Environmentalists reacted today with rather restrained enthusiasm to yesterday's appointment by the Bush administration of Dale N. Bosworth as the new head of the U.S. Forest Service. While not out front in his support of many of the Forest Service's most recent conservation moves -- such as the ban on roads in about one-third of the nation's national forests -- neither has he been outspoken in his opposition.
In fact, Bosworth, 57, has compiled an acceptable record of environmental achievements during his lifelong employment with the forest service. "It could be worse," said one long-time observer.
Bosworth has managed the national forests of the ultra-contentious region comprised of North and South Dakota, Idaho and Montana, while also successfully negotiating the tightrope marking the boundary between environmental interests and business interests. This speaks to his abilities at compromise.
But even if he wanted to fight for the environment, few observers believe that Bosworth will possess much in the way of control. They point to the recent evisceration of Christine Todd Whitman and suggest that, on issues that really matter -- i.e., issues involving corporate profits -- Bosworth will be little more than a figurehead. "The people who are 'in charge' aren't really in charge," says Marion Hordequin, a biologist with Montana's Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute.
Bosworth's appointment comes on the heels of the U.S. Forest Service Chief Michael Dombeck's frustrated resignation of March 27. Dombeck was a chief architect of the Clinton Administration's ban on road construction in about one-third of America's national forest lands -- a ban that the Bush Administration appears ready to rescind. In his letter of resignation, Dombeck wrote that, under Bush, the Forest Service would no longer "manage public resources for the greatest good of the great number in the long run," even though "the values of open space, clean drinking water, and recreation far outstrip more traditional commodity values." The Bush administration claims the roads-ban was a stroke-of-midnight impulse. Not so, say Dombeck supporters, who add that the Forest Service heard a record 1.6 million public comments on the issue.
In his letter, Dombeck said he was sure the American public would vote for an end to road construction and, thus, to logging and commodities exploration on these public lands. There are many reasons why the public does not -- and should not -- support the construction of roads in these wilderness areas. First and foremost, the roads bring environmental devastation. For example, probably around a million gallons of used crankcase oil are dumped on the more frequently used dirt roads each year, in an effort to control dust. Obviously, the oil has to go somewhere, and a growing body of scientific evidence points out that it ends up in the region's earth and water.
Second, the roads are built for the sole purpose of allowing a few business interests to harvest natural resources that belong to the nation as a whole. Those interests are Bush's closest allies: logging, mining, oil and gas interests. Were it not for their need to penetrate these wilderness areas with large machinery, there would be no need for more than footpaths and horse trails in most areas.
And third -- the icing on the cake -- the federal government is actually footing the bill for the construction of these roads, through a complicated series of financial decisions that, in some cases, amount to little more than corporate kickbacks. The methods by which these operations are carried out vary, but one example is the federal calculation of the cost of building these roads. Accountants figure the per-mile cost of building a road through the wilderness, allow the corporation to build the road, then deduct that estimated cost (not the actual per-mile cost) from the amount the corporation must pay the government for the timber extracted.
Whether Bosworth will be able to stand up in the face of such corporate and political pressure is anybody's guess, but few observers hold out much hope, despite their personal respect for the man.
However, all this begs a larger and even more basic question: As we increasingly choke on the fumes of our vehicular exhaust, what will be our national commitment to road construction in general? The problem makes headlines most often in connection with forest and wilderness lands, but it is certainly not limited to those areas. We need a major rethinking of national policy here.
Consider the case of Maryland's Montgomery County, famous among planners as a bastion of balanced development in a region bloated with ugly and tasteless suburban ooze. Most respected is the county's agricultural reserve, a section Montgomery County officials call "the jewel" of their plan, and assiduously protected from the developers' bank accounts.
These days, Montgomery officials find themselves with their backs to the wall, hard-pressed to resist the federal Department of Transportation. Egged on by Virginia officials, the federal Transportation Department has proposed a bridge over the Potomac and a six-lane highway that will dissect the agricultural reserve. If the Department wins, planners across the continent will get the message that no area is safe, no matter how many protections are put in place. What is the value of creating a plan for growth if it is then simply ignored?
For most of our nation's history, the building of roads has been an essential measure of progress. In the last half-century, however, many Americans have grown increasingly uncomfortable with their proliferation. And with good reason.
