road riporter 7.0

8/14/2019 Road RIPorter 7.0

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Off-Road VehicleMonitoring in Montana

Many groups in Montana were out in the field this summer documenting

ORV and user created route damage from escalating ORV use and abuse

and ground-truthing the effects of the new Forest Service Tri-State Off-

Highway Vehicle Plan (Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota).

Here are their summaries.

Inside

Check out our website at:www.wildlandscpr.org See article on page 3

Down the Road . Page 2

ORV Monitoring in Montana. Page 3-5

Depaving the Way: A Tale of Two Roads,

by Bethanie Walder. Page 6-7Policy Primer: The Existing Routes Exception.

Page 8-9

Odes to Roads: The Landscape of Desire,

by Greg Gordon. Page 10-11

Biblio Notes: Evaluation Of Wildlife Crossing

Structures, by Maureen Hartmann.Page 12-14

New Resources. Page 14

Regional Reports & Updates. Page 15

Legal Notes: The Forest Service and CategoricalExclusions, by Jim Bensman. Page 16-17

Activist Spotlight: Brian Scherf, Page 17

Around the Office. Page 18

Resources & Membership. Page 18-19

The Quarterly Newsletter of Wildlands Center for Preventing RoadsJanuary/February 2002. Volume 7 # 0


Mount Cowan, in the Absaroka-Beartooth

Wilderness. A trail just to the east of this peakis often used illegally by motorcycles trying to

cut through the wilderness.

Phil Knight Photo.


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The Road-RIPorter January/February 20022

WildlandsWildlandsWildlandsWildlandsWildlands CCCCCenter for PPPPPreventing RRRRRoads

2002 Wildlands CPR

Wildlands Center for PreventingRoads works to protect and restorewildland ecosystems by preventingand removing roads and limitingmotorized recreation. We are a

national clearinghouse and network,providing citizens w ith tools and

strat egies to fight roadconstruction, deter motorizedrecreation, and promot e road

removal and revegetation.

Main OfficeP.O. Box 7516

Missoula, MT 59807

(406) [email protected]

www.wildlandscpr.org

Colorado Office Jacob Smith2260 Baseline Rd., Suite 205

Boulder, CO 80302(303) 247-0998

[email protected]

DirectorBethanie Walder

Development DirectorTom Petersen

ORV Policy Coordinat orJacob Smith, Nicky Phear

Roads Policy Coordinat orMarn ie Criley

Natural Trails & Waters Coali-

tion Grassr oots CoordinatorLisa Philipps

Program Ass ociateJennifer Barry

NewsletterDan Funsch & Jim Coefield

Int erns & Volunteer s

Benjamin Hart, Maureen Hartmann,

Emily Yeom ans, Roiann Matt,

Erich Zimme rm an, Brian Crawford,

Amy Barry

Board of Direct orsKatie Alvord, Karen Wood DiBari,

Sidney Maddock, Rod Mondt,Greg Munther, Cara Nelson, Mary

O'Brien, Ted Zukoski

Advisory Committ eeJaspe r Carlton, Dave Forema n,

Keith Hamm er, Timothy Herm ach,Marion Hourdequin,

Kraig Klungness, Lorin Lindner, AndyMahler, Robert McConnell, Stephanie

Mills, Reed Noss,Michael Soul, Dan Stotter,

Steve Trom bulak, Louisa Willcox,Bill Willers, Howie Wolke

A Look Down the Road

Editors NoteAs you ve prob ably n oticed, The Road-RIPorter has taken on a bit of a facelift!

After aroun d 5 years of the sam e old format, weve decided to start making som echan ges: som e subtle, and som e no t so sub tle. In th is issue, weve moved to a slightlyheavier pap er, so as to prevent so mu ch bleed-thro ugh, but its still 100% post-consu mer wa ste and is process chlorine free. Weve changed the look of the fron tcover somewh at, and look for further chan ges in th e format and presentation in

upcom ing issues!Weve also added a few new sections: the Policy Primer, where Wildlands CPR

staff provide info about som e of the finer p oints surro un ding road an d ORV policies;and the Activist Spotlight, where the RIPorter highlights th e work of an individualwho excels at fighting the hard b attles out there.

And last, but not least, well be m oving to a quarter ly form at after this issue our final bimonth lyRoad-RIPorter. But don t worry, each issue w ill consist of 24pages o f hard -hitting m aterial to fill your road-fighting d esires. Well also be addingmore diverse material, but m ore on that in the next issue.

So we hope you all enjoy the ch anges, and as always, please let us know h owwere doing a little constructive criticism, or a few kud os n ow and then arealways we lcome! Jim & Dan .

Wheth er its roadless p rotection or new restoration plans (more r ealisticallyknow n as sa lvage sales), the Bush Adm inistration is doing its best to circum vent thepub lic process and existing en vironmen tal laws. In mid-December, the Forest Servicetook yet anoth er hatch et to what min imal protection for roadless areas still re-mained. Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth issued a directive that effectivelycircumvents th e Nationa l Forest System Transp ortation Policy pro tections for roa dless

areas. With this Bosworth directive, the Bush Admin istration and its players maynu llify the effort by the p revious admin istration to p rotect roadless areas. But the re isone th ing Bush d oesn t seem to want to ackno wledge: Those efforts were notun dertaken be cause Clinton was such a big fan of roadless areas, but because th eAme rican p ublic wants ro adless areas p rotected. Bush, Secretary of Agriculture AnnVene man and Bosworth can un dercut th ese policies all they want, but th at wont stopthe American pu blic from speaking up and speaking out to protect our p ublic lands.And soon er or later, Bush is going to h ave to pay attention to the Amer ican peo ple.

In this issue of the Road-RIPorter, we provide you with som e new and h elpfulinforma tion to u se to en sure th at you r governm ent is following its own laws. Tocontinu e the them e of pu blic process gone awry, our Legal Notes section includes athoro ugh exp lanation of the Categorical Exclusion (CE) process an d an u pdate o n th estatus of a cur rent case challenging the ab use of CEs. The n ewsletter open s, however,with a cooperative article that highlights the multi-tiered monitoring and documenta-

tion efforts going on in Montana. The impor tance of these m onitoring efforts aremad e clear throu gh our new Policy Primer section. In it, we highlight the ex treme lyinsidious practice of allowing off-road vehicle use to continu e on existing, una uth o-rized routes. Much of the Montana m onitoring was designed to collect just this typeof information. (And th ough th is issue doe s have two features abou t Mon tana in it, donot fret, we continue to be an organization with a national persp ective and we willcontinu e to cover articles from all over the coun try. None theless, it had b een a lon gtime since we prom oted the excellent work of the folks in ou r own ba ckyard.)

The remainder of the newsletter centers on a different theme sprawl andmitigation. DePaving the Way looks at so me of the biodiversity costs of sprawl, andprovides a curious com parison of the drastically differen t plann ing/mitigation effortsused dur ing the expansion o f a road in western Montana. The mitigation theme alsoapp ears in bo th th e Odes to Roads essay by Greg Gordon and the excellent Bibliogra-ph y Notes abou t mitigation stru ctures by Maureen Hartma nn . And finally, to bringthings full circle, Mike Ande rson from th e Wilderness Society provided us with aninforma tive ana lysis of the Bosworth d irective men tioned ab ove.

So read on, enjoy, learn so me thing, and please, keep in touch with us abo ut ournewsletter an d features or topics youd like to see in future.


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The Road-RIPorter January/February 2002 3

Quite a few years ago, th e US Forest Service and th e

Bureau of Land Mana gemen t got together in Montan a, NorthDakota and South Dakota to talk about off-road vehicle (ORV)man agemen t. They did so, partially, at the requ est of the BLMresource advisory comm ittees who were frustrated by thespread o f weeds from ORVs. The BLM an d Fore st Serviceeventually decided to undertake a joint planning process thatwould chan ge ORV man agemen t on 27 m illion acres of landin the th ree states. They called this the tr i-state OHV plan.

Because the BLM and Forest Service had different levels ofknow ledge about their ORV route system s, they devised asolution th at would app ly to all the lands, even if some werealready at a higher level of man agemen t. Finally, they decidedthat th ey would allow ORV use to con tinue on any rou tes thatexisted on th e groun d, but all other cross-coun try ORV usewould be p roh ibited. (See Policy Primer p. 8-9 for a com-

plete explanation o f this item.)But th en the BLM became e ngaged in a n ational ORVeffort and th ey pulled out of the tri-states plan. So whe n theForest Service went ah ead with th e plan, wh ich affects 17million acres of land in the a rea, activists decided it was timeto get more pe ople on the groun d con ducting ORV inventories.Though the tr i-states plan affects almost all the NationalForest lands in th e region, other factors also influen ced thescope an d direction of this summ ers Montan a field invento-ries. These issues ran ged from th e imp acts of ORVs on grizzlybears to the illegal incursion of ORVs in wilderness, to ORVtrespass in roadless areas and wilderness study areas pro-tected un der th e Montana Wilderness Study Area Act. All told,it was a big sum mer of data collection in Montana, an dactivists in th e region are still coordinating the resu lts of thesumm er surveys and determining the b est possible way toutilize the data. Please read on, in their words, about thissumm er's m onitoring efforts

The Wild Trails CampaignDocumenting the DamageBy Phil Knight, Native Forest Network

In May the Native Forest Network, in conjunction withSierra Club Grizzly Bear Ecosystems Project, launched theWild Trails Camp aign to docum ent th e dam age caused bymo torized recreation on the Gallatin National Forest insouth west Montan a. The bu rgeoning pop ularity of dirt bikes,ATVs an d sn owm obiles is wreaking h avoc on pub lic forests,

especially in o therw ise wild road less areas.We found trash (most of wh ich we packed ou t), bullet

shells and shot-up targets, rutted meadows, and trampled,overused campsites. We found abandoned cars, trucks andtrailers. We foun d evidence of illegal motor vehicle use inseveral location s, including th e Absaroka-Beartooth Wilder-ness. We almost never saw Forest Service peop le out therechecking thin gs out, talking to users, cleanin g up m esses orpacking o ut trash . Its a free for all.

