Final Idaho Roadless Rule

Roadless Area Conservation Final Environmental Impact Statement Endangers Roadless Wildlife Habitat

Forest Service/Idaho Plan for Unprotected, Wild Roadless Areas in Idaho In the Federal Register on October 16, 2008, the U.S. Forest Service published its final rule for managing the pristine roadless areas within the state of Idaho (36 CFR Part 294, Special Areas; Roadless Area Conservation; Applicability to the National Forests in Idaho; Final Rule). This plan activates substantial changes in the ways that the agency will manage these important and rare wild areas. The final rule accepts the State of Idaho’s proposal (or the Idaho Rule) with few modifications to decrease protections for wildlands that were established by the 2001 Roadless Rule, a Clinton administration executive order. The final Idaho Roadless Rule in the Federal Register and the final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for “Roadless Area Conservation” can be downloaded at http://www.roadless.fs.fed.us/idaho.shtml.

Many wildland advocates from the Friends of the Clearwater (FOC) community turned out in blizzard conditions to testify against the draft EIS of this proposal at Forest Service hearings last January. The majority of local testimony in the Clearwater and most regions of the state supported protection of the last, few wildlands and adamantly opposed this Idaho rule. Most people testified that it would destroy wildlands, damage watersheds, endanger rare wildlife, and create toxic mining waste. Although Idahoans could expect rejection of their advice and public comments by the Bush administration, the resulting final rule is a further travesty to our local natural world. The roadless areas potentially affected by this plan shelter remnant populations of our disappearing native wildlife. The final Idaho EIS and rule advanced the state’s proposal that assigned each roadless area in Idaho to one of five different categories or “management themes”: Wild Land Recreation, the most habitat protective category with 1,378,000 acres, Special Areas of Historic or Tribal Significance on 70,700 acres, Primitive including 1,652,000 acres, Backcountry/Restoration (BCR) at 5,258,700 acres, and General Forest, Rangeland, and Grassland, the most at-risk habitat of 609,600 acres.

Of the 9,304,300 acres of wildlands previously protected by the 2001 Roadless Rule from road building and development, the Idaho Roadless Rule immediately opens 405,900 acres to extractive uses and road construction. The vast majority of this half a million acres of “real estate,” as ex-Appointed-Governor James Risch referred to it during hearings last January, would host highly toxic phosphate mines in the southeastern part of the state. Notably, nearly all abandoned phosphate mines in that region are now Superfund sites administered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that will continue to emit dangerous carcinogens into our human and natural environment for eons and cost taxpayers many millions of dollars to clean up. Only 1,479,700 acres of the original 9,304,300 acres of Idaho wildlands will retain protections similar to the 2001 Roadless Rule in their new category of Wild Land Recreation under the Idaho rule. This final plan would open two-thirds of previously protected, rare wildlands – about 5,754,900 acres – to timber cutting, road building, and, in some circumstances, mining. In the state’s outrageous doublespeak, this “real estate” category is called Backcountry/Restoration and Backcountry/Community Protection Zone and encompasses many of the Clearwater wildlands.

The remaining 1,821,300 acres are available for logging, road construction, and mining under some admittedly restricted circumstances. According to the Federal Register notice, the final rule added certain “refinements” to the draft Idaho Rule that somewhat mitigate toward more development limitations. However, despite final plan statements like “more protections from development than the 2001 Rule” (Federal Register, 10/16/08), these refinements do not actually protect roadless lands at the level that they enjoyed under the 2001 rule. These changes to the draft Idaho Rule concern: (1) The amount and type of roadless areas placed in various management themes; (2) The permissions and restrictions for road construction and reconstruction and timber sale, cutting, and removal in the BCR theme; (3) Management of lands containing phosphate deposits in BCR areas; (4) Tribal interests and future consultations regarding activities in roadless areas; and (5) Public comment requirements for corrections and modifications. Nonetheless, the final rule provides more protections from development than the Idaho contingent afforded the draft plan on 3.25 million acres within the Wild Land Recreation, Primitive, and Special Areas of Historic or Tribal Significance categories. It also reduces the lands managed under the General Forest, Rangeland, and Grassland theme to only 405,900 acres of future EPA Superfund cleanup sites. Accordingly, the Federal Register asserts some bold remarks about this plan’s sensibility, but the acreage figures of the final EIS do not support these claims. For example, the register states that, “In sum, [the chosen] Alternative 4 assures retention of the roadless characteristics of approximately 8.5 million acres of roadless lands” (Federal Register, 10/16/08, p. 61460), and “Overall, Alternative 4 provides more protections from development than the 2001 Rule alternative on 3.25 million acres of [inventoried roadless areas] IRAs” (Federal Register, 10/16/08, p. 61460).

