A coalition of environmental groups on Friday, Jan. 16, sued federal agencies and officials to block Idaho rules for managing more than 9.3 million acres of the state’s roadless back country, including territory that could be used for phosphate mining, logging, and road building. The lawsuit could prove to be the first legal test in federal court for a state plan to manage individual roadless areas.
Before President Bill Clinton left office in January 2001, the Clinton administration imposed the federal Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which banned development and road building on nearly one-third of the nation’s 192 million acres of national forest land. President George W. Bush’s administration repealed that rule in 2005, allowing states to petition the federal government with their own management plans for individual forests.
Idaho and Colorado are the only two states so far to draft their own roadless rules. Roadless acreage in Idaho is second only to that of Alaska, where 14.8 million acres are designated as roadless. The Idaho rule designates 250 roadless areas and establishes five management themes that guide mineral development, timber cutting, and road construction.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court four days before Bush left office, challenges a plan the U.S. Forest Service completed in October 2008 following a lengthy process to determine how roadless areas and other untouched lands in Idaho would be managed, preserved, or opened to mining and other uses. While revisions to the proposed rule included more land protections and appeased some environmentalists, national conservation groups such as The Wilderness Society say it undercuts Clinton’s federal roadless policy.
“Idaho should not be the only state in the lower 48 to have roadless forest protection downgraded by the Bush administration,” said Craig Gehrke, The Wilderness Society’s regional director in Idaho.
Attorney Tim Preso of the EarthJustice law firm filed the lawsuit on behalf of The Wilderness Society, Greater Yellowstone Coalition, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, Lands Council, and Idaho activist Gerald Jayne. Preso, who lives in Montana, also represents a coalition of environmental groups asking a federal judge to halt the expansion of the J.R. Simplot Co.’s Smoky Canyon phosphate mine in the Caribou-Targhee National Forest near the Wyoming border.
“We’re not sitting back and waiting for the Obama administration to solve our problems,” Preso said. “We think there is an illegal act here that needs to be remedied.”
The lawsuit argues the Fish & Wildlife Service violated the Endangered Species Act when it ruled the Idaho roadless plan wouldn’t jeopardize dwindling grizzly bear and caribou populations in northern Idaho. It names the heads of the U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey, and Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, a former Idaho governor.
“The more we’ve reviewed the Idaho rule the more concerned we are about the loss of protection for water quality, fish and wildlife habitat and wilderness,” said Marv Hoyt, Idaho director for the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. “Phosphate strip mining on 5,700 roadless acres will lead to even more selenium poisoning of streams.”
The Idaho rule was championed in 2006 by then-Gov. Jim Risch, now a U.S. senator, and supported by Trout Unlimited, the Idaho Conservation League, sportsmen, and public land users.
“This litigation is a slap in the face of all Idahoans who participated in the resolution of this long and on-going dispute,” Risch responded, calling it a model for other states. “To see this small group file a lawsuit is a disservice to the collaborative process and a step backward in resolving conflict in public lands management. It is particularly aggravating when those groups refused to participate even when specifically requested to do so.”
Newly-elected U.S. Rep. Walt Minnick, D-Idaho, a former timber industry executive, is a former board member of The Wilderness Society and the Idaho Conservation League. He continues to support Idaho’s roadless plan, which he called a collaborative effort that protects resources while still allowing appropriate use of public lands for industry and recreation.
The Forest Service says it has a $660 million backlog of road maintenance and improvement projects in Idaho, where it has 34,000 miles of national forest roads.