Recent agreemen ts by the Forest Service give us consider-able leverage in limiting motorized travel. The Forest Servicehas agreed to m anage off-trail travel in o ccupied grizzly bearhab itat. In addition, wheeled m otorized use is now restricted


to existing roads and trails. The Code of Federal Regulation s

also has very strong language regarding use of and mon itoringof ATVs were it on ly en forced.

Data Gathering and MonitoringWe have developed an d refined tech nique s for field

monitoring, and have a standardized set of forms and codesfor recording ph otograph s, GPS points, trail and road n um bers,types an d severity of dam age, and hab itat types. This informa-tion is being entered into a comprehensive database.

All is not LostMany strategies aimed at battling destru ctive m otorized

recreation are com ing together on the Gallatin. They includefield surveys and d ocum entation, training volunteers, collect-

ing evidence, refining field m onitoring, litigating over imp acts

continued on next page

Great Burn Roadless Area. Photo courtesy of the Great Burn Study Group.


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on grizzly bears and Wildern ess Study Areas, coordinatingenvironmental groups, reaching out to the public, andpressu ring the Forest Service to deal with this growingmen ace. We are working to secure re strictions in th e areaswhere th e worst abuse is occurring.

This winter and spring, when the snow p iles deep in theremo te backcoun try, we will be out th ere on skis and sn ow-shoe s, and in airp lanes, watching for and record ing evidenceof lawbreaking by snow mo bilers who illegally ride the irmachines in designated wilderness and other closed areas.

Damage Photos Available OnlinePlease visit h ttp://grizzly.sierraclub.org/wildtrails.htm to

see pho tos of some of the worst examples of public landsabuse we foun d this sum mer. You can a lso download cop ies ofour documen tation forms. Start your own mon itoring projectto document the damage!

Join us n ext season as we exp and o ur efforts to stop th eabuse of ou r fragile public land s by motorized wreckreation.Contact me at p [email protected] to get involved.

The Great BurnCitizen Monitoring of ORVsBy Bob Clark, Great Burn Study Group

The Great Burn Proposed Wildern ess is a vast expan se ofwild coun try along the Montana/Idaho border in the northernBitterroot Moun tains. This pr imeval land scape bu rned heavilyin th e Great Fire o f 1910, leaving cha rred sn ags, grassy slopes,and exp anses of sub-alpine tun dra-like meadows. Highcirques, impressive stands of mou ntain hem lock, and dozensof clear lakes adorn the h igh coun try. Elevations within this300,000 acre roadless area range from 3200' to 7900' provid-ing critical year-roun d h abitat for a variety of species listed asthreatened, endangered, or sensitive.

Unfortunately, and to the great concern and dismay ofconservationists and some land m anagers, motorized u se hasshar ply increased in th is area (since the ea rly 1990s).

Respondin g to this situation, two local grassroots organ i-

zation s the Great Burn Study Group an d Friends of th eClearwater developed an d implem ented the 20 01 TrailMonitoring Project. This project gathered information on off-road vehicle (ORV) and o ther recreational u ses in the GreatBurn, including impacts to natural resources and potentialuser con flicts. Carried out by m ore than 35 dedicated volun-teers, who logged hu ndreds of hou rs on m ore than 15 fieldoutings, with financial assistance from the Natural Trails an dWaters Coalition, the project was tru ly an in spirational effort.

The project has yielded hundreds of photos, reports, andsum mar ies outlining the typ es and level of motorized recre-ation, user conflicts, illegal activity, resource damage, user-created trails, conditions at trailhead s and ba ckcountrycamp sites, prop er signage, and vandalism. Som e of the mor esignificant obser vations include:

* Evidence of illegal motorcycle use on several trails at remotelocations within p roposed Wilderne ss. Volun teers alsoencoun tered two motorcyclists deep in the b ackcountry onthe State-Line trail (restricted) in th e Cache Saddle a rea.

* The conversion o f Fish Lake, just off the Bitterroot crest onthe Idaho side, into an ORV playgroun d. Sadly, the ForestService itself did the converting. Forest Service develop-men ts at the lake include th ree por t-a-potties, two docks,and ORV parking areas. This be autiful subalpine lake, six

miles inside th e roadless area, was severely damaged by upto 60 ORVs per weeken d. The Forest Service allowed a half-mile section o f the State-Line Trail #736 to rem ain op en tothese machines even though the State-Line Trail is desig-na ted off-limits to ORVs in Forest Plans.

* Numerous cases of unsigned or improperly signed trailheadsand vandalism to existing restriction signs.

* Heavily impacted outfitter camps com plete with roughlybuilt furniture, latrines, and lodging structures, hitchingpoles nailed to trees, large corrals built with sapling poles

and/or strun g with electric fencing wire, and tarps an d otherequipm ent stored in the wo ods. These sites covered largeareas devoid of vegetation.

ORV man agemen t in the Great Burn is a comp licated m ixof open and closed trails resulting from differing managementph ilosoph ies of the Lolo an d Clearwater Nationa l Forests (theLolo NF portion is closed to all motorized use, wh ile 75% ofthe Clearwaters trails are open in prop osed wildern ess).Significantly, the project discovered th at m otorized use isoccurrin g virtually everywhere in the Great Burn , regardless ofrestriction, terra in, or distance.

For m ore inform ation abou t the Great Burn , to obtaincopies of the Project Repor t or to get involved in th is ongoingproject, contact:

Great Burn Study Group1434 Jackson StreetMissou la, MT 59802or call 406-721-6438

Motorcycle track in the Great Burn Proposed Wilderness Area.

Photo courtesy of the Great Burn Study Group.


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Predator ConservationAlliance Field MonitoringBy Shawn Regnerus, Predator Conservation Alliance

PCAs sum me r m onitoring focused o n ro ad an d off-roadvehicle impacts in grizzly bear habitat, not just in MT, but inID, WA, and WY.

After com pleting the road in ventory in the Selkirk grizzlybear recovery zones in WA, and ID, our field crew went so uth

to th e Targhee NF in WY to su rvey user-created roads and ORVtrails. The Targhee has a long h istory of heavy m otorized usethat h as ham pered th e recovery of grizzlies on th e westernedge o f Yellowston e, but with its last fores t plan the Targh eecomm itted to close roads an d restrict motorized use todesignated routes. Our field crew looked at two areas toensu re tha t the Forest Service is living up to its prom ises.

Finally, our field crew went into the backcou ntry n orth ofYellowstone to d ocum ent u ser-created rou tes on the Gallatin.Aaron Schu err, on e of our field workers w ho inventoried RockCreek for ATV routes, was am azed by th e user created rou teshe found . I thou ght I might find a few scattered ATV tracksbut instead I foun d that the u ser created trails were prom i-nen t, well established ruts th at were more visible than theofficial trail. Shuerr retu rne d a mon th later to com plete the

work an d found th at even thou gh the ATV riders had alreadycreated obvious trials, they still didnt follow them. Every-whe re there was a difficult spot in the trail there were n um er-ous mu ddy detours around it. The amount of damage even afew ATVs could do was am azing. All of the tra ils our fieldcrew found in Rock Creek are inside grizzly bear core h abitat,which th e Gallatin is required to pro tect from all wheeledvehicles und er th e settlemen t term s of PCAs recen t lawsuit.

For more information contact Shawn Regnerus at 406-587-3389 or [email protected].

The PryorsMonitoring Roads and User-Created RoutesBy Marnie Criley and Benjamin A. Hart

In the sum mer of 2001 Benjamin A. Hart, an intern withWildlands CPR, condu cted a systema tic survey of roads in th e

Pryor Moun tains, located in south cen tral Montan a within theCuster National Forest. The Pryors are o ne o f the m ostcomp lex and interesting areas in Montan a; all of the eco sys-tem typ es from Great Basin desert an d sub-alpine forest existwithin them. The reasons we chose to survey this area aretwofold:

1) The Custer National Forest is in th e pr ocess of groun dtruthing all their transpor tation structures and we wanted tocheck the accuracy of their map ping.

2) A coup le of years ago th e Custer classified nea rly 2000miles of un classified rou tes withou t going throu gh a NEPAprocess. Wildlands CPR wanted to check th e on -the-groundstatus of roads and see wh at type of roads they classified.

Data GatheringBenjam in used d ata forms to record critical inform ation

abou t each road. He recorded the da te, location by globalpositioning, initial road w idth, presen ce of exotic invasiveplants, severity of erosion and othe r details. He took ph oto-graphs and kept a photo log to keep track of information.Benjamin attempted to show both the average conditions ofeach road an d the most dam aged areas. Two questions were ofprima ry concer n: 1. What is the con dition of existing roads inthe Pryor s? 2. Are road s being illegally created in th e Pryors?

User Created RoutesThe topography and vegetation in the Pryors welcome

user created routes: the sub-alpine meadows an d sagedom inated de sert offer little protection from off-road vehicles.Routes have been cre ated by individuals accessing m iningclaims an d by cattle ranchers che cking on their stock; afterthese routes are created they become part of the ever-incre asing networ k of recreation al ATV rou tes.

ErosionAll of the road s inventoried in the Pryors were rated at

their most eroded spots on a scale from 0 to 4.Of the 122 .507 miles of roads sur veyed, Benjamin didnt

observe an y that d idnt have level 2 erosion (which includeswater channeled down the roadbed) at some point or an other.Many of these roads have become n othing more than aplayground to challenge four wh eel drive vehicles.

ORV UseORVs have left their mark on the fragile Pryors. Benjamin

estimates that over half of the user created routes were madefor an d by ATVs. They have cause d significant erosion on bothuse r crea ted an d legal roads. ATVs leave a distinct track , whichover time h as changed m any roads from a double to a wider,triple track.

