The Quincy Library Group: So-Called
"Consensus" Forest Plan Lacks Consensus, Violates
Rights
by David Ridenour
Since the House of Representatives approved the Quincy Library
Group Forest Recovery and Economic Stability Act of 1997 (H.R.
858) by an overwhelming margin last July, many have hailed the
process that created the bill as a model for resolving other
forest management disputes. If the Quincy Library Group (QLG)
process is a model for such disputes, however, it is a model of
what not to do.
H.R. 858 and its Senate companion bill, S. 1028 (currently
attached to S. 1079) would establish a five-year forest
management pilot project within the Plumas, Lassen, and Tahoe
National Forests in California. Among other things, the project
would: 1) require 40,000 to 60,000 acres of strategic fuel
reduction (the harvesting of dead and diseased trees) in
fire-prone areas each year; 2) require special efforts to protect
riparian areas (areas in or near surface water), including the
creation of wide protection
zones; 3) require selective harvesting techniques to achieve
multiple-age, multistory, varied species forests; and 4) ban all
logging in certain environmentally-sensitive areas.
The culmination of five years of work by the Quincy Library
Group, a group of local environmentalists, governmental officials
and foresters in Northern California, H.R. 858/S. 1028 has been
hailed as a locally-driven "consensus" approach to
forest management. Large timber companies like the plan because
they believe it offers them some degree of certainty, permitting
them to harvest timber without fear of the kind of incessant
administrative appeals and legal challenges by environmentalists
that have delayed operations and driven up costs in the past.
Local environmentalists like the plan because it would establish
environmental restrictions that may not otherwise be possible.
But not every one is happy with the QLG bill, nor does the
initiative appear to enjoy the kind of local consensus its
advocates claim it does.
The Myth of Local Consensus
The Quincy Library Group was established in 1992 when a forester,
a county supervisor and a local environmental activist began
meeting in the public library in Quincy, California to negotiate
a way out of the so-called "timber wars." The timber
wars, the longstanding dispute between foresters and
environmentalists over management of National Forests in Northern
California and the Pacific Northwest, had increasingly come to be
viewed as an obstacle to both local economic stability and
environmental quality. The QLG meetings eventually grew to
include as many as 175 people, though less than 30 people have
been regular participants in the meetings.
But the fact that local citizens participated in the QLG does
not, in and of itself, mean that the group -- or the product of
their efforts, the Quincy Library Group Forest Recovery and
Economic Stability Act of 1997 (H.R. 858/S.1028) -- represents a
local consensus. Some 50,000 people reside in the three-county,
2.5-million acre area covered by the QLG proposal. Yet, fewer
than 30 people were regular participants in QLG process.
Certainly, ranchers disagree with the assertion that the QLG bill
represents a local consensus. They oppose the measure because it
appears to grant the Forest Service sweeping new authority to
violate established water rights and to limit or even terminate
grazing within the pilot project area during the term of the
program.
Grazing and Water Rights Placed in Jeopardy
At the center of the ranchers' dispute with the QLG is a document
entitled "Viability Assessments and Management
Considerations for Species Associated with Late-Successional and
Old Growth Forests of the Pacific Northwest." The
publication is a Forest Service document drafted in 1993 by a
Scientific Analysis Team (SAT) led by Dr. Jack Ward Thomas, an
elk biologist who had been selected as Director of the U.S.
Forest Service by President Clinton as the Administration began
to phase out tree harvest in National Forests. Although the SAT
report was written to address specific environmental challenges
in Pacific Northwest National Forests, it was nonetheless
incorporated into the QLG proposal which deals with entirely
different National Forests.
There are several provisions of the SAT guidelines that have
ranchers particularly worried. For one thing, Section GM-1
stipulates that grazing practices be adjusted to "eliminate
adverse effects of domestic and wild ungulates [hoofed animals]
on riparian resources." If these efforts are not effective,
the guidelines call for the elimination of grazing "until it
is shown that grazing can be reestablished and still attain
Riparian Management Objectives." The problem with this is
that the Riparian Management Objectives are so vaguely written,
any one of a number of the objectives -- which number ten in all
-- could be used as a
pretext for ending grazing. For example, objective 9 of the
guidelines requires the Forest Service to "maintain or
restore habitat to support populations of well-distributed native
and desired non-native plant, vertebrate, and invertebrate
populations that contribute to the viability of
riparian-dependent communities."
