More wilderness in IPNF a contentious issue

By LAURA ROADY

Staff writer

BONNERS FERRY — The newly revised U.S. Forest Service management plan has several significant changes that are receiving opposition.

One major change is the addition of more than 14,000 acres of recommended wilderness in the Idaho Panhandle National Forest (IPNF).

In Boundary County, the new Forest Plan increases recommended wilderness in the Selkirk Crest area from 26,658 acres to 36,700 acres.

The increase in the Selkirk Crest recommended wilderness was in response to public comment according to the Forest Plan. The changes add Long Canyon and Parker Creek to the north and east and drops the portion in Pack River.

Other areas with increased recommended wilderness acreage include the Scotchman Peaks (23,912 acres to 25,900 acres), Mallard Larkins, and the existing Salmo-Priest Wilderness.

Boundaries of several recommended wilderness areas and other management areas were changed to enable the boundaries to be found on the ground, said USFS employee Shanda Dekome.

One of the biggest issues facing the USFS is eliminating non-conforming uses from areas designated as recommended wilderness, she said.

Recommended wilderness designation prohibits the use of motorized vehicles and equipment, including chainsaws and mountain bikes.

Dekome said the USFS has received a lot of comments about changing Long Canyon to recommended wilderness because it is a popular mountain bike destination and a recommended wilderness designation would eliminate mountain bike usage.

“We have to manage the land to maintain wilderness characteristics,” said Jay Kirchner, USFS, at the Kootenai Valley Resource Initiative meeting on Nov. 18.

If there are non-conforming uses, it is less likely Congress will approve it, said Brad Smith, Idaho Conservation League.

Recommended wilderness has to be approved by Congress to officially be recognized as wilderness, such as the Salmo-Priest Wilderness. The USFS manages recommended wilderness like congressionally approved wilderness because that is the direction the Forest Service is taking on a national level, said Kirchner.

“We try to have a balance across the whole forest,” said Dekome. “Recommended wilderness is not a big portion.”

Of the 2.5 million acres in the IPNF, 152,100 acres are designated recommended wilderness and 9,900 are congressionally approved wilderness, less than seven percent.

For the 408,670 acre Lower Kootenai geographic area (covers a large percentage of Boundary County), 8.6 percent is designated as recommended wilderness (35,020 acres), 22.7 percent as backcountry (92,690 acres) and 66.6 percent as general forest (272,040 acres).

“If made wilderness, it should be available as wilderness,” said Smith. “If made suitable for timber production, it should be made available for that.”

Boundary County Commissioner Dan Dinning brought up the fact that other management designations can maintain wilderness characteristics but allow for mechanized uses.

Primitive land designations are managed for wilderness characteristics but allow winter motorized recreation (snowmobiling) and mountain biking.

The Forest Plan designates 19,730 acres in the Selkirk Mountains as primitive (mainly in upper Pack River).

New to everyone involved is the objection process the Forest Plan is undergoing. Under the new objection process, discussion comes before the final decision is signed whereas in the appeal process (old process), the discussion came after the final decision was signed, said Dekome.

Significant dates are approaching in the new objection process.

The final 60-day objection period ended Nov. 26 and only people who had commented previously in the process could comment again and only on the same topic.

The USFS then has 10 days, until Dec. 6, to publish the list of objections and objectors. A legal notice will be published in the Coeur d’Alene Press and the list can be viewed online on the Federal Register and through the USFS IPNF’s website (http://www.fs.usda.gov/main/ipnf/home).

Between Dec. 6 and Dec. 16, anyone (including those who didn’t previously comment) can apply to be an interested party.

Interested parties can agree or disagree with an objection and are privy to the discussion of the particular objection. To become an interested party, go to http://www.fs.usda.gov/kipz or the local ranger district office to file an application.

After Dec. 16, a USFS reviewing officer has 90 days to work with objectors and interested parties to determine if the objections can be resolved.

At the end of the objection review period the reviewing officer will respond to each objection and issue instructions to the U.S. Forest Service’s northern Rockies regional forester who will implement those instructions prior to signing the Record of Decision for the Final Environmental Impact Statement.