Big Arguments, Big Business

Strong feelings and disagreements about how national forests should be used have resulted in laws, such as the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the 1973 Endangered Species Act, requiring analysis, reanalysis, reporting and extensive public involvement in almost every decision forest employees make. "Managing the forests is a very emotional issue," says John Shilling, director of public use and facilities for Region 5. "Everybody's got their own idea what the forest should be like. Say there's a plan to provide off-highway vehicle use, undoubtedly somebody's going to disagree. Or a plan to do logging and build a firebreak, somebody will appeal because they don't believe we should be cutting trees."

The agency issues 100 environmental impact statements, 5,200 environmental assessments and 9,800 determinations of no or little environmental impact each year. It spends $250 million a year on environmental studies. Each year also brings more than 1,200 new appeals and 20 to 30 new lawsuits objecting to Forest Service decisions. This analysis, involvement and appeal "industry" is a chief source of work for a number of the Region 5 enterprises.

"Ten years ago, a large response to a forest project would be 300 letters. Forests were prepared to read and respond to that volume of letters using their own staff," says Jody Sutton, coordinator of the Content Analysis Enterprise team, which assists forests with public involvement and handling public response. "We emphasized public involvement early and often over the past years, to the point that six years ago a plan amendment at a forest generated 2,000 letters. They brought me in. We deal with hundreds of thousands of letters per project now."

Kelly Fike runs a business called Streamline, specializing in helping forest staffers improve and speed environmental planning. "Projects need to happen; they can't be endlessly bogged down in vicious cycles of process and lawsuits," says Fike. "We can't have projects that are five years in planning with shelf-feet of documents and lawyers involved. We need concise, streamlined environmental analysis procedures." Forests' heavy reporting load also provides work for Recreation Solutions, a business that helps forests develop trails, handle environmental impact documentation and do recreation planning. "The Forest Service's ongoing work seems to be continually impacted by reports and phone calls," says Recreation Solutions' owner, Jeni Bradley. "The recreation staff officers never have time to do planning because they're always doing crisis management. For example, there are lots of sources for funding [for recreation projects], but they never are ready to get the money because they don't have projects ready."