Harlan: Book cites 'impact' of management-speak, 5-28

By Bill Harlan, Journal Staff Writer | Sunday, May 28, 2006

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In a time when a walk in the woods has become "nonmotorized recreation in the viewshed," a book from Australia is worth a look.

Author Don Watson, a former speechwriter for a prime minister, gives us "Death Sentences: How Cliches, Weasel Words and Management-Speak Are Strangling Public Language." (Gotham Books, 1995.)

Watson's title got my attention because of my current unease about the phrase "nonmotorized recreation," not to mention "viewshed" - two terms that lurk in the management-speak of the Black Hills National Forest.

I'm not calling these terms "weasel words," mind you. There's a method to their clunkiness.

For example, where you and I see "scenery," a land manager sees a chunk of ground that can be mapped precisely with a Global Positioning System. Overlaid onto a topographical map, the "viewshed" is easier to protect. And on paper it looks like a watershed. Besides, "viewshed" sightings are rare.

The term "nonmotorized recreation," however, is ubiquitous in the Black Hills; where the U.S. Forest Service is hammering out sweeping new restrictions for off-highway vehicles - known hereafter as OHVs. The debate among various "stakeholders" has been going strong for a year. It's likely to continue for the next three years, spurred by a new federal regulation directing all national forests to restrict OHVs to designated trails. The 28-page regulation is formally known as "36 CFR Parts 212, 251, 261 and 295." Look for it in the Federal Register, Volume 70, No. 216, beginning - my hand to God - on page 68,264.

The process of creating an OHV trail system for the Black Hills will be guided by the National Environmental Policy Act which will require an "environmental impact statement."

To survive a NEPA OHV EIS, we lowly stakeholders will need help. Watson's book offers it. "Death Sentences" includes a management-speak glossary, and each entry has an exercise you can use to inoculate yourself against management-speak. Under the entry for "impact," for example, Watson suggests: "Open your favorite Stephen King novel and substitute "impact" for the first 17 verbs. Read aloud."

In that spirit, I thought it might be useful and fun to search 36 CFR for words in Watson's glossary.

"Impact" seemed like a good place to start, and it was. My unabridged Webster's dictionary defines "impact" as "violent contact." There are 63 such collisions in 36 CFR. They included 29 "environmental impacts," seven "economic impacts," and assorted "regulatory," "budgetary," "direct," "unacceptable," "biological," "other" and "no" impacts.

In contrast, all nine "inputs" in 36 CFR were of one kind: "public."

Watson is particularly scornful of the word "enhance" because it can mean anything. "That's why it's so popular with people who have lost the ability to say what they mean," he writes.

Undaunted, 36 CFR vows to enhance "management," "enforcement," "public enjoyment," "opportunities for motorized recreation" and "the system of designated roads and trails."

Watson has issues with "issues," too, and for the same reason. "Issues" can be anything, as 36 CFR demonstrates. There are "safety issues," "management issues," "important policy issues," and my personal favorite, "a distinct suite of issues" regarding "use by over-snow vehicles."

"Over-snow vehicles" led me to a jackpot paragraph. An excerpt: "A snowmobile traveling over snow results in different impacts to natural resource values than motor vehicles traveling over the ground," 36 CFR asserts, because the former don't have "a direct impact on soil and ground vegetation."

Let's ignore, as 36 CFR does, the "impact" of a snowmobile "traveling under snow," to consider the phrase "natural resource values."

Watson's glossary does not include "values," but this is America, where no policy discussion is complete without the V word. In addition to "natural resource values," 36 CFR protects, "natural values," "resource values," "important values," and values related to beauty, wilderness, adventure, history, outdoor exercise and "rare species." And remember public input? The Forest Service, 36 CFR promises, "values this input."

Watson's glossary understandably omits "nonmotorized," my personal shibboleth, but I couldn't resist a search of 36 CFR. I found 27 references. The motorless universe includes nonmotorized "travel," "experience," "users," "interests," "areas," "trails," "routes" and even a "nonmotorized character."

Watson's glossary turns to the Bible to ridicule "implement," to wit: "And God said to Noah ... implement thee an ark of gopher wood."

Verily, "implement" and "implementation" show up 28 times in 36 CFR - an average of once per page. "Measures," "rules" and "provisions" all get "implemented," then they are paid for with sleep-inducing "implementation funding."

Watson's glossary similarly decries management-speak's use of "action," which 36 CFR uses a dozen times. The new rule even describes itself as an "action" - that is, a "final rule."

But the Forest Service disputes "public input" that called 36 CFR a "major Federal action with significant effects on the human environment." If that were true, 36 CFR would require its own EIS.

I'll side with the Forest Service on that last point. A NEPA EIS on the OHV CFR is terrible to contemplate. But that's just me, a lowly stakeholder who yearns for halcyon days when a stakeholder was a guy about to kill a vampire.

Reporter Bill Harlan's column runs every other Sunday. Call him at 394-8424 or at bill.harlan@rapidcityjournal.com.