texas

JOHN PETERSON, Pennsylvania

RICK HILL, Montana

BOB SCHAFFER, Colorado

JIM GIBBONS, Nevada

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

GREG WALDEN, Oregon

DON SHERWOOD, Pennsylvania

ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina

MIKE SIMPSON, Idaho

THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado

GEORGE MILLER, California

NICK J. RAHALL II, West Virginia

BRUCE F. VENTO, Minnesota

DALE E. KILDEE, Michigan

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American

Samoa

NEIL ABERCROMBIE, Hawaii

SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas

OWEN B. PICKETT, Virginia

FRANK PALLONE, JR., New Jersey

CALVIN M. DOOLEY, California

CARLOS A. ROMERO-BARCELO ́, Puerto

Rico

ROBERT A. UNDERWOOD, Guam

PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island

ADAM SMITH, Washington

WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts

CHRIS JOHN, Louisiana

DONNA CHRISTIAN-CHRISTENSEN, Virgin

Islands

RON KIND, Wisconsin

JAY INSLEE, Washington

GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California

TOM UDALL, New Mexico

MARK UDALL, Colorado

JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York

RUSH D. HOLT, New Jersey

LLOYD A. JONES, Chief of Staff

ELIZABETH MEGGINSON, Chief Counsel

CHRISTINE KENNEDY, Chief Clerk/Administrator

JOHN LAWRENCE, Democratic Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON FOREST AND FOREST HEALTH

HELEN CHENOWETH, Idaho, Chairman

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

JOHN T. DOOLITTLE, California

WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland

JOHN PETERSON, Pennsylvania

RICK HILL, Montana

BOB SCHAFFER, Colorado

DON SHERWOOD, Pennsylvania

ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina

PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Washington

DALE E. KILDEE, Michigan

OWEN B. PICKETT, Virginia

RON KIND, Wisconsin

GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California

TOM UDALL, New Mexico

MARK UDALL, Colorado

JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York

DOUG CRANDALL, Staff Director

ANNE HEISSENBUTTEL, Legislative Staff

JEFF PETRICH, Minority Chief Counsel

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held May 18, 1999 ..................................................................................... 1

Statements of Members:

Chenoweth, Hon. Helen, a Representative in Congress from the State

of Idaho .......................................................................................................... 1

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 2

Statements of witnesses:

Anderson, Dale E., President, Pennsylvania Forest Industry Association,

Ridgway, Pennsylvania ................................................................................ 51

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 52

Hairston, Andy, Highland Enterprises, Incorporated, Grangeville, Idaho .. 7

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 10

Johnson, Brett C., Forks, Washington ............................................................ 82

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 83

Keller, Sheila, Treasurer, Montana Women in Timber, Kalispell, Montana ................................................................................................................ 63

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 65

Platt, Teresa, Executive Director, Fur Commission USA, Coronado, California .............................................................................................................. 16

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 18

Wasley, William F., Director, Law Enforcement and Investigations,

United States Forest Service ....................................................................... 3

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 5

(1)

PUBLIC AND PRIVATE RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AND PROTECTION ISSUES IN THE NATIONAL FOREST SYSTEMS

TUESDAY, MAY 18, 1999

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON FORESTS AND FOREST HEALTH,

COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES,

Washington, DC.

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:01 p.m., in Room

1334, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Helen Chenoweth

[chairwoman of the Subcommittee] presiding.

STATEMENT OF HON. HELEN CHENOWETH, A

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF IDAHO

Mrs. CHENOWETH. The Subcommittee on Forests and Forest

Health will come to order.

The Subcommittee is meeting today to hear testimony on public

and private resource management and protection issues in the National Forest System.

Under rule 4(g) of the Committee rules, any oral opening statements of hearings are limited to the chairman and the Ranking Minority Member. That will be afforded to the Ranking Minority

Member when he arrives at the Committee. This will allow us to

hear from our witnesses sooner and help members keep to their

schedules as well as facilitate your keeping to your schedules.

Therefore, if other members have statements, they will be included

in the hearing record.

Today’s oversight hearing will focus on the public and private resource management issues in the National Forest System. This

broad title allows us to hear from normal, hard-working citizens

from outside the Washington, DC beltway about a wide range of

issues dealing with our national forests where those citizens live

and work.

Our first panel will focus on law enforcement challenges within

the National Forest System, and partially services as a follow-up

to a hearing this Subcommittee held on June 23 of last year in the

Forest Service’s law enforcement activities. That hearing, which included only Forest Service and GAO witnesses, included extensive

testimony from the Forest Service’s Director of Law Enforcement

and Investigations, William Wasley, and I welcome Director

Wasley here today as a witness.

At last year’s hearing, members were concerned about the Forest

Service’s concentration of law enforcement activities in the WashVerDate 11-SEP-98 08:46 Dec 07, 1999 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 58515 HRESOUR1 PsN: HRESOUR1
2

ington office and the need to devolve more power to local law enforcement agencies through block grants. As chairman, I was very

concerned about the agency’s apparent failure to document citizens’

complaints against law enforcement personnel. Now, in general,

this Subcommittee was alarmed that very poor written records appeared to be kept on law enforcement.

That hearing, nearly one year ago, I requested that Director Wasley submit to the Subcommittee a report on eco-terrorism on

the national forests and what the Forest Service has done to combat those terrorists, including the use of conspiracy or RICO statutes. The response to this request, dated November 10, 1998 is a

one-page long document and begins with the sentence, ‘‘Although

the term ‘anti-timber terrorist group activities’ is unclear, we assume you are referring to unlawful acts committed by persons who

oppose the harvesting of timber from public lands.’’ This response,

frankly, is an insult to this Subcommittee, and it illustrates how

seriously the Forest Service is combating eco-terrorism. By having two private citizens as witnesses on our first panel, we will be able to put a human face on eco-terrorism within the

National Forest System and how law enforcement officials are dealing with it. I am particularly interested in hearing from my constituent, Andy Hairston, about his long-running feud with terrorists who have made every effort to prevent him from making a livelihood in northern Idaho. In talking with Mr. Hairston before the

hearing, I am disturbed about the Forest Service’s unwillingness to

aggressively bring these terrorists to justice. Our final panel is composed entirely of citizens whose commu- nities and livelihoods depend on their local national forests. Among

them are constituents of Subcommittee members John Peterson

and Rick Hill, and I look forward to their candid testimony about

what the changes the Forest Service needs to make to improve

their local community.

[The prepared statement of Mrs. Chenoweth follows:]

STATEMENT OF HON. HELEN CHENOWETH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM

THE STATE OF IDAHO

Today’s oversight hearing will focus on Public and Private Resource Management

Issues in the National Forest System. This broad title allows us to hear from normal

hard-working citizens from outside the Washington, DC beltway about a wide range

of issues dealing with the national forests where they live and work.

Our first panel will focus on law enforcement challenges within the National Forest System and partially serves as a follow-up to a hearing this Subcommittee held

on June 23 of last year on the Forest Service’s law enforcement activities.

That hearing, which included only Forest Service and GAO witnesses, included

extensive testimony from the Forest Service’s Director of Law Enforcement and Investigations William Wasley. I welcome Director Wasley here today as a witness.

At last year’s hearing, members were concerned about the Forest Service’s concentration of law enforcement activities in the Washington Office and the need to

devolve more power to local law enforcement agencies through block grants. As

Chairman, I was very concerned about the agency’s apparent failure to document

citizen’s complaints against law enforcement personnel. In general, the Subcommittee was alarmed that very poor written records appeared to be kept on law

enforcement.

At that hearing nearly one year ago, I requested that Director Wasley submit to

the Subcommittee a report on eco-terrorism on the national forests and what the

Forest Service has done to combat these terrorists, including the use of conspiracy

or R.I.C.O. statutes. The response to this request, dated November 10, 1998, is one

page long and begins with the sentence, ‘‘although the term ‘anti-timber terrorist

group activities’ is unclear, we assume you are referring to unlawful acts committed

3

by persons who oppose the harvesting of timber from public lands.’’ This response

is an insult to this Subcommittee and it illustrates how seriously the Forest Service

is combating eco-terrorism.

By having two private citizens as witnesses on our first panel, we will be able

to put a human face on ecoterrorism within the National Forest System and how

law enforcement officials are dealing with it. I am particularly interested in hearing

from my constituent Andy Hairston, about his long- running feud with terrorists,

who have made every effort to prevent him from making a livelihood in northern

Idaho. In talking with Mr. Hairston before the hearing, I am disturbed about the

Forest Service’s unwillingness to aggressively bring these terrorists to justice.

Our final panel is composed entirely of citizens whose communities and livelihoods depend on their local national forests. Among them are constituents of Subcommittee members John Peterson and Rick Hill. I look forward to their candid testimony about what changes the Forest Service needs to make to improve their local

communities.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. I will now introduce our first panel. Mr. William Wasley, Director of Law Enforcement and Investigations with

the U.S. Forest Service; welcome, sir. Mr. Andy Hairston, Highland

Enterprises, Incorporated, Grangeville, Idaho; welcome, sir. And

Ms. Teresa Platt, executive director, Fur Commission USA, Coronado, California; welcome, ma’am.

As explained in our first hearing, it is the intention of the chairman of the Committee to place all outside witnesses under the

oath. Now, this is a formality of the Committee that is meant to

assure open and honest discussion and should not afford the testimony given by witnesses and shouldn’t affect the testimony at all,

and I believe that all of the witnesses were informed of that before

this hearing today, and each of you have been provided with a copy

of the Committee rules.

Now, if you will please stand and raise your right hand, I will

administer the oath.

[Witnesses sworn.]

The Chair now recognizes Mr. Wasley for his testimony.

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM F. WASLEY, DIRECTOR, LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INVESTIGATIONS, UNITED STATES FOREST SERVICE

Mr. WASLEY. Thank you, Madam Chairman.

Madam Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, my name

is Bill Wasley, and I am the Director of the Forest Service Law Enforcement and Investigations Program. I am pleased to appear before you today to discuss Forest Service law enforcement.

The key elements of the Forest Service Law Enforcement and Investigations Program are protecting and serving the public and our

employees, protecting natural resources and other property under

the jurisdiction of the Forest Service, and cooperating with other

law enforcement agencies. We accomplish these key goals by applying the common sense crime prevention elements of education, engineering, and enforcement.

I appeared before this Subcommittee on June 23, 1998 to discuss

the Forest Service LE&I—Law Enforcement Investigations—program and structure, authorities, cooperation with State, local, and

other Federal agencies, and the unique and special challenges facing our program. As follow-up to the hearing, we also provided information and documents to the House Resources Committee on

various law enforcement matters and the reorganization of LE&I

4

within the Forest Service. I will briefly discuss each of the key elements of the LE&I Program.

Protection of visitors and users of the national forests and Forest

Service employees in the performance of their duties is the primary

mission of law enforcement and investigation. Crime is increasing,

at least on some national forests, and LE&I has responded to the

increasing workload in apprehending criminals and acting on

criminal activity within the confines of current staffing and cooperative support.

Security is important to the public. Criminal activity, such as

personal assault, gang activity, and the theft of property negatively

impact visitor experiences. Vandalism and theft at recreation facilities decrease public enjoyment and divert limited recreation dollars. Law enforcement personnel also operate as full partners with

the Forest Service in carrying out the Forest Service mission.

LE&I provides protection for natural resources, including timber,

water, soils, special forest products and archeological sites. Resource damage from arson and human-caused fires can be substantial. Unauthorized use of the national forest can damage natural

resources and property and cause irreversible impacts.

Timber theft remains a top priority of the Forest Service LE&I

staff. In 1998, there were over 35 cases dealing with timber theft.

The LE&I staff coordinates closely with the Forest Management

staff on all timber theft cases involving timber sale contracts.

Illicit drug labs and marijuana cultivation on national forest

lands continue to be a major concern. With adverse effects on natural resources and on public and employee safety. Toxic chemicals

used on illicit labs and marijuana gardens leach into soil and waterways causing negative impacts to vegetation, wildlife, and drinking water. Working cooperatively with our State and local law enforcement partners, the Forest Service eradicated over 330,000

marijuana plants last year and found 105 meth-amphetamine labs

and lab dumps on National Forest System lands, an increase from

1997 totals. Officers made over 2,800 arrests and seized over $4.8

million in assets.

Each year, increases in public use of National Forest System

lands cause increases in crimes against people and resources.

Other Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies are similarly faced with increasing crime trends that tax their abilities to

accomplish their work with limited resources.

The Cooperative Law Enforcement Act authorized the Forest

Service to reimburse local law enforcement agencies for expenses

associated with law enforcement services on National Forest System lands. In 1998, the Forest Service maintained some 530 cooperative agreements with State and local agencies for performance

of routine law enforcement patrol activities and 163 drug enforcement cooperative agreements. Over $6 million were provided

through these agreements to local law enforcement agencies. We

are currently developing a standardized cooperative agreement to

be used nationwide. Upon implementation, we will assess the level

of funding provided to each cooperative to cover their extraordinary

expenses incurred while working on National Forest System lands.

The Senate Appropriations Committee report for the Fiscal Year

1999 Department of Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations

5

Act directed the Forest Service to evaluate the comparative costs

of Forest Service uniformed law enforcement officers to those of

county enforcement officials and other uniformed Federal natural

resource oriented law enforcement officers. As part of this evaluation, an analysis will be conducted regarding the ability of local enforcement officials to enforce Federal statutes, give priority to such

statutes within the constraints of local priorities, attain Federal

training standards, prevent increased liability under the Federal

Tort Claims Act, and retain independence from external influence.

Initial findings should be completed near the end of May, 1999. In

addition, we will be conducting a random survey of country sheriffs

to assess their ability to undertake this activity. We expect those

results back this summer.

In summary, with the expectation that we will have one billion

visitor days on our national forests this year, the Law Enforcement

and Investigations Program is critical to protecting and serving the

public and our employees, protecting natural resources and other

property under the jurisdiction of the Forest Service, and cooperating with other law enforcement agencies. The job is immense,

and we are working hard at providing these services with the resources we have available to the do the job.

Thank you, Madam Chairman and members of the Subcommittee

for allowing me the opportunity to speak before you today. I am

ready to answer any questions you may have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wasley follows:]

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM F. WASLEY, DIRECTOR, LAW ENFORCEMENT AND

INVESTIGATIONS, FOREST SERVICE, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

Madam Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, my name is Bill Wasley,

and I am the Director of the Forest Service Law Enforcement and Investigations

program. I am pleased to appear before you today to discuss Forest Service law enforcement.