The wording here raises many questions: What is meant by
"well-distributed" plant, vertebrate and invertebrate
populations? How is viability determined? What are
"desired" non-native plants? Who determines whether the
habitats must be maintained or restored and how is this
determined? All of these terms are so subjective that management
decisions can be totally arbitrary and capricious.
The uncertainty over what the riparian objectives actually mean
greatly expands the Forest Service's power to ban grazing during
the five years of the pilot project. After all, with the
objectives so ill-defined, how can one prove that the objectives
are being met?
By granting the Forest Service these expanded powers, the QLG
bill could prove devastating to local ranchers.
Dick O'Sullivan is one rancher who would be particularly
vulnerable to a ban on grazing.
"In addition to me, my wife, son and son-in-law work on the
ranch," said O'Sullivan, who depends on grazing in Lassen
National Forest for most of his 600 head of cattle. "We pay
my son and son-in-law only $1,200 per month each, and my wife and
I don't even take a draw any more. That's how close to the margin
this operation is."
People with the least financial resources and least able to fight
have been targeted by environmentalists all across the county.
These ranchers, farmers, miners and foresters are not being
forced off the land by changing national and world economic
trends, but rather by ever-increasing environmental regulations.
Advocates of the QLG bill argue that ranchers needn't be
concerned with the SAT guideline provisions as they only apply to
timber operations. But H.R. 858 stipulates that SAT guidelines
"for riparian system protection shall apply to all resource
management activities" and "all timber harvesting
activities that occur in the pilot project area."
Grazing rights are not, however, the only beef ranchers have with
the SAT guidelines included in the QLG proposal. Legally-binding
water rights are also at stake.
The SAT guidelines would establish Riparian Habitat Conservation
Areas (RHCA), which are buffer zones designed to protect or
improve the conditions of aquatic and semi-aquatic habitats. For
fish-bearing streams, lakes and flowing non-fish-bearing streams,
the buffer zones could extend up to 300 horizontal feet. For
ponds, reservoirs and wetlands more than one acre in size, they
could extend 150 horizontal feet. For seasonally-flowing streams,
smaller wetlands, and landslide areas, the zones could extend up
to 200
horizontal feet. In any event, only activities that
"contribute to improving or maintaining watershed and
aquatic habitat conditions" would be permitted in the RHCAs.
Since the presence of cattle for grazing -- or indeed for any
other purpose -- arguably doesn't meet these conditions, the
Forest Service could require that the cattle be removed from the
RHCAs. This would deny ranchers access to water used for their
cattle in the process.
Foresters Incur Obligations Without Privileges
Foresters may also pay a heavy price if the QLG bill becomes law.
Although local environmentalists have always had the option of
withdrawing from the QLG and resuming their efforts to stall
logging operations, they haven't done so thus far because they
fear losing the hard-won concessions they have already obtained
from the timber industry. But if the QLG bill is approved by the
Senate and signed into law by the President, this fear may well
dissipate.
The QLG bill explicitly states: "Nothing in this section
exempts the pilot project from any federal environmental
law." This means that some of the concessions made by local
environmentalists during the QLG process could conceivably be
deemed null and void. The concessions made by foresters, on the
other hand, would still be law. Thus, through H.R. 858/S.1028,
foresters could incur new environmental obligations while gaining
no privileges in return. There is every reason to believe that
more radical environmental groups will continue to file appeals
and seek injunction against any short-term agreements
"gained" by timber through the QLG.
Current Status of the Bill
The Quincy Library Forest Recovery and Economic Stability Act
(H.R. 858) was approved by the House of Representatives by an
overwhelming 429-1 vote last July. The Senate, however, has yet
to vote on the measure. Now attached to an Indian gaming bill (S.
1079), the Senate version of the QLG proposal (S. 1028) appears
to be in some trouble: At the behest of national environmental
groups, three Senators -- Democrats Patrick Leahy (VT), Barbara
Boxer (CA) and Paul Wellstone (MN) -- have placed legislative
"holds" on the bill. A hold indicates that a Senator
has serious reservations about a bill and plans to wage a floor
fight if the bill is brought to the floor.