The science of road ecology, a new but burgeoning field, has already developed an extensive body of research proving that roads harm nature in ways that the first Eisenhower Era Interstate engineers would never have imagined. For example, wildlife clearly suffers from highway noise. Many songbird species breed poorly near highways. Road noise may make their songs either inaudible or barely audible, may shorten communication distances, and may even change the perceived location of songs. Extreme or sudden noises flush birds from their nests, not only endangering the eggs but also harming the adults, which use up precious energy in their escape flight. Dutch studies show that road noise may even discourage bird calls in the first place. And these disruptions occur sometimes more than a mile distant from the highway.
Other species are at risk too. Excessive noise causes nausea in some animals. Kangaroo rats are substantially more vulnerable to predators for several days after being subjected to a loud vehicle, because of the disruption to the rats' hearing. Some toads mistake the sound of a vehicle's motor for the sound of a thunderstorm, and emerge during the wrong season into a waterless -- and therefore deadly -- world.
Salmon disappear when the silt, dirt and chemicals brought by roads flow into once-pristine streams. Some calves fail to thrive because road-induced stress inhibits their mother's milk production. Streetlights confuse amphibians and turtles, limiting reproduction. A species' genetic viability may diminish when a road acts as a physical barrier dissecting one population into two, and in extreme cases, roads may cause genetic changes in species, by changing movement patterns.
It was once believed that the "footprint" of the road amounted to the road itself, and a shoulder area of perhaps 10 or 20 feet on both sides. But Harvard road ecologist Richard Forman estimates that the negatively affected area is vastly larger -- about 20 percent of the continental United States. Estimating that about 4 million miles of public roads cover about 1 percent of the contiguous United States, Forman has shown that, when taking into account the direct disturbance effects and the ecological flow (migratory movements of various species, for example) of an area, the so-called "road-effect zone" is much more extensive than previously expected.
There are solutions to these problems. Forman believes that proper planning and implementation of mitigation measures can halve the 20 percent figure. Preliminary evidence from Europe and Australia suggests that he may be correct. Governments on those continents have already made great strides in that direction. Politicians have made commitments. Nineteen European nations have joined the Infra Eco Network Europe, an information-sharing consortium focusing on problems in road ecology. Another European organization is developing a handbook for highway planners discussing possible solutions for habitat fragmentation. The government of The Netherlands publishes a 100-page book helping farmers understand how various mitigation measures protect wildlife and plants. In Australia, "road reserves" on each side of a highway, sometimes extending as far as 200 meters out from the highway, are managed for native species biodiversity, and particularly for wildflowers.
In those nations, the list of available mitigation measures lengthens on an almost daily basis. And where there are problems that already have solutions, these governments have been willing to act. Take the case of the Netherlands badger. According to Forman, this animal was brought from endangered to non-endangered status by the inclusion of 80 badger-sized subsurface pipes that allowed the animal to cross from one side of a road to another. Pipes included in new road construction cost about $8,000 each. Pipes put into extant roads cost about $15,000 each. The people of The Netherlands were more than happy to pay the less-than-$1-million fee to preserve one of their favorite native mammals.
In contrast, consider the case of the ocelot, a secretive species about the size of a large housecat that once prowled the underbrush from Arkansas and Mississippi to the Far West. Today, only about 50 to 100 ocelots survive in the United States. (Because of their elusive character, their numbers outside of the United States are virtually unknown, but the animal has been given endangered status by the international treaty that decides these things on a global scale, known as CITES.) Each year, at least two ocelots -- from 2 to 4 percent of the American population -- die on Texas highways. Yet the Texas highway department has not made any headway in solving the problem.
We need to rethink our national policy, to begin walking down the path already taken by Europe and Australia. To do so will require a major political shift. Step One: The nation -- and its politicians, who historically have reaped many pork-barrel benefits from highway construction -- need to agree that the problem is one that can be legitimately addressed. Too often, road issues are seen as interesting only to environmental extremists, and are discussed as an either/or proposition -- either you are for road construction, or against road construction.
Yet -- aside from roads in the national forest, which voters clearly do not want -- there's a whole lot of middle ground here. Wayne Kober, a leading highway engineer from Pennsylvania and an outspoken proponent of environmentally aware highway construction, says that, when it comes to gaining the ear of highway engineers, the stage has already been set. In Kober's view today's highway planners want to do the right thing, environmentally speaking -- but they need the tools and the financing, and that means the political backing. If Bosworth decides to take this on, it looks like he'll face strong opposition from Bush and his industry buddies. But perhaps he could stop them from moving so far in the wrong direction.