Road WideningOne of the largest threats posed by road s in the Pryors is

road widen ing. Sub-alpine road s quickly reach erosion levelsthat m ake them too challenging to drive on . Individuals begindriving outside of the ruts, creating new ruts. Over time roa dsin the Pryors h ave gone from a few feet to dozens of feet wide.

Wildlands CPR is still in the process of an alyzingBenjamin s data and checking his m app ing against the ForestServices. For m ore inform ation on this pro ject contact Marn ieCriley in the Wildlands CPR office.

Pryor Mountains road washout. Photo by Benjamin A. Hart.


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When a new road in vades a native ecosystem, like thesouth ern Californ ia foothills, or the Big Bend of no rthwestern Florida, or rural West Virginia, it brings d evelopm ent,

death an d destruction. The developmen t of ho uses, shopping malls,

banks, schools and p ost offices mean s the death of plants and animalsthat h ad taken refuge in that na tural place, and th e destruction o f wildcharacter. This is mo re comm on ly known a s sprawl.

Sprawl, after all, is about ur ban , suburb an an d rural areas. Its notabou t wildlands an d its not abou t nature. Or is it? Undeveloped lan ds,whether private or public, protected or not, provide important and oftencritical habitat for na tive plants an d anim als. But protecting hab itatfrom sp rawl is difficult, partly becau se of the scarcity of legal opportu -nities to limit developm ent on private land s. This article looks first atsome of th e impacts of sprawl, and then at the stark contrast betweenthe redevelopment plans for one road in two different areas.

Sprawl, whether for resource extraction or new housing, doesnthapp en without roads, and it doesnt depend on new road construction.Sprawl is often fueled by paving an existing dirt road, or by widening orlengthen ing an existing rural road, increasing the ease of access and

hen ce, the desirability of traveling to an d fro. And with increased accesscomes exploitation and degradation.This degradation is hap pen ing on a grand scale: two to twenty

percen t of the species loss in the lower 48 states is caused by h abitatconversion to ur ban , subur ban o r agricultural developm ent (BiodiversityProject: Getting On Message Abou t Sprawl). Poster species like grizzlybears and wo lves may rely on pro tected federal land s, but on ly tenpercen t of all threate ned sp ecies live on su ch land s (ibid). Before whitesettlers popu lated the west, these spe cies lived everywhe re, from th eplains to the mo un tains. It was sprawling developm ent, and wh itesettlers refusal to share th eir land with wild predators, that lead to theextirpation of grizzlies and wo lves from m ost of their n ative ha bitat.And th e roads con tinue to roll throu gh wha t little remains, imp actingspecies far less ph otogenic than wolves and grizzlies.

Western Montan a provides a tale of two roads: Highway 93 nor thand so uth o f Missoula. This road travels the length of Montan a from th e

Canad ian to the Idah o border west of the rocky moun tain divide. Itseparates the Mission Moun tain Wildern ess from the Mission valley, andbisects the Bitterroot valley, separating the Selway Bitterroot Wildernessfrom th e Sapph ire Range. Its already a significant bar rier to wildlifemovem ent an d has bee n slated for upgrading (widening) for years.

The US Fede ral Highway Adm inistration (FHA) an d th e Montan aDepartmen t of Transp ortation (MDOT) have con ducted studies, foughtcitizen lawsuits, and n egotiated with the Confede rated Salish a ndKooten ai Tribes over road reconstru ction. But the outcom es north an dsouth of Missoula are as different as fire and water.

A Tale of Two RoadsBy Bethanie Walder

A small snake at the Lee Metcalf

National Wildlife Refuge. The Metcalf

parallels Highway 93 for several miles

in the Bitterroot Valley, and is home to

a diverse array of wildlife.

File photo.

Before any des ign concept s for

t he road were conceived, it w as

essent ial to get a bett erunderst anding of the land, what

makes it unique, and how t he

Salish and Kootenai people

relate t o t he land.

The design of the reconst ruct ed

highway is prem ised on the idea

t hat t he road is a visit or and

t hat it should respond t o and be

resp ectful of the land and theSpirit of the Place


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Highway 93 North - The MissionsThe Salish and Kootenai Tribes recognized that if Highway

93 was recon structed as plan ned , to an und ivided four to fivelane h ighway, it would destroy th e rem aining rural chara cterof the reservation and dramatically increase habitat fragmen-tation . After difficult nego tiations with th e FHA and MDOT,the Tribes succeeded in form ing a comm ittee to considerhighway redesign in a more culturally and environmentallysensitive man ner. According to the Mem oran dum of Agree-men t (MOA) signed by all three pa rties in late December 2000 :

Before any design con cepts for the ro ad were con ceived,it was essential to get a better un derstand ing of the land , whatmakes it uniqu e, and h ow the Salish and Kootenai peop lerelate to the land. The design of the reconstructed h ighway ispremised on the idea that the road is a visitor an d that itshould respond to and be respectful of the land and the Spiritof the Place (MOA, US 93 Evaro to Polson, 12-20-2000).

These are incredible words for a highway developmen tdocum ent; the langua ge refers to the r oad as a visitor, anddirects that the road respon d to the p lace, not the other wayaroun d. The result is a redesign incorpora ting two lane, threelane and four lane segments depen ding on terrain an d traffic,in addition to d ozens of wildlife crossing structures. The MOA

also explains the imp acts the existing highway is having on amigratory bird wetland, an d it offers options for re-aligningthe h ighway to remove the worst part of the road from th eNine pipe Nationa l Wildlife Refuge.

While the red esign of HWY 93 n orth is a success story, itwill still be a bigger, faster highway, and it will still fragmen tcritical wildlife habitat (see Bibliography Notes this issue re:mitigation). But by foregoing a standard 5 lan e constru ctionfor the p rojects 53 m iles, the up graded road will not in creasesprawl or habitat fragmentation as muchas the original design would have. Thecatalyst for this chan ge was the fact thatthe agen cies were forced to ne gotiatewith th e Tribes for right-of-way access.They had n o such m ighty foe along HWY93 south throu gh the Bitterroot, justconcerned citizens who dont want to seetheir rural commu nities turned into evenlarger bedroom towns for Missoula.

Highway 93 South The Bitterroots

The Highway 93 Citizens Coalitionfor Responsible Planning formed in theearly 90s when MDOT first proposedwidening the road. This coalitionprom oted a Super Two road plan similarto that now ap proved on the Flatheadreservation: they prop osed a m ile-by-miledesign, with frequent passing lanes and

opportunities to enhance wildlife migra-tion (Highway 93 fact sheet). Theyoffered comm ents within the p ublic process, and appealedMDOTs final decision to construct a five lane undividedhighway. When th ey lost, they joined with Friends of theBitterroot, a conservation organ ization, and su ed to forceconsideration o f the Sup er Two. However, without th enegotiating power o f the Tribes they lost.

To date, eight of the 34 m iles to be rebuilt have alreadybeen widened to five lanes w ith no w ildlife crossing structuresand n o other significant wildlife or habitat mitigation. Newhousing developm ents are already under construction inanticipation of the road expansion.

The indiscriminate w idening of HWY 93 sou th willforever chan ge the character o f the Bitterroot Valley. Thediscriminate widen ing of HWY 93 n orth will forever ch angethe Mission Valley. While mo st wildlife were lon g ago drivenout of the valleys and into the m oun tains to avoid peop le,these valleys still provide importan t hab itat for m any sp ecies.And th is is where co nser vation a nd sp rawl activism againconnect.

Up in th e Mission valley, the Tribal governm ent n ow m ustfollow through to en sure that developmen ts on adjacent land

are at least as sympa thetic to the land, wildlife and cu lturalher itage of the area as the redesigned road. They have thepower to do so.

In th e Bitterroot Valley, com mu nities have e schewedzoning for years, and with the w idening of HWY 93 are nowfaced with new developmen ts that many comm unity mem-bers don t want. They must qu ickly enact regulations tocontrol and m anage growth.

Clearly, sprawl affects not just th e pr ivate land s wh ere itoccurs, but the adjacent pr ivate and p ublic land s that provideimpor tant h abitat for wildlife. Unfortunately h owever, itseems th at un til we run out of space, we are not w illing toconser ve it. Sprawl is just one ob vious sym ptom o f thatproblem . Roads provide access for increased and ramp antdevelopment, and people have to come together to fight bothroads and developm ent. While these battles may be difficult,they can be won . Sprawl can be combated through federallaws (e.g. endangered species act), economic incentives (e.g.conser vation easem ents), and thro ugh fighting roads. Butwithout coordinating anti sprawl and conservation efforts,much of the hard work o f both groups will be for naught andefforts to conserve pu blic land hab itat will fall far sh ort of ou rgoals to pro tect wildlife and wild places.

The Mission Mountains loom over the Mission

Valley, providing habitat for old-growth

forests, grizzlies, and wolves. This side of the

Missions is a Tribal Wilderness Area with a

designated buffer zone along its perimeter

that controls development. In places, it is only

a few miles away from Highway 93. Photo by

Jim Coefield.


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The Forest Service is slowly conceding th at cross-coun trymo torized travel is inapp ropr iate. While this is a significantstep toward approp riate managemen t of off-road vehicles onForest Service land s, the agencys imp lemen tation of th is newman agement approach is deeply flawed. This primer outlinesour o ff-road vehicle man agemen t goals, describes this newForest Service app roach a nd its flaws, and discusses som eimplications for p ublic lands a ctivists.

Appropriate Off-RoadVehicle Management

In December of 1999, more than 100 organizations joineda formal petition requ esting that the Forest Service adopt asuite of management rules aimed at ensuring responsible andpru den t man agemen t of off-road vehicles. The petition,auth ored by Wildlands CPR and The Wildern ess Society,requested five specific management changes:

* The Forest Service must demonstrate that a proposedmotorized route will not cause adverse impacts beforedesignating the route.

