Trout Unlimited and the Idaho Conservation League (ICL) have filed friends-of-the-court briefs in U.S. federal court in Boise to support the 2008 federal rule for managing 9.3 million acres of Idaho’s roadless terrain, which allows mining development in Southeast Idaho’s rich phosphate belt.
Their support for the Idaho-specific roadless rule pits Trout Unlimited and the ICL against major environmental groups like Earthjustice, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, the Sierra Club, the Wilderness Society, and the Natural Resources Defense Council, which filed suit last year to block the rule.
The coalition of regional and national environmentalists oppose using a state-by-state approach for national forest policy and claim the Idaho rule opens too much land up for industrial development. Idaho’s 9.3 million roadless acres are the second largest roadless expanse in the United States behind Alaska.
In addition to phosphate mining development, the rule also allows for logging in northern Idaho, road construction, and other uses in some areas. It was finalized after years of legal maneuvering and public meetings.
Attorneys on both sides of the issue are exchanging legal briefs before a hearing that has been set for this autumn. Idaho, the Kootenai Tribes, and the Idaho Association of Counties also joined as interveners in support of the Idaho roadless policy.
ICL Executive Director Rick Johnson said his group feels the rule strikes a fair balance. The ICL wanted to show its support for a policy developed by a variety of Idaho groups and interests that helps deal with the larger challenge of managing roadless areas nationwide, he said. Johnson added that the ICL recognizes the importance of recreation, wildlife, and clean water, as well as the needs of local communities.
In January 2001, before President Bill Clinton left office, the Clinton administration imposed the federal Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which banned development, logging, and road building on more than 58 million acres of the nation’s 192 million acres of remote national forest land, primarily in the West. It was praised by environmental groups such as the Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society, but criticized by industry groups.
Regional Wilderness Society Director Craig Gehrke said the Idaho rule affords less protection than under the Clinton rule. A state approach will not lead to good, consistent management, just as a state-by-state system for running the national parks would not work, Gehrke said.
The George W. Bush administration repealed the rule in 2005, clearing the way for states to petition the government with their own strategies for managing federal roadless areas within their borders. Idaho was the first to draft a plan under former governor – and now U.S. Senator – Jim Risch after more than a dozen meetings across the state.
Trout Unlimited President Chris Wood said the Idaho rule demonstrates what can happen “when common sense is applied to a common problem for the common good.”
Idaho was the only state exempted from U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack’s May 28, 2009, announcement that no new roads would be allowed for at least one year in 49 million acres of national forest without his approval. The Obama administration let the state’s rules for roadless areas stand.
Idaho’s plan largely bans new roads, but opens 405,000 acres of roadless lands to full forest uses. The Idaho rule designates 250 roadless areas and establishes five management themes that guide mineral development, timber cutting, and road construction. The U.S. Forest Service said it had a $660 million backlog of road maintenance and improvement projects in Idaho, where it has 34,000 miles of national forest roads.
The Idaho plan took effect in October 2008 based on a state proposal drafted in 2006 under Risch. It was crafted by wild-land users and interest groups to include higher levels of protection for some lands that truly deserved it and allowed multiple uses of other lands where it fit, Risch said. Conflicts in public lands management should be resolved not by politics and a “one size fits all” approach in Washington, he said.
Federal district courts have issued contradictory rulings on the issue. A 2006 decision by a California federal magistrate judge upheld the Clinton Roadless Rule, while in 2008 a federal judge in Wyoming issued a permanent injunction against it.