Laura Lundquist

(Missoula Current) The Nez Perce Clearwater National Forest has published a multi-decade forest plan that favors logging and motorized and mechanized recreation.

Last week, the acting Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest supervisor, Heath Perrine, signed off on a final version of the forest plan that will guide projects on the national forest for at least the next 20 years. The previous forest plans for the Nez Perce and Clearwater Forests were separately written in the late-1980s. After decades went by and the two forests were combined in 2013 due to budget cuts - as was the situation for several national forests - a new management plan was needed for a forest that now covers 4 million acres and seven counties in Idaho.

However, the process the Nez Perce-Clearwater Forest used to produce the plan has been somewhat unorthodox, from having an acting supervisor, who was in the job for six months, make the decision to choose an alternative that wasn’t originally defined in the draft environmental study. Forest managers mixed and matched what they wanted in the final decision. Also only one type of designation was allowed in any one area - for example, roadless areas couldn’t overlap recommended wilderness or wild and scenic river designations. The forest chose one over another.

Jon Word took over as Nez Perce Clearwater Forest supervisor on Monday after supervisor Cheryl Probert retired at the end of June.

The decision places importance on the rural communities near the forest, saying they are underserved, so the “economic and social importance” of the forest is greater because visitors to the forest “do not contribute economically to the communities.” So some aspects of the decision cater to those living in or near the forest, some of whom have strong anti-federal agency attitudes.

The final decision changed little from the draft Probert released a year ago, eliminating several protected areas in favor of recreation and resource extraction, according to forest watchdogs. The decision acknowledges that the wilderness recommendations were hotly debated in public comments.

“The topic of what to recommend or not recommend for wilderness designation was the single largest recipient of comments during the DEIS formal comment period, resulting in 18 percent of the total draft EIS comments. We heard social, ecologic, and economic rationale in support of and against many of the areas evaluated,” according to the decision.

Heath decided that any area where mechanized or motorized recreation exists or has existed would be eliminated from any recommended wilderness to avoid any conflict that could affect a Congressional decision. That decision played a big role in reducing the size of the East Meadow Creek and Hoodoo recommended wildernesses.

The Hoodoo is the western portion of the Great Burn Recommended Wilderness that straddles the Lolo and Nez Perce Clearwater forests west of Missoula. Heath cut away more than 3,700 acres of the Hoodoo to allow snowmobiles to use a swath of mountainous terrain that Heath dubbed “unique” for snowmobiles and to allow mountain bikes and motorized vehicles to use certain roads and trails, including the Fish Lake and Divide trails.

“The Forest has jeopardized permanent protection of the largest, most significant roadless area in the Northern Region, to provide a few elite snowmobilers and mountain bikers a play area,” said Chris Ryan, retired USFS Northern Region Wilderness Program Manager. “To add fuel to the fire, the forest has established boundaries between the motorized and non-motorized areas that are impossible to distinguish on the ground, making it difficult for even an honest snowmobiler to adhere to the closures.”

The Forest Service is supposed to manage recommended wilderness as wilderness. But even though the 1987 Clearwater Forest plan listed almost 112,000 acres as the Hoodoo recommended wilderness, the U.S. Forest Service had allowed motorized and mechanized recreation into parts of the area. Then, in 2011, the Clearwater Travel Plan closed all proposed wilderness areas to motorized and mechanized vehicles with the exception of the Fish Lake Trail. But forest managers often ignored that restriction in the Hoodoo, so wilderness groups sued. In 2015, the courts ruled in their favor, saying the Forest Service violated the Travel Management Rule when it didn’t minimize the damage of motor vehicles.

Still, Heath said his decision on the Hoodoo favored motorized and mechanized recreation because interested groups had been asked to collaborate on an alternative but “no collaborative compromise solution was reached.” But groups wanting to retain the wilderness recommended in 1987 were put in an impossible position because any compromise would still result in some of the area being chipped away.

Wilderness advocates said the agency turned a blind eye to illegal motorized use and chose to legitimize it by excluding the areas from the Great Burn Recommended Wilderness instead of enforcing existing restrictions to protect wildlife and habitat.

“It’s incredibly disappointing that the Forest Service has decided to go against its own longtime management recommendations and remove protections from the Great Burn to legitimize illegal snowmobile use,” said Maddy Munson of Wild Montana in a release. “We hope the Lolo National Forest, currently revising its plan, will uphold its commitment to managing the Great Burn as recommended wilderness, as it has for nearly 40 years.”

In October, the Lolo National Forest delayed the release of its forest plan draft environmental impact study until this fall due to pending decisions on old growth conservation and grizzly bear migration. Both decisions have recently come out. At the same time, Lolo Forest Supervisor Carolyn Upton retired, so a new supervisor will have to shepherd the forest plan revision.

