232 



mends on the Forest Service and the general State of affairs in our 

 forests. 



So, with that, you are excused. Thank you very much. 



And we will call up Panel III. 



Mrs. Chenoweth. I would like to welcome Thomas Haislip from 

 CH2M HILL in Boise and Dale McGreer, who is President of the 

 Western Watershed Analysts, Lewiston, Idaho. Welcome to the 

 panel. And I join Mr. Doolittle in saying that had they called for 

 votes earlier this morning, most of our Members would not be fly- 

 ing in as we speak, but you are establishing a very, very important 

 record, and I thank you very much for coming all the way across 

 the country to add to the record very necessary and important in- 

 formation. I thank you very much. 



Mrs. Chenoweth. I would like to start with Mr. Haislip. 



STATEMENT OF THOMAS W. HAISLIP, JR., SENIOR SCIENTIST, 

 CH2M HILL, BOISE, IDAHO 



Mr. Haislip. Thank you. Good morning, Mrs. Chairman. I thank 

 you for the consideration of my comments. 



My name is Tom Haislip. I am a Senior Scientist and Project 

 Manager for CH2M HILL, an international environmental engi- 

 neering firm. I hold a B.S. degree in zoology and an M.S. degree 

 in ecology. I lead a team of scientists and planners who participate 

 in the open public process of the Interior Columbia Basin Eco- 

 system Management Project. Our goal is to assure that relevant in- 

 formation and the best science are brought to the project and that 

 appropriate planning processes are used. 



We have been involved in the project since its inception over 2 

 years ago. The project was initiated to develop an ecosystem man- 

 agement program for Federal lands east of the Cascade Mountains 

 in the Pacific Northwest. One of the major drivers was, and contin- 

 ues to be, rapidly deteriorating forest health conditions on National 

 Forest and BLM lands. I believe this to be a very real problem and 

 a threat that needs immediate and significant Federal action. This 

 project offers the potential to resolve these issues, but the products 

 need additional work to bring more focus to them. Two of the pri- 

 mary products of this project will be the Eastside EIS and the 

 Upper Columbia Basin EIS. We have had a chance to review early 

 drafts of these two documents, and Iwould like to share our analy- 

 sis results with you. First, the writing quality is much improved 

 over initial drafts. Much of the value-laden language that would 

 perpetuate controversies has been removed, but work in this area 

 remains. 



The descriptions of project needs are appropriate. These include, 

 two issue, resolving forest health problems and supporting social 

 and economic needs. However, the project purposes do not always 

 relate directly to the Stated needs. There is little discussion in the 

 impact analysis of two pieces of key information: One, forest health 

 itself; and, two, the risks and tradeoffs that relate to achieving or 

 not achieving project goals and objectives. These are critical for 

 evaluating the ability of the alternatives to meet the project needs. 



The projected amounts of restoration and commodity output have 

 been constrained by anticipated agency budgets, but the documents 

 do not identify activity levels needed to fully restore ecosystem con- 



