FOREST SERVICE: Green groups defend agency's closure of off-highway vehicle roads in Nev.
Phil Taylor, E&E reporter
E&E PM: Wednesday, October 3, 2012
A coalition of environmental groups is fighting a lawsuit by off-highway vehicle groups that challenges a Forest Service plan to restrict motorized access in the Tahoe National Forest.
The Wilderness Society, Sierra Club, Forest Issues Group, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and Sierra Foothills Audubon Society are defending the agency's decision to limit cross-country driving in the northern California forest, which they warn can destroy vegetation, compact soil and erode stream beds.
The groups, which are represented by Earthjustice, filed their motion to intervene today in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California.
The groups are fighting a lawsuit filed in July by several OHV groups that claims the agency illegally closed more than 800 miles of roads and trails that had been used responsibly for decades for camping, fishing and forest fire prevention.
Brandon Middleton, an attorney for the Pacific Legal Foundation, a Sacramento, Calif.-based law firm representing the OHV groups, this summer called the closures "draconian" and said they were the result of "unlawful process and illegal decisionmaking."
But the environmental groups today said the 800,000-acre forest is lined with nearly 3,700 miles of roads and trails, many of which were unplanned and the result of repeated cross-country trips. The agency's September 2010 final travel management plan allows about 2,000 miles of roads, 385 miles of trails and 244 acres open to motor vehicles, the groups said.
"The Forest Service has already given up more than enough of our wild lands to off-road vehicles, and we must call a halt to further destruction of the environment," Don Rivenes, of the Forest Issues Group and the Sierra Foothills Audubon Society, said in a statement.
The lawsuit is part of a battle over the Forest Service's implementation of the 2005 travel managementrule, which requires each national forest to designate roads, trails and areas open to motor vehicles.
The rule, which follows an executive order by President Nixon asking agencies to control motorized access, recognized the growing popularity of OHV use in national forests. All-terrain vehicle use increased by nearly 40 percent from 1997 to 2001, raising concerns over soil erosion, water quality, wildlife habitat and reduced opportunities for quiet recreation.
Tensions have also flared recently in eastern Oregon's Wallowa-Whitman National Forest, where the agency yanked its travel management plan amid pressure from the state's congressional delegation.
