A longstanding dispute between the Shasta-Trinity National Forest in northern California and one of its employees (now retired) is close to being resolved.
In 1996, the Shasta-Trinity's forest soil scientist contacted FSEEE with a whistleblower concern. He had tried without success for three years to convince his superiors that the Forest had collected inadequate and inaccurate geologic information during an ecological inventory of portions of the Forest. The soil scientist believed that unless the faulty information was corrected, it would be difficult, even impossible, for the Forest to design projects, such as timber sales and new roads, without undue risk of sedimentation and erosion problems.
Given the technical nature of the soil scientist's concerns, FSEEE recommended to the Shasta-Trinity Forest Supervisor that an independent panel of geologists review the Forest's geologic work. The Forest Supervisor did not respond to this recommendation. So FSEEE arranged for its own informal review by a registered professional geologist from Humboldt State University. After examining maps and other documentation, the geologist agreed that the soil scientist's concerns carried considerable merit. He found serious problems with the geologic data, including mistakes in the mapping and photointerpretation of landslides and rock types.
In 1997, the Shasta-Trinity soil scientist further informed FSEEE that the Forest was remiss in its duties to evaluate the degree of risk, particularly from a geologic and soils perspective, associated with individual timber sales. As a result, FSEEE intervened in an administrative appeal of one such sale, the Beegum Corral Regan timber sale. The most noteworthy thing about this sale (and perhaps others) was not so much the environmental risks associated with it—the risks may actually be relatively minor—but rather the Forest's documentation of its geologic analysis of the sale. That documentation was scant and almost nonexistent. As a result, the Forest had little basis to state that its decision had been informed by a reasonable analysis of the geologic risks, even if the risks were not believed to be extreme.
The Forest Service's regional office upheld the timber sale decision, but interestingly, recommended that the Forest collaborate with the interested parties to address the soil scientist's concerns about geology and soils. Soon after, the Shasta-Trinity National Forest contacted FSEEE and expressed its readiness to arrange for the geologic review we had recommended more than a year earlier. Following lengthy negotiations about the scope of the review and who would participate, FSEEE and the Forest Service entered into a signed agreement to conduct a geologic review. That review finally took place this summer.
The review team's report with findings and recommendations is now available. The report validates many of the scientific and technical concerns expressed by the soil scientist for the last eight years but never heeded by the Forest Service. For example, the review team found that the forest geologist had seriously underestimated the number of areas in at least one portion of the Forest "underlain by bedrock at or close to the surface." That finding led the team to conclude that "there are probably fewer areas of mapable soils capable of supporting revegetation than are presently mapped" in the Forest's database. Sufficient other mistakes were found such that the review team concluded that the geologic work "was less accurate and, therefore, less useful than the originally available data" prepared by the U.S. Geologic Survey many years earlier.
Regarding the Beegum Corral Regan timber sale, the review team found reason to be confident that the Forest could implement appropriate measures "to reduce the risks and mitigate potential impacts associated with the timber sale." This confidence was based primarily on what the review team described as "the experience and professionalism of [the Forest's] field staff and contractors." It was not based on the available documentation for the timber sale.
In fact, the review team found numerous problems with the sale documentation such that they deemed it "not adequate…for project-level decision making." For example, the streams to be protected by riparian reserves couldn't be located using the maps in the Environmental Analysis (EA). Maps given to the review team had been plotted using digital models that apparently overlooked existing stream channels and other wetlands. In addition, the review team found that soils survey mapping units were based on incorrect descriptions of soil parent material, a mistake likely to result in incorrect erosion hazard ratings. No documentation existed regarding the criteria used to rate erosion hazard.
FSEEE has asked the Shasta-Trinity National Forest to revise the Beegum Corral Regan timber sale, based on the findings and recommendations of the review team and any changed circumstances since the EA for the sale was first prepared. At this time, we don't know with certainty how the Forest will respond, but our expectation is that the Forest Supervisor will accept and comply with the geologic review's findings and recommendations since she arranged the review jointly with FSEEE.
This cooperative arrangement between FSEEE and the Shasta-Trinity National Forest has been rather significant, even unique. Our recommendation is that whenever the agency finds itself party to a disagreement of a primarily scientific or technical nature (either with one of its own employees as in this case, or with outside interests), that it arrange for an independent panel of experts to review the matter(s) under dispute.