Key elements of the Forest Service Law Enforcement and Investigations (LE&I)

program are:

1. protecting and serving the public and our employees;

2. protecting natural resources and other property under the jurisdiction of the

Forest Service; and

3. cooperating with other law enforcement agencies.

We accomplish these key goals by applying the common sense crime prevention

elements of education, engineering, and enforcement.

I appeared before this Subcommittee on June 23, 1998, to discuss the Forest Service LE&I program and structure, authorities, cooperation with State, local, and

other Federal agencies, and the unique and special challenges facing our program.

As follow-up to the hearing we also provided information and documents to the

House Resources Committee on various law enforcement matters, and the reorganization of LE&I within the Forest Service.

I will briefly discuss each of the key elements of the LE&I program.

PROTECTING AND SERVING THE PUBLIC AND OUR EMPLOYEES

Protection of visitors and users of the National Forests and Forest Service employees in the performance of their duties is the primary mission of law enforcement

and investigation.

Crime is increasing, at least on some national forests, and LE&I has responded

to the increasing work load in apprehending criminals and acting on criminal activity within the confines of current staffing and cooperative support. Security is important to the public. Criminal activities such as personal assault, gang activity and

theft of property negatively impact visitor experiences. Vandalism and theft at

recreation facilities decrease public enjoyment and divert limited recreation dollars.

6

PROTECTING NATURAL RESOURCES

Law enforcement personnel also operate as full partners within the Forest Service

in carrying out the Forest Service mission. LE&I provides protection for natural resources, including timber, water, soils, special forest products, and archaeological

sites. Resource damage from arson and human-caused fires can be substantial. Unauthorized use of the national forests can damage natural resources and property

and cause irreversible impacts.

Timber theft remains a top priority of the Forest Service LE&I staff. In 1998, there were over 35 cases dealing with timber theft. The LE&I staff coordinates

closely with the Forest Management staff on all timber theft cases involving timber

sale contracts.

Illicit drug labs and marijuana cultivation on national forest lands continue to be a major concern, with adverse effects on natural resources and on public and employee safety. Toxic chemicals used in illicit labs and marijuana gardens leach into

soil and waterways causing negative impacts to vegetation, wildlife, and drinking

water. Working cooperatively with our state and local law enforcement partners, the

Forest Service eradicated over 330,000 marijuana plants last year and found 105

meth-amphetamine labs and lab dumps on National Forest System lands, an increase from 1997 totals. Officers made over 2,800 arrests and seized over $4.8 million dollars in assets.

COOPERATION WITH OUR PARTNERS

Each year increases in public use of National Forest System lands cause increases in crimes against people and resources. Other Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies are similarly faced with increasing crime trends that tax their abilities to accomplish their work with limited resources.

The Cooperative Law Enforcement Act authorizes the Forest Service to reimburse

local law enforcement agencies for expenses associated with law enforcement services on National Forest System lands. In 1998, the Forest Service maintained 530

cooperative agreements with State and local agencies for performance of routine law

enforcement patrol activities, and 163 drug enforcement cooperative agreements.

Over $6 million dollars were provided through these agreements to local law enforcement agencies. We are currently developing a standardized cooperative agreement to be used nationwide. Upon implementation, we will assess the level of funding provided to each cooperator to cover their extraordinary expenses incurred while

working on National Forest System lands. The Senate Appropriations Committee report for the fiscal year 1999 Department of Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations Act directed the Forest Service to

evaluate the comparative costs of Forest Service uniformed law enforcement officers

to those of county enforcement officials and other uniformed Federal natural resource oriented law enforcement officers. As part of this evaluation, an analysis will

be conducted regarding the ability of local enforcement officials to enforce Federal

statutes, give priority to such statutes within the constraints of local priorities, attain Federal training standards, prevent increased liability under the Federal Tort

Claims Act, and retain independence from external influence. Initial findings should

be completed by the end of May, 1999. In addition, we will be conducting a random

survey of county sheriffs to assess their ability to undertake this activity. We expect

those results back this summer.

SUMMARY

In summary, with the expectation that we will have one billion visitor-days on our

national forests this year, the law enforcement and investigations program is critical

to protecting and serving the public and our employees, protecting natural resources

and other property under the jurisdiction of the Forest Service, and cooperating

with other law enforcement agencies. The job is immense, and we are working hard

at providing these services with the resources we have available to do the job.

Thank you Madam Chairman and members of the Subcommittee for allowing me

the opportunity to speak before you today. I am ready to answer any questions you

may have.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Mr. Wasley.

Mr. Hairston, the Chair recognizes you for testimony. Before you

begin, I want to explain our light system. It is just like traffic

lights—green means go, and yellow means step on it——

[Laughter.]

[continuing] and red means stop. So, we welcome your testimony.

Mr. Hairston.

7

STATEMENT OF ANDY HAIRSTON, HIGHLAND ENTERPRISES,

INCORPORATED, GRANGEVILLE, IDAHO

Mr. HAIRSTON. Madam Chairman and respected members of the

Subcommittee, I thank you for the opportunity to speak before you

today. My name is Andy Hairston. I am the corporate treasurer and general manager of Highland Enterprises, Incorporated, a road

building and rock crushing company based in Grangeville, Idaho

who has been in business since 1976. Over the last decade, Highland has specialized in timber sale access road construction on the

national forest lands and private timber lands. We have strived to

build ecologically sound roads to prevent erosion and to provide

safe access for the harvesting of timber. These roads also provide

access for fire fighting, recreation, hunting, fishing, and many

other activities enjoyed by people visiting the national forests. During the summer of 1992, while working on a timber sale road construction project in the Cove Mallard area of the Nez Perce National Forest, we came into contact with members of the radical environmental group, Earth First, who were there to protest——

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Mr. Hairston?

Mr. HAIRSTON. Yes?

Mrs. CHENOWETH. I wonder if you could pull the mike closer to

you?

Mr. HAIRSTON. Yes, ma’am. We came into contact with members

of the radical environmental group, Earth First, who were there to

protest the timber sale. The Cove Mallard has been open for logging by the Forest Service to help improve forest health by removing dead and dying timber. The protesters have since used this

area as a focal point for their cause.

At the time, the Earth First protesters were not very organized

and did not present a significant safety threat to the employees of

Highland Enterprises. The next year, the protesters were very organized and presented a real safety threat. The activists progressed

from being just protestors to being environmental terrorists. They

severely vandalized road building equipment, locked themselves to

gates and trees, pulled up and destroyed construction stakes,

plugged culverts, set up tripods on roadways, and threw spikes,

slash, and rocks into the roadway to prevent vehicles from using

it. These events occurred on a daily basis and severely limited

Highlands road building activity. As a result, we were forced to

hire security personnel to watch the equipment when not in use.

The additional cost along with the cost from lost production and

vandalized equipment became a large financial burden.

During these protests, many arrests were made by both the

Idaho County Sheriff Department and Forest Service law enforcement. The Sheriff’s Department and Idaho County prosecuting attorney aggressively prosecuted these environmental terrorists resulting in jail time and a small amount of restitution for Highland,

but Federal law enforcement prosecution was far less aggressive,

usually resulting in a misdemeanor with little jail time for the activist and no restitution for Highland.

The next timber sale road construction in the Cove Mallard area

began in 1995. The terrorists were very organized and prepared for

battle. In addition to the types of vandalism used in years before,

8

the environmental terrorists had developed more sophisticated

ways to stop road construction. For example, they buried concrete

blocks in the roadway and chained themselves to the blocks below

the ground level forcing law enforcement to hand dig out the activists. The also began to adopt other names for their causes—The

Ancient Forest Bus Brigade, the Native Forest Network, and

Friends of the Cove Mallard. This was done in an attempt to allude

prosecution and project to the media that many organizations were

protesting this timber sale and road building when in fact only one

organization was involved—Earth First. Again, the efforts of the

environmental terrorists to stop the road construction resulted in

the loss of considerable amounts of monies due to the lost production and the cost of hiring of extra manpower to provide security.

In 1995, the law enforcement participation also changed. Federal

law enforcement became more involved, while the Sheriff’s Department became less involved. This resulted in longer delays. Many

times up to six hours waiting for Federal officers to remove the terrorists because of bureaucratic change of command which began

with the law enforcement officers on site, then to the district ranger in Elk City, Idaho, then to the supervisor’s office in Grangeville,

Idaho, then to the region one office in Missoula, Montana, and, finally, to the chief of Forest Service law enforcement in Washington, DC. According to the Forest Service’s own records, the

agency spent over $250,000 trying to monitor and apprehend these

radical environmentalists. It was at this time that Highland owner’s decided to sue Earth First in a civil court. Individual activists,

as well as the Earth First organization and their affiliated subcomponents were named as defendants. Highland won this case

and was awarded the judgment of over $1 million, of which Highland has collected less than $200, and, to date, our legal bills are

over $200,000.

The confrontations have continued on our road construction

projects in the Cove Mallard area. Protestors then moved their destructive activities to a timber sale road construction project well

separated from the Cove Mallard area. The Otter-Wing timber sale

is over 45 miles from the Cove Mallard protest area. The activists,

again, used their same techniques along with tree sitting and vandalism to equipment to stop the road building. The Forest Service

dispatched law enforcement officers in large numbers but with little effectiveness. The law enforcement officers provided one on one

protection for the timber workers but were reluctant to make arrests of the activists who violated the area closure. Highland hired

a professional security company to guard our equipment and materials at the job site. Highland then requested to be reimbursed for

this additional security through a claim on the contract, but the

Forest Service denied the claim. Through the Freedom of Information Act, I also requested records from the Forest Service law enforcement for denying the claim.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. We would like to give the witness another

minute.

Mr. HAIRSTON. Thank you—but this Freedom of Information Act

request was also denied. Both the claim for the reimbursement for

the security cost and the Freedom of Information Act request are

now being appealed through the appropriate channels.

9

I feel that a large portion of the problems we have encountered

could have been solved if local law enforcement would have been

in the lead position to take control of the situation. The Federal

law enforcement efforts on the Forest Service were riddled with bureaucracy and delayed action that cost valuable production time. It

is my opinion that local law enforcement provides a much faster response to the environmental terrorists and when prosecuted in

local courts, it keeps them incarcerated so they do not return to the

protest site.

I believe that the United States Forest Service has done a very

poor job in providing protection for our employees and equipment

while we working on these Federal timber sale road construction

projects. Daily, the workers encountered environmental terrorists

who threw sticks and rocks at our workers, yelled and screamed at

workers, and tied themselves to equipment and trees. These actions put the lives of Highland employees and the lives of environmental terrorists in danger. Building logging roads is very dangerous to begin with, and when you introduce a group of people

whose sole purpose is to intimidate, disrupt, and distract the workers, it is inevitable that someone is going to become injured or,

even worse, killed.

I hope that by becoming aware of the situation that is occurring

in the forests of north central Idaho, that you can help us fix these

problems before someone is seriously injured or killed.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak before you today.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hairston follows:]

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Mr. Hairston.

And the Chair now recognizes Ms. Platt.

STATEMENT OF TERESA PLATT, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, FUR

COMMISSION USA, CORONADO, CALIFORNIA

Ms. PLATT. Thank you, and I will try to keep my comments to

five minutes. I have submitted lengthier backup information and

testimony, if you could put that in the record, please.

Chairwoman Chenoweth, Committee members, and concerned

citizens, thank you for allowing me to address you today.

I am Teresa Platt with Fur Commission USA. I represent 600 fur

farming families on 400 farms in 31 States. Our farmers take the

leftovers from food production and turn them into clothing, and I

would like to contribute to this discussion of what happened on

Forest Service lands last year with Vail, Colorado and as Mr. Hairston is discussing what is happening to him on a daily basis, because the fur industry has been coping with this for many, many

years.

We call this eco-terrorism and animal rights terrorism. We have

found that, like the incident at Vail, we have been subjected to this

along with the beef, poultry, dairy, timber, mining, and recreation

industries, wildlife managers, research scientists, zoos, aquariums,

and many others have been victimized in the name of saving the

Earth or saving animals.

As everyone is aware, Earth Liberation Front, or ELF, took credit for the Vail action. This is the sister group of Animal Liberation

Front, or ALF. What many people don’t know is that the next action after Vail was against a fur farming family in Powers, Michigan. Mr. and Mrs. Pipkorn, the Pipkorn Mink Farm, has been in

business for over 60 years. ELF left Vail and released 5,000 animals from the Pipkorn Mink Farm the next week. If it weren’t for

the response of neighbors in that area, the Pipkorn Mink Farm

would have been out of business by now. Sixty years of toil and

sweat on a family farm would have been for nothing. The ELF

statement after that release stated, ‘‘As corporate destroyers burn

in the West, wildlife nations will be liberated in the North.’’

There was another statement in 1997 where ELF took credit for

releasing foxes from a farm, and they stated, ‘‘that ELF’s resistance

against the capitalist death machine will not stop.’’

On October 21, 1998, fur farmers received a death threat from

the ultimate enforcement arm of ALF and ELF, something called

the Justice Department. The Justice Department threatened that

any fur farmers or ‘‘animal abusers’’ who ‘‘use violence against activists will suffer full retribution. The ALF have a clear policy of

adherence to non-violence; we do not.’’

The Justice Department has claimed credit for hundreds of actions in the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States resulting in millions of dollars in damages. A London paper, the

Independent, said that their campaign was the most sustained and

sophisticated bombing campaign in mainland Britain since the IRA

was at its height. They said that a more accurate role model of the

Justice Department’s relationship to ALF might be the extremely

violent Irish National Liberation Army, which broke away from the

IRA.

17

These people believe that by using a combination of economic

sabotage and live liberations of domesticated animals, that they

can achieve what others cannot through the political channels and

non-violence. Anyone can search the Internet and find these statements. ‘‘Animal abusers’’ or ‘‘Earth abusers’’ to those using the terminology—to groups like ALF and ELF and Justice Department—

are anyone who depends directly or indirectly on the environment,

which is all of society.

I don’t want to give you a laundry list of all these terrorist actions, because the FBI has these. They are on the Internet; you can

see pages and pages of these actions. Many people think they are

a recent import, that they are an export from the United Kingdom,

but I have found actions in the United States that go back at least

20 years.

One of the most public ones that we probably haven’t thought

about for a long time was when Squeaky Fromme tried to assassinate President Ford in order to save the Earth. Her roommate,

Sandra Good, spent 10 years in prison for sending out death

threats to corporations who she saw as killing the Earth, death

threats that went to the San Diego Tuna Fleet. My family owned

a tuna fleet, and I know about it, because the FBI came and gave

us guidelines on how to open our mail. I have been very carefully

opening my mail for 20 years now.

