Northern California
Society of American Foresters
1841 Sandalwood Drive
Concord, California 94519

June 15, 1997

The Honorable Don Young, Chairman
Committee on Resources
United States House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Chairman Young:

The Northern California Society of American Foresters (SAF) consists of about 1,000 forestry professionals from throughout Northern California. I am writing to convey the support of our society for HR 858, the Quincy Library Group Forest Recovery and Economic Stability Act of 1997. We support passage of this bill because it would authorize a pilot project to implement needed fuel management as described in our enclosed position statement entitled "The Need for Expanded Wildland Fuel Management in California."

At the 1992 Northwest Forest Summit in Portland, Oregon, President Clinton urged forest depended communities to establish collaborative processes to resolve local issues. Since 1993, the Quincy Library Group (QLG) has diligently sought to develop a workable solution to the combined problems of unacceptable fuel hazards and dwindling forest-based employment. We believe that passage of HR 858 is needed because insufficient progress toward reducing wildfire hazards has been made through normal channels since the QLG's proposal was adopted in 1993.

We further encourage the Congress to appropriate a reasonable level of funding over the next 5 years to accomplish the objectives of the proposed pilot project.

Northern California SAF generally opposes special-interest legislation embodying prescriptive forest management, but we believe that adoption of the proposed pilot project is warranted because of the following special circumstances:

• the severe fuel hazards characteristic of extensive portions of the pilot project area;
• the persistent, collaborative efforts of local people representing traditionally opposing interests;
• the insufficient progress toward achieving fire safety that has occurred to date through normal channels, which has in part resulted from the severe constraints on national forest management imposed by the indefinite extension of the supposedly interim guidelines for management of habitat of the California spotted owl; and the overall technical soundness of the proposed strategy for minimizing catastrophic, stand-replacing wildfires, as concluded by the final report of the Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project.

Our support for HR 858 is further based on our understanding that this bill, if enacted, will be implemented in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act, the Federal Endangered Species Act, and all other applicable laws and regulations.

Thank you for your time and consideration of this important legislation.

Sincerely,

/s/ Robert L. Solari, Chairman
Northern California Society of American Foresters

cc:

Senator Dianne Feinstein
Senator Barbara Boxer
California Congresspersons
The Quincy Library Group
Southern California Society of American Foresters
Regional Forester, Pacific S.W. Region (R-5)
Supervisor, Lassen National Forest
Supervisor, Plumas National Forest
Supervisor, Tahoe National Forest