Forest road plan not likely out till spring

The thousands who have been wondering for more than three years which roads on the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest will remain open to motor vehicles will have to continue to exercise their patience.

The final environmental impact statement for the forest’s Travel Management Plan is scheduled to be finished in March 2011, Wallowa-Whitman Supervisor Steve Ellis said this week.

But he doubts any roads will be officially closed to motor vehicles (the plan doesn’t affect snowmobiles) until 2012.

In January of this year Ellis, who has the final say on the plan, said he expected to make a decision by late summer.

But then severe flooding in early June damaged several forest roads, including the Wallowa Mountain Loop, an important recreation route linking Baker and Wallowa counties.

Coordinating repairs temporarily replaced the travel management plan as a priority.

Which was fine with some people, Ellis said.

“ATV use is a legitimate use on forest roads,” he said. “We’re not trying to limit it, just manage it. Where do we find that balance with recreational ATVs and preserving our natural resources? How we thread that needle on a reasonable balance is my job.”

ATV enthusiasts point out that in 2007, after Ellis announced that work was starting on the travel management plan, 6,000 people signed petitions urging the Forest Service to not close any roads.

Environmental groups, meanwhile, have proposed that the Ellis ban motor vehicles on almost 4,500 miles of forest roads.

Besides the status of roads, Ellis also will decide which parts of the forest, if any, will remain open to cross-country travel by motor vehicles (again, excluding snowmobiles).

Now, with the exception of wilderness areas and parts of the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area, cross-country travel by motor vehicle is legal on the Wallowa-Whitman.

Last summer forest officials unveiled a draft impact statement, a 599-page document that examined six strategies, ranging from closing no roads to the environmental groups’ preferred alternative.

Ellis said at the time that he probably won’t pick any of those six strategies in its entirety.

Instead, he’ll likely combine aspects of two or more alternatives.

Ellis said this week that, road mileages aside, some of the forest routes in question are for all intents closed to vehicles now, even if the closure isn’t official.

“People can look at the map and know that a road is closed, but there is nothing on the ground saying it is closed,” he said. “We don’t have the money to maintain all these roads, and I’m not sure we should be.

“By definition, they are already closed on paper but have remained open to ATVs. If you can drive your ATV around the barrier, it’s still legal,” Ellis said.

Baker County, which appointed a committee that submitted a strategy to the Wallowa-Whitman last year, recommends Ellis focus on those roads — most of which the forest deems “ML-1,” or “maintenance level 1” roads.

Committee members looked at many of those roads and saw no evidence that vehicles had traveled on them for years.

Many other ML-1 roads, however, are used often not only by ATVs, but by pickup trucks and other vehicles.

The Wallowa-Whitman has 4,388 miles of ML-1 roads.

In all, counting paved roads and other higher-standard routes, the Wallowa-Whitman Forest has more than 9,000 miles of roads, enough to cross the United States three times.

The impetus for the Wallowa-Whitman overhauling its vehicle rules dates to 2005, when then-Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth, citing “unmanaged recreation” as one of the four main threats to national forests, ordered the supervisors of each national forest to decide where motorized vehicles would be allowed to travel.

Among the factors Ellis will consider in deciding which roads to close is the effect roads have on wildlife, and in particular threatened and endangered species.

Paul Boehne, the Wallowa-Whitman’s fisheries biologist, is working on a biological assessment of the effects roads have on fish habitat.

“Road surface material can move into streams during rain or spring melt-off, delivering sediment into the stream and having a potential impact on fish,” Boehne said.

Boehne will send his assessment the two federal agencies responsible for managing threatened and endangered species: NOAA fisheries, in the case of salmon and other anadromous fish; and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Officials from each agency will review Boehne’s report and decide whether or not they agree with his conclusions.

Ellis said once all the assesments are completed and he has approved a plan, the Wallowa-Whitman will have maps printed that show which roads are closed and which are open.