In brief: Groups seek block to off-road plan
BOISE – Two environmental groups are asking a federal judge to throw out the Salmon-Challis National Forest’s plan for managing off-road vehicle use across hundreds of thousands of acres of backcountry.
The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court on Friday claims the forest’s new travel management plan fails to protect land, water and wildlife adequately from threats posed by ATVs and other motorized vehicles.
The Wilderness Society and Idaho Conservation League are seeking an injunction blocking the forest from implementing the new plan.
Like other national forests, officials with the Salmon-Challis are in the final stages of redrawing maps designating appropriate routes and areas for off-road vehicles.
Skier who died in avalanche ID’d
KETCHUM, Idaho – Officials have identified 54-year-old Timothy L. Michael, of Ketchum, as the skier who was killed in an avalanche on Friday on Sun Valley Resort’s Bald Mountain.
Blaine County Coroner Russell D. Mikel on Saturday released the skier’s name.
The coroner said the avalanche was reported at 2:31 p.m. Friday and that Michael was located about 15 minutes later by the Sun Valley Ski Patrol.
Michael was transported to St. Luke’s Wood River Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at at 3:31 p.m.
Charges dropped in highway deaths
BILLINGS – A district court judge has thrown out criminal charges against a Great Falls man involved in a 2005 highway crash that killed three people in the same vehicle.
Judge E. Wayne Phillips last week ruled that too much time had elapsed between the crash and the date set for trial and dismissed the charges against Troy Jay Child.
Child had faced three counts of vehicular homicide while under the influence and one count of perjury, all felonies.
The charges stemmed from a Sept. 15, 2005, wreck on state Highway 200 a few miles east of Winnett, Mont. Prosecutors say Child was driving and the three who died were passengers.
Phillips in his ruling noted more than four years of delays had elapsed between the wreck and the trial date.
The state attorney general’s office said it will not appeal the ruling.