Conservation Groups Call for a National Forest Watershed Restoration Corps

Bonnie Phillips, Executive Director, OFCO
Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Everyone these days is talking about the Obama Stimulus Package, now slated to be about $800 billion dollars and climbing. Green jobs in the woods came to our minds—people working to protect and restore watersheds. The idea for a National Forest Watershed Restoration Corps was hatched by the Washington Watershed Restoration Initiative (WWRI) coalition, consisting of 15 environmental and recreation groups and the state Departments of Ecology and Fish and Wildlife, and through outreach to other groups around the nation, especially those linked to the informal Legacy Roads group.

WWRI's goal is to help get sufficient funding to decommission and repair roads on Washington state’s national forests, as well as to fix and replace culverts. We recognized early that this requires a national effort, and thus our connection to Legacy Roads, a national forum.

The coalitions recently finalized a letter to political leaders, signed by 97 organizations and individuals (including OFCO) which can be found at www.olympicforest.org/182.pdf.

We are also fortunate to have the support of Rep. Jay Inslee of Washington and Rep. Peter DeFazio of Oregon, who spearheaded a Dear Colleague letter to important committee chairs and other House of Representatives leaders. This letter went out in mid-December. Although their request covered national parks, national refuges and other entities, they had a special section that they took right from our letter. Since it appears in both documents, I will quote:

"Finally, we are recommending the creation of a National Forest Watershed Restoration Corps in which $500 million could be provided over two years to create highly skilled jobs in resource-dependent communities adjacent to public lands through contracts and temporary, professional appointments in the Forest Service. This temporary program could expand the work currently done under the Legacy Roads and Trails Remediation account by creating up to 3,500 direct jobs annually for two years. This small-scale, temporary variation on the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) would complement the programs described above. This program is consistent with the Western Governors’ Policy Resolution 08-3 and is endorsed by more than sixty grassroots conservation, labor, and state organizations [now 97] across the nation."

Sue Gunn, WWRI campaign coordinator (I am coalition coordinator), deserves the credit for pulling this off. Now we’ll see what President Obama thinks!