EDITOR'S NOTE: The contents of this page were written by Quincy Library Group member Linda Blum in response to several calls and email messages from prominent environmental activists.

Gentlemen:

Excuse me for pointing it out, but you've got it wrong when you characterize the QLG legislation as not allowing the "expected level of public input" and deviating "from accepted public participation requirements." Where in S.1028 do you find deviations or disallowances on NEPA?

There is plenty of case law on how NEPA applies to projects and programs mandated by Congress for Federal agencies. If you need a quick refresher, I'd recommend looking up NEPA in the U.S. Codes Annotated; the headnotes following the statutory text will give you a survey course in NEPA case law. There is also plenty of precedent for stakeholders to work out a generally acceptable resolution and have the agreement legislatively sanctioned -- the Central Valley Project Improvement Act and the Cal-Fed Bay Delta processes are two current California examples. Public involvement in the environmental review processes of NEPA and NFMA will most emphatically not be waived or infringed upon if the QLG bill passes.

If you believe that your public participation efforts will be meaningless because the U.S. Forest Service never or rarely takes your comments seriously, that's a different issue from the merits of the QLG management scheme being given a test. If you believe that nothing but QLG can be adopted if the bill passes, I would ask you to look closely and think deeply about the many details and alternative designs that this program could take, all within the general program designs specified by the QLG agreement. There is a great amount of room for influencing both the designs and the sideboards by which this program would be implemented, particularly if you can support your argument with science.

There is strong scientific reason to believe the QLG management direction would be the correct route right now in this ecoregion. In the current prevailing environmental orthodoxy in California, there is great love of the 1992 CASPO Report's recommendation to prohibit logging any live tree over 30"d.b.h., but virtual denial of the CASPO Report's conclusion that catastrophic fire is a substantial threat to Sierran forests. We're trying to get the Forest Service to find the right prescriptions and administrative mechanisms to reconcile fire issues with owl issues. We had a substantial amount of scientific and professional input early on, from CASPO Technical Assessment Team scientists, SNEP Team members, experts in fire and hydrology and forestry, etc. Sure, some academics would like to be funded to set up publishable experiments on some of the resource issues raised by QLG, and so they have gone on record as advocating caution until such research is done. But there are also many out there that think QLG is a golden opportunity for the Forest Service to do the right thing.

We in QLG consciously incorporated what we thought were the national environmental interests: preservation and protection of roadless areas and ancient forests; restoration and increased protection of aquatic ecosystems; use of credible science and accurate information; sustainable use of resources. I've been to a lot of ancient forest alliance meetings over the years; this has always been the wishlist. If these elements are not, what are the "national interests"? And when, exactly, are the self-anointed defenders of the national interests actually going to defend them at the local level?

I find myself feeling like I must have fallen through the looking glass, trying to figure out how the forest activist group could be so afraid of moving off gridlock that nothing can be allowed to be tried, not even trust-but-verify experiments in getting along with your neighbors. I DO understand the forest activists' fear of bad natural resource legislation being passed, but believe that this ain't it. You shouldn't cry wolf unnecessarily.

I wish that you'd think some more about those First Amendment rights. Sen. Bumpers' proposed amendment prohibiting any other groups from proposing legislation would abridge the rights of citizens to petition their government for redress of grievances. I think it would have been unconstitutional. Every time I am told by an environmentalist that I shouldn't talk to those nasty timber company guys, I wonder if they really mean to infringe on my Constitutional rights of free speech and assembly. There are civil rights issues involved in the QLG bill, but I'm not at all comfortable with the environmental community's positions.

If you would hold your right to participate in Federal agency decision-making processes as a First Amendment right, however, can I assume that you objected to the Presidio bill last year? Check out the Omnibus Parks Bill for all the parallel arguments. I mean, here was a piece of legislation that was sponsored by the local Members of Congress (Boxer and Pelosi) for their constituents and which conveys the management and disposition of a National Park unit to a private corporation, whose directors must by law be overwhelmingly from San Francisco, the local community. Here the parallel ends, and the Presidio case veers off what you clearly believe is the proper course for public assets. Only two of this board's meetings per year must be open to the public. There was NO NEPA process for adopting the Presidio management scheme, nor is there a NEPA process required for future management. Certain labor and other Federal laws are expressly waived for the Presidio operations. Operating funds shall by law be taken out of the normal operating funds for the entire Golden Gate National Recreation Area - up to nearly $1,700 per acre per year of appropriated dollars. What other unit of the National Park System or the National Forest System gets $1,700 per acre per year?

I wish that I could look forward to having the community of grassroots and national environmentalists shift their efforts to constructive engagement in what we do in the QLG, instead of fabricating shortcomings and inventing chimeras. The last three weeks have been accelerated "ambush environmentalism", not environmental citizenship.

In a conversation tonight with one of the most strident opponents of the QLG proposal, who had been a close associate on many previous environmental struggles, I asked, "why did you resort to lies?" Answer, "because we are trying to beat you". Good grief! Which side of the looking glass am I on, indeed.

In my last trip to D.C., I saw the following bumper sticker: If you want peace, work for justice. Now that is a sound bite that says it all.

Love, Linda

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