* The designation of motorized vehicle routes, construction of

new rou tes, upgrading of existing routes, and other projectsrelated to off-road vehicle recreation must be fully analyzedun der th e National Environme ntal Policy Act.

* Off-road vehicle use shall be prohibited in roadless andother sensitive areas.

* Off-road vehicle use is only permitted on routes designatedand po sted as open for this purpose. Cross country travelshall be proh ibited.

* Off-road vehicle use shall be prohibited unless adequatemon itoring and enforcement of the use and impacts arefully fun ded and implem ented.

We argued, given the n um erous laws and regulations tha tpertain to off-road vehicle management, and the large body ofscientific eviden ce about th e environm ental impacts of off-road veh icle use, that th ese five requ ests were requ ired inorder to ma nage off-road vehicle use legally and resp onsibly.

Banning Cross-Country Motorized TravelIn the time since we subm itted our petition, the conserva-

tion comm unity has m ade noteworthy gains (and sufferedsom e setbacks as well). For exam ple, conser vation grou ps inMontan a forced th e Forest Service to remove an illegallycreated sn owmo bile route, and successfully assisted the ForestService in d efending a decision to p rohibit off-road vehicles ina Wilderness Study Area. In August, activists in Californ iasuccessfully push ed th e Forest Service to elimina te off-roadvehicle access to a fragile botanical area. In western Colorado,

the Forest Service just an nou nced th e closure to dirt bikes of along-contested ro ute tech nically off-limits to vehicles butnever managed as such.

These gains reflect our com mitm ent to eliminating crosscoun try motor ized vehicle travel on public land s. RecentForest Service decisions suggest that the agency is slowlyconceding that cross-country motorized travel is inappropri-ate. For instance, recen t travel ma nagem ent decisions on theMedicine Bow National Forest in Wyoming an d th e Gunn isonNational Forest in Colorado included , as cen tral provision s, aproh ibition on cross-coun try travel. The Janu ary 2001decision by th e Forest Service to ban cross coun try travel onnine National Forests in Montana an d the Dakotas, known asthe Tri-States OHV Mana gemen t Plan, is an even m oredramatic example.

Unfortunately, as is often th e case, the d evil is in thedetails. Most of these decisions involve three com pon ents.First, they formally prohibit cross coun try travel. This is good.Second, they com mit to a process for inventoryin g all of theexisting non-system routes (those routes that have beencreated through use or for long-forgotten pu rposes and havenever been p lanne d for, analyzed, or form ally adopted in to thetravel system). As these rou tes are inventoried, the ForestService will then make a site-specific managem ent d ecisionfor each. This is a mixed bag, as I explain below. Third, as anostensibly interim m anagement measure, they allow con tin-ued m otorized use of those routes th at existed as of a specificdate (usually near the date of the decision). In other words,

while the Forest Service is clearly moving toward a ban oncross-countr y travel, in each of these instan ces motor izedvehicle use will be p erm itted on p reviously existing orestablished ro utes un til the agen cy gets aroun d to analyzingall of those routes for the ir approp riateness an d legality. Theresult, typically, is a so-called ban on cross-countr y travelthat is largely a ban in n ame o nly. This is bad.

The Existing Routes ExceptionAn update on a new Forest Serviceparadigm for ORV managementBy Jacob Smith

The Policy Primer is a new column in the Road-RIPorter,

designed to highlight the ins & outs of a specific road or ORV policy.

If you have a policy youd like us to investigate, let us know!

Wildlands CPR Policy Primer

This is a good example of a cross-country route that has been widened

by unregulated off-road vehicles. Photo by Benjamin A. Hart.

Unfort unately, as is often t he case,

t he devil is in t he details.


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The Flaws of theExisting Routes Exception

While we greatly app reciate the gene ral direction towarda cross-coun try travel ban, the flaws in this inter im ap-proach are severe:

* Motorized vehicle use of routes not planned and designatedin accordance with the National Forest Management Act,Executive Orders 11644 an d 11989, the National Environ-me ntal Policy Act, other app licable statutes and all theimplementing regulations for these laws is illegal and,furtherm ore, represents poor land stewardship.

* Permitting the continued use of user-created and otherunp lanned rou tes rewards decades of destructive and oftenillegal motorized vehicle travel.

* The political challenges associated with closing any givenarea or cross-country rou te to m otorized travel will onlyincrease over time. The more established th e use, the m oredifficult it will be to eliminate later regard less of environ -men tal and other imp acts. This dynamic is especiallypron oun ced if the Forest Service informally sanctioned su chuse (e.g., by officially permitting its con tinua tion, even if onan interim basis, through travel man agement plann ing). Theend result will almost certainly incorporate mu ch of th isexisting system.

* Without a clear and nondiscretionary endpoint to thetransition period, this type of ap proach will be interim innam e on ly. If a given National Forest un it ever com pletes itsinventory and evaluation process, and this is by no mean sassured, it will require many years if not decades.

* Responsible off-road vehicle users, which may constitute alarge percen tage of th ose wh o ride the vehicles, willgenerally have a very difficult time determining if use of anygiven route is legal or not.

* Enforcing an existing routes policy will be extremelydifficult, as motorized recrea tionists will usually be ab le toclaim, credibly, that th ey believed a given route was legal formotorized use. Thus, irresp onsible off-road veh icle riderswill largely be able to ignore the ostensible prohibition oncross-coun try travel. This problem is exacerbated by the

critical gaps in law enforcem ent fun ding and capacity. Theresult is that m otorized use is likely to contin ue in largelythe fashion it occurred before the n ew policy was adopted.

The Bitter PillAlthough it may be simp le for activists to determin e if an

interim m anagem ent p olicy is app ropr iate (it almo st certainlyis NOT appropr iate), the re is a more difficult challen ge. Fores tService decisions to ban cross coun try travel with an existingroutes grandfather clause are frequently structured such thatchallenges to the sweep ing existing rou tes exception willresult in a reversion back to w hatever abysm al travel planexisted before the new decision.

For example, the Forest Service adopted a Travel Manage-men t Plan with this existing routes provision o n th e

Uncomp aghre Nationa l Forest in western Colorado. TheForest Service tried to persu ade th e con servation coalition todrop the appeal, arguing that our administrative appeal wouldresult in a tempo rary withdrawal of the decision (while theappeal was decided), which mean t that m anagement revertedto the p revious anything goes policy. In other wo rds, theForest Service argued that if we didn t accept th is comp romise,with all its warts, and ap pealed or litigated th e decision, theresulting environmental impacts would be worse than if wehad left it alone. We not on ly filed the ap peal but won it aswell, which meant that the anything goes approach remainsin effect while the agency com pletes anoth er travel plan.

Although we agreed with th e Forest Service that th ere

might be a sh ort-term increase in environm ental damage ifthe agency withdrew its decision because of the ap peal, webelieved tha t the long-term implication s clearly outweighedthese con cerns. For all of the same reason s we object to thisapp roach in the first place, we believe the long term im pactsof existing routes policies are severe enou gh to warran taggressive political, administrative, and legal challenges totheir u se, even at the risk of Forest Service reliance on older,anything goes type management while these challenges areresolved. Although it is possible that such a com prom ise

might make sense under unu sual circumstances, in everyexamp le weve evaluated we believed th at the long-termimportance of appealing far outweighed the potential short-term costs of walking away.

Implications for ActivistsIt is imp ortant to recognize that these n ew challenges

represent progress on the m otorized recreation front. TheForest Service is, by all app earances, con ceding that cross-coun try mo torized travel is inap prop riate. That said, the flawsof the existing routes approach are so severe that we aregenerally better off challenging this app roach th an living withthe so-called compromise.

There are at least several implications for co nservationactivists. First, challenging these p olicies will require thor -

ough and credible field data documenting the existence ofillegal routes, use of those routes, and th e environm entaldam age caused by off-road vehicle use. While we shou ldaggressively challenge these so rts of travel man agemen tplann ing decision s, as well as any inappro priate off-roadvehicle use of Forest Service lands, we mu st do so thou ght-fully. In every instance, we must b e certain to carefully buildour case that inappropriate off-road vehicle use has realimpacts to the en vironmen t and to other users. Simplyarguing tha t the Forest Service is violating the letter of th e law,without demonstrating that the impacts of such violations aresubstan tive, will not p ersuade a judge who do esnt know orcare abo ut off-road vehicle issues.

Second, con servation activists shou ld aggressively clarifyto the Forest Service that they h ave both the au thor ity andduty to eliminate off-road vehicle use that is unplan ned o rcausing environm ental damage (or both). Even where agencydecision-makers are sym path etic, they are often reluctant toclose routes or m ake strong travel decisions for fear of losingsubsequ ent adm inistrative appeals and litigation. To date, theagencys auth ority to close such routes h as been largelyaffirmed by the courts; our task is to comm unicate this to theForest Service.

Finally, the fact tha t ban ning cross-cou ntry travel isincreasingly a part of the agencys man agemen t paradigm isextrem ely enco uraging. We are gaining groun d and nee d tocontinue to p ush hard until off-road vehicles are m anagedappropriately.

Along t hese lines, conserv ationist sshould push hard for cross-countr y

t ravel bans, st rongly suppor t National

Forest s t hat have such bans, and

aggressively challenge Forest Service

decisions that only give lip ser vice to

t his crit ical goal of prohibiting cross -

countr y motor ized travel.


10/20


the h ighway, having spent so mu ch of ou r lives traveling overit. This ribbon of asphalt superimposed over the landscapedefines ou r m ovement telling us which p laces are importantand w hich are n ot. It gets us from he re to there with littleconcer n as to wh at lies between . We build our h ighways withnear total disregard toward the land and its inhab itants.

I also wanted to experience h ow animals move throughthe landscap e. Driving alon g I-70 from Grand Jun ction,Colorado, to Moab, Utah, I was overwhelm ed by the h un dredsof groun d squirrel carcasses littering the pavem ent. Are wesimply oblivious of the lives of animals in our ru sh across th edesert? Why right he re on th is one stretch of highway?

