Bureaucrats Should Take A Hike

Quaking bureaucrats and elected officials routinely conjure the liability bogeyman when they don’t have the will to get a project done.

Their mantra is: Gee, someone might stub a toe. Or break an arm. Or worse. Then, we’d be sued. Woe is us.

The U.S. Forest Service is using that old dodge to frustrate attempts by Silver Valley residents to reopen a two-state, rail-trail system for hikers and bikers. The barricaded Taft Tunnel, at the Idaho-Montana border, is the centerpiece of a trail that could attract tens of thousands of visitors and badly needed tourist dollars.

Squeamish USFS officials, however, are demanding $1.4 million in safety renovations to the Taft Tunnel Trail - a 20-mile section of old railroad grade featuring eight trestles and 11 tunnels. The feds might as well be asking for the moon.

The Taft Tunnel Preservation Society doesn’t have a million-plus bucks, nor can trail enthusiasts raise that kind of money for what some consider are “gold-plated” requirements. But supporters are confident they can raise $225,000 - the amount qualified engineers estimate is needed to make the trail safe if the Forest Service’s bells and whistles were eliminated.

These Silver Valley residents should be given a chance to prove themselves.

The popularity of the trail has begun to mushroom - even with the Forest Service’s grating decision last spring to close a 10-mile section for safety concerns. Use went from virtually nothing a few years ago to 2,000 users on the Idaho side of the Taft Tunnel in 1993. Last year, use doubled to 4,000 even with the tunnel closed.

The trail is largely used by mountain bikers and hikers, hearty individuals who generally don’t need the Forest Service to hold their hands to survive in the back country. Bruce Bouva, a mountain biker from Spokane, offered a compelling perspective after the trail closure earlier this year:

“You can go to Yosemite and climb Half Dome even though people certainly could fall off and hurt themselves. Why can’t you put up a sign to warn people that crossing the trestles is potentially dangerous and leave the trail open?

“Within 20 years, somebody probably will fall off one of those trestles. There are too many lunatics out there. But that doesn’t mean we all have to suffer for it.”

Rather than digging in their heels, USFS officials should find a way to make this important project happen. If that means using volunteer help from the Silver Valley’s miners instead of expensive contractors, so be it. If that means installing used galvanized cable as trestle handrails instead of new cable, they should do it.

In 1994, tight-fisted U.S. Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, and then U.S. Rep. Larry LaRocco, D-Idaho, put aside their political differences to successfully lobby for some trail funding. Craig made a statement at that time that the USFS should take to heart now:

“It just doesn’t make sense to let this marvelous asset fall into ruin. Why not turn part of our past into a functioning part of Idaho’s economic future?”

Yeah! Why not?

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = D.F. Oliveria/For the editorial board