Regional Reports & Updates, Spring 2009
Court Blocks Alaska Road
The Federal District Court of Alaska ruled in February that the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) failed to consider a full range of alternatives when considering the Juneau Road and Ferry Project. For the project to move forward, Judge Sedwick specifically required that the Alaska Department of Transportation (DOT) and FHWA consider an alternative to improve ferry service using existing ferries and terminals. The 50 mile, $374 million road was planned to link Alaska’s capital with the interior.
The court ruling states: “The [Final Environmental Impact Statement’s] omission of such an alternative is particularly troublesome in light of the agencies’ awareness that such an alternative was the ‘first obvious alternative‚’ and had the fewest environmental impacts, and the fact that the communities who stand to benefit the most from the Project explicitly requested the agencies to focus on improving ferry transportation within Lynn Canal.”
This means that road construction through Berners Bay will not commence this summer, nor any time soon. Governor Palin and the State now have three choices: (a) appeal the court’s decision; (b) revise the EIS according to the district court’s instructions, or; (c) scrap the project altogether. Gov. Palin seemed ambivalent about the proposed road, and now must decide to either throw more good money after bad or to scrap the road and put the state’s money to better use.
Visit www.seacc.org/issues/transportation for the full decision.
9th Circuit Win for Grizzlies
Swan View Coalition, Friends of the Wild Swan, and Wildlands CPR won a victory in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals against the Flathead National Forest in a dispute over road management. The Flathead’s Resource Management Plan (RMP) requires it to maintain areas for grizzly bears where motorized travel is restricted. In these areas, when the needs of grizzly conflict with other management options, the RMP
states that the grizzly should win.
However, in its implementation of a post-fire salvage plan, the Flathead NF left several roads open to motorized use without evaluating the resulting conflict with the requirements established in their management plan. On January 9, 2009, the 9th Circuit over-ruled a previous decision made by District
Judge Malloy and told the Flathead to go back and re-analyze that decision, with the needs of grizzly in the forefront.
FS Trail Classification Update
In mid-December, Wildlands CPR and several other groups provided comments on interim final directives the Forest Service issued in October to address how recreational trails are managed. These directives, while positive overall, also had a few zingers buried in their depths. We’re still waiting to see whether the FS listens to any of our suggestions to apply common sense to this guidance.
These directives provide no direction for how trail maintenance and upgrade projects are to comply with NEPA and public involvement, leading to a very real concern that trails will be upgraded, either to a higher standard trail for the same use or from a nonmotorized to a motorized trail, without environmental analysis and without public involvement.
Another worrisome change included a definition for a Utility Terrain Vehicle (UTV), which further conflates the non-existent difference between the FS definition for a road and a trail. UTV is a term created by the ORV industry to indicate vehicles where passenger and driver ride side by side and that has a steering wheel like a regular automobile. These vehicles were already covered under the FS definition
for “four wheel drive vehicle” and as such there was no need for a new definition. Adding this definition advances the FS further down a slippery slope of trying to accommodate each new addition to the ORV arsenal.
Wildlands CPR will be closely watching for the final version of these directives to determine if the Forest Service has fixed these, and other problems, and we’ll let you know what we find out.