In 1997, the State of California granted non-profit status to a

group called ATWA, Air, Trees, Water, and Animals. Sandra Good

is an officer in that corporation. If you go on their web site, the logo

incorporates a swastika, and the information on that site, which is

from Charles Manson, promotes Hitler and the agenda of the Nazi

regime.

I have no problem with free speech, but I do have a problem as

a taxpayer with giving non-profit benefits to a corporation that

puts forward this sort of information under educational and scientific 501(c)(3) status. Is the government not watching? You are

creating an atmosphere that promotes these sort of actions.

In Salt Lake City, the Straight Edgers have engaged in a spree,

a green and fuzzy crime spree that has resulted in over $800,000

worth of damage to our farmers’ co-op; it has attacked leather

stores, butcher shops, and anyone who deals with animals or the

Earth. Several young men are now spending many years of their

lives in jail over the promotion of this flawed philosophy.

There is a group called National Animal Interest Alliance that is

spearheading a call for action asking for government to establish

a joint agency task force. We need to stop looking at these things

as isolated incidents and work across State lines and agency lines.

We need to look at the 501(c)(3) tax code which is giving non-profit

status to groups that are romanticizing these actions.

I don’t have a problem with civil discourse and peaceful protest,

but I do have a problem with eco-terrorism and animal rights terrorism, and I am happy to help you with a little more information

on how we can work a little bit more effectively on this.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Platt follows:]

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Ms. Platt.

And the Chair will now recognize the members as they arrived,

and we will alternate between each side of the dais, and we will

begin with Congressman Hill for questions.

Mr. HILL. Thank you, Madam Chairman, and I want to thank

the panelists for being here and their testimony.

Mr. Wasley, what is the total budget for the U.S. Forest Service

for law enforcement?

Mr. WASLEY. This year, it is approximately $66 million.

Mr. HILL. Sixty-six million?

Mr. WASLEY. Approximately.

Mr. HILL. And about $6 million of that goes to local law enforcement under cooperative agreements? Is that what your testimony

says?

Mr. WASLEY. That is correct.

Mr. HILL. And that is 530 agreements?

Mr. WASLEY. Plus another 163 drug agreements. We have cooperative patrol agreements and drug agreements.

Mr. HILL. So, it is $10,000 or less per cooperative agreement that

goes to local law enforcement?

Mr. WASLEY. On the average, but you should understand that

the range is much greater than that. It could be a couple of hundred to——

Mr. HILL. What is the highest, the largest sum?

Mr. WASLEY. I don’t really have that information. I think it is

somewhere around $50,000 probably.

Mr. HILL. Fifty thousand? And where is that?

Mr. WASLEY. I couldn’t tell you. I don’t know.

Mr. HILL. How many people are employed in law enforcement

within the U.S. Forest Service?

Mr. WASLEY. Approximately 600.

Mr. HILL. And why would the Forest Service want to directly employ people rather than contract with local law enforcement folks

for the general law enforcement needs on the force?

Mr. WASLEY. The first reason would have to do with jurisdiction.

Not all law enforcement would be empowered to enforce Federal

laws on National Forest System lands; that is first.

Mr. HILL. But they could be.

Mr. WASLEY. They could be, of course, but at present, they are

not.

Mr. HILL. There is nothing in Federal law that prohibits a local

law enforcement official from being authorized to enforce Federal

law, is there?

Mr. WASLEY. I am not sure if that is correct or not. It may take

an act of Congress to empower them to enforce Federal laws.

Mr. HILL. Okay. I am sorry, I interrupted you. You were——

Mr. WASLEY. The other thing—there is a myriad of other reasons

having to do with Federal law enforcement on National Forest System lands. Standardized training, for example, standardized equipment, funding, mobility between forests, jurisdictional disputes are

almost non-existent. For example, if you had local law enforcement

on one forest serving under certain county guidelines, they may not

be empowered to go into the next county, much less the next State,

33

to assist other Forest Service employees in another State on another forest.

Mr. HILL. You have heard testimony here about terrorist organizations, and you are aware of those organizations, I am sure.

Mr. WASLEY. Yes.

Mr. HILL. Does the Forest Service have a specific strategy for

identifying members of these groups and investigating them and

prosecuting them?

Mr. WASLEY. Our strategy is simple: we recognize the FBI as the

lead investigative agency in this matter. We collect information

through various means and furnish the FBI this information.

Mr. HILL. So, your work in dealing with these groups is strictly

investigatory work?

Mr. WASLEY. I wouldn’t say investigatory. I would say it is more

of a collection at this point.

Mr. HILL. You mean that that is less than investigation or more

than investigation?

Mr. WASLEY. I say that it is less than investigation on some

areas. It is relatively simple to collect information. It may be as

simple as noting a license plate numbers and then forwarding them

on. Investigation might imply collecting the license plate numbers,

running the Department of Motor Vehicle checks, doing criminal

checks of the owners, and so on.

Mr. HILL. You hear Mr. Hairston’s testimony—is it Hairston?

Mr. HAIRSTON. Yes, sir.

Mr. HILL. [continuing] with respect to the problem that he experienced in trying to pursue people who vandalized equipment.

What do you say to that. I mean, would you say that you don’t

have adequate resources to do that to cooperate with local law—

what created that circumstance, would you say?

Mr. WASLEY. I would say, first of all, we have limited resources.

As you well know, we are spread over 192 million acres with only

600 people. We have limited budget, limited staffing. That said, in

Mr. Hairston’s case, as I am informed, these issues were handled

at a local level. I will tell this Committee that I made no decisions

on the deployment of persons at Cove Mallard at all. It did not

come to my level, because the local people felt there was no need

to elevate it to my level.

Mr. HILL. That is a little bit in conflict, I think, Mr. Hairston,

with your testimony, is it?

Mr. HAIRSTON. Yes, sir, in the fact that we were always told that

the decisions were coming from much higher above, and the response time was just extremely slow.

Mr. HILL. That contrasted with local law enforcement where the

circumstances were different?

Mr. HAIRSTON. Yes, sir. Local law enforcement were very quick

to respond. They had officers within the area and would many

times be there within the hour on a call. We have several cases

where we waited over six hours with a full crew of people, road

building employees, to go to work and couldn’t get to work, because

activists were chained to a gate or buried in a roadway.

Mr. HILL. Mr. Walsey, you said earlier that you were not aware

of whether or not you could delegate the authority to local law enforcement to enforce the Federal law. If you don’t have the ability

34

to do that, would you support legislation that would allow you to

do that?

Mr. WASLEY. I would have to think about that. You have caught

me flat-footed.

Mr. HILL. What would your objections be? I mean, if it broadened

your authority and made it easier to enforce the laws in the national forests, why would you oppose—can you think of any reason,

at this point, why you would oppose that?

Mr. WASLEY. I am not saying I would oppose it; I am saying I

would need more time to think about it.

Mr. HILL. Okay, thank you.

Thank all the panelists, and thank you, Madam Chairman.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Mr. Hill.

The Chair would oppose that, though, because I think, Mr.

Wasley, you know that the county sheriffs, under State law, have

all the authority to provide law enforcement for gang activities, for

thefts, and even drug activities so long as it is grown within the

State boundaries. However, there is ongoing cooperative agreements regarding the growing of drugs and marijuana. But I would

detect that is why you are hesitant to answer Mr. Hill, because the

county sheriffs do have the authority to enforce the law within

their counties. Isn’t that true?

Mr. WASLEY. Certainly, they have the authority to enforce all

State laws and no doubt city ordinances and county ordinances. I

question whether or not they can enforce all Federal laws particularly the Federal regulations under which we operate as promulgated by the Secretary of Agriculture. I am not sure they can enforce those statutes as it currently exists.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Most activity regarding theft and gang related

activities and abuse of property, contract law can be carried out.

That kind of protection can be carried out by the local country

sheriff. Isn’t that correct?

Mr. WASLEY. That is correct, and most often is.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Good. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Mark

Udall for questions.

Mr. UDALL OF COLORADO. Thank you, Madam Chair. I wanted to

welcome the panel today.

I had a question for Director Wasley. As you know, I am from

Colorado and have watched with great interest the arson in the

Vail area. I would like to hear an update, at this point, as to where

that investigation stands.

Mr. WASLEY. I am not begging the question when I say the FBI

is the lead investigative agency on that. The Forest Service is playing a supporting role like we do in most investigations that we

have with other Federal agencies. They rely on us for topographical, geographical, and local knowledge, but they are in fact

the primary investigative agency. So, I don’t have an update on

that at this time.

Mr. UDALL OF COLORADO. So, I need to find out where the FBI

is testifying, and I can maybe get some answers from them.

[Laughter.]

Mr. WASLEY. That is right.

Mr. UDALL OF COLORADO. Let me move to another topic. I have

the impression in Colorado that one of the major law enforcement

35

challenges facing the Forest Service is unauthorized use of off-road

vehicles in sensitive areas. Would you agree, and would you elaborate a little bit on that if you have a position?

Mr. WASLEY. Yes, off-road vehicles represent a tremendous challenge to the law enforcement. As you know, they create tremendous

resource damage. I was only recently on the Uwharrie National

Forest in North Carolina that has but 16 miles of roads, and I saw

first-hand the damage that off-road vehicles do. They compress the

ground so nothing can grow; they create mud bogs; they create

damage to streams; it is a tremendous problem for law enforcement. We tried to combat this type of problem, of course, by engineering roads and trails to keep the four-wheelers or the twowheelers on those roads. We try to educate people on the roads

that are available, and if all else fails, we write tickets.

Mr. UDALL OF COLORADO. I would certainly lend my emphasis to

the effort to educate people. I think everybody on the Committee

would agree that there are some good efforts going on in the offroad use community, but there are still some pretty bad actors out

there that have a very negative impact on the resource.

Let me ask you another question. Again, in Colorado, we have

got enormous cultural and archeological resources on public lands,

and they are becoming more and more a part of our economy,

frankly; people come to see those cultural and archeological treasures. I am concerned we are not providing you with enough resources to manage those treasures. Do you care to comment on that

and whether you need additional help in that regard?

Mr. WASLEY. I would like to explain that one of our four investigational priorities, certainly, is the Archeological Resource Protection Act—we call it ARPA. Along with cannabis eradication, timber

theft, and wild land arson, those are the four major investigational

areas we have, and of course we could use more assistance there.

I would point out that last year, members of the Forest Service

made the largest ARPA case, I believe, in United States history

in—I believe it was in Utah, and wherein we brought a series of

charges against some individuals there for desecration of sites and

actual theft from archeological sites. It remains a top investigational priority for us.

Mr. UDALL OF COLORADO. Were these so-called pot hunters that

you were able to apprehend or do you know the particulars of that

case?

Mr. WASLEY. I don’t recall the particulars of that case, but, generally, a lot of folks tend to think that these are just minor thefts

with people with shovels, but sometimes they have employed backhoes, dynamite, blasting. In this case in Utah, if memory serves,

they actually desecrated a cave, which was a cultural site for some

Native Americans.

Mr. UDALL OF COLORADO. Let me move to timber theft enforcement. I have run across some interesting documents that had

talked about this being a significant problem. Chief Robertson back

in the eighties had suggested that financial impacts to all of us, to

the taxpayers, range, perhaps, between $10 million and $100 million. How significant a problem is this, and what kinds of methods

do people and corporations, in some cases, use to literally steal

trees?

36

Mr. WASLEY. It is a large problem, the extent of which is almost

impossible to determine. One of the reasons that it is difficult to

determine the nature of the problem or the extent of the problem

is the fact that Forest Service is shrinking in size. Several years

ago, we had 40,000 employees; now we have in the low thirties.

That gives us many, many fewer eyes and ears in the forest to look

for these illegal cuts of timber. We have less people out there seeing people performing illegal activities, hence, less comes to us.

I would also point out that there is less timber being cut. Only

a few years ago, we cut 11 billion board feet of timber; now, we cut

2 billion board feet of timber or a little over 2 billion board feet.

The simple amount—reduction in amount would thereby shrink the

universe of criminality. Certain types of timber theft would be the

shifting of boundary lines and stake-out lines; delineating the size

of the timber cut—move it out 100 yards, suddenly you have a

large timber theft with the simple moving of boundary lines; scaling problems; unauthorized cuts, the whole myriad of things, plus

contract fraud.

Mr. UDALL OF COLORADO. Was this your number one priority, a

top priority or in your top three? I hear you say you don’t maybe

have all the resources you need to handle this problem.

Mr. WASLEY. I would say it is in the top four.

Mr. UDALL OF COLORADO. Top four? Losses from timber theft—

do you account for those in the receipts from timber sales? How

does this show up on, if you will, the taxpayers’ balance sheet?

Mr. WASLEY. There again, it is very difficult to determine actually the amount of loss for the reasons I have stated.

Mr. UDALL OF COLORADO. So, you can’t even determine, really

the losses so that you can then quantify——

Mr. WASLEY. We are working on—constantly working on methods to improve our timber theft investigational capacities or capabilities. Right now, I cannot give you a definitive answer on the extent of the loss.

Mr. UDALL OF COLORADO. One last question on another topic. I

know there are concerns expressed here about so-called eco-terrorists, but I know that on the other side of the equation some Federal

employees—Forest Service people, BLM employees—have been intimidated, been harassed, and in some cases violence has been directed towards them. What is the status of your investigations into

those situations where public employees have been subject to that

kind of treatment?

Mr. WASLEY. We have numerous attacks against our own. I believe the year was 1997—the last year that I have figures for—I

believe there was 355 assaults against Forest Service employees.

They run the entire gamut of verbal assaults, to physical assaults,

to threats, intimidations, and on and on, to actually a kidnap and

a rape.

Mr. UDALL OF COLORADO. Thank you very much. Thank you,

Madam Chair.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Mr. Udall.

The Chair now recognizes Mr. Sherwood for questions.

Mr. SHERWOOD. Thank you, Madam Chairman.

Mr. Wasley, I understand the educational mission and that the

FBI is in charge of your investigative, even though I guess your

37

title is law enforcement and investigations, but I would like to

ask—and I think you said your budget was $600 million?

Mr. WASLEY. Sixty-six million.

Mr. SHERWOOD. Sixty-six million, thank you; that is quite an

error on my part. Thank you for straightening me out.

Mr. WASLEY. I wish is it was $600 million.

Mr. SHERWOOD. I mean, that is a typical Washingtonese there.

[Laughter.]

Did you pay close attention to Mr. Hairston’s testimony? Do you

have anything that you would like to question in his testimony?

Mr. WASLEY. I think Mr. Hairston has some valid points. I think

that it is a matter of perspective and, perhaps, a matter of us communicating to him better the way that we work. I was struck with

the fact that there was a six-hour delay in us arriving at a particular scene.

