Forests & People - On My Soapbox

National Public Lands

During the 2015 Montana legislative session and among some citizens, particularly in Ravalli County there was a movement to convert management of our National Forests to state or private control.  The bill in the legislature failed and the Ravalli County rhetoric didn’t get legs — this time.  However, these kinds of proposals come up in the American west from time to time and they are a threat to all of us, - except those clandestine entities who finance them.  The rest of us need to have information about this big chess game for control of our public lands, our waters, our way-of-life, and our economic wellbeing.  Here’s why.

The American west is a semi-arid land, that means there is not enough rainfall in our valleys to grow crops and support cities without irrigation.  We rely on mountain winter snows and an infrastructure of canals, reservoirs, pipelines, ditches and sprinklers to support our crops and cities.  We all know that, but there is more background to this story that we may not have thought about. 

Irrigation in semi-arid places started in the Middle-east 7000 years ago at the beginning of civilization.  Fueled by irrigation, civilizations grew into empires, the Persian Empire with its capitol, Babylon, and its famous Hanging Gardens was one example. Today that area is a desert.  What happened?  The people who controlled the land had two big flaws; their perspective was too small and they did not do long-range planning.  They cut the forests that stored the moisture and protected the soil, then they grazed the slopes with sheep and cows until there was not enough plant cover to hold the soil from eroding.  The irrigation canals and reservoirs filled with silt.  Crops and cities could not survive without water.  The land went from the wonderful cedar forests of Lebanon (I Kings, Chapter 5) and “a land flowing with milk and honey” (Exodus 3:8) to poor land, poor cities, poor people.  

Late spring snow on the peaks.

It’s an old story that has been repeating itself for 7000 years and it was beginning to happen in the American west in the late 1800’s. At that time there was short-sighted local control over the land with the primary purpose to produce short-term profits from logging and grazing.   But then a big thing happened, a few visionaries from the East recognized the potential problem for the arid west and developed a protection strategy for the western watersheds, the Forest Reserves were established. In the early 1900’s, when Congress got around to saying how these Federal forests should be managed the basic policy was to take care of the watersheds.  The Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management have been carrying out these orders ever since, along with the other Congressional directions given though laws and budgets. 

What those visionaries did to protect the mountains from being denuded of forests and grass is why we have shining cities today (Denver, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boise and on and on) and the agriculture to support them in a semi-arid land.  America recognized the need for limiting short-term economic exploitation of western forests and to manage them for long-term benefits for the land and people. That was an unprecedented action in history. The land management decisions would have been very different if they had been made by local people trying to make a living from the semi-arid lands that have such limited economic viability. 

A western city watered by mountain forest

But, protecting our mountain forests and watersheds is never a done-job.  This great experiment of sustaining thriving cities and agriculture in a semi-arid land is only 150 years old.  That isn’t much when stacked up against 7000 years of destruction of forests, grasses, soil, crops and cities that has occurred in other semi-arid areas of the world, resulting in failed civilizations.  We could still lose what those before us saved because sustaining what we have environmentally and economically is a political process as well as a scientific process.  Too often, today’s political jabs and decisions follow big money.  It is not hard to imagine that big money would like to get control of the west’s land and water.  So we have these jabs to privatize (steal) what all Americans own by using legislative means and a few individuals making noise supporting such action.

Montana’s top four elected officials, Governor, two Senators and Representative, in the past, have supported continued federal control of the federal lands in Montana.  These officials understand the obvious, the state simply could not afford to suppress the wildfires, keep forest roads usable, keep trails and campgrounds open and provide suitable habitat for the State’s fish and wildlife.  Managing fire and these resources are a money drain and there is not enough economic income possible from timber and grazing to balance the costs, even if every commercial size tree was cut and cattle were allowed to over-graze every stream bank in Montana.  Multiple use management requires tax payers from Iowa, Ohio, Florida, Massachusetts and every other state in the US, paying their taxes and Congress budgeting those taxes for all the things government does, including managing the National Forests. 

After the snow is gone

But, lets follow the scenario of state or private management of the National Forests and see where it would likely take us.  Because the State could not afford to manage these lands, there would be talk of selling some or all of the lands and eventually that would happen. If the land went private, so would the water rights - somehow, sometime, because water and water rights are going to be worth so much more in the near future.  The fish would not have enough money to buy enough water to live in, that water would be worth much more for irrigation downstream and that’s where it would go because the dollar value per acre-foot would be the only thing that mattered if the land and the water were privately owned.  Cattle permitted to graze the National Forests now pay a fee less than $1.75 per animal-unit-month (kept artificially low by Congress) the going rate for grazing on private land in Montana ranges from $12 to $18 per animal-unit-month.  If grazing was privately controlled, ranchers would have to pay the real commercial grazing rate rather than a subsidized grazing fee on National Forest and BLM lands. Many could not pay that amount and survive economically. 

Our public lands and their management are important issues to every one of us living in the American west - and the American east.  When an elected official or a citizen group push for state control or privatization of Federal lands we need to know who is financing this drive and what they will be gaining from it.  It is a pretty safe bet, whoever is putting out the money to push state control or privatization is not interested in benefiting the land, the wildlife or the way-of-life for those of us living here, they simply want to make more money - in the short term.  

We need to be watchful and “pay forward” (safer and in better condition) what we have been given. 

Jerry Covault