Federal budget cuts could impact trail work

Local Forest Service officials aren’t talking

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The federal budget sequestration has put the Department of Interior’s budget “in the ditch,” Ken Salazar said last week. But President Obama’s 2014 Interior Department budget “takes it out of the ditch,” the Interior Secretary said April 9.

Salazar made the comments during a conference call with reporters. He claimed mandatory budget cuts will mean 7,000 young Americans will not be able to get jobs this summer because programs like AmeriCorps will see cuts.

But the state Director of the Montana Conservation Corps, which is under the umbrella of AmeriCorps, said it’s simply too early to tell what cuts could come to its program this year. MCC hopes to put close to 400 men and women in their late teens and early 20s to work this summer and fall, CEO Jono McKinney said.

McKinney said MCC is still waiting to see how sequestration will shake out on the state level — and it won’t know for sure for about another month.

MCC crews work on projects with various land agencies across the state, including the National Park Service, Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management. With sequestration, those agencies haven’t completely decided on what projects they’ll fund, he noted.

McKinney said he has a $1 million to $1.5 million hole in the MCC budget and he isn’t sure how exactly it will be filled. One big question mark is the Forest Service’s Resource Advisory Council program. That money is used in a variety of ways depending on the national forest. RAC money has been used locally to maintain and improve the North Fork Road.

MCC often gets RAC money for projects statewide, McKinney noted. But with budget cuts on the way, MCC could see a smaller slice of the pie.

One bright note at least in Glacier National Park is help from private dollars. The Glacier National park Conservancy is providing a $25,000 grant to put MCC crews to work in the Park this summer.

MCC crews often do a lot of trail work and other projects in the Park and the Bob Marshall Wilderness. The program pays workers a small living stipend, and when they complete their commitment, they get an educational payment dedicated toward college tuition.

“These people are our next generation of scientists, engineers and park rangers,” Salazar said.

There’s a lot of truth to that, McKinney noted. Virtually all the trail crew members working for the Flathead National Forest in the Bob Marshall Wilderness last year were former MCC crew members, he said. Most of the employees at the Bob Marshall Wilderness Foundation, which organizes trail projects in The Bob, are also former MCC employees.

The Forest Service is under the Department of Agriculture, and so far Forest Service officials have said little about sequestration. Flathead National Forest spokesman Wade Muehlhof said he couldn’t comment on sequestration and referred calls to the Forest Service’s Washington offices.

The Washington offices did not respond to requests for more specific impacts, but they did release a statement last month saying there would be a temporary closure to 670 campgrounds nationwide, and the Forest Service would hire about 500 less firefighters nationwide.

Obama’s budget calls for a National Park Service budget of $2.6 billion in 2014, which is $56.6 million more than the 2012 level, but staffing would actually fall by 256 full-time jobs to 21,651.

According to Salazar, the money is well invested. The National Park Service contributes $30.1 billion in recreation related economic output nationwide and supported more than 252,000 U.S. jobs in 2011.

The President’s budget also seeks an increase of $1 million for a total $14.7 million toward National Park Service programs that foster the engagement of youth in the great outdoors, like MCC.

But Obama’s budget still has a long way to go to get through Congress, and lawmakers on both sides already oppose it because the overall spending plan makes changes to social welfare programs like Social Security and raises taxes by closing loopholes.