Regional Forest Service Jobs, Research May Get Budget Ax

Next year’s proposed federal budget would cut U.S. Forest Service research in California in a number of controversial areas, force the closing of two labs in the state and eliminate 40 positions in the Pacific Southwest Research Station.

“These changes will have significant impacts,” station Director Hilda-Diaz Soltero said in a newsletter outlining the budget proposal.

The reductions reflect a national shift in Forest Service research that calls for cuts in some ongoing programs to fund a handful of new initiatives favored by the Bush Administration.

Forest Service research on wildlife, aquatic species, fire-weather forecasting and forest growth would be eliminated or reduced in California. In their place, the research station would embark on projects involving computer modeling, the use of woody materials to produce energy, and research on Sudden Oak Death, a lethal tree disease. Soltero could not be reached for comment, and Matt Mathes, a U.S. Forest Service spokesman in California, emphasized that the proposal was “the first step in an always lengthy budget process.” What is being discussed now “may not hold true later,” he added.

Environmentalists who follow federal forest policy in California decried the changes, contending the Forest Service was abandoning sensitive work.

“They’re gutting key programs,” said Craig Thomas of the Sierra Nevada Forest Protection Campaign. “[It’s] a dramatic reduction in doing real science in terms of important things like tracking what is happening to species over time.”

A February assessment of the budget changes by the Pacific Southwest Station outlines a number of impacts.

* Research labs in Fresno and Redding would close, cutting wildlife research involving the California spotted owl and aquatic wildlife in the Sierra Nevada, and studies on tree growth and yield.

* Research on the northern spotted owl and marbled murrelet, a seabird that nests in coastal forests, would end. Concern over the two threatened species has slashed timber harvests in many West Coast national forests.

* Long-term weather forecasts used in planning controlled burns would be eliminated.

* Research on the effect of land-management techniques on wildlife and riverbank ecosystems would be reduced.

If approved by Congress, the budget proposal would take effect next fall at the start of the federal government’s fiscal year.

It comes at a time of continuing debate over the management of national forests, particularly in the West, where logging levels declined drastically under the Clinton administration.

A recently adopted plan for the Sierra Nevada calls for further reductions in timbering.

Forest Service documents raise the possibility, under a worst-case scenario, of closing the Pacific station next year if the station is forced to absorb all the costs associated with staff reductions and moves under Civil Service requirements.

The station, which covers California and Hawaii, has 250 employees, plus an additional 50 seasonal workers.

Nearly $3.3 million in research projects would be dropped, out of a Pacific station budget of about $19 million.

That would be partially offset by $2.5 million in funding for new initiatives. But 40 positions, including those for 12 scientists, could be cut because those workers are conducting research destined for the cutting block. Mathes said he could not say if other slots would be added to staff the new projects.

The new initiatives would cost $37.8 million nationally. The bulk of that, $20 million, would be spent on forest inventory--collecting data on what is growing in forests.

An additional $5 million would fund the development of software for computer modeling of forest appearance under various managements schemes. Research on using wood fiber to produce energy would get $5 million.