By
RAELYNN RICARTE
News
staff writer
August 27 , 2008
Two former
high-ranking officials from the U.S. Forest Service contend that expanding
Wilderness areas on Mount Hood will create numerous management challenges.
Linda Goodman and
George Leonard believe that retirement has afforded them the opportunity
to speak freely and so they can represent the views of many employees with
the federal agency.
Goodman was the
Region 6 Regional Forester until this spring and supervised activities in
17 national forests — more than 25 million acres — in Oregon and
Washington. Leonard served as associate chief for the federal agency until
1993 and is the current president of the National Association of Forest
Service Retirees.
Both
administrators have many concerns about the latest Wilderness bill, known
as Oregon Treasures. That proposal by U.S. Reps. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore.,
and Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., seeks to add 132,000 acres of Wilderness to the
existing 186,200 acres. The legislation is awaiting review by the House
when Congress reconvenes in September. A similar plan — calling for
127,000 more acres of Wilderness — has been stalled in the Senate since
2007.
Goodman said 4.5
million people visit Mount Hood each year because of its proximity to the
Portland metro area. She said a visitor study undertaken by the forest
service within the last several years revealed that 67,000 people each
year came to the mountain solely for the Wilderness experience.
The remainder of
respondents pursued other recreational interests, such as skiing, mountain
biking and camping in developed sites, some of which would be eliminated
under Oregon Treasures.
“I think this
proposal could be doing an economic disservice to the public and
communities around the mountain,” said Goodman.
She said it would
be more appropriate for Congress to impose a National Recreation Area
designation rather than Wilderness.
She said NRAs
provide protection for natural resources but leave camp sites open,
accommodate mountain biking, which is prohibited in Wilderness, and allow
greater efficiency in maintaining hiking trails. She said chain saws could
still be used to clear away trees that fall across pathways. Mechanized
equipment is prohibited in Wilderness so cross-cut saws are used to clean
up trails.
Goodman said the
task of sawing up a downed tree then becomes so laborious that Forest
Service employees can’t keep up with the workload. She said there are not
enough volunteers to make up for the lack of manpower.
“They don’t have
enough funding to maintain the Wilderness they have right now, and this
plan will be a real problem for employees,” said Goodman.
She believes the
purpose of the 1964 Wilderness Act would not be met by scattering more
“small narrow corridors” across the slopes of the mountain. She said the
existing Mount Hood Wilderness, at 47,160 acres, and the
Salmon-Huckleberry Wilderness, 44,600 acres, are large enough to serve as
a pristine getaway for hikers. If Congress decides to mandate more
Wilderness, Goodman said, it should be attached to the larger locations
that are already in existence.
“We all believe in
Wilderness but the little spurs in Oregon Treasures don’t meet the intent
of the Act to provide solitude,” said Goodman, whose career with the
Forest Service spanned 34 years.
Leonard expects
Hood River County to face challenges if the bill is approved. He said
having the newly expanded Wilderness abut a section of the county’s
managed forest near Post Canyon creates the potential for more wildfires.
He said
insect-riddled and diseased trees are more at risk during lightening
strikes. He said while infested trees can be treated within the national
forest, they must be left alone in the Wilderness.
“If I had land
that was immediately adjacent to an area classified as Wilderness I’d be
pretty concerned,” said Leonard.
“I would expect to
have my ability to suppress problems significantly reduced.”
Goodman said even
if an exception is made and mechanized equipment is allowed into the
Wilderness to combat a fire, there might not be a way to reach the blaze.
She said the primitive roadways once used for timber harvest cannot be
maintained and some are obliterated altogether.
“Putting equipment
in there means that you have to be able to get there; and without a road
nearby, you can’t do that,” said Goodman.
She said fires are
considered a “natural phenomenon” in a Wilderness area and managed with a
lighter touch unless they threaten public safety. She said these fires can
burn “explosively” because of the dead and dying trees so they are harder
to contain once ignited — and more dangerous for firefighters to battle.
John Marker, a
retired forest service employee and upper valley orchardist, believes
expanding Wilderness will threaten the most valuable resource on the
mountain — its water supply.
“Water is critical
to our way of life and the engine for a substantial part of our local
economy,” he said.
He said a fire
that burns hot enough in the Wilderness to sterilize topsoil creates the
potential for erosion since nothing can grow there. He said even rains
cannot penetrate the damaged earth and that is not acceptable when Mount
Hood’s watersheds provide drinking water for more than one million people
— and irrigation water for hundreds of local farms.
“Once a fire gets
started in a Wilderness area and starts moving, it will go where it wants
to go,” said Marker.
He supported
development of a customized management plan for the “urban” mountain that
was called for in a 2006 bill co-sponsored by Blumenauer and U.S. Rep.
Greg Walden, R-Ore. That plan would have established stringent rules for
protecting resources, recreation and other uses.
Marker, Goodman
and Leonard agree that adding more Wilderness to Mount Hood could end up
threatening not only resources but recreational opportunities.
