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Roadless Area Conservation
 
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Proposed Rule and DEIS public meetings summary info
Home : Documents : National Summary of Proposed Rule & DEIS Meetings

Roadless Area Conservation Proposed Rule and DEIS
Public Meetings Summary Info
Highlights
7/25/00

SUMMARY ROADLESS CONSERVATION FEEDBACK MEETINGS

Region Comment Meetings Number of Attendees Number Who Spoke Percent Who Spoke Public Info Meetings Number of Attendees
1 20 3473 1180 34% 44 2188
2 19 1564 749 48% 18 611
3 12 944 298 32% 14 354
4 29 1594 719 45% 33 1442
5 33 1139 667 59% 32 1075
6 37 2540 1386 55% 41 1792
8 17 1616 755 47% 19 499
9 21 1680 807 48% 21 839
10 17 1090 501 46% 16 172
DC 1 227 152 67% 1 50
TOTAL 206 15867 7214 45% 239 9022
TOTAL MTGS 445
(comment and info)
TOTAL MTG ATTENDEES 24889
(comment and info)
  • More than 440 meetings nationwide  - more than 230 info meetings, more than 200 comment.  This included Washington-DC area meetings, regional meetings, forest meetings and some district-level meetings.  Note that some regions included information meetings for other agencies and groups so that the total is larger than 224 meetings shown in the national public meeting schedule; at least two additional public comment meetings were scheduled during last week of comment period at public request.
  • Information meetings held in late May and early June were designed to give members of the public a chance to review the Proposed Rule and Draft Environmental Impact Statement with local Forest Service representatives.  Public comment meetings in late June and early July allowed citizens who wished to comment verbally on the proposal to do so for the public record.
  • In addition, written public comments were collected at all meetings. They also were collected by mail, fax and e-mail.   Public comment period was announced May 9, 2000 and closed July 17, 2000.
  • Total for information and comment meeting attendance is estimated near 25,000  based on registration info from forests.  
  • Some forests had large number of information meetings- Nez Perce, Northern Idaho had six; Humboldt-Toiyabe in Nevada & Eastern California had 8; Beaverhead-Deerlodge in Montana had 10.   The Tongass National Forest in Alaska had 12 information meetings and 13 comment meetings.
  • Forest Service officials tried to be responsive to public requests.  The National Forests of Texas staff traveled many miles to hold an extra comment meeting in College Station to accommodate requests from Austin and Houston citizens for a more convenient comment meeting (in addition to information and comment meetings in Lufkin, Texas where the forest headquarters is located).  The Forest Service’s Tropical Forestry Institute in Hawaii held a public information-comment meeting based on requests of some Hawaii residents ---although there is no National Forest System land in Hawaii & the Institute is a research, not land management institution.  Hawaii residents who requested this had noted that many Hawaii residents have property located near and interest in National Forest roadless areas in the continental U.S.
  • Many units went the extra mile to ensure that all citizens who wanted to be heard received that opportunity at public comment meetings.  The Northwest Regional office in Portland, OR., scheduled two, day-long public comment meetings (2 p.m. to 9 p.m. and 2 p.m. to 10 p.m.) The RO also ran 2 concurrent sessions the first day.
  •  Many units scheduled contingency meetings in case the first session could not handle all public comments.  To our knowledge, no unit had to utilize the contingency session.
  • Wide range in attendees at public info meetings – from a handful (2-3) to 100+.  Several forests had zero attendees.     Comment meeting participants ranged from 1 to 370. 
  • July 17, 2000 was the official close of public comment on the Roadless Area Conservation Proposed Rule and Draft Environmental Impact Statement.  Current activities include public comment analysis, additional information gathering and analysis to help revise the proposal.
  • Comments have been received by letter, postcard, e-mail, telefax and through transcripts recorded at public comment meetings.  More than 1 million individual responses have been received—more than 95 percent were simple postcards or other form letters – the rest were individual letters.
  • A final EIS is expected in mid November, 2000 with a Final Rule in mid December.
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