Since 1984, the entire Great Burn recommended wilderness has been included in 16 wilderness bills introduced by Idaho and Montana legislators.

The decision has recommended almost 73,000 acres around East Meadow Creek next to the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness near Elk City, Idaho, as recommended wilderness for the first time. However, the recommendation excluded 92% - approximately 107,000 acres - of the West Meadow Creek Idaho Roadless Area because the area is used for winter and summer motorized recreation. Although roadless areas contain no formal roads, motorized recreation is unhindered because motorized trails are allowed.

Heath justified his decision on recommended wilderness saying he hadn’t maximized motorized access across the forest. But that could change for some areas when the forest writes its travel plan.

“The Preferred Alternative sets the stage for consideration of specific areas to provide for additional access during motor vehicle use designation planning and during project development, which has the benefit of allowing people that cannot access lands without motorized vehicles to be able to enjoy these lands,” according to Heath’s decision.

Heath added that “non-motorized and non-mechanized user groups will see no loss in areas suitable for their preferred activities, though they may have to share the trail with motorized users on trails in areas that change from non-motorized to motorized in the summer after site-specific motor vehicle use designations are completed.”

For Wild and Scenic River designations, Heath recommended portions of eleven streams: Meadow Creek, Cayuse Creek, Colt Killed Creek, Fish Creek, Hungery Creek, Weitas Creek, Kelly Creek and its three forks, and the undesignated portion of the Salmon River will remain suitable.

The North and South forks of the Clearwater River received the greatest amount of public interest. But Heath refused to recommend them for designation, saying it would limit the forest’s ability to preserve the “coastal disjunct ecosystem’” by doing vegetation management, even though the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act doesn’t expressly prohibit logging.

River advocates doubted vegetation management was really the problem, pointing to the fact that approximately two dozen potential dam sites have been identified on the North Fork above Dworshak Reservoir and another dozen on the South Fork.

“The Forest Service’s conclusion that the North and South Fork Clearwater Rivers are not suitable candidates for protection under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act doesn’t pass the laugh test,” said Brad Smith of the Idaho Conservation League. “These rivers are exactly the kinds of iconic waterways that Congress intended to protect when it passed the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.”

Heath argued that plenty of protected land already exists on the Nez Perce Clearwater Forest, citing the entirety of the Gospel Hump Wilderness Area and parts of both the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness and the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness, which account for about a quarter of the forest.

Logging is a big component of the plan in order to help rural economies. Under the plan, more than 1 million acres - 26% of the forest - is supposed to be suitable for logging, however logging can also occur on lands considered unsuitable “to meet resource objectives.” On the other 75% of the forest, wildfire will be the primary tool to manage the forest.

Heath has chosen to go fairly heavy on logging with a plan to cut 190-210 million board feet a year. In the draft alternatives, the choice of logging amounts extended from 60 board feet per year to 241 board feet per year over 30 years. Currently, the forest is cutting 50 to 60 million board feet.

The decision claims logging could return the forest to “desired conditions” within 30 years, reduce the wildfire threat and contribute to clean air.

“An increase in timber harvest as a management tool as we move lands, particularly within Management Area 3 and within community protection zones, toward the desired conditions will help address the wildfire crisis and allow for suppression of fire to be a tactic that is successful when deemed appropriate during the incident,” according to the decision. “While smoke in the summer may always be a part of living with fire-adapted ecosystems, managing for the desired conditions, over time, should reduce the intensity
and duration of the smoke.”

Finally, the plan says almost 2.4 million acres of the forest are available for mining, even though there’s little mineral extraction occurring. But “there is continued interest in locatable mineral extraction, especially for gold with potential interest in rare earth minerals,” according to the decision.

The Forest Plan takes effect on Feb. 10. Then, the Nez Perce Clearwater Forest will have to start developing a new travel plan. Conservation groups have five years to challenge the Forest Plan. In the meantime, they say they’ll be watching the travel plan process and any projects the Nez Perce Clearwater proposes to ensure that wildlife, habitat and special places are preserved.

The Clearwater Forest wrote a travel management plan in 2012, but the Nez Perce Forest never developed one. After starting the process in 2007, the Nez Perce Forest issued a draft environmental travel plan in 2017. Then, last year they cancelled the project. The result is many areas that should have had limited or no motorized vehicles never had any Forest Service enforcement.

“(West) Meadow Creek is a good example of what happens when a forest doesn’t have a travel management plan. There were never any formal restrictions so people just started riding their four-wheelers there and now they’re designed and used for four-wheelers even though they were never approved for that,” Smith told the Current.

Contact reporter Laura Lundquist at lundquist@missoulacurrent.com