Public Land Plan Honed By Agencies Comment Period Extended 30 Days, Ending May 6

Federal agencies preparing a blueprint for managing millions of acres of public forest and rangeland have offered a closer look at the economic and social forces affecting several hundred communities in the Northwest.

They also announced on Thursday that the public comment period on the draft plan from the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project has been extended 30 days so people can read the latest document.

“In order to get a more complete picture of these communities, it was necessary to look at them at the community level in addition to the basinwide level portrayed in the project’s scientific assessment and draft (environmental impact statements),” said Martha Hahn, Idaho state director for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

The basin plan addresses 75 million acres of Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management property, with a total project area taking in 144 million acres, the size of France.

The new report is based on data gathered by the University in Idaho in 1996.

Of the 543 communities studied, about one-third, or 179, are considered “isolated,” or not within reasonable distances of larger population centers with more than 9,000 people, nor do they have access to the economic and social benefits the cities enjoy.

About 70 percent of all communities in the basin specialize in agriculture, agricultural services, wood products manufacturing, mining or federal government employment. About 80 percent of the isolated communities are most specialized in one of those fields.

The preferred alternative for the basin plan involves aggressively restoring ecosystem health through active management. It puts a priority on improving and maintaining huge areas, while any economic benefits occur only when practical.

Mining and farming communities, especially livestock grazing, would likely see no change from current conditions under that alternative, the report says.

The impact on communities involved in timber and wood products is more uncertain, depending a lot on harvest quantities, modes of logging and streamside conservation areas.

The worst effect on those resource industries would occur under an alternative which stresses reducing risks to the environment by establishing a system of reserves on Forest Service and BLM lands.

The new comment period lasts until May 6.