The Humane Society estimates more than one millionanim als are killed every day o n U.S. highways. This includesnot on ly large and sm all mam mals such a s deer, bear, rac-coon s, hares an d roden ts, but also reptiles, amph ibians, birds,and an un told num ber of invertebrates. Over half a milliondeer alone are killed every year by traffic. Roadkill is th e

leading cause of m ortality for m ost largemam mals and several endangered

species, such as deser t tortoise,Houston toad, brown pelican,ocelot, northern long-eared bat(whose on ly known breedinglocation is bisected by theTranscanada Highway), Americancrocodile, and key deer (of wh ich

80% of all known deaths areattribu ted to traffic). Highw aysalso act as wildlife mortality sinks.For exam ple, snakes are attractedto the road to sunbathe an d areflattened as a result; ravens an d

jays and oth er scavengers come tofeed off the carcasses and are inturn killed them selves.

From salam and ers to grizzlies,highways prove to be impermeable

barriers to some wildlife movements, preventing amphibiansfrom reaching their breeding grounds and b ears from findingmates. Roads can also dissect habitat. I-70, for exam ple,severs the San Rafael bighorn sheep pop ulation in h alf. As

traffic flow increases in spe ed an d volume, the h ighwaybecom es like a solid wall of speed ing metal, resulting indecreased gene flow between isolated populations. Further-mo re, a decreased ability to re-colonize results in a drop inoverall ecological resilience. If pop ulations re main isolatedlong enough th ey become susceptible to disease and inbreed-ing. Extinction results.

Many anim als avoid h ighways altogether. Elk spurn areasup to half a mile from a road. Small mam mals find manyroads too w ide to cross. A study of a four -lane highway in th eMojave Desert discovered th at roden ts hard ly ever crossed theroad. This is particularly porten tous to the Colorado Plateau,which is home to more than thirty species of rodents. Thus

Odes to Roads

To th e wes t of Green River, Utah ju ts th e San Rafael Reef,a shark tooth ridge of upen ded sandstone. Not an actualmarine reef, but so chr istened by the early pioneers becausethis 2000 foot high pleat proved a significant impedime nt toeast-west travel. Most of the desert beyond remainedinaccessible until the con struction of Interstate 70. Begun in1970, this stretch of Interstate took 20 years to comp lete. Thehighway slices right th rough the San Rafael Reef, revealingsucce ssive layers of geologic history. Deposited horizon tally,they are now tilted on end, so that on e drives through theentire Jurassic period in a few m inutes.

A dirt road off a dirt road leads to Muddy Creek, the on ly

reliable source of water in the sou thern half of the vast andseldom visited San Rafael Deser t. It looks more like anirrigation ditch loaded with cow m anure than a creek.

Composed of grey Mancos Shale, the Coal Cliffs loomabove us. A cold wind whips the cum ulus clouds across thesky like a time release film. Through the low clouds we cansee snow in the highlands of theFishlake Plateau. As we step out ofthe van after th e long ride,everyone replaces their shortswith pants and long underwearand quickly throws fleece overthe ir T-shirts.

I pull out the maps an dshow my students we are

headed clear through th e SanRafael Desert, from I-70 to thetiny town of Han ksville. Aperson could easily hikethrough th is county in lessthan half the time, but ourpurpo se isnt to pass throughan a rea as qu ickly as po ssible,but rather to come to know aplace, to linger an d saun ter asThoreau wou ld have us do. For everywalk is a sort of crusad e, he w rote. We shou ld go forth onthe sh ortest walk, perchan ce, in th e spirit of adventu re, neverto return, prepared to send back our embalmed h earts only asrelics to our desolate kingdom s.

Its a big chun k of coun try, ne arly all roadless. Ive neverbeen here before; should be interesting, I say, closing th emap case.

We shou lder our h eavy packs and n avigate through failedattemp ts at alfalfa fields. We a im toward the Interstate,sighting our co urse a long Muddy Creek. We tru dge slowly in aperp end icular line, unwavering as a m issile, so as to intercep tthe four -lane Interstate. We wond er if anyone n otices a line ofbackpackers threading their way through a maze of barbedwire, old tires and car pa rts to the h ighway, passing benea th itand h eading south into a landscape as desolate as the moon .

We could have parked on the oth er side of I-70 and begunour h ike farther downstream, but I wanted us to walk under

The Landscape

of DesireAn excerpt, by Greg Gordon

our pur pose isnt to p ass t hrough

an area as quickly as pos sible, but

rather to come t o know a place, to

linger and saunter as Thoreau would

have us do. For every w alk is a sor t

of crusade, he wrote


11/20


highways are a d ouble jeopard y for wildlife, for not on ly dothey fragmen t the available ha bitat into sm aller islands, theysimultaneo usly kill off the rem aining pop ulations.

Muddy Creek flows unhin dered ben eath th e Interstate. Ifan an imal sensed th is passageway, it could safely move fromone side to the oth er. Riparian corridors like this serve asvaluable wildlife habitat; inde ed 80 % of deer kill zone s areassociated with m ajor drainages. If proper ly designed , thecreek could serve as a wildlife underp ass, an idea now be ingincorp orated into h ighways from Florida (which has installed

underpasses for crocodiles and panthers) to Canada (whichhas installed overpasses for larger mam mals such as elk). TheTexas highway dep artm ent is considerin g a plan that installstunn els under the h ighway for the endan gered Houston toad.Near Park City, Utah, fenced right-of-ways funnel deer topainted cross walks that h ave reduced mo rtality 40% . How-ever, these mitigation m easures are exp ensive and the resu ltsmixed. In Florida, deer and raccoons frequently use theunderp asses but black bears do not. In Canada, elk, deer andcoyotes use th e overpasses, but grizzlies and wolves may not.

As we h ike, I think abou t Simo n Ortiz poem. For ourbro thers: Blue Jay, Gold Finch , Flicker, Squirrel, wh o perish edlately in th is most un necessar y war, saw them lying off theside of a state road in south west Colorado.

They all loved life.And s uddenly,it just s topped for them. Abruptly,

the sudden sound of a speeding machine,and that was it.

I dont have to ask who killed you.I know, and I am angry and sor ryand wonder w hat I shall do.

This, for now, is as much as I can do,knowing your names, telling about you.Squir rel. Flicker. Gold Finch. Blue Jay.Our brothers.

This particular highway also defines some sort of bound-

ary in my own mind . Although m uch o f the Colorado Plateaulies no rth of I-70, for me th e area between I-70 and theArizona line emb odies Utahs red rock w ildern ess. I-70represen ts civilization an d I had always looked to th e south Canyon lands, Zion, the Escalante as th e real wildern ess. Bystarting north o f the Interstate and walking beneath it I wantedto defy the validity of that line. I also hop ed th at this wou ldsomehow frame the students concept of wilderness on anexperiential level.

Does anything significant chan ge when we pass un der theInterstate? We are h ardly in the land o f Oz, but no thingcivilized lies between us an d th e tiny town of Hanksville, 85river m iles downstream: no pavement, no h ouses, nothing buta coup le of dirt roads, a mu ddy creek to follow an d over halfmillion acres of wilderness. At Hanksville, Muddy Creek joins

the Fremont River and creates the Dirty Devil River. After ashor t re-sup ply, we would follow the Dirty Devil its entirelength, anoth er 85 river miles to whe re it converges with theColorado River ben eath the surface of Lake Powell.

I-70 to Lake Powell. Icons of the mo dern ization o f theWest? The Interstate serves as a tran sportation corridor,emb lematic of sp eed, efficiency, globalization , carrying lettucefrom Californ ia to th e Midwest, oran ge juice from Florida toSan Francisco, and no dou bt cocaine from L.A. to Denver. LakePowell was created by a m assive dam across th e ColoradoRiver, 120 m iles long; the lake flooded w hat was on ce thevery hear t of the Colorado Plateau Glen Canyon.

But what lies between I-70 and Lake Powell? Twenty years

before the damming of the Colorado, Harold Ickes, FDRsSecretary o f Interior, prop osed the worlds largest preser ve, a4.5 million-acre national mon um ent that would reach fromLees Ferr y in Arizon a west to Kana b, Utah , north to GreenRiver and east to Moab. Only on e dirt road cro ssed th is region ,the most remote in the contiguous U.S. However, FDRsFederal Reserve Chairman, Marriner Eccles, was from Utahand was vehemently opposed to the m onum ent. The idea wasshelved as the bom bing of Pearl Harbor sh ifted attentionelsewhere. Even ea rlier, Bob Marshall, co-founde r o f the

Wildern ess Society, identified two m illion acres o f roadlessland in th e San Rafael alone in 1 935. While I-70 now sliced itin half, I wondered how much remained. Although Interstatesand dam s have shredded and fragmented one of our lastremain ing wildern esses, could we still thread together apatchwo rk traveling by foot across th is remo te region? Is it stillpossible to set off into th e unk nown for weeks, simplyfollowing a creek? Would we find the soul of th e ColoradoPlateau he re, damaged b ut still intact? Would we find ou rown?

We pass an aban doned m ine and a road bed scarred intothe desert crust. This is a place where you damn the land an dhope to get rich qu ick and get the h ell out, an area so desolate

that it has never seen a perm anent settlement. Scour the earthfor uranium (or magnesium as in the case of this mine), orcoal or oil and gas, or fill it with cows, scrape every availablesource o ff and th en fill in the gaps with toxic waste. Thisun lovely land h as been co nsigned to satisfy the m otorizedrecreation nee ds of o ff-road vehicles. We take everyth ing ithas to o ffer and leave feeling n ot quite satiated.

This is a grey streaked cou ntry, always too cold and windyor sear ingly hot. This is a land of salt bush flats and little to nowater. What water exists is foul, laced with heavy m etals, saltand giardia (as we later discovered). These barren ben tonitehills, mysterious enough on their own, seem inhabited byghosts of a different kin d the sp ecters of greed and d esire.

