Forest Service “Time Out” on Projects that Destroy Roadless Areas a Hollow Promise for Utah and Others
“Roadless area” is what the Forest Service calls its officially mapped “potential Wilderness areas” that have not been protected as such. Today, the Obama Administration issued a rule creating a one year “time out” on logging and new road construction in Forest Service-identified roadless areas. Chris Mather, a spokeswoman for Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, said "This is a way to provide some clarity and consistently while we develop a long-term roadless plan” ... "And more importantly, ensure the decisions that are made are reflective of President Obama's commitment to protecting forests."
But Utah Environmental Congress (UEC), Utah’s state-wide National Forest watchdog, says the public needs to know that the “time out” is an empty promise for Utah, and elsewhere. UEC points to the Pockets Timber sale on the Dixie National Forest for evidence of the claim. It is the biggest, most devastating logging project in roadless areas proposed in Utah since UEC formed in 1998. Located about 15 air miles north and west of Escalante on the Aquarius Plateau, the timber sale would log and road more than 4,000 acres, at least half of which is inside Agency-inventoried roadless potential wilderness areas. For more Pockets detail see:
http://www.uec-utah.org/PocketsTimberSale_000.htm and http://www.fs.fed.us/r4/dixie/projects/pockets/index.shtml
The 19 million board feet of “Pockets” clear-cutting and other commercial logging is roughly equivalent to 2 parallel lines of full log trucks stretching from the Temple Square Salt Lake City to about 106th South. Most of that would come from roadless areas officially inventoried by the Forest Service 5 years ago.
“When timber sales like Pockets are exempt from the time out even though they large enough to destroy entire roadless areas formally inventoried half a decade ago, I think at best we’ve got a failed public policy and at worst an Agency failure to be completely honest with the public it serves.” said UEC Executive Director Kevin Mueller who continued, “Calling for a time out on projects that destroy roadless areas is absolutely the right thing to do but that’s not what we got for our roadless areas in Utah and elsewhere!”
In 2000, the Forest Service combined about 160 different roadless area inventories from across the nation into one map for the subsequent Clinton-era ‘Roadless Rule.’ That policy became mired due to subsequent gutting by the Bush Administration and conflicting court rulings. For Utah and many other states the base inventories were sloppy and old. A caveat in today’s directive exempts every one of the formal and more accurate computer-based GIS roadless inventories done over the last decade.
UEC continues to work on behalf of Utahans to protect the National Forests and Native Wildlife throughout Utah. For more information call Kevin Mueller at (801)466-4055