What
They Say... |
The
Reality Is... |
The
Bush administration is getting ready to harvest hundreds of trees. |
The
Federal Highway Administration and the Forest Service have worked
together to survey a road center line that avoids cutting any more of the
larger trees than absolutely necessary for safety and compatibility with
sound engineering. Trees removed for this project will be used in
other Forest Service and Park Service projects in the region. |
The
entire Dosewallips watershed will be placed at risk. |
The
bypass route is designed to provide the maximum possible protection
to the watershed and the protected species using the area. The watershed
will actually be better protected than when this section of the road ran
along the river. |
There
may be disastrous results for salmon, owls, eagles, marbled murrelets,
and other wildlife. |
Only
4.5 acres of surface will be used for the road. This represents a
very tiny portion of the available critical habitat in the Dosewallips
watershed. Impacts to wildlife will be minimal,
and are not expected to result in the loss of individuals of any protected
species. |
The project is illegal under present laws. |
Legal
research conducted by the Forest Service, the Park Service, and other federal
entities find this assertion to be without merit. |
Building the bypass will eliminate protections for
watersheds and wildlife. |
The
Dosewallips Road has been present in the watershed for more than
seventy years. Over time, watershed and wildlife protections have
become much more stringent. Restoring access to the upper campgrounds
will not eliminate any of these protections, and the existing protections
are respected in this project. |
Decommissioning the final 5.5 miles of road to trail
status is the only ecologically and legally sound option available. |
Environmental
and engineering studies, along with legal research, indicate that this
opinion is simply that...an opinion. Decommissioning the section
of the road upstream of the washout would deny access to the disabled,
the elderly, and the very young. It would also compound
the economic loss already suffered by the South Jefferson County since
the washout occurred. |
Building the bypass would seriously degrade critical
habitat for ESA-listed northern spotted owl and marbled murrelet. |
4.5
acres of habitat suitable for the northern spotted owl and marbled
murrelet would be affected by the bypass. Portions of that acreage
will be replaced by decommissioned portions of the road between the ends
of the bypass and the washout. Another portion of the road acreage
has been replaced by accretion on the south side of the Dosewallips River,
as a result of the natural movement of the river's course when it caused
the washout. Tree
harvesting for the project will take place outside of the nesting seasons
of these species. |
Building
the bypass would obliterate a Coho salmon spawning/rearing tributary. |
The
original version of "Option C" would have affected a small portion
of an unnamed tributary of the Dosewallips River. The current
modification of this option has routed the bypass beyond the spawning/rearing
portion of this tributary. |
Building
the bypass would jeopardize an ESA-listed
run of Puget Sound Chinook salmon. |
The
bypass will be further from the river than the road was before the washout. With
the much wider buffer between the roadway and the river, the Dosewallips
salmon runs will be better protected from runoff from the road. |
The
bypass would be prone to road failure because of the steep slope
and wet, unstable soils. |
Road
failure potential has been minimized through the rerouting of the bypass
in the new modification of "Option C". Road grades at either
end of the bypass are much less severe than in the original version of
this option, and are suitable for use by recreational vehicles and trailers. |
The
bypass project would cost millions of dollars. |
The
total cost estimate for the project is less than $560,000. |