The Wildern ess Act defines wilderness as an untram -meled area. Most misinterp ret this as untram pled. Untram -meled refers to a tramm el line, which is wha t fisher men use tosurround a school of fish with nets. Thus untram meled wouldpertain to an area whose bo undaries are flexible and porous,not su rroun ded by civilization. I wondered to wha t degree I-70and Lake Powell act as ecological tram mel lines for the SanRafael/Dirty Devil region. Could they also act as psychologicaltrammels reining in our own wildness? This essay is taken from the forthcoming book about theColorado Plateau, The Land scape of Desire by Greg Gordon.

Photo by Marcel Huijser.


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Bibliography Notes summarizes and highlights some of thescientific literature in our 6,000 citation bibliography on theecological effects of roads. We offer bibliographic searches tohelp activists access important biological research relevant toroads. We keep copies of most articles cited in Bibliography

Notes in our office library.

Bibliography Notes

In the last decad e, wildlife crossing structures ran gingfrom amp hibian tunn els to large carnivore open span bridgeshave been bu ilt to com bat roadkill and road avoidance. Withthe p assage of a n ew federal h ighway bill in the U.S. Congress,the Tran spo rtation Equity Act (TEA-21), federa l supp ort isavailable for wildlife crossing structures on both new an dexisting road s in th e United States. The European Unionpassed a similar measu re, COST-341. Both in itiatives haveheightened the concern for sustainable transportation systemsand incorporation of mitigation structures into road plans(Gloyne and Clevenger, 2001).

Only limited inform ation exists on th e efficacy of thosestructures that are just now gaining nationwide and globalsupp ort. Biologists and en gineers are on a learning curve, andfuture studies are needed to determine wh at attributes willmake these structures most effective for the greatest numberof species. Although th e need for more research is apparen t,preliminary stu dies from Europe, Cana da, and th e UnitedStates have provided som e insight concern ing significantfeatures/issues th at shou ld be considered when buildingwildlife crossing structures.

Wildlife crossing structures com e in m any sizes and

shapes; their features ultimately depending upon the ecologi-cal and beh avioral needs of the diverse species that inhab it anarea. Each sp ecies has different need s, therefore, whendesigning these stru ctures it is virtually imp ossible to accom-mo date all species in an area. A mo re generalized approachshould be taken to make h ighways permeable for as manyspecies as possible. Today h ighway plan ners an d landman gers can ill afford the n ave luxur y of single-speciesmitigation stru ctures. Species do not function in isolation butare comp onen ts of ecological systems tha t inheren tly fall intothe ca tegory of organ ized com plexity. Therefore, any single-species m itigation stru cture is likely to have cascading effects,som e positive and som e negative, on n on-target species also.If a m itigation structure is to succeed, a m ulti-species ap-proach is needed to evaluate the efficacy of such m itigation on

non -target sp ecies as well (Clevenger and Waltho 2000 ).Various attr ibutes of crossing stru ctures su ch a s light,

noise, substrate, natural cover, dimension s, and placem ent w illdeterm ine usage by different species. Most studies indicatethat the larger the u nde rpass/overpass, the be tter suited it willbe to accom mo date a wide ran ge of species (Reed 1981, DeSanto and Smith 1993 , and Jackson an d Curtice 1998).Natural vegetation n ear th e ope ning will give both large andsmall species the security of their preferred environment(Rodriguez et al. 1996, Hunt et al. 1992, Clevenger et al.2001a). Vegetation can serve as a fun neling system, guidinganimals to the open ings, thus h elping to m otivate them to usethe crossing structu re (Yane s et a l. 1995).

An Evaluation Of WildlifeCrossing StructuresTheir Use And Effectiveness By Maureen Hartmann

Forest Service graphic.

The study of road impacts upon wild-

life has ignited in the last decade, but onlyin the past few years have efforts begun to

mitigate these impacts. Engineers and

biologists are now working jointly to

design operative wildlife underpasses and

overpasses that will temper the effect

roads have upon wildlife. Effective cross-

ing structures will help to reconnect areas

of viable habitat that have become isolated

due to road construction. This is an ardu-ous task if you consider the wide-ranging

species in the world, their diverse biologi-

cal needs and habitat requirements.



13/20


Proper p lacemen t of the crossing structure is likely themost important feature in determining success (Jackson andCurtice 199 8, Rodriguez et a l. 1996, Land and Lotz 1996 ,Singer et al. 1985). Most studies indicate that placing thecrossing structure n ear traditional migration rou tes willincrease effectiveness. Method s to determin e proper place-men t are track count sur veys, mon itoring trails with infraredcamera s, GIS mo deling to d eterm ine likely travel corridor s,roadkill data, and rad io tracking collared anim als (Scheick andJon es). In addition, some biologists recom men d that crossing

structures be placed away from hum an disturbance areas;human activity has been negatively correlated with underpass/overpass use.

Underpasse s and overpasses will be m ore effective if theyare accomp anied by fencing on both sides of a road. Fenceswere pr imarily erected to redu ce roadkill, however, withou t acrossing structure, fencing furth er reduce s a roads perm eabil-ity. Most studies indicate that fencing shou ld be about eightfeet tall (Groot Bruinderin k an d Hazelbrook 1996 , Sipes an dNeff 2001). Fencing sho uld be built aroun d the crossingstructure to guide (fun nel) animals to the p assageway, thuspreventing them from circumventing the system (Jackson andCurtice 1998 ).

Are These Structures Effective?Crossing structures are slowly being incorp orated into th e

road plans of transportation agencies around the globe,however, very little research has bee n don e on th eir true

effectivenes s. This is a field of app lied ecology still verymu ch in its infancy, says Parks Cana da resea rcher TonyClevenger (Wilkinson 2 000 ). Clevenger also adds that virtuallynoth ing is know n abo ut the relative effectiveness o f over-passes and underp asses, or between the different types ofun derp asses being tested (Clevenger 199 8). We can infer whatfeatures are most impo rtant based on the studies that havebeen con ducted so far, but no study has been able to accu-rately estimate how many animal crossings would haveoccurred if a given structure was n ot there.

Knowledge of the abund ance an d distribution of popu la-tions is essential in developing criteria to measure cro ssingeffectiveness (Clevenger 1999 ). To try and obtain exp ected

crossing rates, movement patterns, population densities, andlife history requiremen ts, years of study are needed . Answer -ing some of the complex ecological questions around roadsand long-lived wildlife like bears may require resea rchtimeframes o f up to 10-15 years (Whyte Museum 2 000).Even the n, biologists will need to take into consideration thata low crossing rate may be du e to a natu ral fluctuation /declinein wildlife pop ulations. Low crossing rates may also beattributed to the time it takes certain sp ecies to adapt to anduse a crossing structure.

Although m ore studies are need ed to determ ine effective-ness, the crossing structures and fencing erected in areas suchas Banff Nation al Park, Glacier Nationa l Park, Florida a ndEurop e have dram atically decreased roa dkill and have allowedfor num erou s wildlife passages. In some cases the carnage onroads has decreased as m uch as 97% , and wildlife rangingfrom salama nder s to large grizzly bears and pan thers arepassing throu gh the stru ctures to reach vital hab itat.

ConclusionWildlife crossing structures h ave had som e great suc-

cesses. They have been useful in decreasing roadkill, andhave been successful in enhancing landscape connectivity.The dearth of information on their effectiveness makesfurther studies essen tial if biologists and e ngineers are

expected to m ake the crossings even better for a diverse arrayof wildlife (Clevenger 1998). Regardless of ho w m uch data iscollected, there will never be one p erfect structure to suit allspecies needs (Clevenger and Hardy pers. com m.). Therefore,our first choice would always be to not b uild a road thro ughwildlife ha bitat (Lavendel 2000 ). For alread y existing roads,wildlife passages should be ad ded th oughtfully with allspecies considerations in mind.

The following list provides some salient recom men da-tions to consider wh en developing or mo nitoring wildlifecrossing structures:* Take a mu lti-species approach rather than a single-species

focus, remem bering that species do n ot function in isolationbut are com pon ents of ecological systems;

* Know the biology of the species in the area, their distribu-tion, abun dance, and ecological and behavioral needs;

* Place the structures at known migration routes, away fromhu man disturban ce. This can be determined by roadkilldata, infrared cameras, GIS modeling, and track-countsurveys;

* Make the passages wide to accomm odate a larger number ofspecies;

* Try to build structures to allow for natural lighting and lownoise levels;

* Have a clear view to the other side;* Use fencing designed to reduce wildlife intrusions;* Conduct intensive mon itoring before and after constructing

the wildlife passages via track count surveys, radio-collaring,mark-recapture studies, etc., and;

* Share the results!

It is imperative that biologists and en gineers sh are the irfind ings and ideas con cern ing crossing structu re effectiveness.Events such as the Inter nation al Con ference on WildlifeEcology and Transportation have becom e integral to thisprocess. Ideally, the knowledge gained from th ese meetingswill lead to the design of improved crossing structu res thatwill more effectively conne ct the hab itats of a diversity ofwildlife. Maureen Hartmann is a graduate student in Environmental Studies

at the University of Montana.

Citations on next page



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Literature CitedClevenger, A.P. 1998. Permeability of the Trans-Canada Highway

to wildlife in Banff National Park: Importance of crossingstructures and factors influencing their effectiveness. Pp.109-119. In G.L. Evink, P.A. Garrett, D. Zeigler, and J. Berry, eds.Proceedings of the International Conference on WildlifeEcology and Transportation. Feb. 10-12, 1998 Fort Myers, FL.FL DOT FL-ER 69-98.

Clevenger, A.P. and Nigel Waltho. 2000. Factors influencing the

effectiveness of wildlife underpasses in Banff National Park,Alberta, Canada. Conservation Biology. 14(1): 47-56.

