SEATTLE — Port Townsend Mayor Michelle Sandoval was among four speakers Tuesday who objected to proposed new national forest management regulations during a Seattle teleconference sponsored by the Washington Wilderness Coalition.
The teleconference was a prelude to a National Forest Service question-and-answer public round table on the new regulations scheduled from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. today at the Sheraton Hotel at 1400 Sixth Ave., Seattle.
The regulations allow communities and national forest managers to use other factors along with “best available science” such as local knowledge to make decisions, said Tom Knappenberger, a spokesman for the National Forest Service’s Pacific Northwest region, in a phone interview from Portland, Ore., after the teleconference.
Olympic National Forest will not be considering a management plan for several years, Knappenberger said.
Sandoval said she was concerned about potential harm to the Quilcene watershed, which flows through Olympic National Forest and provides water for 10,000 Port Townsend residents and 1.25 million annual visitors.
“It’s not specific enough in calling for limits to the activities that could be harmful to the watershed,” Sandoval said.
“We need requirements that have clear and measurable standards for protecting riparian waters and buffers,” she said.
Minimum buffer zones
Sandoval suggested minimum riparian buffers of 100 feet as a nationwide standard and said the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service should not let individual national forests set their own standards.
“Clear plans” should be identified and established nationwide to protect key watersheds, she added.
The new regulations, called the Forest Planning Rule, would replace regulations dating to 1982.
Each national forest would devise management plans based on those regulations.
Sandoval participated in the half-hour presentation with James R. Karr, professor emeritus at the School of Aquatic and Fisheries Sciences at the University of Washington; Thomas O’Keefe, Pacific Northwest stewardship director for American Whitewater; and Gregg Bafundo, Washington field coordinator for Trout Unlimited.
Washington Wilderness Coalition Executive Director Nalani Askov said in an interview that the proposed regulations weaken protections for wildlife and habitat by not relying on “best available science” and by not requiring minimum viable populations of vertebrate species.
Too much is left up to local national forest managers, she said.
“It would allow forest plans to decide which species they would manage for in particular forests,” Askov said.
Logging to watersheds
“Forest plans govern everything from logging to recreation to watersheds,” she added. “They essentially cover all aspects of management in national forests.”
The new regulations also would reduce comment periods for plans for individual forests such as Olympic National Forest from 90 days to 30 days.
Knappenberger said he did not know why the comment period was reduced.
He said the national plan will apply to 193 million acres in 155 national forests, 16 of which are in the Pacific Northwest Region.
“It is a framework for 155 separate national forest plans,” Knappenberger said.
“Scientists do not always agree,” Knappenberger added. “So what that means is that we are trying to broaden the information on how we reach a decision.
“We’re trying to get to something more adaptive, more collaborative, respond to ongoing changes in the world.”
But it may not be until 2020 that the individual plan for Olympic National Forest — 633,677 acres, including 367,205 in Clallam and Jefferson counties — is written, Knappenberger said.
“Olympic is way down the list,” he said.
“The process has been pushed back many times.”
Federal courts threw out attempts by the Bush administration in 2005 and 2008, ruling the plans did not sufficiently protect the environment.
The Forest Service was not invited to participate in the teleconference. An agency representative who will facilitate today’s Forest Service round table was listening in, Askov said, but did not participate.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