Mr. SHERWOOD. I was very struck by that; that is where I am

going.

Mr. WASLEY. Right; I will head you off. We have 155 national forests that we patrol and police, and for us to collect personnel to

focus on a particular area, like Cove Mallard, it takes us a while

to get there. I am begging the question a little bit, but for us to

mobilize our forces, sometimes we have to bring folks in from a

substantial ways out.

Mr. SHERWOOD. Well, sir, I think you are begging that question

quite a bit. After it happened the first time, I see no reasonable explanation that weren’t ready for them the next time. I mean, this

man had a legitimate job to do on a legitimate timber road building, and his people—the way it sounds to me—not only were intimidated and harassed but put in danger, and the whole project

was endangered, and if you are the head of that organization, you

have a $66 million budget and all those employees, coming to this

thing pretty new, it sounds to me like your agency didn’t want to

do much about that.

Mr. WASLEY. That is not my impression nor my direction to any

of the folks who work for me.

Mr. SHERWOOD. Well, how do you explain, then, that after this

happened the first day, you weren’t there with the manpower and

the firepower to keep it from happening again?

Mr. WASLEY. I would point out that we made 123 arrests there,

and they had 262 charges filed in Federal court along with over 20

cases filed in State court for arrests and detention and tickets.

Mr. SHERWOOD. Over what period of time?

Mr. WASLEY. That would be over a four and a half-year period—

five-year period.

Mr. SHERWOOD. So, apparently, nobody got them put away very

well.

Mr. WASLEY. The process, as you know, is multi-staged. It is easy

to allege; it is more difficult to investigate; it is more prosecute; to

convict is yet another area, and then to sentence is in the purview

of the courts.

Mr. SHERWOOD. Yes, I understand that, but I would assume your

officers are pretty good witnesses. If they were there and they saw

what was going on, I would assume that they would be pretty good

witnesses in court.

38

Mr. WASLEY. I am sure my officers were very good witnesses in

court. That doesn’t always carry the day in court, unfortunately.

Mr. SHERWOOD. Do you feel that this is going to be a continuing

problem?

Mr. WASLEY. I think that timber protests will be a continuing

problem, yes.

Mr. SHERWOOD. Well, do you feel that you will be able to handle

them?

Mr. WASLEY. We have very limited resources.

Mr. SHERWOOD. Sixty-six million dollars?

Mr. WASLEY. One hundred and fifty-five national forests.

Mr. SHERWOOD. But it doesn’t seem to happen too many places.

Mr. WASLEY. We had over 700 arrests in Oregon.

Mr. SHERWOOD. What do you suggest, sir?

Mr. WASLEY. I suggest that we continue to cooperate with our

local cooperators and vigorously enforce the law.

Mr. SHERWOOD. Do you think that will be more successful in the

future than it has been in the past?

Mr. WASLEY. I don’t know.

Mr. SHERWOOD. Because if I read this testimony and listen carefully, it was Mr. Hairston’s thought that we were doing better

when we had local enforcement and slower when we got Federal

enforcement. I wasn’t there; I am just listening to the testimony.

Mr. WASLEY. I think that is Mr. Hairston’s perception. I don’t

think it is correct.

Mr. SHERWOOD. So, you don’t think that it took six hours to respond?

Mr. WASLEY. Oh, it may well have taken six hours to respond.

Mr. SHERWOOD. Well, then——

Mr. WASLEY. In one instance.

Mr. SHERWOOD. In one instance but not as a matter of course?

Mr. WASLEY. I wouldn’t know. Perhaps, not; perhaps—we were

all on the scene for days on end.

Mr. SHERWOOD. Well, why wouldn’t you know? You are the Director of that organization.

Mr. WASLEY. Some things I don’t have at my fingertips. I will

have to research it, and get back to you, if you wish.

Mr. SHERWOOD. But you did know what this was to be about

today?

Mr. WASLEY. Oh, yes, I did.

Mr. SHERWOOD. Thank you very much.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Mr. Wasley, I just wanted a point of clarification following up on the previous line of questioning.

There were 700 arrests in Oregon over what period of time?

Mr. WASLEY. Excuse me. I believe it was 1996.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. In one year, there were 700 arrests by——

Mr. WASLEY. Approximately.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. [continuing] Federal?

Mr. WASLEY. By Forest Service working in conjunction with local

cooperators.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Okay. Could you provide the Committee with

the documentation, please?

39

Mr. WASLEY. I am sorry. I was just informed it was since 1992—

since 1992, we have made 700 arrests in Oregon, and I will be

happy to provide you with that documentation.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Okay. I appreciate that. But last year, you

were appropriated $66 million.

Mr. WASLEY. Approximately.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Yes, okay. Thank you.

The Chair now recognizes Grace Napolitano for questions.

Ms. NAPOLITANO. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Listening here to—and I came in a little late, so I didn’t hear all

the testimony—but one of the things that I am hearing is that

there is an issue with vandalism and theft of timber, et cetera, et

cetera. Is this problem getting worse?

Mr. WASLEY. Oh, I think so. If you look at the simple number

of visitors to the national forests, which has gone from, several

years ago, maybe 150 million to over 1 billion visitors, there is

going to be a certain amount of criminality that follows that visitor

usage.

Ms. NAPOLITANO. Okay. Then, I guess it leads into my next question which is, number one, what would be the solution? Certainly,

you have gone from over 40,000 employees to the low thirties, you

stated, and what is the reason for this? Is it the budgeting? Is it

people not wanting to go into forestry service? What is that reason?

Mr. WASLEY. I believe, in my estimation, it is budget cuts. We

have had to shrink the size to stay within budget.

Ms. NAPOLITANO. At the time you had 40,000 employees—and I

understand there is not that much of a relevance—but what was

your budget when you had 40,000 employees?

Mr. WASLEY. I really don’t know, because my organization only

took its current form in 1994, and, at that time, I think we had

less than 40,000. So, my budget is pretty much flat for the last several years.

Ms. NAPOLITANO. Do you have a lot of openings right now for forestry? Is there a need for additional personnel?

Mr. WASLEY. I am going to speak only of law enforcement investigations, and we have many vacancies.

Ms. NAPOLITANO. You have many vacancies, okay.

Mr. WASLEY. That is correct.

Ms. NAPOLITANO. I was reading in some of the information that

we were given that you have a lot of citizen complaints that are

being filed against the Forest Service, and I am assuming it refers

to all of Forestry, not necessarily the investigative area alone. Can

you explain what the nature of those complaints might be, in general?

Mr. WASLEY. There again, the complaints range anywhere from

not being treated with the due respect in a campground, for example, to allegations of theft, of mismanagement, of contract fraud, an

entire range; everywhere from discourtesy to criminal violation.

Ms. NAPOLITANO. And in these criminal violations, has there

been a follow-up to make sure that due process is followed and

those people are punished?

Mr. WASLEY. Absolutely correct. We work in conjunction with the

Office of the Inspector General in the Agriculture Department who

has primary oversight responsibility for these investigations. GenVerDate 11-SEP-98 08:46 Dec 07, 1999 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00042 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 58515 HRESOUR1 PsN: HRESOUR1
40

erally speaking, the Inspector General will refer those back to the

Forest Service law enforcement investigations for follow-up.

Ms. NAPOLITANO. Is restitution required?

Mr. WASLEY. It depends on the court; that is the prerogative of

the court.

Ms. NAPOLITANO. I see. Then, part of what I am gathering is that

you have various problems—some being budget, some being staffing, and some, of course, the increase in your visitors to the national forests. What would you suggest might be an approach that

might address being able to handle the multitude of visitors as well

as having a trained and effective workforce?

Mr. WASLEY. I think that clearly budgetary increases would help

an awful lot.

Ms. NAPOLITANO. It isn’t always the budget.

Mr. WASLEY. No, that is true. With budgetary increases, however, I could give more money to local cooperators.

Ms. NAPOLITANO. But are you making any more money from

these visitors in the certain areas where you have charges to access?

Mr. WASLEY. There is a program now called the Fee Demonstration Project, which I am not familiar how much it is making. It is

clearly out of my area of expertise. I really don’t know if——

Ms. NAPOLITANO. Could you get us that information, because we

need to be able to understand the correlation between being able

to provide the service and the cost to the taxpayer? Certainly, the

rest of the taxpayers don’t want to bear the burden for somebody

else’s recreation, and if some of those people that are abusing the

land—those four-by-four vehicle users or two-wheelers—then, certainly, there may be something that we may be able to follow

through, and that is if education doesn’t work; if providing them

with upfront information about them abusing the land and being

able to have them pay for some of the repair of the some of the

damage that the organizations may cause, because some of those

organizations are doing their work for recreation, although I don’t

want to see that, but maybe that might help them respect the land

and not cause the degradation of the forests.

Mr. WASLEY. Okay.

Ms. NAPOLITANO. Thank you.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Ms. Napolitano.

The Chair now recognizes Mr. Peterson for questions.

Mr. PETERSON. I thank the Chair. Welcome to the panelists. I

missed some of the testimony, but I have been trying to catch up.

Mr. Walsey, you stated you recognized the FBI as your lead

agency. Why the FBI?

Mr. WASLEY. I recognize the FBI as the lead agency in certain

investigational areas. Certainly, the FBI would not necessarily

have the lead in timber theft investigations, ARPA investigations,

marijuana, cannabis eradication, or wild land fire, arson, investigations. They would be the lead investigative agency in echo-terrorism or domestic terrorism.

Mr. PETERSON. Okay. How do you involve them?

Mr. WASLEY. Generally, they would involve themselves.

Mr. PETERSON. But they are not out on the force.

41

Mr. WASLEY. Correct. They would become aware of an incident

either directly from us—we may well give them a copy of our report, say; make a verbal report to them that this or that was happening on a national forest, and they would make a determination

to enter the investigation.

Mr. PETERSON. Okay, so you have a problem going on. How far

up your ladder does it go before it goes to the FBI?

Mr. WASLEY. It could go right from the local most basic level to

the FBI.

Mr. PETERSON. They could make that call?

Mr. WASLEY. Absolutely.

Mr. PETERSON. Okay. And you mentioned that the Cove Mallard

situation did not reach your level, so somebody locally could have

involved the FBI there?

Mr. WASLEY. That is correct. Most likely—to specify, it would no

doubt be a special agent working for me—one of 137 special agents

I have, which would be on site at Cove Mallard or close by.

Mr. PETERSON. Do you utilize State police or local sheriff at all?

Local police?

Mr. WASLEY. Oh, yes.

Mr. PETERSON. You do? When do you bring them in?

Mr. WASLEY. Well, as the chairman stated, they have primary jurisdiction over State laws on national forests. We are in close contact with most every county sheriff that has anything at all to do

with the National Forest System.

Mr. PETERSON. I guess, my experience from the State level, I

know there is nothing that I think that is more important than

catching drug dealers especially to protect our kids, and yet I know

that some attorney generals work with the State police and local

police. Some have their own—some State police will work with

local police; some don’t. I mean, it is not as good out there as we

would like it to be in cooperation, because everybody wants to take

credit for the success, and, unfortunately, that is the downfall.

It just seems to me that an agency like yours—that I am very

supportive of—needs to be the person that maybe patrolling your

own grounds, but when there is very serious trouble, it really

seems to me that there needs to be a network, depending on what

it is, that is instantly involved, and it seems to me that local agencies have the knowledge of who the local problems are. Now, if it

is not a local problem and it is somebody that is being shipped in

to cause a problem, that is a different ballgame, but it seems to me

there is something loose in this network that doesn’t work like it

should. Would you agree with that?

Mr. WASLEY. I think that is a perception. I am 31 years in this

line of work, and I was a local policeman. I spent 20 years with

the Secret Service and with Customs and overseas and all over the

place. So, I have a lot of different perspectives on this, and, believe

me, I speak police. I understand that language really well. I have

traveled throughout the United States—all 50 States—and it has

been my experience, the vast majority of local cooperatives that we

have are on board with us.

Your points are well taken, but you have to also understand that

my folks are out there. Generally, they have lived in those communities for years and years. They are probably more adept at topoVerDate 11-SEP-98 08:46 Dec 07, 1999 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00044 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 58515 HRESOUR1 PsN: HRESOUR1
42

graphical and geographical knowledge of the National Forest System than the local sheriffs are.

And I might also point out that very many sheriff’s offices are

less staffed than we are, or are more thinly staffed than we are.

They are primarily responsible to their population centers, which

are generally not on the national forests; there is the problem.

Mr. PETERSON. Well, I think rural America is on the short end

all the way around.

Mr. WASLEY. I agree.

Mr. PETERSON. As activity comes to rural America, we need to

not be on the short end.

Mr. WASLEY. I agree.

Mr. PETERSON. And if you have a cooperative effort where you

don’t have to have this—like, if we could triple your base—that is

a lot of money—but we don’t need to triple your number of people

everyday; we need to triple it when there is serious problems, but

that is why State police, sheriffs, local police, all the other enforcement units joining hands, that is how we——

Mr. WASLEY. Let me give you an example of a recent success that

we have had. An unfortunate situation occurred in California in

Stanislaus National Forest where three young people were murdered. Our officers were some of the first on the scene on that tragedy. We stabilized the scene until the Stanislaus County Sheriff got

there. We handed off the investigation to them. They worked it as

well as they could. When it came out of their local area, they called

in the FBI. Pretty seamless—granted, we don’t have everyday

seamless operations without grief and headache, but this one, it

worked well, and I would submit to this Committee that, far and

away, the vast majority of relationships we have are sound and are

working well.

Mr. PETERSON. When you have an incident, what is your means

of communication if you need support today; not tomorrow, not

next week, but today? How do you bring in sheriffs, State police?

You have an incident that is potentially serious, how do you communicate? What kind of a system do you have?

Mr. WASLEY. It really depends on the extent of the emergency.

We can implement what we call the incident command system,

which is a command post system where we will go on all the local

frequencies, and we generally have cooperating agreements with

the local sheriffs that would encompass just such an emergency.

Mr. PETERSON. Okay, I guess my time is up. Thank you.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Mr. Peterson.

Mr. Tom Udall is recognized for questions.

Mr. UDALL OF NEW MEXICO. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank

you, members of the panel for being here with us today.

Mr. Wasley, I would just like to ask you a couple of questions

about the timber theft investigation branch. My understanding is

that in 1991, this Timber Theft Task Force was created in response

to two alleged commercial timber theft cases with multimillion dollar losses, and, in fact, there were some big recoveries in 1993 following on the heels of that from the, I guess, Columbia River Scaling Bureau and the Thomas Creek Lumber and Log Company; one

of them paying $1.5 million, one of them paying $50,000 penalty

and then a civil assessment of $1.7 million. And it looked like the

43

agency was moving very aggressively against timber theft—and

you are nodding your head that apparently they were.

