Beyond politics

By Pat Hart
Reader Contributor

I am retired. I worked for the U.S. Forest Service for 46 years, all of it in Boundary County, Idaho. I am not acting as a spokesperson for the Forest Service or any other agency. 

I cannot speak for farmers, or the Tribe or volunteer firefighters reliant on grants from FEMA. 

I am not a politician. 

I speak as a citizen with deep care and commitment to Boundary County. As a citizen, I have grave concerns for the well-being of this county over current actions taken by the national administration. 

About 75% of the lands within the county are managed by the National Forest Service, Idaho Department of Lands and the Bureau of Land Management. These forests provide the basis for a strong timber economy, as well as recreational opportunities such as hunting, fishing, camping, hiking, biking, winter sports, rafting, etc. 

Like it or not, we have a National Scenic Recreation Trail traversing the county. The county is being inundated with new homeowners. Recreationists visit from all over the country. County lands provide wealth for this community.

Government is not a business.

Government is a service. 

The Bonners Ferry Ranger District has been a skeleton workforce for years. The current reduction in employment will weaken their ability to produce timber sales; keep roads, trails and campgrounds open; provide information to the public; assist law enforcement and search and rescue; and fight wildfires. It will likely mean more closures and less responsiveness to the public. 

Seasonal employees currently provide the backbone for the workforce. They do the heavy lifting of road, trail and campground maintenance. They survey and provide basic plant, watershed, wildlife and forest information necessary to develop responsible timber harvest contracts. They fight wildfires. 

The incredibly sad fact is that most of the seasonal workers laid off have worked 10 to 30 years. Many had just been offered permanent jobs. The reduction in employment has additionally reached the permanent workforce. 

Because government is a service, the Forest Service has supported this community in ways well beyond seasonal employment and forest work.

Likely, there will no longer be youth work programs. Over the past 50 years, many hundreds of county youth have been employed at the Bonners Ferry Ranger District. For most, it is their first work experience and it provided them a foundation of work integrity and ethics. 

Likely, there will no longer be training programs for people, especially senior citizens or people with disabilities, who need to update their skills so that they can enter a competitive private work force. 

Likely, there will be a reduction in road and forestry work contracts or supply purchases because there are not enough people left to develop contracts or administer them.

Although it may sound good to reduce the size of agencies, there are endless services to this community that will be cut. This is one agency in one small county.

I was trained by a man 55 years ago who said, “We were proud to be government men.”

There are men and women throughout all government agencies who believe that, with all their hearts. It is offensive and insulting to be handed a “fork-in-the-road” letter when you really have no choice which fork to take. The fork provided appears to lead only to havoc.

Pat Hart is a retired U.S. Forest Service employee, who served 46 years in Boundary County. Her opinions are her own, and not meant as representative of the USFS.