Taxpayers are paying the price because Forest Service
officials in California handed out timber contracts without
adequate environmental reviews, according to a report from the
Washington, D.C.-based Public Employees for Environmental
Responsibility (PEER). Business As Usual: A Case Study of
Environmental and Fiscal Malpractice on the Eldorado National
Forest describes how top managers weren’t penalized for granting 24
timber sales based on inaccurate and outdated environmental
assessments. Thanks to an internal federal review released to PEER
through the Freedom of Information Act, the report documents how
agency staffers repeatedly told managers that the sales were
illegal because they failed to protect the California spotted owl,
a sensitive species. The staffers were ignored. Finally, in 1994,
the acting supervisor admitted the agency had violated several
environmental laws and forest officials withdrew the sales. In
December 1995, the Forest Service paid $400,000 to three companies
to settle undisclosed claims arising out of the breached contracts,
valued at up to $30 million. Meanwhile, Rex Baumback, the former
timber management officer for the forest, has been promoted to a
new position in the agency’s national timber program in Washington,
D.C., forest supervisor John Phipps retained his post, and district
ranger Craig Harasek took early retirement. PEER notes that the
whistleblowers have been effectively stripped of their authority to
review future timber sales through an internal agency
reorganization. According to PEER, “gross lack of accountability is
the rule and not exception within the Forest Service; a tale like
this is occurring every day in our nation’s public resource
agencies.”
Copies of the report are available
for $5 from PEER, 2001 S Street, N.W., Suite 570, Washington, DC
20009-1125 (202/265-PEER). – Michelle
McClellan
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Malpractice as usual.
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