Unlike local environmental groups, most national environmental
groups actively oppose the QLG
proposal. Some of these groups oppose the bill due to sincere
policy differences. The Sierra Club, for example, advocates a
"no cut" policy in the nation's National Forests and
thus is duty-bound to oppose any bill that permits trees in
National Forests to be cut. Other groups, however, may oppose the
bill because they fear it could serve as a model for forest
management disputes throughout the nation, shifting environmental
decision-making from Washington where national environmental
groups have muscle to the local level where they don't. Such a
shift could not only place the environmental movement's agenda at
risk, but also threaten their fundraising base, as environmental
donors would quickly refocus their giving to where the action is.
A Bad Model
The shortcomings of the Quincy Library Group bill speak volumes
about the process that created it. The QLG was dominated by
timber interests and environmentalists. Not surprisingly, the end
product reflected timber industry and environmentalist values and
objectives.
It should be noted that the largest timber corporation in the
state of California was the driving force behind the plan, almost
assuredly at the expense of scores of small timber companies and
saw mills.
QLG advocates claim that a forest management proposal more to the
cattlemen's liking could have been produced if only cattlemen had
taken a more active role in the QLG. The QLG, its proponents
argue, was open to all. Even if this were the case -- and some
people dispute this -- cattlemen had little incentive to
participate in the QLG because they were told that the group
would not address grazing issues. It simply made no sense for
cattlemen, some of whom had to travel two hours or more by car to
participate in the meetings, to continue committing time to a
process that had nothing to do with them. Given the outcome of
the QLG process, perhaps it would have been wise for ranchers to
take a more active role. But
hindsight is always 20/20: Ranchers could not have predicted that
the QLG would so readily violate its promise to keep grazing off
the table. One of the most respected ranchers in Northern
California served on the executive steering committee of the QLG
for a number of years until he was told all grazing issues had
been tabled.
While the idea of devolving environmental decision-making to the
local level is a good one, "consensus" groups like the
QLG may not be the best means of achieving this objective. For
one thing, politicians may see in these groups a valuable
political tool to avoid responsibility and accountability for
environmental decisions. By deferring to these groups,
politicians can avoid making the tough decisions while availing
themselves of a handy scapegoat should the results prove
unpopular. "Consensus" groups also risk
adding another layer to the already bureaucratic system of
environmental decision-making. Participation in the QLG, for
example, did not free the participants from their obligations to
comply with the dictates of the Forest Service, the BLM, U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service and a plethora of other agencies.
Groups like the QLG also often lend themselves to political
exploitation. Politicians employ the names of such groups as a
means of selling environmental policies as "locally-driven,
consensus" initiatives even in cases where a consensus does
not in fact exist. The fact that a small group of local citizens
devise a plan does not make that plan a "local
consensus" initiative, as the QLG situation demonstrates.
Perhaps the most difficult challenge stakeholders will face in
the future is determining which QLG-style groups are important to
participate in and which ones are not. This will be particularly
true should the QLG bill become law and result in the
proliferation of such groups. With limited time, resources, and
stamina, stakeholders will have to carefully pick and choose
which of "consensus groups" are likely to have the
greatest impact on their lives. Every hour they spend
participating in meetings is an hour that can't be spent on
taking care of business. As rancher Wally Roney has noted, the
endless meetings seem
to be designed "to keep you fighting until you have nothing
left to fight for."
Bill Coates, the Plumas County Supervisor who helped launch the
Quincy Library Group, developed a list of guidelines for local
community consensus-building that might have helped resolve some
of the problems, if only they had been employed. They include:
1. Keep the process very
open.
2. Start small and grow
naturally.
3. In the early stages, talk
about what you agree on and avoid press scrutiny.
4. Encourage mutual respect.
5. Keep the various
interests balanced numerically at all times.
6. Invite the community to
monitor and test the process. Keep no secrets.
It is unfortunate that the QLG didn't follow these guidelines:
Not only did the group fail to keep various interests numerically
balanced -- with ranchers representing only a tiny portion of the
participants -- but ranchers were frequently vilified at meetings
for daring to disagree with the party line. This is hardly an
effective means to "encourage mutual respect." Whether
or not Coates's guidelines provide an effective roadmap for a
community consensus project, we may never know. The QLG never
followed them.