Then it seems like the Forest Service did a turnabout and Jack

Ward Thomas in 1995 abolished—the Forest Service Chief abolished this right when there were three big cases under investigation. I am wondering—what is the code name for those cases—

Model T, Rodeo, Shuffle—are those cases dormant? I mean, where

are they? Have they been closed?

I understand you have a Freedom of Information Act request

pending, and it seems to me that looking at the dollars that have

come in that we have reached the end of this, and we shouldn’t expect to see any more cases. Where are we on that?

Mr. WASLEY. If the question is about those three particular

cases? I am sorry, I——

Mr. UDALL OF NEW MEXICO. Well, the question goes to the heart

of are you aggressively pursuing commercial timber theft?

Mr. WASLEY. Again, I am a policeman, and I love to make cases

like that. I can assure you and the rest of the members of the Committee here that as a criminal investigator, that is what you pay

me to do is to make those kind of cases. Specifically regarding the

Timber Theft Task Force, that was a group that was given a lifespan which expired before I took over. I will tell you this: that I

looked at the results of the task force. I would have abolished it

myself, and I was an outsider coming in just looking at results. I

have worked with task forces throughout my 31 years. I didn’t see

it as worthy as continued to be staffed.

Mr. UDALL OF NEW MEXICO. Now, what has happened to those

cases that the task force was handling? Clearly, if they were, as

you say, cases of merit, cases that should have proceeded, then we

should go forward with those, shouldn’t we?

Mr. WASLEY. Absolutely. If there is any——

Mr. UDALL OF NEW MEXICO. What is the status of those cases?

Mr. WASLEY. Well, the first one—I was just handed this—the

FBI looked at the Rodeo case, and it was closed, and the FBI said

there was nothing more to go on this, from what I am told.

Mr. UDALL OF NEW MEXICO. Tell me—you have primary jurisdiction in the case—why does the FBI look at the case and close the

case?

Mr. WASLEY. We wanted to involve them for a lot of reasons.

Again, this was all happening literally within my first weeks in office. I think we turned to the FBI because of their resources in the

Portland area and perhaps another jurisdictional area. I would

rather research this and get back to you on this for the exact reasons, because I just don’t know.

Mr. UDALL OF NEW MEXICO. Okay, so the one case is closed—

what was it, Rodeo, you said?

Mr. WASLEY. Rodeo.

Mr. UDALL OF NEW MEXICO. The Rodeo is closed. How about the

other two?

Mr. WASLEY. The Model T and the—what is it, the Shuffle or

Shuttle?

Mr. UDALL OF NEW MEXICO. Yes, Shuffle.

Mr. WASLEY. I don’t know. I don’t have any information. I will

have to get back to you on those.

44

Mr. UDALL OF NEW MEXICO. Okay, but you are telling me that

you are in the position and since you have held this position, you

are aggressively pursuing commercial timber theft?

Mr. WASLEY. Yes, and what I have done is rather than have a

centralized task force operating out of some particular area—which

may well have served a purpose for its time—I have charged each

special agent in charge in all the nine regions who work for me to

aggressively pursue timber cases, and, clearly, I monitor their results. We have developed training modules; we have developed

methods of working this type of case, but the responsibility or the

accountability is at the special agent, at the regional level.

Mr. UDALL OF NEW MEXICO. Has the number of people since the

task force was abolished that are pursuing these kinds of cases,

have those numbers of people gone down?

Mr. WASLEY. Not necessarily, because——

Mr. UDALL OF NEW MEXICO. So, you are using the same number

of people, roughly, on commercial timber theft cases like this?

Mr. WASLEY. There again, if you consider we have 137 investigators, each one of them is tasked with our 4 investigational priorities as are all the uniformed folks.

Mr. UDALL OF NEW MEXICO. The thing I am wondering about, I

have got a chart up here that shows in 1993, that over $3.3 million

were recovered as a part of this task force effort, and then in 1995,

it dropped off to $363,000 and then in 1997, just $5,000, and in

1998, it is back up to $300,000. I mean, it looks like this task force

was doing a very good job, and your testimony is in conflict with

that. I am wondering how is that to be explained?

Mr. WASLEY. To me, it looks like early success is based on fertile

ground, if you will, and then our training modules take over, and

the successes trail off as does the timber harvest. I think you will

find they are probably parallel decreases.

Mr. UDALL OF NEW MEXICO. So, you can assure this Committee

that all of the—there is a lot surrounding this, as you well know.

I mean, there are whistleblowers that are out there that have been

moved from the task force into other areas, and they have made

complaints, and I don’t know whether or not there are lawsuits

going on there. There have been suggestions by the government accountability project and others that you are lessening enforcement

on commercial dealers and commercial operators as opposed to

small people that are dealing in firewood. Can you assure the Committee that that is not happening?

Mr. WASLEY. I can assure this Committee that I take my responsibility as head of the Forest Service Law Enforcement Program—

that timber theft is a priority, and I want to make as many timber

theft cases as possible.

Mr. UDALL OF NEW MEXICO. And commercial timber theft is, you

said, a number four priority?

Mr. WASLEY. I said it is one of four.

Mr. UDALL OF NEW MEXICO. One of four. But it is a top priority?

Mr. WASLEY. Absolutely.

Mr. UDALL OF NEW MEXICO. Okay.

Mr. WASLEY. And I would add to that, what we call now would

be timber theft and forest product theft, because not only is timber

being stolen from the Forest Service, all sorts of other things—

45

maybe echinecia and pine needles or whatever is growing out

there, mushrooms—all these things are subject to theft. They are

all part of our investigational priorities.

Mr. UDALL OF NEW MEXICO. Have you been getting thorough cooperation from the—is the U.S. Attorney’s Office the ones that

prosecute these cases?

Mr. WASLEY. Correct.

Mr. UDALL OF NEW MEXICO. And have they been cooperating

with you? I mean, there isn’t any problem there?

Mr. WASLEY. The United States Attorney’s Office has a very full

slate, and sometimes it is very difficult to get property claims on

a docket, on a prosecutorial docket, when they have murder cases.

Mr. UDALL OF NEW MEXICO. Yes, well, I was a Federal prosecutor at one point in my career, so I understand that from the variety of cases. And none of this is meant to cause an aspersion on

you, but I wanted to try to clear up this cloud that is out there.

I mean, if you look at some of these pamphlets and things, it would

give the impression that there is some real problems in terms of

getting after commercial timber theft, and I hope you will continue

to pursue that. Thank you very much.

Mr. WASLEY. We have had some recent successes. If the Committee would like a list of these recent successes, I would be happy

to provide them.

Mr. UDALL OF NEW MEXICO. Sure. Yes, please. Can he have permission, Madam Chair, unanimous consent to supplement the

record in that respect?

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Yes, I would be happy to receive your report.

Thank you very much.

Mr. UDALL OF NEW MEXICO. Thank you for being so gracious and

letting me use a little extra time there, Madam Chair.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Mr. Udall.

Mr. Hairston, I have some questions for you. Have you or any of

your employees or any of the members of the community ever received any threats—individually or to your families—from these

Earth First protestors in your area?

Mr. HAIRSTON. Yes, ma’am, myself, personally, my employees; we

have been verbally threatened. The protestors have made statements, ‘‘We are going to find your house and burn it down. We are

going to kill your family.’’ They are quite adamant about these

things, and they have went to the extent that they know who we

are. They call you by a first name basis when you come out onto

the projects.

I also know of a case where one of the lead Forest Service law

enforcement individuals was threatened with his life too, and after

that happened, he eventually was reassigned and eventually retired. I don’t know because of that, but I do know that he was

threatened himself.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Well, I assume you made an official report of

these threats.

Mr. HAIRSTON. We always tell the Federal agents who are usually the ones on site about any of these type of threats we have,

and usually the response is, ‘‘Well, if we apprehend these people,

then we will help you to pursue prosecution.’’

46

Mrs. CHENOWETH. If who apprehends them? The county sheriff

or the Federal law enforcement officers?

Mr. HAIRSTON. Yes, ma’am. If the Federal agents apprehend the

tree sitters—that is usually who the threats are coming from—if

those people are apprehended, they will then help us to pursue the

prosecution of those individuals.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Can you recall any specific situations that

prompted the Forest Service law enforcement officials to be more

aggressive in apprehending and arresting these folks?

Mr. HAIRSTON. Yes, ma’am. I have one particular case that happened last summer that is somewhat off-colored but entertaining.

We had several tree sitters in the road right-of-way and were having difficulty getting them to come down out of the trees, and we

had many, many law enforcement people there. Nothing was happening, though. They were still being supplied by their cohorts;

they were still getting food and water up their tree. What happened in this particular case was several Federal law enforcement

officers were standing below a tree and one of the protestors urinated out of the tree onto the Federal officers, and I believe that

enraged the officers so much that they put a 24-hour vigil on that

tree; would not let any support people come to the tree and supply

the protestor with food or water until he was forced to rappel down

out of the tree, and then he was promptly arrested and hauled to

jail. But the other protestors that were 200 yards in front of him

and 200 yards in back of him in trees were freely supplied. They

weren’t as aggressively watched, and they were able to eventually

rappel out of their trees and escape without being arrested.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. So, they didn’t apply the same enforcement to

the other protestors.

Mr. HAIRSTON. In this case, no, they did not.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Have Forest Service and local law enforcement officials ever been a hinderance to your company’s contractual obligations in road building?

Mr. HAIRSTON. This last year, in particular, we were hindered by

the Federal law enforcement in many cases. We had an excess of

officers on site. There were protestors clearly violating the law, and

they were not being arrested. As you know, these are small roads

in the mountains that we are trying to build, and we would be having to deal with in excess of 10 vehicles from Forest Service law

enforcement, trying to work our road building equipment around

their vehicles on a small, one-lane road. We had the law enforcement people several times halting our production for them to decide how they were going to deal with the protestors in the trees

or on the ground, and we eventually got to the point where we

asked the Forest Service law enforcement to either write us a written shut down or we were going to proceed with the road building.

They never did write us a written shut down, the law enforcement.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Was the county sheriff involved in any of the

hindrances?

Mr. HAIRSTON. Not in these cases, he wasn’t, ma’am. What Idaho

County sheriffs have ran into so many times is these are Federal

laws that the protestors are violating. They are violating an area

closure law that was implemented by the district ranger or the forest supervisor or maintaining a structure on Federal land, and unVerDate 11-SEP-98 08:46 Dec 07, 1999 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00049 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 58515 HRESOUR1 PsN: HRESOUR1
47

less the protestors are vandalizing our equipment, a lot of times

the county sheriff wasn’t on site. He just couldn’t, once again, afford to have deputies up there during all the protests, because it

was a daily occurrence; every day we were battling this.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. I have seen pictures of equipment that has

been used, and Mr. Christianson has supplied me with some of

these pictures. Could you explain this picture? It shows about 12

Forest Service people around a campfire in front of a big, huge tripod-type structure that they have established?

[Picture.]

Mr. HAIRSTON. Yes, ma’am. Once again, we are waiting for the

Federal law enforcement to take action to remove these protestors

so that we can go to work. We are sitting here—behind the man

with the orange jacket, there is probably 15 Highland employees

waiting to go to work and trying to get to work, and this is what

we ran into a great deal was once we finally got Federal law enforcement on site, they would take hours to decide how to try to

remove these protestors or what course of action they were going

to take.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. There is another picture that I have here with

a bucket, it looks like, full of huge nails. Can you explain what

these—looks like spikes?

[Picture.]

Mr. HAIRSTON. Yes, ma’am, if I could get one more—I have a couple of representative spikes that are the typical items used by the

Earth Firsters. What this picture is, is a——

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Now, how do they use them? Please explain

for the Committee.

Mr. HAIRSTON. As you can see in the photo, there is a branch off

a tree that have the spikes driven through it, and they will bury

that in the roadway so that any rubber-tired vehicle, being it a

support pick-up or a road grader, once they run over those spikes,

then it has disabled that vehicle, and they will also drive the

spikes into trees and put the spikes, themselves, just into the roadway to disable the vehicle, and it just becomes very dangerous. The

roadways, themselves, are usually a 14- to 16-foot wide road,

which, in many cases, is a very steep cut on the downhill side, and

if you have a tire blowout when you are going along this road,

many times it can be very serious.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. What happens when these spikes are driven

into trees that are to be harvested?

Mr. HAIRSTON. It becomes very life-threatening for the timber

faller. If he is sawing through one of these trees and doesn’t know

a spike is in it and his chain from his chainsaw hits it, it can shatter the chain, and a chainsaw usually runs at about 13,000 rpm,

and it can severely cut or kill him. If it makes it past the timber

faller, then it goes into a sawmill where the blades of the sawmill

are extremely thin and fragile and when they hit a metal spike like

this, they also will shatter, and there are more people there that

can be injured.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. And, so then the chainsaw or the saws in the

plainers or the mills act like shrapnel?

48

Mr. HAIRSTON. Yes, ma’am. The blades, themselves, break and

act as a shrapnel that goes out and injures anyone near enough to

get hit by that flying debris.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Do you know, personally, of injuries that have

occurred like that?

Mr. HAIRSTON. Yes, I have heard of several cases in sawmills

where people have been injured by that. I know of cases where one

of our sawers hit a spike. It broke the chain on the chainsaw. It

did not injure him, but it did destroy the chain and several hours

of lost production.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Rpm’s on those chainsaws, again, are how

much?

Mr. HAIRSTON. Approximately 10,000 to 13,000 revolutions per

minute.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. I have another picture here that shows a random stack of logs and a big pipe in the middle of the road. Would

you please explain this?

[Picture.]

Mr. HAIRSTON. Yes, this happens on a daily basis. When we leave

the project in the evenings, many times the protestors are out

there all night doing this type of vandalism. They will take the

metal culvert that is stockpiled to be put in the road, and they

will—first off, they will punch holes in that culvert with a pick or

an axe just ruining the pipe, and then they will stack it up in these

type of structures along with all the wooded debris that they have

pulled off from the side of the road to make it impassible. Other

acts they do are take these metal pipes and roll them down the hill

so that we have to retrieve the pipes that are 100 or 200 feet over

the bank. It takes several men and pieces of equipment to do. After

the pipe is ruined, it takes a whole other shipment of pipe to come

in to continue our road building.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Is the Forest Service willing, in your contract,

to pay you for these new culverts and the new labor that you have

had to put in over and above the bid specs of plain old road building to retrieve culverts, to clean it up, to clean up the wood that

is piled in the middle of your workplace?

