Help Protect Meadow Creek from ORVs

Off-Road Vehicle Damage to Meadow Creek Roadless Area

Meadow Creek, a spectacular drainage in the Nez Perce National Forest, is under assault. Most of this 220,000-acre roadless area has been proposed for wilderness designation in the past, as its outstanding wilderness characteristics provide assets for wildlife, watersheds, and recreationists. Contiguous to the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness and adjacent to the Frank Church Wilderness (separated only by the narrow, primitive Magruder Road), it serves as an important biological corridor for species moving between wildernesses. Its contributions of cold, clean water and anadromous fish runs make it the most important tributary to the wild and scenic Selway River. But Meadow Creek is under tremendous pressure from organized off-road vehicle (ORV) groups who would like all of its trails opened to their motorized abuse.

The Nez Perce National Forest has released its draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) designating routes open to vehicle use across the entire forest, available at: http://www.fs.fed.us/r1/nezperce/recreation/index-dramvu.shtml. This "Travel Planning" effort is supposed to address the problem of unmanaged and unregulated motorized recreation, which has dramatically increased throughout the West over the last decade. This lack of management has already caused incremental damage of Meadow Creek and many other wild places in the Nez Perce National Forest. Wildlands that once experienced only quiet recreation via horse and foot travel are now being used by ORV enthusiasts.

The Draft Environmental Impact Statement

The Forest Service analyzes five alternatives in their Designated Routes and Areas for Motor Vehicle Use DEIS. None of these management options close all of the Meadow Creek roadless area or other wildlands to motorized vehicles, and one illegally allows off-trail ORV use. Alternative 3 proposes the least destructive option; nonetheless, it would open old, closed roads in sensitive areas and permit ORVs on trails in roadless areas next to the Gospel Hump Wilderness. It would also allow vehicle traffic on Trail 534 in Meadow Creek, for example, which is erosion-prone and designed only for hiker and horse travel.

Meadow Creek and other crucial roadless areas like Rackcliff Gedney, a potential addition to the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, should remain in their wild state, free from damaging motorized use and harmful forest practices, to be enjoyed unimpaired by present and future generations. Fortunately, what is left of the Cove and Mallard roadless areas adjacent to the Frank Church Wilderness is currently closed to summer motorized recreation.

Get Involved in this Decision!

Before the comment period ends on April 20, 2009, please send your input on these motorized route designations by e-mail to:
comments-northern-nezperce@fs.fed.us,
or by mail to:
Ralph Rau, Deputy Forest Supervisor
Nez Perce National Forest
Attn: Designated Routes and Areas for Motor Vehicle Use DEIS
104 Airport Road
Grangeville, Idaho 83530

Additional Talking Points for Your Comments:

1. Nez Perce National Forest officials should not allow motorized recreation in any roadless areas in the forest, including Meadow Creek, Rackcliff Gedney, and areas adjacent to the Gospel Hump Wilderness that the Forest Service erroneously excluded from their inventory. All of these wildlands hold immense value for wildlife, anadromous fish like salmon and steelhead, and resident bull and cutthroat trout.

2. The Forest Service should restore to natural conditions the vehicle trails that were illegally created by motorized use and should not legitimize these trails as designated ORV routes through the Travel Planning process. No DEIS alternative should allow cross-country vehicle use anywhere in the Nez Perce forest.

3. The Rackcliff Gedney roadless area encompasses Gedney Creek, a critical steelhead stream, and abuts the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness. Opening trails to motorized passage in this wildland would foolishly facilitate direct vehicle access to the wilderness.

4. The DEIS does not address or analyze snowmobile use in the national forest, a significant flaw in the document. Almost every acre of roadless areas is presently and would remain open to snowmobiles, regardless of the alternative selected by the Forest Service.

5. The Nez Perce National Forest Plan states that "opportunities for solitude and primitive recreation are outstanding" in the Meadow Creek roadless area. Visitors have traditionally been people pursuing quiet recreation: hikers, hunters, anglers, photographers, backpackers, and bird watchers. The explosion of the ORV industry and the lack of regulation and management of motorized recreation have precipitated the incremental loss of places for quiet, primitive recreation and caused harm to the southern Nez Perce Trail.