Issue 108 - October 13, 2006
1. FOREST SERVICE ROADLESS RULE RE-INSTATED
2. BILL PROPOSED TO AIDE STATES IN MAKING ROAD CLAIMS
3. JUDGE BANS SNOWMOBILES IN NORTHERN IDAHO
4. TRAVEL RESTRICTIONS UPHELD TO HALT OFF-ROAD VEHICLE ABUSE IN UTAH
5. NEW OFF-ROAD VEHICLE RESTRICTIONS FOR UTAH’S FACTORY BUTTE
6. CALIFORNIA’S ALGODONES DUNES WILL REMAIN PROTECTED
7. JUDGE UPHOLDS MOTORIZED USE IN MONTANA FOREST
8. NEW PARKS SERVICE DIRECTOR BACKS MOTORIZED PARK USE
9. RURAL COLORADO TOWN TO VOTE ON ROAD-PAVING
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1. FOREST SERVICE ROADLESS RULE REINSTATED
A federal judge has reinstated the 2001 ban placed on development in over 50 million acres of roadless areas on national forests. This "roadless rule" was overturned by the Bush administration, and replaced by a plan to review the fate of wilderness areas on a state-by-state basis, a policy that would likely have opened the door to commercial development and roading in remaining wild lands.
U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Laporte sided with the plaintiffs, including a coalition of 20 environmental groups and the states of California, New Mexico, Oregon, and Washington, in her decision that environmental laws were being violated by Bush’s replacement forest policy. Specifically, necessary environmental impact studies have not been conducted.
"This is fantastic news for millions of Americans who have consistently told the Forest Service that they want these last wild areas of public land protected," said Kristen Boyles, an attorney for Earthjustice, which represented the plaintiffs in the suit.
The reinstatement does not, however, apply to 9 million acres in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest that were exempted by Bush from the Roadless Rule in 2003.
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2. BILL PROPOSED TO AIDE STATES IN MAKING ROAD CLAIMS
Rep. Steve Pearce (R-NM) has introduced a bill that would help settle controversies about roads claimed under RS 2477, a Civil-War era mining statute. The proposed legislation would help define how state and local governments can legally gain control of roads, and is causing great concern among environmentalists.
The bill would allow local governments to more easily claim rights to paths and tracks across public lands -- not just constructed highways. It specifies that state law would define what a road is, but it also states that local governments could claim rights to byways that appear on maps or aerial photographs made before 1976.
Kristen Brengel, who works on road claims issues for the Wilderness Society, called the bill "probably the mother of all public lands giveaways," and characterized it as "absolutely unprecedented." Brengel said the bill would allow claims over any path through military bases, national parks and sensitive land slated for preservation -- regardless of state law.
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3. JUDGE BANS SNOWMOBILES IN NORTHERN IDAHO
U.S. District Judge Robert H. Whaley has declared nearly 470 square miles of national forest land in the Idaho Panhandle National Forest off-limits to snowmobiles in an effort to save the last remaining mountain caribou herd in the contiguous 48 states. The ban will remain in place until the U.S. Forest Service develops a winter recreation strategy that takes into account the negative effects of snowmobiles on endangered caribou.
Estimates of the Selkirk Mountain herd, whose range extends from southeast British Columbia to northern Idaho and Washington, run to about three dozen animals with, according to Whaley, a "precarious finger-hold" on survival.
This is the second time in less than a year that Whaley has ruled in favor of environmentalists seeking to ban snowmobiles from the caribou recovery zone, citing evidence that snowmobiles scare caribou from feeding and calving grounds. Plaintiffs have included The Lands Council, the Idaho Conservation League, Conservation Northwest, Defenders of Wildlife and the Center for Biological Diversity.
"We’re down to the last few animals. We need to do everything we can to protect them," said Mark Sprengel, director of the Selkirk Conservation Alliance in Priest River.
The ban does not apply to hundreds of miles of state-owned land to the east of the protected area, and offers a slim chance that limited snowmobiling might still be allowed in part of the recovery zone.
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4. TRAVEL RESTRICTIONS UPHELD TO HALT OFF-ROAD VEHICLE ABUSE IN UTAH
On September 19, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision upholding the legality of off-road vehicle restrictions put in place by the Bureau of Land Management to halt considerable adverse impacts caused by these machines in Box Elder and Grand County, Utah. The motorized recreation group Utah Shared Access Alliance (USA-ALL), sued the agency, seeking to overturn the restrictions so that off-road vehicle use could continue without management oversight. Upon losing in District Court, USA-ALL appealed to the 10th Circuit where they also sought to overturn Executive Orders governing off-road vehicle use.
The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance and Earthjustice, along with Wildlands CPR, Red Rock Forests and Great Old Broads for Wilderness intervened in the case to support the BLM’s long-overdue restrictions on off-road vehicle abuse. The court held, significantly, that an "emergency" is not required before BLM may limit off-road vehicle use on public lands, and that BLM’s decision is supported by substantial evidence of abuse. The 10th Circuit Court found that the District Court properly dismissed USA-ALL’s claims against the BLM.