DeSanto, R.S. and D.G. Smith. 1993. Environmenta l auditing: Anintroduction to issues of habitat fragmentation relative totransportation corridors with special reference to high-speedrail (HSR). Environmental Management. 17(1): 111-114.

Gloyne, C.C. and A.P. Clevenger. 2001. Cougar (puma concolor) useof wildlife crossing structures on the Trans Canada highway inBanff National Park, Alberta. Wildlife Biology. 7(2): 117-124.

Groot Bruinderink, G.W.T.A. and E. Hazelbrook. 1996. Ungulatetraffic collisions in europe. Conservation Biology. 10(4):1059-1067.

Hunt, A., H.J. Dickens, and R.J. Whelan. 1987. Movement ofmamm als through tunnels under railway lines. Australian

Zoologist. 24(2) 89-93.

Jackson, S.D. and G.R. Curtice. 1998. Toward a practical strategyfor mitigating highway impacts on wildlife. Pp. 17-22 in G.L.Evink, P.A. Garrett, D. Zeigler, and J. Berry, eds. Proceedings ofthe International Conference on Wildlife Ecology andTransportation. Feb. 10-12, 1998 Fort Myers, FL. FL DOT FL-ER 69-98.

Land, D. and M. Lotz. 1996. Wildlife crossing designs and use byflorida panthers and other wildlife in southwest Florida. In G.L.Evink, P.A. Garrett, D. Zeigler, and J. Berry, eds. Proceedings ofthe International Conf. on Wildlife Ecology and Transportation.June, 1996. Tallahassee, FL. FL DOT FL-ER 58-96.

Lavendel, Brian. 2000. Putting the breaks on roadkill. Animals.133(6):20-23.

Mansergh, I.M., and Scotts, D.J. 1989. Habitat continuity andsocial organization of the mountain pygmy-possum restoredby tunnel. Journal of Wildlife Management. 53(3):701-707.

Rodriguez, A., G. Crem a, and M. Delibes. 1996. Use of non-wildlife passages across a h igh speed railway by terrestr ialvertebrates. Journal of Applied Ecology. 33:1527-1540.

Reed, Dale. 1981. Mule deer behavior at a highway underpassexit. Journal of Wildlife Management. 45(2):542-543.

Savage, Candace. 2000. A highway runs through it. CanadianGeographic. 120(5): 35-42.

Scheick, B.K. and M.D. Jones. Locating wildlife underpasses priorto expansion of highway 64 in North Carolina. North CarolinaWildlife Resources Commission, Plymouth and Bridgeton,North Carolina. www.myflorida.com/emo/sched/locate.pdf.

Servheen, C. 2001. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Grizzly BearRecovery Coordinator. Personal Communication Nov, 2001.

Singer, F.J., W.L. Langlitz, and E.C. Samuelson. 1985. Design andconstruction of highway underpasses used by mountain goats.

Transportation Research Record. 1016:6-10.Sipes, J.L. and J. Neff. 2001. Fencing, wildlife crossings, and

roads: separating animals and vehicles. LandscapeArchitecture. 91(6):24-27.

Whyte Museum . 2000. Mitigation: Reducing the Impacts ofRoads and Railways on Bears. http://www.whyte.org/bears/mitigate.html.

Wilkinson, Todd. Making the road sa fe for elk, bears, andwolves. The Christian Science Monitor. 12/09/00. http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/2000/12/19/text/p3sl.html.

Yanes, M., J.M. Velasco, and F. Suarez. 1995. Permeability ofroads and railways to vertebrate s: The importance of culverts.

Biological Conservation. 71:217-222.

Wildlands CPR intern s prod uced a series of excellentrepor ts last fall. They ranged from th e effectiveness ofhighway m itigation practices (see page 12-14 ) to the ecologi-cal effects of oil and gas drilling and seismic exploration. TheRoad-RIPorter will feature man y of them in th e future. These

repor ts will be posted on o ur website, and you also cancontact our o ffice to receive copies of them. Many tha nks tothe graduate students who com pleted these reports for us!

Ecological Effects of Seismic TestingBy Erich W. Zimmermann

This report includes an incredibly clear and con ciseexplanation of the seismic exploration, from a description ofthe seismic receiving and source lines to the en ormou svibrasise trucks used. It also provides a detailed explanationof the profound amou nt of ground disturbance caused byseismic exploration.

Coal Bed Methane: One Way Road to

Environmental DegradationA study of road-related impacts during developmentBy Brian Crawford

Brian looked at existing coal bed meth ane developm entsto analyze the num ber of m iles of linear d isturbance th at arecreated throu gh a typical project. Brian also included a sh ortcomparison to conventional gas extraction.

The Impact of Roads on NeotropicalMigratory SongbirdsBy Roiann Matt

Roian's p aper sum marizes the current research on th eimpacts that roads have on neotropical migratory songbirds inNorth America. She p resents a de tailed discussion of the mainimpacts: nest pre dation; parasitism; and ha bitat decline.Finally, Roian recom men ds several ways to minim ize th eseimpacts if road obliteration isn't an option.

Impacts of Helicopter RecreationBy Emily Yeomans

Emily's repor t is an assessm ent of the imp acts of helicop-ter recreation on wildlife. It provides a su rvey of the scientificliterature on h elicopter impacts and recommen dationsregarding their man agement.

Field Guide to Road ClosuresBy Amy Barry

The n ew "Field Guide to Road Closures" surveys th etechn iques used to close routes, from th e installation of road

closure signs to complete road obliteration , assessing thestrengths an d weakness of each.

Wildlife Crossing StructuresEvaluating their Use and Effectiveness

By Maureen HartmannMaureen 's repor t provides a detailed and com pelling look

at the ben efits and limitations of highway m itigation struc-tures for wildlife conn ectivity. She h as sum mar ized th eavailable research, presen ted several case studies an d includedinformation abou t the research questions that remain to beanswered.

New Resources


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The Wilderness Society analyzed the Forest Services

latest interim d irectives on roadless area man agemen t. Thislatest directive affects the National Forest System RoadManagement Strategy (Transportation Policy). The directivetakes all langua ge within th e Transp ortation Policy th atprotects road less areas (this par t of the Transportation Policyis enjoined du e to lawsuits) and removes it.

The interim directives issued as an am end men t to theForest Service Manual went into effect on Decemb er 14 ,2001 and w ill continue for 18 m on ths. A 60 day pu bliccomm ent period ends on February 19th.

SummaryThe n ew Forest Service directives significantly reduce

adm inistrative protection for nation al forest roadless areas.Specifically, the directives:

1. eliminate the requiremen t that there must be a comp ellingneed for road constru ction in roadless areas;

2. eliminate the requirement to prepare an environmen talimpact statement p rior to building roads in road less areas;

3. eliminate any sp ecial protection for uninventoried roadlessareas greater than 1 ,000 acres that are adjacent to invento-ried roadless areas or wilderness areas, and;

4. create a new looph ole for logging old-growth forests inroadless areas.

The directives essen tially allow logging and road buildingin road less areas, subject to the app roval of the Forest ServiceChief or Regional Foresters. However, that approval require-men t only lasts until local forest man agers comp lete anamorphous roads analysis and update their forest plans.Logging p rojects in na tional forests that revised th eir plans

prior to July 2001, su ch as th e Tongass National Forest, areexemp t from Chief-level review. The directives con tinue thepolicy of ultimately turn ing over all roadless area man age-ment decisions to the local forest planning process, which hasfavored logging and o ther developm ent in road less areas.

AnalysisThe new directives consolidate interim management

direction for in ventoried road less areas (IRAs) into one section(the forest plann ing section) of the Forest Service Manu al, andthey en tirely delete the roadless area section of the Transp or-tation Policy. These changes have several negative effects onroadless area protection.

First, the Transportation Policy stated th at any roadconstru ction or recon struction in IRAs may on ly be author izedif the Region al Foresters de term ine a com pelling n eed for a

road (FSM 7712.16b(1)(a)). The new directives eliminate thatrequirem ent. Con sequen tly, the standard for road bu ilding inroadless areas will be reduced to the same as th at in any oth erarea i.e. the Forest Service m ust deter mine on ly that theroad wo uld serve a docum ented need (FSM 7712.12b).

Second, the Transportation Policy requ ired the RegionalForesters to p repare an d app rove an environmental impactstatem en t (EIS) prior to a pp roving road building in IRAs (FSM7712.16b(1)(c)). The new interim directives give the ForestService discretion to d eterm ine wh ether o r no t an EIS isrequired (FSM 1925.04b(3)). Another section of the ForestService directive requ ires an EIS only if an action wo uldsubstantially alter the un developed ch aracter of an invento-ried road less area (Forest Service Hand book 1909 .15,

chap .20.6(3)). Consequ ently, Forest Service m anagers couldnow elect to build roads in a roadless area without prep aringan EIS if they deter mine that th e roadless area wou ld not besubstan tially altered.

Third, by rescindin g the roadless area section o f theTransp ortation Policy, the n ew interim directives remove an yform of pro tection for un inventoried roadless areas. As notedabove, the spe cial procedu ral requiremen ts of the Transp orta-tion Policy app lied e qually to IRAs an d to un inventoriedroadless areas located ad jacent to IRAs and wilderness area s.These contiguous unroaded areas often provide important

wildlife corridors or other ecological values. Since the newinterim directives o nly req uire Chief-level review of ro ad-building projects in IRAs, the Forest Service appa rently h asdecided that the contiguous u nroaded areas warrant n ospecial protection of any kind.

