Roadless plan may be ready this summer

Idaho county commissioners and clerks sat quietly during a presentation on why not to place fences or trees too close to high-voltage power lines Wednesday at the Coeur d’Alene Resort.

And then they were shocked to see the governor walk in.

With wife Vicki present, Gov. Jim Risch surprised the group to announce that the state’s petition for a roadless area rule should be on his desk this summer. It’s nothing final, just a nod to the fact that things are rolling forward in the ongoing debate over regulation of access to national forest lands.

The proposal will be based on thousands of individual and organization comments and the requests of 30 counties in the state, said Jim Caswell, a former national forest supervisor who now heads the Idaho Governor’s Office for Species Conservation. Caswell, who delivered most of Wednesday’s announcement on the petition, said the governor will have the proposal by late June and forward it to the federal government in August.

Comments were split between leaving areas “roadless for roadless’ sake” to creating roads and logging and managing the land, Caswell said.

Idaho has been on the forefront of the debate since 2001.

In that time, former Gov. Dirk Kempthorne’s office filed suit against a Clinton-era roadless rule that protected 58.5 million woodland acres in the U.S. from commercial uses.

The Bush administration overturned the rule in May 2005 to allow governors to petition the federal government to kill existing land-use plans that prohibit development and have the U.S. Forest Service create new plans for the pristine areas.

Kempthorne, the newly confirmed secretary of the interior, had asked his cabinet in Boise for a roadless area rule petition on his desk by the end of 2005.

Now, under Risch’s tenure, the state will begin the long process of petitioning, which includes a review by the Roadless Area Conservation National Advisory Council, approval by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary, a national public comment period and a 10-month to one-year notice of intent period in the Federal Register.

In all, it could be another two years before a roadless area rule is on the federal books for Idaho’s 9.3 million acres of national forest.

So far, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia have forwarded petitions to the roadless national advisory council – all requesting that road construction or commercial use be banned from those areas based on Clinton’s previous declaration.

Caswell said he believes Idaho’s petition, if made a rule, would provide the state more influence with the Forest Service in determining “where they do what (and) when,” as well as funding and further collaboration on projects in the roadless areas.

“You can’t take away (federal) decision-making,” Caswell reminded the audience, but he added that influence may be powerful enough “to get some very important work on the ground.”