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5. NEW OFF-ROAD VEHICLE RESTRICTIONS FOR UTAH’S FACTORY BUTTE
The Bureau of Land Management has decided to implement "emergency restrictions" for off-road vehicle recreation in Southern Utah’s Factory Butte Area to protect critical habitat. Factory Butte is a popular destination for motorized recreationists.
This action has been expected for quite some time, as the land is the endemic home of the endangered Wrights Fishhook cactus and the threatened Winkler cactus. Factory Butte, located near Capitol Reef National Park, has until now been designated open for off-road vehicle use. Under the new rules, motorized use will be limited to a 2,600-acre "play area" known as Swing Arm City, and 220 miles of designated roads. Officials have emphasized that if the new regulations are not honored, the result could be a closure of the entire area.
This action was spurred by a petition filed last year by The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance for a more restrictive off-road vehicle plan, citing concerns over the cactus, and soil and water impacts due to motorized recreation. The Bureau of Land Management rejected most of the petition, but launched an analysis of cactus habitat and found significant off-road vehicle damage to the plants.
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6. CALIFORNIA’S ALGODONES DUNES WILL REMAIN PROTECTED
A federal court has ordered that the current off-road vehicle restrictions in the Algodones Dunes of southern California’s Sonoran Desert will remain in effect for the foreseeable future. For years the dunes have been the subject of many controversies concerning off-road vehicles and harm to threatened wildlife.
50,000 of the area’s 180,000 acres have been closed since 2000, in an effort to protect habitat and threatened wildlife, including Peirson’s milk-vetch, desert tortoises, and flat-tailed horned lizards.
"One has but to drive Hwy 78 across the dunes to see the remarkable difference on the north side of the highway with protected wilderness and the south side with vehicles everywhere," said Elden Hughes of the Sierra Club. "The north is alive with desert plants and animals. The south side has few plants and no animal life. The rare and threatened species of the Dunes need the protections the judge has given them."
The closures will remain in effect at least until the Bureau of Land Management revises the environmental review for the Dunes management plan and the Fish and Wildlife Service revises the critical habitat designation for the Peirson’s milk-vetch.
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7. JUDGE UPHOLDS MOTORIZED USE IN MONTANA FOREST
U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy has rejected all claims in a lawsuit that challenged the adequacy of motorized-access policies aimed at improving critical grizzly bear habitat in the Cabinet-Yaak and Selkirk recovery areas of the Kootenai and Idaho Panhandle National Forests, respectively.
The Alliance for the Wild Rockies and the Lands Council alleged that forest-plan amendments adopted in 2004 by the two national forests were inadequate for protecting threatened grizzly bear populations in the recovery areas. The plaintiffs asserted that the Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service were obligated to go much further in providing protections for threatened grizzly bears, and claimed that offered protections were grossly inadequate.
Molloy ruled that the amendments, and the environmental impact statement and biological opinion supporting them, never professed to provide comprehensive protection for bears, and supported the government’s position that the forest-plan amendments will improve habitat conditions for bears by reducing road densities.
Michael Garrity, executive director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, said the ruling will be appealed. Many bear mortalities are directly linked to the proximity of roads. For that reason alone, Garrity contends, the forest-plan amendments need to be even more restrictive about road densities
"If this decision isn’t reversed, the grizzly bears in the Cabinet-Yaak are doomed to extinction," he said. "That’s the bottom line, and that’s why we have to appeal." The Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that there are only between 30-40 grizzlies left in the Cabinet-Yaak recovery zone.
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8. NEW PARKS SERVICE DIRECTOR BACKS MOTORIZED PARK USE
Mary Bomar, the new Director of the National Park Service, has stated she believes snowmobile use in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks can continue without "unacceptable impacts to park resources." Bomar suggested that limited numbers of snowmobiles, improved technology and guiding requirements would mitigate impacts to park habitat.
Bomar made her views known in a written response to U.S. Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo., who questioned the nominee about issues pertinent to his state. Her statements come just months after official Park Service policy reinforced the agency’s stated commitment to value aesthetic and ecological concerns over commercial ones.
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9. RURAL COLORADO TOWN TO VOTE ON ROAD-PAVING
The Colorado town of Blue River, home to about 750 residents, will be voting November 7 on whether local dirt roads should be paved. The issue is extremely contentious, and symbolic to many.
Proponents point out that property values would be greatly increased. Pavement would also greatly reduce dust from roads.
On other hand, many locals worry that pavement would erode the town’s rural character that they so appreciate, as well as create financial burdens to tax-payers, not only for the initial paving but for subsequent road maintenance. Some see road paving as an insipid creeping of urban fixtures into pastoral lifestyle.
The mayor of Blue River, who proposed the controversial ballot initiative, has since resigned.