Four th, the n ew directives apparen tly create a looph olefor logging o ld-growth forests in roa dless areas. The RoadlessRule generally proh ibited com mercial logging in IRAs, butincluded excep tions for logging th at is incidental to theimplementation of a m anagement activity not otherwiseprohibited by this subpart (36 CFR 294.13(b)(2)). The interimdirectives greatly broade n th is exception by allowing loggingincidental to the implementation of a management activityand n ot otherwise prohibited under th e land and resourceman agemen t p lan (FSM 1925 .04a(2)(b). This latter exceptionis far bro ader th an th e on e in the Roadless Rule, since local

man agemen t plans o ften allow unlimited logging in IRAs.In addition, the n ew interim directives would leave in

place Chief Bosworths policy of allowing all roadless areadecisions ultimately to be ma de thro ugh local forest plann ing.The new interim d irectives require app roval from the Chief forroad building and logging activities in IRAs, with someexceptions. However, the Chiefs approval is no longerrequired on ce a national forest completes a forest-scale roadsanalysis (for road-building activities) and a forest plan revision(for logging activities). Mike Anderson is a senior resource analyst for TheWilderness Society.

Forest Service Interim Directives onRoadless Area Managementby Mike Anderson

Regional Reports & Updates

Send Comments by February 19, 2002

USFS CATAtten tion : Road PolicyP.O. Box 221150Salt Lake City, UT, 84122via email to: [email protected] via fax : 801-517-1021, to USFS CAT, Attn : Road Policy

Talking Points:* Please demand that the USFS cease any attempts to

un derm ine protections on our National Forest roadlessareas as provided by the Roadless Area ConservationRule and the Transportation Policy adopted last January.

* Urge the Forest Service and Administration to notrenege on their prom ise to uph old protections forroadless areas.

* Our National Forests currently contain over 383,000miles of classified roads and th e m aintenance backlognow exceeds $ 8 billion dollars. The Forest Serviceshou ld eliminate roads not bu ild new on es.

* These directives continue the Forest Service policy ofturn ing over all roadless area m anagemen t decisions tothe local forest plann ing process, which h as favoredlogging and other developm ent o f roadless areas. Thismarks a return to the same failed managem ent policythat created th e nee d for the Roadless Area Conserva-tion Rule in th e first place.


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A Categorical Exclusion (CE) can be a citizens n ightm are.The Forest Service loves to use CEs to avoid public participa-tion an d m ake it easier for them to violate the law. This articlewill help you u nde rstand CEs and h ow to deal with th em.

What is a CE?The National Environ me nta l Policy Act (NEPA) provides

three ways for agencies to docum ent th eir decisions. AnEnvironmental Impact Statement (EIS) is a full-fledgedanalysis, and o f the three ways, it requires th e mo st analysisand pub lic participation. The second way is called an Environ-mental Assessment (EA). An EA is basically a mini EIS.

The third way is a CE. CEs can be used for actions which

do n ot individually or cum ulatively have a significant effect onthe hum an environmen t and which have been found to haveno su ch effect in pro cedures ado pted by a Federal agency inimplementation of these regulations and for which, therefore,neither an environmental assessment n or an environmentalimpact statem ent is required. 40 CFR 1508 .4. When a CE isused, the least amoun t of analysis andpub lic participation is provided. CEs aresupposed to be on ly used for projects thathave no p oten tial for significant im pacts(i.e., cutting the grass at a Ranger Station).

When the Forest Service uses an EAor EIS, they h ave to consider th e imp actsof th e p roject. The Forest Services NEPAregulations include a list of categories of

actions that do n ot individually orcum ulatively have a significant effect onthe environm ent. See 1909.15 FSH 30.One exam ple of a categorically exclud-able category of actions is:

Repair and m ainten ance o f administrative sites. Exam plesinclude bu t are n ot limited to: a. Mowing lawns at a Districtoffice. b. Replacing a roof or storage shed. c. Painting abu ilding. 190 9.15 FSH 31.1b (b)(3).

When the Forest Service established these cate gories, theymade a determination that every project in that category doesnot h ave the poten tial for significant effects un less there areextraordina ry circumstan ces. There fore, unless th ere areextraordina ry circumstances p resen t, the Forest Service doesnot h ave to analyze the effects of any pro ject in th e category.

To p roper ly use a CE, the Forest Service m ust deter mine theproject is in the category and th ere are no extraordinarycircumstan ces presen t. If these cond itions are m et, the actioncan be CEd from any mo re th orough NEPA process.

How do you challenge the use of a CE?The first way to challenge the use o f a CE is to argue it is

not in the category. The Forest Service will often try to u se aCE for p rojects that do not fall within th e categories set forthin their regulations. It is impor tant to remem ber tha t theexamp les listed in th e regulations are n ot the on ly items in th ecategory. Make sure you prop erly identify the category (i.e.,repair and m ainten ance of adm inistrative sites). Then you

can argue th at the action was no t in the category.You can argue the p roject does not fit the plain language

of the catego ry. You can also use th e drafting history (i.e.,Federal Register Notices) of the CE regulation s. They haveinformation ab out the inten t of the Forest Service. Thecitation for the first notice is 56 FR 19718; (April 29, 1991).The final notice is at 57 FR 43180 (Septem ber 1 8, 1992 ).

The secon d way to cha llenge th e use o f a CE is to arguethat an extraordinary circumstance is present. The ForestService NEPA Regulations at 1909 .15 FSH 30 .3(2) state:

2. Extraordina ry circumstances include, but are no tlimited to, the presen ce of the following: a. Steep slope s orhighly erosive soils. b. Threaten ed and en dan gered species ortheir critical hab itat. c. Flood plains, wetland s, or mun icipalwatershed s. d. Congressiona lly designated area s, such aswilderness, wilderness stu dy areas, or National RecreationAreas. e. Inven toried roadless are as. f. Research Natura l Areas.g. Native American religious or cultural sites, archaeologicalsites, or h istoric prop erties or areas.

If any of these extraordinary circumstances are present,the Forest Service can not legally use a CE. They mu st prep areeithe r a n EA or EIS.

Following the law gets in the Forest Services way so theyhave come u p with an illegal way to get around this require-men t. Instead o f preparin g an EA or EIS when extrao rdinary

circumstances are present, the ForestService will often prep are an in terna lana lysis and th en claim there will be nosignificant effects to the extraord inarycircumstan ce and th en u se a CE. This isillegal and we have proven it in co urt.

The best case is the Court o f App ealsruling in our lawsuit over a project on theShawn ee Nation al Fore st: Rhod es v.

Johnson, 153 F.3d 785 (C.A.7(Ill.)1998).Anoth er re levant case is Bensman v. UnitedStates Fores t Service, 984 F.Supp . 1242 ,125 0 (W.D.Mo. (1997). There a re two mo recases that h ave also ruled th at this practice

is illegal: Wash ington Trails Association v. United States Fore stService, 935 F. Supp . 1117 (W.D. Wash . 199 6); and High Sier raHikers Assn v. Powell, 150 F.Supp.2d 1023, 1044 (N.D. Cal.2001).

The Forest Service recen tly issued a prop osal to chan getheir regulations to get aroun d all these court ru lings. 66 FR48412. We conten d that th is proposal is illegal and that wewill challenge the agency if they ado pt it. We even h avemem os from their own attorneys telling them that what theyare p ropo sing is illegal.

What about comments and appeals?When the Forest Service proposed to eliminate app eals of

their projects, Congress resp ond ed by pa ssing the Appe alsReform Act. 16 USC 1600NOTE. The law req uired th e ForestService to provide a com men t and ap peals process forprojects and activities imp lemen ting Forest Plans. Despitethis Congressional action, the Forest Service did n ot provide acomment and appeals process for projects approved with CEs

Heartwood an d oth er group s filed a Petition forRulemaking arguing that th e Appe al Reform Act requires theForest Service to provide a 30 day com men t period an dapp eals for pro jects approved with a CE. The Forest Service

The Forest Service andCategorical ExclusionsA Primer and Update on Current Litigation

By Jim Bensman


17/20


denied our petition. Heartwood thensued th e Forest Service. We settled thelawsuit and th e Forest Service agreed toimmediately start providing commentsand appeals for many projects includingmany ORV projects. They also agreed tostart rulemaking to make additionalprojects subject to appeal.

After we settled our lawsuit withthe Forest Service, the Blue Ribbon

Coalition so ught to intervene and tovacate the settlemen t. The judge issuedan absu rd ruling that completelyignored all the guidan ce from the 7thCircuit. He let them intervene an dvacated the settlemen t. We app ealed tothe 7th Circuit, just had oral argumen tson th e case and h ope to prevail.

While the regulations do notcurrently require a 30 day comm entperiod, they still must conduct scopingfor projects tha t are categoricallyexcluded. 1909.15 FSH 30.3(3).Scoping is an initial step in the NEPAprocess allowing interested citizens toidentify issues th at th e Forest Serviceshou ld address. It is also the tim e whe nyou shou ld argue that the proposal isnot in the category and/or that extraor-dinary circumstances are present.

Since p rojects approved w ith a CEare no t subject to appeal, the ForestService can implem ent th e project assoon as the decision is made. Your onlyrecourse is to file a lawsuit. But youha ve to act qu ickly. To prevent you fromsuing, the Forest Service will often issuea CE for an ORV race, rally or similarproject on the d ay that project is to beimplem ented . You m ay not find outabout the decision until after the project

is alread y carried ou t. To avoid th is, youmu st be vigilant abou t conveying yourinterest in such p rojects to the relevantForest Service staff, you must be vigilantin monitoring NEPA project schedules(issued by every Ranger District) andadvertisemen ts for the activities you areconcerned about.

While it can be difficult to stop acategorically excluded project, if theuse of th e CE is inap prop riate youshould try, and you shou ld documentthe imp acts of the project so that youare in a stronger po sition to requ ire afull environm ental analysis and pub lic

participation process if the proposalreapp ears in th e following year.If you n eed a copy o f the Federal

Register Notices, Forest Service NEPARegulations, or the cases I men tion goto http ://webpages.char ter.net/

jbensman 1/. Our comm ents on th erecent FS proposal are also there. Jim Bensman is Forest Watchcoordinator for Heartwood. Reach himat jben

road riporter 7.0

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