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Show Western Resources WKAP-UE? New Forest Service policies By Helene C. Monberg (Special to the Vernal Express) Washington The U.S. Forest Service is considering offering leases on National Na-tional Forest and Grass lands that would stipulate "for exploration only," according to R. Max Peterson, chief of the U.S. Forest Service. If the lessee made a strike, he could then apply for approval of a detailed n development plan, and if it survived an ' environmental analysis, he could go ahead and develop the leased area, Peterson told Western Resources Wrap up(WRW) in a far ranging interview on Dec. 29. "Basically, we are talking about oil and gas leases," Peterson said. But when and if such a principle is applied to this type of lease, it generally would be applied to other leasable minerals on National Forest System lands, he indicated. in-dicated. If such a system were instituted, in-stituted, Peterson told WRW, Forest Service minerals experts estimate it could cut down the time on getting a lease from up to two years to "six months mon-ths as an average." Peterson also stated in the WRW interview: in-terview: Mineral potential in wilderness areas : The Forest Service is asking the U.S. Bureau of Mines and the U.S. Geological Survey for the best data they have on mineralization in National f Forest System Wildernesses. Then the Forest Service hopes to rank such wilderness areas by mineral potential, ilttprior to making a recommendation to ervthe Administration on extending the mineral exploration period in National "oniForest wildernesses beyond Dec. 31, ratl983, as provided in the 1964 Wilderness "MAct, "subject to reasonable regula-i regula-i dtion." m ' The Forest Service has been conducting conduc-ting studies about increasing fees at PfWational Forest System campgrounds mj.and other developed areas, such as cer-etfftain cer-etfftain boat launching sites and the caves ofat the Blanchard Sprints Caverns in iaj Arkansas under Forest Service )unmanagement. "Unless we adopt the ver concept of who benefits pays" for the pp upkeep of such publicly developed recreation areas, "their maintenance is likely to go downhill in periods of tight j budgets," as at present, Peterson told 3j 'WRW, Any increase in recreation user jjcIj fees, would have to be done across the staboard, not merely by the Forest Ser-,e Ser-,e vice, if it were to be effective, and this we (would take enactment of new legislation legisla-tion in Congress, he said. Departure trom sustained yield. The Forest Service is considering departure from sustained yield on old growth timber, , particularly in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana. Mon-tana. Once land management plans have been completed for the national forests in these areas "in about six months," such departures from sustained sus-tained yield will be considered on a case by case basis, Peterson said. Assistant Secretary of Agriculture John B. Crowell, Jr., has been pushing for faster harvest of old growth timber on the Pacific Coast and in the Pacific Northwest for some time. CUT DOWN LEASE TIME, ELIMINATE BACKLOG The proposed new leasing plan for National Forest System lands is now being studied in the Office of the General Counsel of the U.S. Department Depart-ment of Agriculture (USDA) Peterson told WRW. "As soon as our (USDA) attorneys at-torneys have cleared it, we have promised pro-mised to send it out to interested groups Tor their comment," the Forest Service Chief said. He indicated to WRW, however, the Jetails have been pretty well worked Jut already. If the new plan were put into in-to effect, Forest Service minerals experts ex-perts have informed Peterson it would :ut down on the amount of time that the Forest Service has to spend processing mineral lease applications by 25 per-:ent. per-:ent. That would allow the Forest Service Ser-vice to eliminate our backlog of 10,000 ease applications in two years, he )bserved. He said the Forest Service ?ot 25,000 lease applications in 1981 jlone. "Our experience has been that only !.5 percent of our leases for oil and gas ire developed. Now each application tor a lease has to include a plan of development and in preparing our environmental en-vironmental analysis of the lease, we lave to consider the worse case situation, situa-tion, should development occur. We are spending a lot of time and money working work-ing on these applications and we are Irustrating the persons who want to explore ex-plore for leasable minerals we are talking here mainly about oil and gas leases," Peterson explained. "Why not issue a lease to allow a person per-son to explore? It has been said that no one knows what is underground until he drills. Then if he struck oil, he could prepare a plan to develop his lease, and then we could consider all of the environmental en-vironmental impacts resulting from development," Peterson said. The proposal pro-posal has a lot going for it, he pointed aut. For industry, it would speed up action ac-tion on lease applications. For the environmental en-vironmental groups, they could concentrate concen-trate on the areas of greatest concern. For the government, "it would be a more orderly way to do business, at less cost," according to the Forest Service Chief. Under the current procedure "we have a lot of floating oil fields out there" in the environmental analysis "which don't exist in the real world" he said. Peterson said the new plan is somewhat analogous to the procedure of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Com-mission (FERC). Under its procedure a preliminary permit is issued to an applicant ap-plicant to drill to determine if he wants to develop a hydro site. If his drilling indicates in-dicates a hydro project could be built at the site, he makes an application to FERC for a hydro license. Peterson said the plan for a "two phased exploration and development lease on Forest Service land" came out of a meeting Agriculture Secretary John R. Block had with the oil and gas industry and other public land users on Nov. 30. The Forest Service Ser-vice has been looking for some way to shirt tail the current process to help meet national energy needs while protecting pro-tecting environmental values. There are also a lot of delays in the present leasing system. "About two dozen leases are on appeal at the Washington level now," Peterson told WRW. WILDERNESS AREAS' DEADLINE The 1964 Wilderness Act specifically provides that "until midnight Dec. 31, 1983, the United States mining laws and all laws pertaining to mineral leasing shall. ..extend to those national forest lands designated by this act as wilderness areas subject. ..