Public Rushes To Comment On Plan

Environmentalists delivered more than 150,000 cards and letters to the Forest Service Thursday, urging expansion of a controversial plan to protect roadless areas in national forests.

Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., joined the groups calling on the Clinton administration to reverse its decision to exempt most of Alaska and the Pacific Northwest from a proposed moratorium on new road building in those pristine areas.

“It’s an important step but it doesn’t go far enough,” Bryan said about the proposed 18-month moratorium that would cover the majority of the country’s national forests.

Bryan joined conservationists in front of 6-foot-tall stacks of postcards, letters and petitions urging broader application of the agency’s proposed temporary road-building ban.

The pre-written post cards and petitions will be logged separately as the agency gathers public comment. About 20,000 individual comments already have been received.