ABSTRACT
The forests are valued for their recreational opportunities and their commodity production, including timber, but environmentalists insists that the Forest Service's timber program is highly destructive. Environmentalists also contend that logging in roadless areas threatens to displace Yellowstone's grizzly bear population and that the water quality in streams known worldwide for their fishing is likely to decline from sedimentation associated with road construction and clear-cutting. Environmentalists argue that excessive logging and road building are also occurring on the Tongass National Forest in Alaska, the largest in the national forest system and "one of the last largely intact rain forests in the world's temperate latitudes." Organized wilderness advocates, however, are increasing pressure for making larger expenditures on recreational and environmental amenities and for devoting more land to these uses. The bureaucratic process does little to encourage either fiscal or environmental responsibility. The fiscal and environmental problems inherent in federal water projects are not the fault of bad managers.
