Restoring watersheds means jobs
Jan 16, 2009
At the start of the 111th Congress, members of Congress are building support for an economic stimulus package that advocates for creating green jobs. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) is circulating a letter to her colleagues asking for their support to send a letter to the Obama administration asking for $500 million over two years to fund watershed restoration on National Forest System lands.
Stream restoration on the Gifford Pinchot
Investing in green jobs on the 193 million acres of our national forests will provide the opportunity to immediately create high-wage jobs through fixing needed infrastructure, reclaiming unneeded infrastructure, and protecting clean drinking water and fish and wildlife habitat.
Senator Maria Cantwell is demonstrating great leadership by circulating a "Dear Colleague" letter in the Senate that proposes an investment of $500 million over two years through the Legacy Roads and Trails Remediation Initiative (LRRI), which would produce 3,500 direct jobs per year. The LRRI, created in Fiscal Year 2008, directed funds to be used for reclaiming unneeded forest roads, upgrading culverts, and performing critical maintenance on necessary forest roads. Economists estimate that road reclamation work could produce 14.5 direct jobs per million dollars spent. This work provides the same type of high-wage, high-skill jobs as road construction and the vast majority of these jobs would go directly to rural workers whose lives are closely connected to our national forests.
Funding for the first year would go to shovel-ready projects including culvert repairs to improve fish passage, basic road and trail maintenance, and removing unneeded roads. Some funding would go towards Forest Service contract specialists, National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) planners, contract implementation oversight, and biologists to prepare road decommissioning projects in the second year of the stimulus package.
A similar effort has taken place in the US House of Representatives. In December, Representatives Jay Inlsee (D-WA) and Peter DeFazio (D-OR) sent a letter with 29 colleagues to House leadership calling for a Public Lands Stimulus Package to support economic growth through investment in restoration, road removal, and maintenance needs on public lands.
