Washington State SAWS News: Motorized Recreation is in serious trouble in the Colville, Okanogan and Wenatchee National Forests

 

It is difficult for me to put into words, or at least into words that I can send out to our SAWS members, my disappointment and disgust with the direction the Provisional Advisory Council (PAC) recreation sub-group is heading in regards to where motorized recreation will be allowed when the forest plan revision for the Okanogan and Wenatchee National Forests is complete. In fact, I am down right ticked off at some of the comments and opinions I heard at the PAC recreation sub-group meeting that I attended last Friday. The members of this team are heavily stacked with people that oppose all forms of motorized recreation. I felt a need to rant a little about this issue to our Washington State SAWS members.

 

As I previously informed our Washington State SAWS members over the last year or so, these “collaboration meetings” will help the Forest Service determine what is allowed, or more accurately stated, what is not allowed, in these national forests for the next 10 to 15 years. Also the Colville and the Blue Mountain Forests are in the middle of revising their forest plans too. I certainly hope these meetings are going a little better than what I witnessed last Friday, but I kind of doubt it. Are there any SAWS members attending these other meetings that can update me on how they are going?

 

Out of the various “Management themes” the PAC recreation sub-group has so far agreed to recommend to the forest plan revision team, the majority of the “Management themes” will be recommended as non-motorized areas. And these are in addition to the already large percentage of wilderness areas in these forests that are permanently off-limits to motorized recreation. The recommended management themes are; General Forest-wide Conditions, Back Country Non-Motorized Travel, Back Country Motorized Travel, Roaded Country, Community Forest (non-motorized) and Forest-wide Winter Recreation Sub-category non-motorized and Sub-category motorized (1).

 

I had a strong disagreement at this meeting with Rick Acosta, Public Affairs Officer/Social Lead - Forest Plan Revision Team, over the need for separation of motorized and non-motorized winter users. I said that forest recreationists all need to learn to get along and play together in our national forests like adults, not children arguing for their own exclusive play area in their backyard sand box. He did not want to spend any time further discussing this issue because we only had 10 minutes left in our day long meeting to address the entire topic of winter recreation. Great planning don’t you think? I asked whether they were separating motorized and non-motorized users, or whether they were merely just creating an exclusive use area for non-motorized users. Could non-motorized users still use our snowmobile groomed trails in the motorized areas? The answer was “of course they can”. We just can’t go into the non-motorized areas. I then requested that some snowmobile trails in the winter motorized areas be designated as motorized use only. This only seemed like a fair trade off to me. Rick and some of the other team members seemed shocked that I would suggest such an extreme idea. Team member Liz Tanke, formerly the eastside field representative for Northwest Ecosystem Alliance (2) would not accept such a bold restriction on her right to cross country ski where ever she pleased in 100% of the forest. A few of the other non-motorized users did not seem to have a problem with my suggestion, but because Liz would not agree to this item, it was removed from the proposed items on the winter motorized list. Rick stated that it would be discussed at the next PAC meeting and possibly added back on the list if all team members would agree to it. Don’t hold your breath.

 

A couple of weeks ago I had a long phone conversation with Jim Boynton, the Okanogan and Wenatchee National Forest Supervisor, and he told me that the Rick Brazell, the Forest Supervisor for the Colville National Forest (CNF), was leaning towards wanting to close all Recommended Wilderness Areas (RWA) to all forms of motorized recreation in the CNF. Jim said he did not support this same position for the Okanogan and Wenatchee National Forests, but that there would only be one final policy for RWA’s in these three forests. He requested that I send him information regarding our SAWS position on this issue. I sent him a letter (3) describing the current Forest Service laws and regulations that show that RWA’s could remain open to motorized use without violating any current Forest Service regulation and that the SAWS position was that all RWA’s would remain open to snowmobile use unless Congress designates them as new wilderness areas.

 

It is my understanding that the various alternatives for these forest plan revisions will be available for public comment sometime in 2007. As I previously stated, I am very disappointed in the direction the PAC is currently heading in their planned recommendations to the forest plan revision team. I felt that it was important to let you know what we are up against.

 

1 - Management Themes – http://www.snowmobile-alliance.org/uploads/5-19-06_PAC_recreation_subgroup_mtng_notes.doc1.htm

 

2 - Liz Tanke information - http://www.conservationnw.org/library/newsletter/newsletter-pdfs/spring-ecosystemnews-2003.pdf

 

3 - SAWS letter to Forest Supervisor Jim Boynton - http://www.snowmobile-alliance.org/uploads/Boynton_Letter_-_Okanogan-Wenatchee_NF_Plan_Revisons_and_Snowmobile_Use_in_RWAs.htm

 

 

Dave Hurwitz

Snowmobile Alliance of Western States