The first quote exemplifies the infamous Bush administration terminology designed for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge debate, which emphasizes the small-scale “footprints” of drilling rigs and roads, rather than the extensive, cumulative impacts of roads, clearcuts, mines, and toxic plumes. Government officials also attempt to confuse the issue by using the nebulous term “roadless characteristics” instead of the legally defined term “wilderness characteristics.” In the latter instance, they exaggerate the development possibilities of the 2001 rule and deflate the development projections of the final Idaho Rule. Under the 2001 rule, the Forest Service built less than ten miles of road, due to successful litigation of the rule by conservationists. The final Idaho Roadless Rule will not afford the same level of legal opportunities for appeal of faulty decisions. Moreover, the Idaho rule-making process has been plagued by precedent-setting misuse of laws.

Early in the process, the Bush administration asked the Idaho governor to petition the federal government through an obscure administrative clause (5 U.S.C. 553 of the Administrative Procedures Act, 1.28 of title 7) to change the rules directing management of national forest lands in Idaho. Development proponents had never previously employed this law in the onslaught to road, log, and mine our precious roadless wildlife habitat and thus set dangerous precedents for the rest of the nation’s wild public lands. In conjunction with the finalized Idaho rule, federal agency and state representatives recently signed an agreement, the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the State of Idaho and the USDA Forest Service for the National Forests in Idaho. This decision allows the Forest Service to recognize the State of Idaho as a “cooperating agency” and gives the state the right to “perform the duties…in the preparation of [National Environmental Policy Act] NEPA documentation” (http://www.roadless.fs.fed.us/documents/idaho_roadless/id_roadless_mou.pdf, p. 3). The MOU denotes another victory for the Bush administration: privileging state influences on decisions about publicly owned, federally managed lands and thus illegally undermining the authority and interests of other American citizens represented in legitimate public input processes.

Wild backcountry lands in Idaho – in their unchanged condition – are a natural treasure for Idahoans and all Americans. These quiet, special places that make Idaho great belong to all of us who have a strong affinity for their rugged beauty. In these times of rapid change, citizens need to plan ahead to guard these refuges where we escape the noise and crowds of everyday life. The proposed Idaho rule rolls back current protections of the wildlands we hold dear. We cannot allow the federal government and developers to spoil these roadless areas. A statewide environmental group, the Idaho Conservation League, has indicated that they will accept this newest and greatest threat to our native, wild habitat, while the Wilderness Society has issued statements that it is displeased with this Forest Service arrangement. Friends of the Clearwater advocates maintaining the status quo – the existing protections of the 2001 Roadless Rule – and providing permanent protection for backcountry areas in the region through the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act (HR 1975).

A federal appeals court, on August 5, 2009, reinstated national protections for some of the country's wildest forest lands, the latest twist in a nearly decade-long legal battle. Unfortunately, Idaho's Roadless Areas (as well as Colorado's and the Tongas National Forest's in Alaska) will remain outside of these protections, precisely because of the state's recent effort to control the management of publicly owned lands, AKA; the Idaho Roadless Rule.

For more information about this important issue, see the links below.