Bush gives local residents more control over nation’s forests

Protections against road building, mining and logging in vast tracts of the nation’s backcountry forest were loosened Thursday by the Bush administration.

The lifting of the so-called roadless rule gives the governors, forest rangers and local residents more control over about 2 million acres of largely untouched national forest in Washington and 9 million acres in Idaho. The change drew tempered applause from the region’s timber industry and outraged howls from conservation groups.

But don’t expect the bulldozers to be fired up anytime soon in the Inland Northwest’s national forests. Dave O’Brien, spokesman for the Idaho Panhandle National Forests, said the Forest Service these days is mostly focused on thinning fire-prone stands of dense timber near communities, as opposed to cutting trees in remote areas.

“With the limited funds we have right now, the priorities we have are in the urban interface. Our roadless areas tend to be in the backcountry,” O’Brien said.

Nationwide, the rule changes apply to 58.5 million acres of inventoried roadless national forest, nearly all of it in the West, but not all the land will lose its protections. Locally written forest management plans already prohibit most development on about 24 million acres. The fate of remaining forests, about 34 million acres, will now revert back to these local Forest Service plans, which are currently going through a public revision process in North Idaho and Eastern Washington.

Governors, however, will have the option of petitioning the federal government to maintain the roadless protections.

Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire said she has not yet developed a formal response to the changes. She issued a statement indicating that new roads are not part of her agenda.

“We value our national forest roadless areas in Washington state. They are important habitat for endangered fish and wildlife, help provide clean water and opportunities for recreation and solitude, and contribute to the wonderful natural environment we enjoy in the Pacific Northwest. We hope to have most, if not all, of our national forest roadless areas in Washington protected,” she said.

Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne welcomed the roadless rule reversal, saying national forest management needs to be flexible and weighted toward the concerns of local residents. “He’s thrilled that it’s going to involve some input from Idahoans,” said Kempthorne spokesman Mike Journee.

About 800,000 acres in North Idaho – roughly a third of all national forest land in the Panhandle – were declared largely off-limits to new road building or development by the roadless rule, which was signed into law in the final days of Bill Clinton’s presidency. The Colville and Idaho Panhandle national forests had already set aside pristine areas for possible wilderness protections, but the roadless rule dramatically increased the amount of forest where road building was largely prohibited.

Previously protected areas included portions of the Selkirk Crest, the Scotchman Peak area, the headwaters of the St. Joe River and remote tracts northwest of Priest Lake. The roadless rule set aside about 500,000 additional acres of forest in North Idaho, including portions of the Coeur d’Alene River headwaters. In northeast Washington, the roadless rule boosted protections on about 175,000 acres, including parts of the Kettle River Range, according to agency maps.

The restrictions were aimed at protecting wildlife and fish, as well as water purity, but critics called the roadless rule a massive land grab. In Idaho, 17 percent of the entire state was effectively declared off-limits to new roads – the most in the lower 48 states – and the state was the first to issue a challenge to the blanket ban.

“It was bad for the forest, bad for the people and it undercut decades of local work,” said Jim Riley, executive director of the Intermountain Logging Association, of Coeur d’Alene. Clinton’s road-building ban received widespread support in Eastern states and among environmental groups, but Riley said the law resulted only in a hands-off approach that has made forests more wildfire- and disease-prone.

“That’s not what Westerners view as good conservation,” he said.

Although some in the West wanted more control of how forests in their back yards are managed, the road-building ban reflected a national sentiment that not enough was being done to protect America’s last wild places, said Tom Uniack, conservation director for the Washington Wilderness Coalition. Hundreds of public meetings were held leading to the road-building ban and more than 4 million Americans expressed their support for the increased restrictions, Uniack said.

“The fact is, these are national forests. They should be managed for and by all Americans,” Uniack said. “The repeal of the protections for roadless forests ranks among the top of the assaults to the environment by this administration. These are a gift to the logging and mining industries.”

Uniack also pointed out that governors seeking to retain the roadless protections must first wade through a lengthy approval process and ultimately receive permission from a Forest Service advisory committee.

“That sounds to me like top-down,” Uniack said. “This local input thing is kind of a hoax.”

Federal courts will likely play a role in the fate of road-free forests. The previous rule was the subject of nine federal lawsuits, including one case that remains active.

If the change sticks, Panhandle Forests spokesman Dave O’Brien said the increased flexibility would make it easier to conduct fuels thinning or restoration projects, including a proposal for a dense stand of national forest near Hope, Idaho. Under the previous rules, helicopters would have been required to haul away the logs. But even with Thursday’s rule change, O’Brien said forest managers will be reluctant to consider new road building.

“It’s so contentious,” he said.