New stimulus funds to better forest trails

Washington state has received more than $56 million in Forest Service dollars to thin forests, repair roads and finance other stimulus projects on federal, state, tribal and private lands. Most of that money will pay for projects entirely within Washington state, but some money will be shared with Oregon.

The latest round of Forest Service funding, announced Tuesday, includes $520,000 for Washington state. The money will go to help improve trails in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in Skamania County, and to transport and lay 20,000 cubic yards of rock at sites along the Olympic Discovery Trail in the northern Olympic Peninsula.

So far this year, the Forest Service has announced more than $1 billion in federal stimulus spending nationwide, and another $147 million in projects are expected to be funded.

The Forest Service in recent years has invested heavily in wildland firefighting but accumulated a big backlog of road, trail, forest thinning and other projects. The stimulus is helping to reduce that backlog.

The forest stimulus funding is partly tied to unemployment rates. Oregon, with one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, has received substantially more Forest Service stimulus money than Washington. The current tally for Oregon tops $100 million, according to Forest Service statistics.

Hal Bernton: 206-464-2581 or hbernton@seattletimes.com