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Show HOW PUBLIC LANDS MIGHT BE CLASSIFIED FOR ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT Water Biosystem Maintenance Quality of Experience Air Quality Studies of Environmental Impacts Recommendation 20: Congress should provide for greater use of studies of environmental impacts as a precondition to certain kinds of uses. Beyond the consideration given to the environment in general land use planning, as well as the likely effect of certain kinds of uses, some uses, entailing severe, often irreversible, impacts, should be permitted only if a decision is based on a detailed study of their potential impact on the environment. The kinds of uses that should require impact studies because of the severity of their effect, include transmission lines, roads, dams, open-pit mining operations, timber harvesting, extensive chemical control programs, mineral operations on the Outer Continental Shelf, and high density recreational developments. The need for and depth of such studies would vary directly with the nature of the proposed use and the sensitivity of the environment upon which it would operate. The agencies are now doing this administratively, particularly with respect to use of national forest lands for transmission lines, dams, and roads. However, the principal problem in many cases appears to be one of timing, in that the public land agencies are brought into the picture at so late a date that when impact studies are made, they are often done con- 80 currently with the implementation of the project.14 Unless the agencies are brought in at an early stage, these studies can at best serve a limited function, i.e., mitigation of adverse impacts. They cannot be used, as may be appropriate in some cases, to provide the basis for a decision to select alternative sites, routes, etc., or even not to proceed with the project at all. Expanded Research Recommendation 21: Existing research programs related to the public lands should be expanded for greater emphasis on environmental quality. Such an expanded research effort is required in order to provide the information and expertise necessary to give proper attention to the environmental aspects for public land management. This would not necessitate a new program, but simply an extension of existing programs under several statutes,15 which form the basis of Forest Service and independent grant research programs. The Commission's recommendation to merge the Forest Service with the Department of the Interior, made elsewhere in this report, would make the Forest 14 n. 6, supra. "See 16 U.S.C. § 581-581J and 16 U.S.C. §§ 582a-582a-7 (1964) as to the Forest Service and 42 U.S.C. §§ 1961b (Supp. IV, 1965-68) as to water resources. |