Mr. HAIRSTON. No, they have not been, to date, and we have repeatedly asked for any type of help that we can get. We have asked

for compensation for the destroyed culvert, and that falls in our—

that tells us that falls in our area, because that was a stockpiled

material, and it doesn’t become possession of theirs until it is installed in the roadway.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Has the Forest Service ever advised you on

change orders in your contracts in order to provide for these additional costs?

Mr. HAIRSTON. I guess it wouldn’t be so much of a change order

as it would be—the way we have been informed, it would go under

a claim situation against the contract, and we have filed those

claims, and, to date, have been denied.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Has the Forest Service ever offered to provide

security, then, for equipment that you have had to stockpile on the

job according to their bids on stacks?

Mr. HAIRSTON. No, they have not, and we have—this conflict has

been going on since 1992 in our particular case on several different

49

road projects. Every year, before we go out onto the project, we

usually have a meeting with the Forest Service that involves law

enforcement officers. They know this is happening; this isn’t a secret. Every year, it has been getting worse and worse. We have repeatedly asked to have our equipment guarded when it is not in

use or our staging areas—to have our diesel tanks and our stockpiled materials there, and we have always been denied that. They

have never——

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Mrs. Platt, I wanted to ask you, how well is

the Animal Enterprise Act working to protect you and your membership?

Ms. PLATT. Well, the Animal Enterprise Protection Act was

passed several years ago in response to these sort of attacks on animal-based industries. It should probably be expanded to resourcebased industries, because when people get attacked over saving

trees or wild animals, it is just an extension of the same philosophy. We find it works very well in that there is a $10,000 trigger

for involvement for the FBI which is reached very quickly on a

farm or, say, a research facility that has just been bombed. So, the

FBI gets involved very, very early in the investigation. However, on

the ground, local law enforcement is very, very good, and often

times the FBI involvement actually disrupts the local procedures,

and real basic things, such as interviews with suspects, get forgotten as the FBI takes over the scene, and there is a little bit of

chaos in the investigative arm.

We also find the FBI is treating these incidents as individual

acts of terrorism, but they don’t look at it as a pattern of a movement. So, each individual act is treated within a territory of the

FBI, and information does not cross quickly across State lines. The

FBI is still working with paper in an antiquated system, while the

opposition is working in an electronic age and passing information

worldwide in seconds. So, we are always a day late, a dollar short.

The FBI is limited by privacy concerns, and therefore cannot look

at the atmosphere, general patterns, the information on private individuals. Industry has to supply that to them, so we are constantly monitoring the opposition and handing it to the FBI to get

past privacy concerns. Whereas, if we simply looked instead at individual actions, if it was looked as a pattern of a terrorist, an

international network, we could address it a lot better.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. I would like to work with you further on this,

Ms. Platt.

Ms. PLATT. Thank you.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. And I just have one final question for Mr.

Wasley. As you know, Mr. Hairston has a Freedom of Information

Act request with your office. Will you please provide the Subcommittee with all relevant documents pertaining to his particular

request by June 1, 1999?

Mr. WASLEY. I will.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you very much.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. I have other questions of all of the panelists,

but I will submit them to you in writing. Should any of you wish

to update or supplement your testimony, you have 10 working days

to do so, and we will submitting questions in writing right away.

50

I want to thank the panelists for your patience. It has been a

long panel—and hour and a half—and thank you again very much,

and this panel is excused.

The Chair will call the final panel now—Mr. Dale Anderson,

president of the Pennsylvania Forest Industry Association,

Ridgway, Pennsylvania; Ms. Sheila Keller, treasurer, Montana

Women in Timber, Kalispell, Montana, and, Mr. Brett Johnson, of

Forks, Washington. Two of the brightest members that we had on

this Committee—Mr. Rick Hill and Mr. John Peterson—will be introducing two of the panel members, and so just as soon as they

come up, I will recognize Mr. Hill for his introduction of Mr. Anderson—of Ms. Keller.

Mr. HILL. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Madam Chairman, I

am proud to introduce Sheila Keller from Kalispell, Montana, originally a native of Iowa; moved to Montana 13 years ago—like most

of us, weren’t born there but got there as quick as she could. Her

husband’s family has been engaged in logging and farming in Montana for four generations. She and her husband own three log

trucks. She has a degree of education from the University of Montana. I am pleased to welcome Ms. Keller.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Mr. Hill.

And the Chair now recognizes Mr. Peterson for his introduction.

Mr. PETERSON. It is a pleasure to introduce Dale Anderson,

president of the Pennsylvania Forestry Association. We have

worked together for many years on fighting for good management

in the Allegheny National Forest and all of the high quality forest

that surrounds it. Dale and I are very proud that the forest we

speak of, the ANF and surrounding—I guess I could say—millions

of acres, is probably the finest hardwood forest in America, one

that came from about 100 years ago when a hemlock forest, a

beach forest, was removed, and the good Lord gave us one of the

finest forests. Of course, on Dale’s card, he has the black cherry

capital of the world, and there is a couple-county area where 50

percent of the veneer cherry in America comes from, and much of

that is on the Allegheny National Forest also, but it is a very mature forest; it is a very high quality forest, and it is one that can

be providing very high quality wood products to this country as

long as we professionally manage it and treat it well, and I think

the Forest Service has done a pretty good job of that, and that is

why it is such a high quality forest today.

And Dale wants to speak a little about the Endangered Species

Act, the appeals process, and other management directions that are

being taken and the impact on neighboring communities if some of

the things that are happening continue. So, without any further

ado, it is a pleasure to welcome Dale here to speak to us.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you very much, and thank you for

sending these members back; I appreciate you.

I would like for you to stand and take the oath, if you would.

Raise your right hand to the square.

[Witnesses sworn.]

The Chair now recognizes Mr. Anderson for his statement.

51

STATEMENT OF DALE E. ANDERSON, PRESIDENT, PENNSYLVANIA FOREST INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION, RIDGWAY, PENNSYLVANIA

Mr. ANDERSON. Thank you, Madam Chairman and Honorable

John Peterson. It is a real pleasure to be here. I want you to know

this wasn’t part of my talk, but we do have extremists in our area

that operate, and I will be glad to submit this to the Committee.

My name is Dale Anderson, and I am president of the Pennsylvania Forest Industry Association. This is a grassroots organization

of people that work in the forest industry and other citizens. We

have been organized since 1963. I will testifying as the president

of the Pennsylvania Forest Industry Association.

The timber resources of our National Forest System, including

the Allegheny National Forest are slowly and quietly deteriorating

due to a lack of forest management. The present policies of the Forest Service contribute to the decline of the health of the forests,

batter the rural communities, and contribute to worldwide ecologic

problems by exporting our demands for forest products to other

countries with low environmental priorities.

My history with the Allegheny started with my high school days.

I worked for a couple of years on the fire control team. Later, I

worked on the Allegheny doing timber stand improvement. It was

this experience that led me on to a degree in forestry from West

Virginia University. The investments made in the sixties by the

Forest Service to improve these timber stands are now becoming

ripe. For us to disregard this investment is not fair to the people

of this country.

While attending college, I worked as a fire control aid on the St.

Joe National Forest in your beautiful State of Idaho, Madam Chairman. I have fond memories of my summer out there. I have had

experiences with and been an observer of the U.S. Forest Service

in the East and in the West over a long period of time. Over time,

we have seen a steady escalation in the cost of administering all

national forests. Due to the tree species of high demand and high

value on the Allegheny, we can still operate in a fashion to cover

costs and return money to the United States Treasury and to the

schools and townships of Warren, Forest, Elk, and McKean Counties.

The latest numbers I have for Fiscal Year 1998 on the Allegheny

show income of about $23.2 million. Almost all of this revenue is

from timber harvesting. One-fourth of this money, or about $5.8

million, was returned to townships and schools in four northwestern Pennsylvania counties. Over this same time period, income

of $105,000 was generated from recreation or special use permits.

Some people have said that we can replace the dollars from sustainable timber harvesting with recreation dollars. On the Allegheny, we will need to increase recreation by about 220 times to

replace the return from timber. Or the current fees will need to be

raised by a factor of 220 to replace the timber revenues. Now, we

don’t think this is going to occur due to the limits of reality and

to the law of diminishing returns. There is absolutely no replacement for the energy, the vitality, and the activity generated from

sustainable harvest of forest crops.

52

We are seeing many examples of large, beautiful, high-value

black cherry and red oak trees lying horizontal and rotting on the

ground. These trees have been brought down by high winds. This

is nothing new; it has been going on for as long as we have had

wind and trees. What is new is the total lack of ability of the people now running the forest to do anything about it. It is a shame

to let the people’s high-value resources rot on the ground.

The Forest Service tells us that ‘‘We are working on it; we need

more money, and as soon as we get this or that study done, we will

act.’’ The evidence is that the Allegheny National Forest is becoming an area full of dead trees that look like skeletons with bark and

limbs falling off. Reproduction of desired tree species is delayed or

impossible and the industry is going elsewhere for raw material.

The unique forest resource ecosystem in the Allegheny National

Forest is very fragile, and it is not sustainable without active forest

management. The way to sustain this asset for the America people,

for our children, and for our children’s children is to actively manage the forest.

Presently, we have a bat, one Indiana bat on a road trip. He has

since made an appearance in Vermont. This gets Fish and Wildlife

involved. We have too many agencies with the same mission. I ask

you, if we have half a million Indiana bats, are they really endangered or is the Endangered Species Act being used for some goal

other than to protect endangered species? Does one bat indicate

habitat or intentional stocking of that bat? The Endangered Species Act is flawed and needs to be fixed. The Allegheny National

Forest, Madam Chairman, is beginning to resemble the demise of

the goose that laid golden eggs.

Please fix the appeals process. Every project since 1991 on the

ANF and almost every other national forest has been tied up in appeals. Forest health declines, resources are wasted, we export our

demands, gridlock rules, and employees become demoralized. The

Forest Service needs primacy over the critters and fauna that inhabit their land. Please use peer reviewed science to manage our

national forests.

The Pennsylvania Forest Industry Association appreciates this

opportunity testify before this Committee. We welcome any comments or questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Anderson follows:]

STATEMENT OF DALE E. ANDERSON, PRESIDENT, PENNSYLVANIA FOREST INDUSTRY

ASSOCIATION

The effects of The Endangered Species Act, the Appeals Process, and the current

management direction of our Allegheny National Forest and other National Forests

which has contributed to declining forest health, battered rural communities, and

worldwide environmental degradation.

I want to thank the Honorable Helen Chenoweth, for allowing us to testify at this

hearing today. I also extend my thanks to the rest of the Committee.

My name is Dale Anderson. I am the President of the Pennsylvania Forest Industry Association. This is a grassroots organization of people that work in the forest

industry and other citizens, organized since 1963. I am testifying as the President

of Pennsylvania Forest Industry Association.

The timber resources of our National Forest system, including the Allegheny National Forest are slowly and quietly deteriorating due to a lack of forest management. The present policies of the Forest Service contribute to the decline of the

health of the forest, batter the rural communities, and contribute to world wide

53

ecologic problems by exporting our demands for forest products to other countries

with low environmental priorities.

My history with the Allegheny National Forest started with my high school days.

I worked for a couple of years on the fire control team. Later, I worked on the Allegheny doing timber stand improvement. It was this experience that led me on to

a degree in Forestry from the West Virginia University.

The investments made in the 1960’s by the Forest Service to improve these timber

stands are now becoming ripe. For us to disregard these investments is not fair to

the people of this country.

While attending college, I worked as a Fire Control Aid on the St. Joe National

Forest in the beautiful state of Idaho. I have fond memories of my summer in your

great state, Madam Chairman.

I have had experience with, and been an observer of the U.S. Forest Service, in

the East and in the West, over a long period of time.

Over time, we have seen a steady escalation in the cost of administering all National Forests. Due to tree species of high demand and high value on the Allegheny,

we can still operate in a fashion to cover costs and return money to the United

States Treasury and to the schools and townships of Warren, Forest, Elk, and

McKean Counties.

The latest numbers I have for FY 1998 on the Allegheny, show income of about

$23.2 million. Almost all of this revenue is from timber harvesting. One-fourth of

this money, or about $5.8 million, was returned to townships and schools in four

northwestern Pennsylvania counties.

Over this same time period, income of $105,000 was generated from recreation or

special use permits. Some people have said that we can replace the dollars from sustainable timber harvesting with recreation dollars. On the Allegheny, we will need

to increase recreation by about 220 times to replace the return from timber. Or, the

current fees will need to be raised by a factor of 220 to replace the timber revenue.

We do not think that this will occur due to the limits of reality and the economic

law of diminishing returns. There is absolutely no replacement for the energy, the

vitality, and the activity generated from the sustainable harvest of forest crops.

We are seeing many examples of large, beautiful, high value black cherry and red

oak trees lying horizontal and rotting on the ground. These trees have been brought

down by high wind. This is nothing new. It has been going on as long as we have

had wind and trees. What is new is the total lack of ability of the people now running the forest to do anything about it. It is a shame to let the people’s high-value

resources rot on the ground.

The Forest Service tells us that ‘‘we are working on it, we need more money, and

as soon as we get this or that study done, we will act.’’ The evidence is that the

Allegheny National Forest is becoming an area full of dead trees that look like skeletons with bark and limbs falling off. Reproduction of desired tree species is delayed

or impossible and an industry is going elsewhere for raw material.

The unique forest resource ecosystem of the Allegheny National Forest is very

fragile and is not sustainable without active forest management. The way to sustain

this asset for the American people, for our children, and for our children’s children

is to actively manage the Forest.

Presently, we have a bat. One Indiana Bat . . . on a road trip. He has since made

an appearance in Vermont. This gets the Fish and Wildlife Service involved. We

have too many agencies with similar missions.

I ask you, if we have a half-million Indiana bats, are they really endangered? Or

is the Endangered Species Act being used for some goal other than to protect endangered species? Does one bat indicate habitat or an intentional stocking of that bat?

The Endangered Species Act is flawed and needs to be fixed.

The Allegheny National Forest, Madam Chairman, is beginning to resemble the

demise of the goose that laid golden eggs.

Please fix the appeals process. Every project since 1991 on the ANF, and almost

all other National Forests, has been tied up by appeals. Forest health declines, resources are wasted, we export our demand, gridlock rules, and the employees become demoralized.

The Forest Service needs primacy over the critters and fauna that inhabit the

lands they administer.

Please use peer reviewed science to manage our National Forests.

The Pennsylvania Forest Industry Association appreciates this opportunity to testify before this Committee. We welcome any questions or comments.

54

55

56

57

58

59

60

61

62

63

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Mr. Anderson.

The Chair now recognizes Ms. Keller.