-to... ..-to... reasonable regulations." Crowell has noted in recent speeches that this period does not allow for "sufficient time in which to evaluate properly the mineral and energy resources in...-wilderness in...-wilderness areas... particularly those which have been added to the system since 1964. The evidence gives good reason to believe that the Northern part of the Western Overthrust Belt is 'elephant country '...oil industry jargon for areas containing large pools of oil and gas," Crowell told a public lands symposium in Denver on Nov. 20. Clearly the Administration Ad-ministration is testing the waters about extending this deadline. Asked about this, Peterson told WRW he did not want to make any recommendation recommen-dation to the Administration until he had assembled data about mineralization mineraliza-tion in the National Forest System wildernesses. That's why he has asked the Bureau of Mines and the Geological Survey for all of the information they have on mineralization in such areas, he said. "Because this window for exploration will soon be closed, we are seeing increased in-creased interest in leasing and in mineral exploration in wilderness areas. The very existence of this date has heightened interest," the Forest Service Chief observed. He expressed concern that "we might end up with having a gold rush on our hands," as the minerals industry rushed to stake claims and the oil and gas industry rushes to get leases in wilderness before the window closes on Dec. 31, 1983. Recent interest has centered on the Bob Marshall Wilderness in Montana and on the Washakie Wilderness in Wyoming in or near the Overthrust Belt along the ridge of the Northern Rocky Mountains, and in some of the wilderness in the Southwest including the Capitan Wilderness in New Mexico and the Los Padres Wilderness in California. Peterson said he had no way of knowing know-ing "whether there's another Prudhoe Bay laden with oil" in the Western wilderness or only enough oil to oil machinery. So he's calling for expert help on data on which the Forest Service Ser-vice can rank its wilderness areas by mineral potential, much as Aldo Leopold ranked certain wild areas for their scenic value. After he has made such a ranking of the wildernesses with backup data to support the rankings, Peterson will pre- sent the information to the Administration Administra-tion with his recommendations. "The Administration has not made any recommendation to Congress yet. I expect ex-pect it will recommend some kind of compromise," he said. Among the alternatives that have been discussed are extending the deadline for wildernesses with high mineral potential, allowing a 20 year period for exploration in wildernesses established after 1964 and authorizing the President' to aecide to allow exploration ex-ploration to continue in specific areas based on national need, according to Peterson. The President already has authority to "authorize prospecting for water resources" in the 1964 Wilderness Wilder-ness Act on an area by area basis. HIGHER RECREATION FEES AND TIMBER HARVEST The Administration has been talking ' about charging more for the use of public recreation facilities and areas under federal managment and about increasing in-creasing the harvest of old growth - timber in Northern California and the Pacific Northwest, and Peterson clearly clear-ly expects both to happen. The Forest Service collected only 16 percent in fees and special use charges of the cost of operating and maintaining recreation areas in the National Forest System in 1980, according to Douglas W. MacCleery, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Agriculture who spoke at a conference on tourism on Oct. 7. "We think the time has come to put federal recreation resources on a more self supporting basis and in a way that ; permits private enterprise to make a greater contribution to providing outdoor out-door recreation facilities and services," ser-vices," MacCleery stated. How soon might this be done? WRW asked Peterson, "I don't know," he replied. A law passed in 1960 allows for collection of fees for hunting, trapping and fishing on federal lands, Peterson said. But broader authority would require re-quire Congressional action. It's a very complicated matter," he pointed out. All agencies offering recreation facilities to the public would have to be included to make such a program pro-gram successful, he stressed, and there has been resistance to such a govern- ment wide program in the past. A determination deter-mination would have to be made on what to charge recreationists for in addition ad-dition to boosting current charges, and the collection system has to be simple to be effective, he observed. It's also politically a hot potato' because traditionally the public has had a right to visit federal lands without charge. "It's a part of our heritage," Peterson told WRW. The Forest Service gets very little complaint from the public on the charges it makes for use of its campgrounds, however, Peterson said. New and higher recreation charges on public lands are inevitable, he noted. So is a higher timber harvest among the old growth Douglas fir, ponderosa pine and lodgepole pine stands in the forests of the Pacific Coastal states, Idaho and Montana, Peterson indicated. in-dicated. But deviating from land management plans to allow for the higher cut is his decision under a 1976 law, and it will be made only when the plans are completed and only on a area by area basis, Peterson underscored. |