"THE DARK SIDE OF THE FOREST SERVICE

     Part I  “I can’t see the forest for the trees!”

One of the reasons that environmentalists have to fight the USFS is a dark secret, and it is employee profits from timber sales. I have never seen this publicized in any environmental documents. Yet it gives clear motivation to why the USFS chooses to push timber cutting, and why USFS biologists who try to ethically determine a “good” sale versus a bad, environmentally detrimental one have been persecuted. The Bush administration altered scientific data and muzzled the scientists regarding global warming, and in 1992 the same conduct existed with timber sales in Mt. Shasta and was publicly exposed with hearings in Washington, D.C.  The major motivation for this involves a legal version of monetary kickbacks.

 

The Mt. Shasta-McCloud ranger district produces more timber products than any other district in California, and a local ranger has bragged, “We are the Big Kids on the block.” He, and rangers before him, has seen to it that the USFS has put out thousands of board feet to exceed the yearly amount allotted from the district, and in so doing he has legally added thousands of dollars to his yearly income. He is not alone, for this is USFS policy and has been for years. It is a situation where the hungry fox is guarding the henhouse, and the farmer (the public) thinks he’s a dog.

 

What creates this conflict of interest in an organization that is supposed to be fair and balanced, and guard the environment, is a system of pay bonuses allotted to employees who exceed the timber product production goal. It is allotted similarly to this example:

Ranger—Up to $5000. Depends on how much timber is sold.  Deputy—Up to $4000.

Timber Staff--$1000-3000.

Other staff, depending on how much job involvement with timber sales—up to $2000.

Biology, Botany, Range----Up to $300, at ranger’s control.

 

NOTE THAT THE AWARDS MAY BE HIDDEN UNDER OTHER CATEGORIES. One timber officer got thousands for his creation of a remote-area paved parking lot, rarely used.

Proof of the above is in the USFS records of financial records.  All we need is GS-series # - grade in each ranger district, each national forest headquarters, and the financial record of who got pay bonuses for the last 5-10 years.  Name and title would make it easier.  These financial records are available from GAO and are available under FOIA (information act).

 

A biologist opposing a sale faces a large number of people in the ranger station angry over the loss of their bonus. Biologists are regarded as obstructionists to timber production. This is part of the reason why EEO complaints in California, are sky-high. With the timber resource here, the bonuses are high, and trees are gold mines for USFS rangers and personnel.

Money is motivation and power, and it is used against the taxpayer. This is the dark side of the US Forest Service, and it needs to have light shone upon it, exposed, and stopped. Then we can have fair judgments on environmentally sound management of our forests. It is, after all, our environment that suffers, and we all suffer with it. The bonuses must be stopped, and the rangers and employees made accountable for a healthy forest rather than a forest of stumps.

 

Written by someone who lived beside the devastation left behind that had been an old-growth forest in 1992, a result of that ranger’s choice described above.