• The UEC staff provides comments on proposed timber sales and projects impacting wildlife and/or their habitat. These comments outline the potential threats that will occur if the project is implemented and provide alternatives and suggestions that are ecologically and biologically sound. The UEC tracks all projects commented on and takes further steps if adequate changes are not made. Administrative appeals are filed on projects that violate the law. Litigation is pursued if necessary to stop egregious activities on Utah’s National Forests. The UEC commented on 117 projects in 2002 and filed 19 administrative appeals. Of the 19 appeals filed, 8 were successful, 8 were lost, 1 is pending and 2 were litigated.

• The winning appeals resulted in stopping or ameliorating a variety of Forest Service projects that would have degraded forest ecosystems, wildlife habitat, and/or threatened wildlife populations. They included a gypsum mine that would have threatened Golden eagles; a coal mine lease that would have threatened numerous riparian species; a copper mine expansion that would have impacted sensitive Colorado cutthroat trout; a huge (800,000- acre) logging and burning project that would have jeopardized a significant variety of wildlife and plant species; a road project that would have threatened the Mexican spotted owl; two different recreation expansions where one would have expanded into roadless lands and the other would have negatively affected wildlife; and one decision that included 5 different allotment management plans that would have authorized continued livestock grazing.

• The UEC has completed its Utah National Forest Roadless Area Survey. In total, the UEC surveyed about 250 roadless areas covering approximately 6 million acres of National Forest lands. Out of the 250 roadless areas surveyed, the UEC found 70 of them to be left out of the RARE II inventory conducted by the Forest Service. These areas are all 5,000 acres or greater in size and meet the criteria for roadless designation. These units will be identified as “UEC roadless areas”.  The UEC has taken approximately 70,000 photographs of the roadless areas documenting wilderness characteristics as well as the impacts of roads, logging, mining, and ATV trails. The UEC is in the process of identifying roadless area boundaries from the survey results, and having the information digitized onto GIS maps. The UEC is currently reviewing those boundaries for wilderness consideration. The areas recommended for wilderness designation may need some additional “touch-up” fieldwork to ensure appropriate boundaries have been drawn. The UEC’s goal is to have a statewide National Forest wilderness proposal completed by June 2003.

• The UEC filed two lawsuits in 2002 against the Fishlake and Dixie National Forests. The Fishlake case was filed because the Forest Service illegally and arbitrarily redrew several roadless area boundaries to facilitate planned logging in the area. In fact, the areas are indeed roadless and the Forest Service admitted this in documents sent to Washington, DC for the Clinton Roadless Rule. The briefing schedule has not yet been completed in this case and it is pending. The second lawsuit was filed against the Dixie National Forest for a variety of violations involving the failure to maintain wildlife populations and old growth habitat, improperly considering roadless values, and numerous other issues. Several months after filing the lawsuit the Regional Office of the Forest Service ordered the Dixie National Forest to withdraw its decision until further analysis, thereby effectively stopping the project.

• A lawsuit the UEC joined in 2000 is still progressing. The lawsuit was originally lost against the state of Utah arguing Proposition 5 violates the US Constitution’s First Amendment. The UEC and other plaintiffs met in January 2002 to decide whether to appeal the Utah Court’s decision to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, or to pursue other claims to the Utah Supreme Court. In December 2002 our Opening Brief was filed in the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. We have great hopes of winning this case due to a recent favorable decision of a similar case. A successful decision at the 10th Circuit will not only favor Utah, but the five other states in the Circuit as well. This was a compelling reason to choose it over Utah’s Supreme Court which decision would only affect Utah. Proposition 5 passed in 1998 and requires a 2/3 supermajority on any vote that impacts wildlife management. The state of Utah has failed to demonstrate a compelling need to require a 2/3 supermajority on wildlife issues when all other issues require only a simple majority. Ironically, Proposition 5 itself required only 50% + one vote to become law. A local Salt Lake City attorney is handling the case.

• UEC’s wilderness proposal was submitted to 4 National Forests with request that it be analyzed in detail as an alternative wilderness recommendation in the revision.

Ashley NF:

• Roadless inventory meetings and written comments resulted in the ANF including old ponderosa pine areas, old burn areas with fire lines, areas that the forest thought were cut but field work noted was not, and large fingers of rugged roadless lands inside their new roadless inventory.  The Forest’s draft roadless inventory and UEC’s now match at least 95% of the time.  This is an outcome of the roadless inventory and comments.

Dixie and Fishlake NFs:

• These forests are doing a joint forest plan revision, and are being used as a national pilot project for the new forest planning process.  UEC participated in a roadless/wilderness “topical interest working group” (TWIG).  While the forest planners admitted deliberately ignoring the CFR through the process, benefits included:  Educating forest planners and others participating about exactly what a roadless area is, how they are identified/criteria (resulting in huge improvements of both Forest’s draft roadless inventories), and a better understanding of why many rural Utahans do not trust Utah wilderness organizations. 

Manti-La Sal NF:

• This Forest is by far the farthest along in the revision process.  UEC submitted scoping/NOI comments at least 3 times during the year.  The UEC submitted comments in meetings and in writing regarding the disastrous early roadless inventory drafts, and the Forest adjusted many of the boundaries in response increasing the roadless acreage by a couple hundred thousand acres. 

• Because the forest is farthest along and is actually in the formal NEPA scoping period, UEC submitted much more detailed comments on our wilderness proposal outlining why each unit recommended for wilderness by the UEC makes an excellent wilderness candidate, and explained how the boundary changes we made for our wilderness proposal make each unit fare much better when run through the Agency’s tests of capability, availability, and need for (more) wilderness.