Forest Service plans to rebuild Pine Valley Campground

By Mark Havnes
The Salt Lake Tribune

CEDAR CITY -- The U.S. Forest Service is proceeding with plans to rebuild the popular Pine Valley Campground to handle more campers and correct environmental problems.
The decision was made earlier this year by Pine Valley District Ranger Bevan Killpack and was upheld by Dixie National Forest Supervisor Robert Russell after residents in the mountainous area and an environmental group appealed the plan.
They were concerned the improvements would increase traffic to the area adjacent to the Pine Valley Mountain Wilderness Area, and also questioned the Forest Service analysis process in compiling the project.
Located in Washington County near the Pine Valley Reservoir along the Santa Clara River, the campground was built in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps and is popular with residents of southwestern Utah and visitors from Las Vegas.
Killpack says the project is necessary in part to remove campsites along the river that are causing erosion and adding silt to the river and reservoir. The plan also calls for upgrading campsites away from the river and building new campsites to accommodate the needs of the modern camper, including large recreational vehicles.
Frances Reynolds, spokeswoman for the Dixie Forest in Cedar City, said the project is expected to begin in 2006 as funding becomes available, and will be finished in three phases. Total cost of the project is slightly more than $4 million.
Killpack said the project, one of 12 proposed for the Dixie National Forest, will have to compete with funding requests from 16 other national forests, including Ashley in northeastern Utah, where 64 projects are proposed.
When finished in 2008, Killpack said the campground will offer 85 sites capable of handling about 250 people. Twelve existing campsites along the river bank will be removed and replaced with vegetation.

The campground will also include a new entrance station, improved access roads, handicap-accessible trails to the river and around the reservoir, new overnight sites for large groups and an equestrian campground group site.
Killpack said that while the plan increases the size of the campground by 12 percent, the changes will make it appear less intrusive and provide better access to the water for more people.
When first proposed two years ago, six residents in the area and Utah Environmental Congress filed administrative appeals with the forest supervisor, who had final approval of the plan after a review by officials from other national forests.
Concerns expressed by residents dissipated after they met with forest officials who assured them that construction equipment was not going to devastate the area.
"We won't remove anything until it can be replaced," said Killpack.
Concerns of the Utah Environmental Congress were considered, but the the group declined to meet with forest officials said Killpack.
Kevin Mueller, a spokesman for the environmental group, said it appealed the approval decision but did not accept the invitation to meet with forest officials because the group was not allowed to review the environmental assessment of the project before a final decision was made, as required by the National Environmental Policy Act.
Mueller said the project was approved after changes in the review process made by the Bush administration that allow reviews of the environmental studies only after a decision has been made.
Mueller said decisions on other projects using the administration's modified rules are being challenged in courts across the country.
The group also wants assurances the plan followed mitigation efforts suggested in the assessment on indirect impacts the project would have on water fowl that nest in the area.
Mueller said the project has positive aspects, primarily in protecting riparian areas, so it does not expect to challenge the decision in court.

E-mail: mhavnes@sltrib.comm

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Group sues to halt Fishlake timber sale

By Nicole Warburton
The Salt Lake Tribune

A Utah environmental group is suing the U.S. Forest Service over a 123-acre timber sale fast-tracked under the Bush administration''s so-called "Healthy Forests Initiative."
   The Utah Environmental Congress hopes to preserve the tract of land in the Fishlake National Forest, home to an array of wildlife, including bats and birds that nest in decaying trees. Its lawsuit was filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City.
    "This [timber sale area] is much more diverse than other forests because of its age," said Stephanie Tidwell, director of the environmental group.
   "It is important to protect the full diversity of these ecosystems."
   Forest Service officials say the timber sale, approved in May, is necessary to protect spruce trees from a beetle infestation that began in the 1990s.
   "The idea is to reduce the stand density over a small area, with the idea that the remaining trees would be around longer," said Fishlake Supervisor Mary Erickson. She called the proposed logging - known as the "Seven Mile Timber Sale" - an appropriate action that would not have a negative environmental impact.
    "It is very specifically designed to address the spruce beetle outbreak in those tree stands," she said.
   But Tidwell says research by Forest Service officials to approve the proposed sale was incomplete and did not include adequate information about "management indicator species," or animals used to gauge forest health.
   Using a similar argument, the Utah Environmental Congress won a lawsuit in June against a Fishlake timber sale on Monroe Mountain.
   "They admit that the logging will impact the goshawk who primarily nest in old-growth forest," Tidwell said. "They don''t have adequate information on that [indicator] species. . . . and they have no evidence to show that logging old growth trees reduces the spruce beetle spread."
   Tidwell said she anticipates the lawsuit will cause a temporary halt on the timber sale originally scheduled to proceed by August.
    Tidwell said her group is suing because the timber sale is part of the Healthy Forests Initiative, which allows the Forest Service to largely bypass the administrative appeals process.
    Erickson said the sale was approved under the initiative because of its small size and proximity to commercially used roads - exemptions that would indicate no significant environmental impacts that the public would need to be informed of.

E-mail: nwarburton@sltrib.com

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