The Conservation Biology Alternative for Grizzly Bear Population Restoration
in the Greater Salmon-Selway Region Central Idaho and Western Montana

APPENDIX A

Roads

It is 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. Roads degrade and pollute nearby streams, divide wildlife habitats into small fragments and spread exotic weeds and diseases (Ryan, 1995). 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 sedimentation to streams for an indefinite period. The road cut creates soil conditions which do not stabilize over time (Richard Hauer, PhD Flathead Lake Biological Station, personal interview). ?Instream sedimentatation deposited in the stream bottom decreases the success rate of egg hatching and fry development by impeding water flow through the gravels in which the eggs undergo early development? (Final Report, Montana Environmental Quality Council, December 1988).

Forest Service Roads, such as this one above the North Fork of the Clearwater River in the Clearwater National Forest in central Idaho, are costly to build and extremely unstable. This road failed on December 1, 1995, dumping tons of sediment into the river.

A petition has been filed to list Bull trout as an endangered species. Logging harms these fish as well. Sediment originating from logging and logging roads can reduce embryo survival of bull trout and westslope cutthroat trout and decrease the available pools used for rearing bull trout. Bull trout selectively choose streams. They only spawn in twenty-eight streams of the hundreds available in the Flathead Lake water basin (Weaver, Fraley, 1990 p. 1). Trout fishing brings millions of dollars into Montana and Idaho every year.

In central Idaho erosion rate along roads was 750 times greater than in undisturbed areas (Megahan and Kidd, 1972). The siltation fills spawning pools and has led to population declines in fish such as bull trout, salmon and westslope cutthroat trout (Noss, 1994). The federal government is spending millions of dollars trying to save these fish. It would be more cost effective to deal with one of the main sources of the problem which is logging.

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. The Forest Service spends between $300 and $500 per mile for minimum road maintenance (Targhee N.F. road maintenance records 1994). The Forest Service estimates that it is more cost efficient to obliterate a road if it is not going to be used for the next 20 years (Gifford Pinchot N.F. 1993). By obliterating roads in the Wildland Recovery Areas of the Conservation Biology Alternative, up to $2 million in normal annual maintenance cost would be saved. The minimum maintenance does not take into account floods, which cause flood damage to roads in excess of a million dollars a decade per ranger district. This is due to maintenance costs alone. It 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 (Noss, 1994). 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 (Noss 1994). This leads to a tremendous reduction in their available habitat.

To mitigate the damage to grizzly bears from subsidized logging, federal and state governments spent $9.8 million on grizzly bear recovery in 1990 and 1991 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

Road Obliteration

The Conservation Biology Alternative directs the Forest Service to obliterate roads so that slopes and soils are stabilized and further erosion prevented. Complete obliteration and recontouring requires the removal of roads and returning the land to its original slope. Using Geographic Information System analysis, it is estimated that obliteration costs vary from $4,100 to $15,500 per mile (Garrity, 1994). 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 must be put back onto the road bed increases tremendously as the slope increases. 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 are excavated. When the side slope reaches 26 degrees, obliteration requires excavating 19,300 cubic yards per mile (Lolo N.F. road obliteration studies 1994).

Seeding and mulching costs are approximately $250 per acre. Labor accounts for 50 percent of this. 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 slope of between 18 and 26 degrees. Roads with side slopes of greater than 26 degrees will require seeding of 5.45 acres/mile (Lolo N.F. 1994)

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