Economic Impact of the Wildland Recovery System
of the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act

Executive Summary

by
Michael T. Garrity, Ph.D

June, 1995

Executive Summary

The Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act (NREPA) is a jobs creating bill. It will directly create 2120 jobs by obliterating environmentally destructive roads and reclaiming streams choked with sedimentation from those roads through its section 7, establishing a pilot system of National Recovery Areas. NREPA indirectly creates thousands of jobs by preserving and restoring a pristine environment which attracts and holds businesses. This natural landscape is the economic base of the Northern Rockies states.

This is not a jobs versus the environment scenario. We can protect the environment, create jobs, and save the taxpayers money. The alternative is permanently damaging the environment for the sake of a few hundred temporary roadless area logging jobs at the expense of destroying the Northern Rockies economic base, its natural landscape, and thousands of permanent jobs.

NREPA offers a better solution to put people to work. NREPA would establish nine National Wildland Recovery areas comprising 1,022,769 acres. There are 6,455 miles of logging roads in these areas. Most would be closed and restored and fish and wildlife returned. These activities would employ people. The Forest Service estimates it costs between $4,100 and $15,500 to totally obliterate a mile of road in the Northern Rockies. Obliterating 6,455 miles of single purpose logging roads would create approximately 2120 jobs for heavy equipment operators, laborers and technicians. These are good jobs which could last well into the 21st century. Heavy equipment operators earn approximately $22 per hour. The employment created by this method will greatly ease the transition from a timber based economy. The money to pay for this could come from ending timber subsidies. Last year the Forest Service lost over $185,000,000 on logging sales in the 27 national forests covered by NREPA. Professor Thomas Power, chair of the University of Montana economics department, found that 1400 logging jobs might be lost if NREPA passed. But that estimate was based on 1972 technology. Today one logger can cut in an hour what it took two loggers to cut in a day ten years ago. Based on today's technology, only 540 timber jobs, spread over 5 states, would be lost if NREPA passed. The justification for this corporate welfare is job creation. NREPA can produce more quality jobs at less cost and do so without destroying the west's major resource.

It is also argued that when we build roads we create something economically valuable but when we destroy roads we only make the mountains beautiful. In actuality, when we build roads we create a liability. Ninety per cent of the increase in siltation from logging comes from roads. The State of Montana has found that logging roads are the main cause of stream degradation. Roads contribute silt to streams for an indefinite period. The road cut creates soil conditions which do not stabilize over time.

In central Idaho the erosion rate along roads was 750 times greater than in undisturbed areas. The siltation fills spawning pools and has led to population declines in fish such as bull trout, salmon and westslope cutthroat trout. The federal government is spending millions of dollars trying to save these fish. It would be more cost effective to deal with the main source of the problem, single purpose logging roads.

The Forest Service closes many roads after logging in an area has ended. But the simple closing of these roads does not mean an end to their maintenance costs or their erosion potential. The Forest Service spends between $300 and $500 per mile for minimum road maintenance and estimates that it is more cost efficient to obliterate a road if it is not going to be used for the next 20 years. By obliterating these roads up to $3 million in normal annual maintenance costs would be saved. The minimum maintenance does not take floods into account. Flood damage to roads runs in excess of a million dollars a decade per ranger district due to maintenance costs alone. This figure does not take into account the tremendous environmental damage roads cause.

Elk population directly declines with road density. Two miles of roads per square mile leads to a 50 percent reduction in the elk population and six miles of roads per square mile eradicates virtually all elk in that area. The hunting of elk brings millions of dollars into the Rocky Mountain states. The continued destruction of these lands will devastate the hunting industry. Roads also increase poaching. The majority of poaching occurs from roads because they offer easy access into previously remote areas. Grizzly bears avoid roads by an average distance of one half mile. This leads to a tremendous reduction in their habitat.

To mitigate the damage to habitats from subsidized logging federal and state governments spent $9.8 million on grizzly bear recovery and $978,000 on the recovery of the woodland caribou in 1990 and 1991. The subsidized logging of the Forest Service directly leads to more spending by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Road Obliteration

NREPA directs the Forest Service to obliterate roads so that slopes and soils are stabilized and further erosion prevented. Complete obliteration requires not only that the road be removed but that the land be returned to its original slope. Obliteration costs vary from $4,100 to $15,500 per mile. The most important variable in the cost determination is the slope of the land the road crosses. Labor accounts for 40 percent of these costs. The amount of dirt which has to be put back onto the road bed increases tremendously as the slope increases. Geographic Information System (GIS) was used to estimate costs. Roads with a side slope of 18 degrees or less require excavation of 2,800 cubic yards of ground per mile. When the side slope increases to between 18 and 26 degrees, 6,900 cubic yards of earth per mile is excavated. When the side slope reaches 26 degrees, obliteration requires excavating 19,300 cubic yards per mile.

Seeding and mulching cost approximately $250/acre. Labor accounts for 50 - 70 percent of this. Labor intensity increases as the slope increases. 3.68 acres/mile of land will need to be seeded on roads which cross lands of 18 degrees or less. 3.75 acres/mile will be reclaimed on roads with side slopes of between 18 and 26 degrees. Roads with side slopes of greater than 26 degrees will require restoring 5.45 acres/mile.

Cost Effectiveness of Recovery System

The conventional method of evaluating legislation is a monetary based cost benefit analysis. To do this monetary values would have to be assigned to erosion control and wildlife habitat restoration. The Forest Service attempts to do this to some degree. The cost of soil erosion is estimated to be $25 per ton by the Boise National Forest. Under NREPA, 35 million tons of sediment erosion will be prevented, saving $904 million at a cost of only $110.8 million.

Conclusion

If the purpose of the National Forests were to create jobs, there are much better ways. NREPA proposes 1,022,769 acres as National Recovery areas. Recovery would focus on closing and revegetating unneeded roads and restoring damaged wildlife and fish populations. 2120 jobs would be provided and key watersheds in the Northern Rockies would be protected and restored.

Benefits

Sedimentation Prevented
27.2 million cubic yards

6455 miles of roads obliterated
1,022,769 acres of forest reclaimed

Total $ Benefits $904,332,357

Jobs Created

299 Technical Jobs
324 Excavator Jobs
78 Road Reclamation Jobs
1419 Forest Reclamation Jobs
2120 Total Jobs created

Cost

Technical work (Engineers, Hydrologists, Biologist and Botanists) $11,957,951
Excavation $33,759,265
Road reclamation and revegetation $6,060,633
Forest reclamation $59,043,003
Total $ Cost $110,820,852

Net $ Benefits $793,511,505