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Report on Forest Level Roadless NOI Meeting on Stanislaus NF Based on what I have heard about other roadless meetings, this event proved to be almost balanced and the Forest Service staff treated everyone fairly. I arrived about 45 minutes early with another BRC member. We helped the one FS staff person finish setting up chairs. I was the first person to sign up to speak and was also the first one called to speak. It appeared that the FS staff called your name in the order you signed-up. The audience of approx. 50 people seemed pretty much split evenly between multiple-use and the wilderness advocates. If it were not for the 2-3 “students” who read from prepared text championing Clinton’s directive, the 21 or so speakers would have been divided about 50/50 or 45/55. Each speaker was given 3 minutes and I started off by giving credit for this land closure directive to Algore. I had an 11x17 inch poster of a closed gate and used that to illustrate what the end result of the directive could be. An Alpine County supervisor also spoke against the directive and said their board passed a resolution against the Roadless program. It seems that even the hard-core greens that were at this meeting are very tuned up to the fact that “closed roads” do not sell to the general public. Almost every green speaker kept repeating that this directive WILL NOT close roads. After everyone spoke, we had a Q&A that was actually more informative and interesting then the speeches. In this venue, I pointed out that Dombeck in the Senate hearing stated that the 62 million acres would be managed as “wilderness” and I asked the FS spokesman what he had heard on this topic. He only said that he guessed Dombeck had wished he had not said that! I also pointed out that currently our existing recreational roads and trails are not protected and exist in a “rulemaking limbo.” I also said that once our recreational roads/trails are identified as being in a new “roadless/unroaded” area that even simple trail repairs become almost impossible to do...the FS staffer did not disagree. John Hoffman, a multiple-use advocate, also pointed out that this process is illegal since only Congress can designate Wilderness and expand buffers. However, one Jeeper pointed out that the FS can through rulemaking and other means bypass Congress and “invent” new land designations that can, if fact, be MORE restrictive than Wilderness. My hat off to the many multiple-use recreationists and BRC members who traveled to this event to represent their interests. There were several reporters in the audience so a story or two should be forthcoming. Don Amador
Roadless Initiative Draws Interested Crowd to Sonora Voicing concern for the future of Stanislaus National Forest roads, a crowd of over 60 attended a public meeting Tuesday night to hear and be heard. At the center is the Roadless Area Initiative, in which President Clinton last October directed the Forest Service to begin an open and public dialogue about the future and protection of inventoried roadless areas as well as management of the roads within the national forest system. During the 1970s, 239,000 acres on the Stanislaus Forest were designated roadless. This acreage covers Bell Meadows, North Mountain, much of the Tuolumne River Canyon and the Carson-Iceberg Wilderness, and others. The roadless area process includes two parts: Limiting development activities such as road construction within roadless areas. Establishing a national framework for local management of these areas. "It's important the public be involved in public land," said Dave Martin, public service program leader with the Forest Service in his opening remarks. Forest Service officials also discussed unroaded areas that are part of the initiative. These could include areas which now have roads or motorized trails and could be deemed off-limits for all-terrain vehicles. And this worried many in attendance. Don Amador, state representative of the Blue Ribbon Coalition, a grassroots group working to preserve public land for multiple use, said the group had been concerned about this proposal when it was first talked about two years ago. He held up a "Road Closed" sign to show his opposition to barring motorized vehicles. Twenty-six speakers, each given three minutes to voice their varied opinions, followed. One-by-one recreation specialists, sporting dog group representatives, dirt bikers, snowmobilers and environmentalists spoke. Carrie King, a soil and water specialist from Sonora, said she was concerned about protecting clean water and the animal habitat in the forest. "The Forest Service should maintain the roads, but the watershed should be of primary value," she said. |