STATEMENT OF SHEILA KELLER, TREASURER, MONTANA

WOMEN IN TIMBER, KALISPELL, MONTANA

Ms. KELLER. Thank you, Chairwoman Chenoweth, Congressman

Hill, and other members of this Committee for this opportunity to

present my views of the small business owner concerning issues of

forest management and how they impact us.

My husband and I own three log trucks and other equipment,

but, currently, we have just one other employee. My husband puts

in extremely long hours to keep everything running smoothly, and

I do whatever I can to relieve other pressures. In addition, I am

an independent contractor representing a national advertising company, headquartered in Iowa. In that capacity, I call on all types

of businesses in western Montana, northern Idaho, and in Spokane,

Washington, so I have sort of a feel for the pulse of the business

community in that area. I am also representing Montana Women

in Timber, because I know first-hand the value of education in resolving issues in the resource debate.

I grew up in Iowa and had little knowledge of the timber industry except that I wanted nothing to do with it. Shortly after we

purchased our first truck, I was ashamed to say what we did for

a living, actually, but I was invited to attend a Forest Service

meeting where the discussion focused on historical fire and current

conditions. It has been nearly 90 years since the catastrophic 1910

fires when 50 million acres burned nationwide. Three million acres

burned across northern Idaho into Montana and down the border

that we share. On the Flathead National Forest, 25 percent of the

forest burned. In the 90 years since that fire, timber harvest and

fire together have not equal what was lost in that one event.

I honestly felt I had been lied to, and things have not been the

same in my life since, actually. If there were just one thing I could

do, it would be education instead of legislation. I would urge every

congressman, especially those who support the Northern Rockies

Ecosystem Protection Act and zero cut legislation, to take just 20

minutes to watch the video, America’s Forests: A History of Resiliency and Recovery, before they decide what our future will be.

It is history of the United States as it relates to our forest. Douglas McCleary is still with the Forest Service here in Washington,

DC, and he compiled the information, because he felt it was important to understand the past and how we got to where we are today

in order to make responsible decisions for the future.

Montana has been known as the Treasure State, yet the per capita income has been on a steady decline, until last year, when we

hit the bottom of the Nation’s pay scale along with an increasing

poverty rate. Montana and her people are in trouble as we lose our

industry’s infrastructure with mill closures that are sold at auction,

dismantled, and go to another country. The oldest family-owned

mill in the State is now in a desperate situation as Flathead National Forest management comes to a halt.

On the 29 percent of the Flathead that is in the timber base, our

1994 inventory showed annual growth of 138 million board feet and

annual mortality of 53 million board feet. The primary manager of

64

the forest has become the courts, and, most recently, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which agreed that timber harvest levels

would harm the grizzly. In response, the Flathead National Forest

developed Amendment 19 that reduced timber harvest to 54 million

board feet—even though they haven’t come close to that in my

memory—and added road density standards for grizzly bear security that have resulted in hundreds of miles of forest road destruction.

Unfortunately, bears cannot eat security. Since implementation

of Amendment 19, there has been a dramatic increase in humanbear conflicts and incidents as bears have come down to our local

rural schoolyard, broken into cabins, come onto porches, roamed

local subdivisions in search of dog food, bird seed, human garbage.

This year, 25 grizzlies were destroyed in the Northern Rockies ecosystem, most of them in management situations.

Their preferred fall food is sun-loving huckleberries that provide

the calories and carbohydrates they need for denning, but they are

being crowded out by dense forests. Huckleberry researchers are

concerned that ‘‘lack of efforts to manage wild stands for

huckleberries and decreasing use of clear-cuts will reduce the available habitat for this valuable plant.’’ As roads are closed, fire will

become a major forest manager, but huckleberries’ shallow

rhizomes and weak root systems are easily injured by even moderate fire.

I have been involved in the collaborative process called Flathead

Common Ground, and I am now participating in Senator Baucus’

stewardship meetings. It is a process born of grant writers and

paid volunteers. It is a lengthy and time-consuming situation. On

Common Ground, we looked at 80,000 acres. We are going to treat

800 acres with logging, burn 8,600 acres, close 119 miles of road,

ending management.

In Idaho, just across the border, there is a sale where homeowners—or a proposed sale where homeowners on the shores of

Hayden Lake are anxious and willing to have 4,000 acres treated

because of the bark beetle infestation. The Forest Service is anxious to treat this, yet a local environmental group has promised

that they will sue so this will not be implemented. It is shame that

environmental groups are willing to torch this valuable resource in

the name of saving it.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Keller follows:]

65

66

67

68

69

70

71

72

73

74

75

76

77

78

79

80

81

82

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Ms. Keller.

And the Chair now recognizes Mr. Johnson from Forks, Washington. Mr. Johnson.

STATEMENT OF BRETT C. JOHNSON, FORKS, WASHINGTON

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you. I would like to thank the Subcommittee for affording me the opportunity to testify here today. It

won’t be quite as good, not as many statistics. I probably won’t end

up reading a whole heck of a lot from this. I just want to come

share my experience, strength, and hope as I was asked to. I would

like to especially thank the Honorable Helen Chenoweth. I come

from the State of Idaho, and, Madam Chairman, the State of Idaho

is very lucky to have someone like you representing them.

My name is Brett Johnson. I live on the west end of the Olympic

Peninsula; Clallam County is the county I live within. Prior to

moving there seven years ago, I lived on the I-5 corridor in Seattle,

the Redmond area, actually, where Microsoft comes from. When I

lived in the Redmond area, Redmond had one stop light. As I went

to school, Redmond changed. Instead of cutting down timber over

there and replanting timber, they cut down timber and brought in

a lot of folks from all sorts of places to take over that community,

and that scares me; I am kind of protectionist that way. But, yet

here I did, I moved over to a rural community. I had a mindset

when I moved over to that community, and it was just this last

year that my son had come from the urban area into the rural community, as well, and he has a great education just like I, myself,

had.

I live bordering the Olympic National Park, Sol Duc District,

about 18 miles out of Forks, Washington. My education and my experience in the Seattle area, I showed up over in the Forks area

for quite a few years enjoying the recreation opportunities that

were there—swimming in the rivers, fishing in the rivers, hiking,

and camping. It is a beautiful area. Some of the places I used to

go to years before, I don’t have access to, because some of the road

problems. Now, I live in that community and a lot of my friends

from the urban areas come over to visit and camp and do some fun

things. We have to send them to different areas, because some of

those roads are washed out due to lack of maintenance on Forest

Service roads. Some of the best scenic areas—and I have got some

pictures and this and that, that in the future I will send off to your

Committee.

I do appreciate the opportunity to step in here, because when I

did move over to the Forks area, I had a real weird mindset. I had

no idea what was going on in Forest Service lands. I didn’t know—

I figured I got across the ferry and it was the Olympic National

Park. Well, that is a one million-acre park, basically, surrounded

by 632,300 acres of what I would consider mismanaged—adapted

mismanagement areas. No wildlife openings are being created

there at all.

I am told by quite a few of the biologists in some of the meetings

I have sat in that elk and deer—see, I am not a biologist, a botanist, an attorney, a forester; I am a human being. And, frankly,

some of the folks that found out I was a human being, some of the

83

folks I used to hang out with quite a bit, tell me that I am the cancer of the Earth. I don’t like hearing that.

When I ended up coming over, there was a ranger by the name

of Gary Harris on the Olympic region, Sol Duc District, who told

me that our district and the Olympic region was being managed by

the Rio treaty—I think was the terminology he used—biodiversity

treaty is what he said, and I didn’t understand that, because I

thought that was our national Forest Service, USDA Forest Service, that was going to manage those lands for the betterment of our

Nation and not the internationalists. When this ranger told me

about that, it was at an adapted management area local meeting

that was attended by quite a few folks from outside our area that

were brought in from Oregon, and they had as much say as we did

at this meeting, the local folks. That concerned me greatly. Here

you are having a local meeting, and folks are brought in from an

outside area that had a certain mindset. These folks tried to disrupt the meeting any time one of the local constituents was speaking.

The problems I ran into with some of these folks—they ended up

camping out on the piece of property where I lived, so the eco-terrorism stuff that was being talked about, I had plenty of threats

from these folks when they found out I was speaking out against

what they planned on doing, and that was creating a lot of havoc

for us folks who lived in that local area.

The adapted management area meetings—Gary Harris, the ranger, told me that the area in which I lived was imminently going

to burn because of the mismanagement that was going on there.

They had planted some lousy tree production; they wouldn’t go in

and thin it out, put any other trees in that area, and, historically,

that area burns. It was suggested to me and my neighbors that if

Gary lived in that area, he would move, because it was imminent

there was going to be a fire in that neck of the woods. Well, I have

a 12-year old son who has moved in with me there, and I would

love for each and every member—especially the ones who aren’t

here and especially the one from the State of Washington, the Honorable Adam Smith, I believe is from Washington, and I have got

a lot of friends over in his neck of the woods—they would come

over and what I am hoping is that they will have the opportunity

to come up and see the road problems. They are creating problems

for the fish which have just now been listed, as well.

Appreciate the opportunity. If I can answer any questions, I will

try my best. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Johnson follows:]

STATEMENT OF BRETT C. JOHNSON, FORKS, WASHINGTON

Testimony pertains to: Personal experience in dealing with issues specific to National Forest Systems Policy, Protection, and Public/Private Resource Management.

Key points to include—real people, local citizen attempts to participate in decision

making process, lack of fire preventive measures and local economic concerns, accessibility and roads maintenance issues.

I would like to thank the Subcommittee for affording me the opportunity to testify

before you today, with special thanks to the Honorable Helen Chenoweth, Chairman. Madame Chairman, you represent the citizens of Idaho with great poise and

professionalism.

My name is Brett Johnson. I live on the West End of the Olympic Peninsula in

Washington State, where I am raising my son Bryan who is twelve years old. He

84

would be here today, but little league baseball matters more to our children than

does congressional affairs. As we will see in this testimony, Congressional affairs

do play a role in my child’s education and our ability to continue living in this beautiful rural community.

We live outside of town with one of our closest neighbors being the USDA Forest

Service, Olympic Region, Sol Duc Ranger District. I am testifying today as an individual and by no means wish to represent my employer, or anyone else for that matter, at this time. The testimony I am giving is based upon my own personal experience visiting, as well as living on the Olympic Peninsula.

Let me begin by noting that I have lived in the Forks, WA area for nearly seven

years, having moved from the Seattle area in 1992. I had spent much time camping,

hiking, biking, and sightseeing on the Olympic Peninsula for many years prior to

moving there permanently. I brought with me an attitude I would now call ‘‘urban

think.’’ This attitude was basically thinking I knew about environmental issues I

had no personal experience with first hand. Herbert Spencer, a noted philosopher,

once said ‘‘There is a principle which is a bar against all information and which cannot help but keep a man in everlasting ignorance, that principle is contempt prior

to investigation.’’ This seems to fit me quite well.

My contemptuous attitude began changing as I started to meet individuals, and

families which had lived in this community for generations. Today, many of my closest friends are the children, grandchildren and great grandchildren of people like

the Iron Man of the Hoh, John Huelsdonk. The Federal Government has incrementally taken portions of their family lands to assure our nations future generation

a wilderness experience. These folks and their children have since been denied access to portions of lands and trails once developed and maintained by John

Huelsdonk, Charlie Lewis and other family members. This generation has already

been denied access to the wilderness experience they were promised.

Old-timers in this community have taken time personally to escort me into the

woods. Providing a great beginning of truly wonderful education. Seeing first hand

the reality of our local forests and the forest health issues associated with non-management of the resource has begun to open my eyes. Infestation of bugs, blow-down,

fire hazard, overcrowded stands, and many other problems seem obvious to even

this city boy. Little, or no action is being taken by the Forest Service to limit the

devastating effects to humans by the inevitable fires that will occur in my neighborhood. Further degradation to the valuable resources of timber and wildlife continue.

Ranger Harris, the previous Sol Duc District Forest Ranger, told me that they had

gotten rid of almost all the fire fighting, and roads maintenance equipment the last

few years. He further suggested that if we wanted any safety assurance, we should

move away from the Snyder Ridge area, and that he anticipated a uncontrollable

fire in that area soon. If the right conditions were present, such as dry summer,

and an east wind it would be inevitable. He also acknowledged that the Forest Service was managing lands according to the Treaty in Rio. International management

seems unconstitutional, is not site and situation specific, and therefore, seems a

very ridiculous option to choose.

As a member of the public, I have attended many of the Olympic Province Advisory Committee Meetings. This group was chartered out of the President’s NW Forest Plan and appears to be lacking in site and situation specific management techniques also. Over the past few years, I have also attended the supposed local public

meetings on the Olympic Adaptive Management Area. At these meetings, preservationists, brought in from Oregon had equal status with the local, most affected concerned citizens. This did not seem appropriate to me if it was to be a local informational and input meeting, as I was told.

The Advisory Committee is obviously trying to take local economics, other than

tourism, out of the picture entirely. By the way, promises of tourism are hollowed

with the lack of maintenance on some of our more scenic forest roads. When asked

to address local concerns regarding economically feasible timber harvest, the group

balks. The professional facilitator then steers the group back onto other feelings oriented topics, while attempting to degrade the questioner’s credibility and thus bypass any talk of real economics. The committee’s own feelings seem to matter more

than the feelings of the local people trying to feed their children.

In 1995, I began a lunch buddy program at the local elementary school. Not having full custody of my own child at that time, I wanted to stay in tune with children

his age, so as to, ready myself for the day when he moved in with me on a full time

basis. While attending a reading session just prior to Christmas of 1995, I was

greatly upset by something I saw and heard. One teacher, after reading Charles

Dickens tale of the little Christmas Tree, asked the 4th Grade students in her class

the following questions:

85

(i)How would you feel if you were cut down and taken away

from your Mother, & family like the little tree was in the

story?

(2)What would you think about being adorned with ornaments

for display, and after a few days taken outside and set afire?

(3)How come we humans are so uncaring to natures other living beings? This is an example of the twisting of our children’s minds which continues daily

through schools, television, and the media with regards to natural resource issues.

I have since participated in getting independent people from our community into

schools to mitigate the damage some teachers personal agenda’s may produce. Our

children needn’t feel guilty for living in homes made from forest products, or drinking the eight glasses of water as is suggested by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.

Total annual timber harvest in Washington State on both Public and Private

lands is now less than what occurred on the Sol Duc District alone in 1988. I don’t

think the people living in my rural community want the destructive band aids provided by the re-circulation of already existing tax dollars. What I hear them saying

is—please let us go back to work creating new wealth from the extraction and replanting of a renewable resource. Timber grows very quickly with our approximately

150 inches of rain annually and most tourists balk at spending time in a community

that gets that much rain.

