Army Reneged On Trail Pact, Officer Says

To keep the state from challenging an environmental study, the U.S. Army signed an agreement to keep a portion of the John Wayne Pioneer Trail open, a high-ranking officer admits.

But now that the Yakima Firing Center has received approval for a 62,000-acre expansion south of Ellensburg, the Army says the agreement is void.

Lt. Col. Rick Helfer, who commands the training center, acknowledged at a meeting last month that the Army signed the original agreement to keep the state from challenging the environmental impact statement in court.

Now, the military is asking the state to accept a different agreement that contains no guarantees that the portion of the trail that cuts through the firing center would remain open in a military emergency.

The 250-mile-long trail, also known as Iron Horse State Park, is a former railroad right of way from North Bend to the Idaho border. About 21 miles of the trail crosses land the Army purchased to expand its Yakima Firing Center.

In April, Army officials said a 1991 agreement to provide an alternative trail was invalid.

Parks officials are no longer insisting that the Army build the alternative trail. But they still want its guarantee never to close the existing trail unless the bypass is built first.

“The state of Washington has nothing if they change their minds,” Brian Hovis, a state parks planner, said of Army commanders last week.

The issue arose from the Army’s move in the late 1980s to expand its Yakima Training Center by 62,000 acres, including the land which contains a 21-mile segment of the cross-state trail.

To avoid a state lawsuit over its widely criticized environmental impact statement, the military agreed in writing in 1991 to build an alternative trail along Interstate 90 on the northern perimeter of the expansion area.

It promised unconditionally to maintain the existing route and, except for national emergencies, never to close it to hikers, bikers, riders and horse-drawn wagons without first opening the alternative trail.

The commission now has been told that it must obtain a permit from the Army to keep the trail access it once thought was guaranteed.

The Army says an alternative trail isn’t needed because the existing trail has remained open and probably will continue to do so.

Yakima Training Center spokesman Ken Cooper said the Army is willing to promise “that in the event that trail were ever closed, the Army would make its best effort to obtain congressional approval to build an alternate trail.”

Trail users are incensed.

“The commanding generals (at Fort Lewis) changed. The guy who is there now is not wanting to honor a memorandum of agreement made by his predecessor,” said Ed Armstrong, a member of the John Wayne Pioneer Wagons and Riders.

The Army asserts former Fort Lewis commander Maj. Gen. Paul Schwartz lacked authority to sign the agreement. That had particular irony for Joe Shorin, a state assistant attorney general who helped negotiate the 1991 deal.

“I was very angry,” Shorin said of his reaction to the Army’s letter nullifying the agreement. “I’m still very angry.”

“It was a fairly negotiated deal, and obviously (the Army) reneged on it,” he said. “They made a commitment, and they ought to comply with their commitment, that’s all.”