Bush administration efforts to melt away a blizzard of environmental paperwork and lawsuits over "low-impact" tree harvests are getting a categorical rejection from local conservationists.

Exceptions to environmental rules, called "categorical exclusions," are allowed by the National Environmental Policy Act and have existed for many years. Two new exclusions have been recently proposed that would allow sanitation and salvage harvests of dead and dying trees. Harvest would be limited to no more than 250 acres.

A third exclusion would allow 50-acre cuts of live trees for the construction of temporary roads, landings and skid trails.

The U.S. Forest Service is describing these "small and environmentally safe" timber sales as having no significant impact on the environment.

A period of public comment on the proposals is currently under way through mid-March.

Local Forest Service staff said the minute details of forest policy may sometimes cause public eyes "to glaze over" as they focus on environmental or economic concerns, but the proposed rules could become important in Douglas County after potential legal challenges are dealt with.

Carol Cushing heads the North Umpqua Ranger District where the 17,600-acre Apple Fire last summer left thousands of acres blackened -- in some cases complete stands of young trees have been burned away.

Normally, up to 10 months and nearly 200 pages of environmental work and documentation may be required before a project can begin, she said.

Under an existing categorical exclusion sanctioned by the chief of the Forest Service, Cushing has been able to reduce the environmental review for a reforestation project to a six-page document and one month of environmental review. The project is set in the hard-hit Limpy Creek area, some 50 miles east of Roseburg.

"Based on our wildfire experience in 2002, managers need some different tools to help us solicit citizen participation while moving through our process a little quicker," she said. "There is a real need to treat hazardous fuels on the Umpqua National Forest."

Cushing met with Umpqua Watersheds representatives Wednesday afternoon to discuss the use of categorical exclusions to environmental regulations in her district.

"I have just made a decision to reforest some stands in the Apple Fire (area) that aren't of commercial size," she said in a telephone interview. "We are not going to salvage log them. We can plant all the available (seedling) stock we have next month."

Little apparent controversy surrounds this project, but that isn't true for the three new harvest exclusions proposed by the Bush administration.

A lawsuit in 1999 successfully challenged another categorical exclusion for harvests. The Forest Service lost the ability to use that rule for small timber sales after an Illinois-based environmental group sued to stop such a sale on the Shawnee National Forest.

An Illinois U.S. District Court judge ruled the agency did not base categorical exclusion sale size limits on meaningful analysis and issued a nationwide injunction on use of the rule.

Undersecretary of Agriculture Mark Rey has expressed his opinion that a broad collection of Forest Service initiatives, including the three new categorical exclusions, will stand up in court this time.

Rey said proposals ranging from environmental exemptions for forest health projects to new planning rules solidly comply with existing environmental laws.

Dale Bosworth, the U.S. Forest Service chief, said the new rules are necessary to help the agency meet its mission to care for the land.

"The agency hopes to reduce the bureaucratic red tape and save time, energy and money in preparing small, routine, timber harvesting projects that are supported by local communities," he said.

Francis Eatherington, forest monitor for the local conservation group Umpqua Watersheds, said her group has supported a wildfire risk reduction project in the Little River area that was allowed under a categorical exclusion. The group also is in favor of rules that allow trails and facilities maintenance to occur without a fuss.

But the group objects to the current use of categorical exclusions to allow yew tree bark and bough collection in old-growth reserves, she said. They are also opposed to the future falling of live trees or salvage without full opportunities for public review and "leverage" over how those projects are conducted.

"The Bush administration is proposing categorical exclusions for all timber sales. Under categorical exclusions, the public knows very little and biologists are excluded from presenting alternative actions," she said. "Not only does it remove the public from the process and the alternatives from the process, it removes the science from the process. It is really taking democracy out of the public forests."

Eatherington said the categorical exclusion allowing up to 50-acre cuts of live trees would end up "sending old-growth forest down the road to the mill."

Some in the U.S. Forest Service, like Paula Trudeau, district planner for the Tiller ranger district, said they do not expect to see categorical exclusions become a tool for more flexible forest management anytime soon.

"This will likely end up in court. There are a lot of people in the United States who want their voice heard and they feel categorical exclusions cut them out," she said.

Ron Barber, acting forest planner for the Umpqua National Forest, agreed.

"I don't anticipate that we are going to see that being used for the near future," he said. "We are not planning projects that anticipate the use of those (harvest) categories at this point in time."

Mark Buckbee, associate manager for the Bureau of Land Management Roseburg District, said he was unable to comment on the effect of similar environmental policy changes proposed by the Department of the Interior.

The BLM is considering a ban on appeals of fire suppression projects. Recent Congressional appropriations have also authorized the agency to offer an unlimited number of stewardship contracts. Private industry may be offered long-term contracts for management of economically marginal tracts of federal lands that require thinning and rehabilitation.

"In the Roseburg District, most of our stands are commercially thinable," he said. "I don't see stewardship contracting having a significant role in our area."

Environmental groups have spoken out against stewardship contracting as a first step in the commercialization of public lands.

Robert Ragon, executive director with the local timber industry group Douglas Timber Operators, said he takes issue with those who oppose a system that allows the Umpqua National Forest and Roseburg BLM to move forward expeditiously with small, low-impact projects.

"Categorical exclusions have been used for years," he said. "I don't think the purpose of the Forest Service is to do things people don't know about."



* You can reach reporter Jeff Willis at 957-4218 or by e-mail at jwillis@newsreview.info.