Forest Health is declining, Rural Communities are being destroyed, and all this

because of policies not based on sound science. Replacing science and economics, is

the new international social science of Environmentalism. International Social Management has not worked elsewhere so, how about giving us back our jobs. We can

help in taking care of the nations resource needs while providing habitat for a multitude of species badly in need of the wildlife openings our harvests will create with

sustainability.

Recent studies by USF&WS, USGS, & WDF&W, show our Elk & Deer numbers

are way down on the west-end of the Olympic Peninsula and many biologists I’ve

spoken with say this is directly attributed to the lack of wildlife openings. Openings,

that were previously being created by harvest of timber and providing for economic

values to come off of the Peninsula’s large public land base. Visitors tell me how

bad the clear-cut looks and then explain it was on the edge of this eyesore they saw

the elk they had photographed.

I would like to finish by thanking this Committee for allowing me to share a little

of my own personal experience and observations on this issue. I would love for each

member of this Committee to come into my back yard, upon scheduled invitation

of course, and take a tour of the Olympic National Forest with real people rather

than agency personnel as is typical. You will be amazed at the beauty the loggers

paintbrush has created on the landscape and the danger to it that now exists because of mis-management. I welcome any questions, comments or future correspondence.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Mr. Johnson.

I thank the panelists for their valuable testimony, and the Chair

now recognizes Mr. Hill for his questions.

Mr. HILL. I thank you, Madam Chairman, and I want to echo

your comments and thank the panelists for their testimony.

Sheila, I want to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind. I

found kind of interesting when you made reference to the fact that

you were embarrassed to say what you did and that you owned a

logging truck. Do you consider yourself a person that cares about

the environment?

Ms. KELLER. Absolutely. I probably, originally, I was one of those

who had no idea of my own personal impact on the environment,

and education has played such a great role, I now realize that absolutely everything I use and everything I do comes from the Earth.

If it can’t grown, it has to be mined. And we have been using these

things since man began, and we are using them better than ever,

and here, in the United States, we have the best technology, the

86

best methods, the most concern for our environment and the stewardship practices. As we are making these decisions, we are deciding to send all of our environmental concerns to another country

while we do the consuming, and that doesn’t seem right. We are

the responsible ones, and we can make very responsible decisions

concerning our resources.

Mr. HILL. In your opinion, has the administration’s road moratorium impacted the wood products industry in Montana?

Ms. KELLER. Absolutely. It is kind of hard to say what—I don’t

know that there has been a single sale on the Flathead that is coming down the pike except for maybe a 30-acre collaboration process

that took two years. It is not only impacting timber harvests—perhaps, the best illustration of how it has impacted us is that we generally have one truck sitting. In addition, it is impacting

snowmobiling and other recreation. So, tourism that was supposed

to be our salvation is now, actually, it is on appeal. There is a

snowmobile area that is being appealed by a local environmental

group, the same ones that want to stop timber harvests. And on

the collaborative process that we call Paint Emery, that Flathead

Common Ground worked on, all proposals include taking out a

groomed snowmobile trail there also.

Mr. HILL. You made reference in your testimony to trying to find

some common sense solutions, and you have worked on Flathead

Common Ground, which is a collaborative effort in your area, but

in your testimony, you said that it was a process born of grant

writers and paid volunteers, I think. That is a frustrating process.

Would you describe why you described it that way? Would you explain that?

Ms. KELLER. Most of those who come to the table have a vested

interest in keeping the processes long and involved and as lengthy

as possible. There may be a few mill personnel who come once in

a while. I make it once in a while, but most of those who sit at

the table have received grants to participate in the process and

promote it as the way to go; others are paid staff of volunteer

groups.

Mr. HILL. So, they are making money being there, and it is costing you money to be there, right.

Ms. KELLER. They are making money, absolutely.

Mr. HILL. That is kind of unfair. Pretty hard to find common

sense solutions, isn’t it?

Ms. KELLER. Well, I hope it is not impossible. If there is any benefit at all to the collaborative process, it might be a measure of

education, but most of those who sit at the table come with a

mindset and an agenda—just as I said in Flathead Common

Ground, the goal was to implement amendment 19, and most of

those came to the table with a goal in mind—119 miles it shuts off

whole drainage and——

Mr. HILL. This is for everybody’s identification, amendment 19 is

a road closure amendment, isn’t that correct? It is an amendment

to the Forest Plan and transportation for endangered species management.

Ms. KELLER. Some local environmental groups sued the 1986

Forest Plan, they lost at the State level and took it to the Ninth

Circuit Court of Appeals where they lost on every point except for

87

one, which was how timber harvest affected the grizzly bear. Of

course, you can see that the court wasn’t a forester and wasn’t a

biologist, because huckleberries aren’t growing in grizzly bear habitat. The only criterion for protecting the grizzly seems to be security, and, as far as I am concerned, the grizzly, just his size and

his presence is enough security for me.

[Laughter.]

Mr. HILL. We have increased incidents of people, conflicts with

grizzly bears, haven’t we in recent years?

Ms. KELLER. Last year, it was record number, and this was due

in large part to a failure of the huckleberry crop. There was some

frost damage, and because we are losing our huckleberry crop

across the entire forest, there just weren’t enough huckleberries to

support the bear population.

Mr. HILL. So, the bears are coming out of the deeper forests, and

they are coming into areas where there are more people, isn’t that

right?

Ms. KELLER. They are searching for food in what ever place they

can find it.

Mr. HILL. Interestingly, the greatest threat to grizzly bears is

that encounter, when they encounter people in suburban areas or

in areas where people and the forest intersect. Isn’t that right? I

mean, almost always, those bears end up being removed, don’t

they?

Ms. KELLER. The policy generally becomes ‘‘A fed bear is a dead

bear.’’ Once they have found a food source they can access, then

they become repeat offenders.

Mr. HILL. One last point: you mentioned you are in the farming

business, as well. Are you in the ranching or farming business?

Ms. KELLER. That was my husband’s grandfather who farmed.

Mr. HILL. Your area is also impacted by another endangered species, timber wolves, isn’t it?

Ms. KELLER. Yes. On the Flathead National Forest, I had a

former Forest Service employee tell me—First understand that

these are natural packs in our area, so they don’t come under the

same guidelines as the Yellowstone-introduced packs. In the North

Fork, wildlife is disappearing rapidly, because, as this Forest Service employee said, the wolves view the elk calves as popcicles.

Mr. HILL. Well, that is their number one diet, isn’t it, if possible?

Ms. KELLER. Generally, it seems to be the young. They like to

tell us that they cull the herds for the old and disabled, but it has

proved to be a detriment to the calf population, which is the future

of that herd there.

Mr. HILL. Thank you very much for your testimony.

Madam Chairman, I have to leave; I have another meeting. But

thank you for holding this hearing. I want to thank, Sheila, you,

for being here and the other panelists, and I appreciate very much

the opportunity to hear your testimony. Thank you.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Mr. Hill, and thank you for making sure Ms. Keller came back. I appreciate that.

The Chair now recognizes Mr. Sherwood.

Mr. SHERWOOD. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Thank you very

much, Mr. Anderson, Ms. Keller, and Mr. Johnson, for your testimony.

88

It seems to me that it is illustrative that we have policies that

have gone awry, and we are getting unintended consequences—

that is a new phrase I have learned since I came to Washington.

But it looks like the management practices that we have taken on

in so many cases are counterproductive, and, Mr. Anderson, I live

about 160 miles east of you out Route 6, and, Ms. Keller, some of

my best friends drive log trucks, so don’t—no apologies necessary

here.

Dale, talk to me a little bit about the Allegheny National Forest.

In other words, give us a price—this Committee has a little western bias, and they have an even-aged forest, and they cut it down,

and it makes a big difference. In ours, we do a lot of selective cutting, and it regenerates. We have got lots of water, and tell them

a little bit how valuable those cherry trees are now that are fallen

down?

Mr. ANDERSON. Well, some of those cherry trees contain in the

neighborhood of 500 to 1,000 board foot; trades anywhere from $6

to $8 per board foot for a good one. So, what does that come out

to? About somewhere around $6,000 a tree.

Mr. SHERWOOD. Trees, yes.

Mr. ANDERSON. These are pretty expensive trees. They trade

worldwide. There are people that come in from Germany, France,

Belgium. They walk through the woods and of the ones that are

marked on Forest Service lands, they will say that ‘‘Yes, that looks

like a good one; I think we will take that one.’’ And, so they are

pretty much handled almost as individual trees.

I know people that operate mills that buy Forest Service timber

that walk up after they have purchased the timber; it is marked

for a log; he inspects the tree, and marks on it with his own paint

how long he wants that log cut. They will cut it 20 foot long, and

that log stays 20 foot long until it gets to the veneer plant where

they then cut it into a couple of multiples, because every time you

cut that log, particularly in dry weather, it may check, and part of

it isn’t able to be used. So, by leaving it long length, they keep all

of the value in that log. They don’t have to trim off a foot. It is just

too dear. It is a beautiful resource.

I think I was in one congressman’s office today that had a black

cherry table, and he was from Idaho—I forgot to mention it.

Mr. SHERWOOD. Well, I just went through a new bank that was

opened in Clark Summit, Pennsylvania the other day, and it is

paneled entirely with native Pennsylvania black cherry, and it is

absolutely gorgeous. I used some in my house when my wife and

I built it several years ago.

But the purpose of this testimony is to show what a tremendous

resource we are letting go to waste. Here are these trees delivered

to the mill; could be worth from $2,000 a piece and up, and because

we are worried about a bat in the forest, we have the whole forest

shut down. Is that correct? There is no activity on the Allegheny

right now?

Mr. ANDERSON. Yes. Right now, this is—it is shut down because

we are waiting for a decision from Fish and Wildlife called a biological assessment. You have to understand that this started out

because they found a bat, but since they found a bat, now we are

going to do a biological assessment for the Indiana bat, for the Bald

89

Eagle, for the whorlded pogonia (Isotria medeoloides), and some

mussels in the Allegheny River. So, by the time all this study gets

done, are we going to cut any trees? It doesn’t look like it to me.

Mr. Peterson has gotten Fish and Wildlife more money to get

this study done. The study still isn’t done. It just seems like we

want more money, so we can study more things, so we can cut less

timber. It was interesting listening to the law enforcement guy

here. All the problems that we have in the forests have gone up,

while the timber harvest has gone down.

Mr. SHERWOOD. And I am very familiar with the private ground

to the east of the Allegheny National Forest, and because there is

no cut going on on the Allegheny, they are cutting that private

ground pretty strong, maybe too strong. In other words, we have

not in the past cut it so it wasn’t sustainable, but, right now, because of the pressure for the high dollar, especially the cherry but

some red oak too, that private ground is being cut pretty hard. So,

I think the Indiana bat is making us do two things that are real

foolish: We are cutting some of our private ground too hard and letting our very valuable resource on the Allegheny get old and fall

over.

When you take those prime, beautiful trees out in a selective cut,

that opens up the canopy; then the small trees grow, and in the

East, we can have a cycle. But if we let them fall down, it won’t

work, and I think that is the purpose of your testimony today, and

any other comments I would be glad to hear, but I thought the

three of you did an excellent job.

Mr. ANDERSON. Well, thank you; it has been a real pleasure.

Mr. SHERWOOD. Thank you, Madam Chairman.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Mr. Sherwood.

I wanted to ask Mr. Johnson, was there any particular event or

series of events that caused you to challenge the urban thinking of

your Seattle life after you moved to the Olympic Peninsula, and

what did you say in 1992?

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, getting a chance to meet some of the people

on the ground, and while I was over there, my son lived in

Redmond, because he was going to school at Horseman Elementary, and to keep the relationship going with him, I felt I needed

to be active and involved with kids his age. So, I started to do a

Lunch Buddy Program.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Pardon me, a what?

Mr. JOHNSON. Lunch Buddy. I would go into the elementary

school and hang out with a couple of different kids who were having some trouble in the community, and if they were getting their

homework done, we would sit down and we would do lunch. If they

weren’t getting their homework, we would sit down and do homework, and they taught me an awful lot, as a matter of fact.

But, one occasion, I went into the classroom, and it was just

prior to Christmas, and they were reading—not Charles Dickens;

I made a mistake. I was thinking a Tale of Two Cities—urban and

rural, I guess; it was a slip—but it was Hans Christian Anderson’s,

The Little Christmas Tree; wonderful story. But the questions following the reading of this that the teacher posed to these kids were

utterly amazing. Questions to the effect—and I can basically read

to those to you—but what it had to do with was how would you

90

feel—posing this question to these young children, fourth graders—

how would you feel if you were cut down and taken away from your

family, put on adornment with lights and displayed and then taken

outside a few days later and burned? I mean, that is utterly amazing to have happen in the community that was built on natural resource extraction.

And I guess that is one other thing I would love to get a chance

to mention is the term ‘‘timber-dependent communities.’’ I came

from a timber-dependent community—Redmond, Washington. I

was born in Salmon, Idaho, but I spent most of life in Redmond,

Washington, and they are a timber-dependent community. The

community I moved into is timber extraction-dependent, and timber renewal-dependent, and to renew it, one must harvest, and

back on the point, the elk and deer—one of the reasons I moved

over to that neck of the woods was the elk and deer populations,

and they are declining from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife, U.S. Geological Survey, and Washington State Department of Fish and

Wildlife. The recent study to reintroduce wolves—however it is

said—into our backyards pointed out this problem, and they highlighted the fact that we are not harvesting timber that is going to

provide the biodiversity that even the biodiversity treaty talks

about. So, I appreciate the opportunity to answer that question.

My concern and what I have tried to stay involved in since that

occasion with that one teacher is to get involved in some partnerships in education, and I understand the Alliance for America has

a Providers Power Program that is pretty much right in line with

that. Let these kids know where their food a lot of these products

really come from, not Safeway or McDonald’s.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. I appreciate your

comments, and I do think that it is important that our students realize actually what a tree, itself, can produce—the list of products

that comes just from a tree. I was surprised, and this is an issue

of great concern to me what is happening with the indoctrination

of our young people, and it just takes the sheer joy away; that is

unfortunate.

I do want to thank the members of this panel; you have prepared

well. I thank you for your testimony. You have come a long way

to supplement the record on a very, very important issue, and I am

deeply grateful. Thank you very much.

The hearing record will remain open for those who wish to supplement your testimony, and if there is no further business, the

Chair, again, thanks the members of the Subcommittee, and I am

very appreciative of all of their good questions. And I thank our

witnesses.

This Subcommittee is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 4:12 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]