Massive Plan Would Guide Public Land Use in Four Northwest States

The largest federal land-use plan ever proposed--covering 63 million acres across four states in the Pacific Northwest--would boost logging, cut grazing, close roads, restore watersheds and protect stream-side land.

The Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project is an ambitious effort to set a 10-year regional course for Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lands in eastern Washington, eastern Oregon, Idaho and western Montana.

Six years in the making, the 3-inch-thick document, released in draft form in April, would automatically amend 62 local land-use plans if it gains final approval--as expected--by the end of the year.

The plan is one of the first of a handful of major federal rule-makings due this year that will shape President Clinton’s environmental legacy in the final year of his presidency.

“We’ve tried to take on some challenges that have not been faced,” said Susan Giannettino, the project manager. “We’re trying to provide a [future] map of the basin--where we want to go, where we can go.”

Outside groups say the plan is vastly improved from an earlier version in 1997, which was sharply criticized as too broad, overly restrictive on land users and lacking environmental protections.

Environmentalists, however, say the plan falls short in ensuring that the Columbia Basin is protected for years to come. Industry groups say the document offers them too little access to federal land.

U. S. Sen. Slade Gorton (R-Wash.) said the plan is being released so close to the end of the Clinton administration that it should be delayed until the next president decides whether to adopt it.

“It’s another attempt by Bill Clinton--and, to a certain extent, Al Gore--to lock up land in eastern Washington without an awful lot of input” from people in the region, Gorton said.

Then-Sen. Mark Hatfield of Oregon and former House Speaker Tom Foley of Washington requested the project in 1993 to try to avoid bitter disputes east of the Cascade Mountains that occurred west of the Cascades over the spotted owl.

As federal officials worked on the $47-million plan, land users worried that the document would tie their hands. Gorton and some eastern Washington lawmakers pushed legislation in 1998--unsuccessfully--that would have killed the plan.

Now that the document is out, the plan has drawn a surprising lack of attention--positive or negative.

That’s because those in the region who have been tracking the plan for years mostly knew what was coming.

Also, some newer initiatives have stolen the Basin plan’s thunder.

The region has been studying the possible removal of the Snake River dams, and Clinton recently unveiled his plan for protecting up to 50 million acres of roadless national forests.

But agency officials, in responding to 83,000 comments received from an earlier version, also tried to quiet some dissent by addressing concerns.

Logging would increase 22%--not as much as environmentalists feared. Grazing would drop 10%, which environmentalists view as a positive change.

Local land managers would have flexibility in implementing the document; that’s something land users sought.

The main goal of the document is to restore land that has been degraded over decades of use and protect terrain that is relatively pristine.

It calls for removing noxious weeds and clearing some taller firs in an effort to bring back native sagebrush and trees that don’t grow well in the shade, such as the western white pine.

Salmon would be protected, and fire would be used more often as a land management tool.

The plan is supposed to fit seamlessly with other federal agency initiatives, such as those protecting forest roadless areas and salmon.

Kenny Read, a fifth-generation rancher from Culver, Ore., said that although the plan has improved from earlier versions, existing federal plans to protect water quality and help salmon are sufficient.

“Now we’re going to have another stack of rules and regulations to basically do the same thing,” he said. “It becomes awfully difficult for us to know who we should be listening to.”

The increase in logging is still below what is allowed in individual forest plans, said Stefany Bales, spokeswoman for the Intermountain Forest Assn., a timber industry group based in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.

Harvesting that is allowed under the Basin plan is mainly for smaller, lower-quality trees, she said.

“There is still no place in this plan for harvesting wood products for people--it’s all about ecosystem restoration,” Bales said.

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Mike Anderson, senior resource analyst for the Wilderness Society in Seattle, said that the network of watersheds selected for protection is too small, and that the document weakens protections for old-growth forests in Oregon and Washington.

“We’re likely to decide it’s not adequate,” he said.

Mary Scurlock, senior policy analyst for Pacific Rivers Council in Portland, Ore., said there is no guarantee the plan’s goals will be carried out locally.

“It’s really hard to tell what’s going to come out of this,” she said. “They want this process to be outcome-based, yet the way they are going to measure what the outcome is has not yet been determined.”

Federal officials completed a round of public meetings on the draft plan recently. A comment period on the plan will run until July 7.

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On the Net:

Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project:

https://www.icbemp.gov/