Oregon: Wallowa-Whitman NF’s plan to inexpensively close roads by not actually closing them

The Wallowa- Whitman National Forest (WWNF) is currently in the
process of writing an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) to
implement a stand-alone Travel Management Plan. Their proposal is to
designate a few roads on a map that they will allow the public to
travel, and to close around 4,000 miles of National Forest system
roads within five counties; Baker, Grant, Union, Umatilla, and
Wallowa. The WWNF’s proposal to close all these roads on the National
Forest is their way of implementing the 2005 National Travel
Management Rule. This Rule didn’t tell the Forests they had to close
roads. In fact, the Malheur National Forest chose to meet the intent
of the Rule by simply issuing a map to the public showing the existing
open roads on that Forest. But the Wallowa-Whitman took the complete
opposite tact. They decided to write an EIS, which proposes to close
almost every road on the Forest except for a few main roads.

A Draft
EIS is in the works, and the WWNF says the EIS will be released for
public comment sometime in January 2009. Every citizen who is
concerned about his or her right to access within the National Forest
needs to make comments on this Plan. If you use the National Forest
for any purpose, whether it is for recreation, ATV riding,
snowmobiling, logging, wood cutting, mining, grazing, hunting,
fishing, mushrooming, camping, berry picking or just disabled, you are
the one who will suffer. You are the one who will lose your use of the
National Forests if the WWNF proposed action goes through. The
Wallowa-Whitman proposal is not even legal. The current 1990 Forest
Management Plan is very access friendly. The current Forest Plan
encourages use of the roads within the Forest, and allows for cross
country travel, as long as resource damage is not occurring. Because
the Forest Service is required to operate, right now, under the 1990
Forest Plan, they are bound by the National Environmental Policy Act
(NEPA) to tier any new EIS to the parent Land Use Plan. This simply is
not possible with the proposed Travel Management Plan, since closing
all the roads is 180 degrees in the opposite direction from the access
friendly 1990 Forest Plan. The WWNF is trying to convince the public
that their road closure proposal is not a significant amendment to the
1990 Forest Plan. But the facts speak for themselves; the WWNF Travel
Management Plan proposal is a significant change to the 1990 Forest
Plan. http://www.therconline.com/content/view/315/47/

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Posted via email from Deane’s posterous