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The Inyo National Forest has scheduled the next round of workshop meetings for the designation of routes that will ultimately make up the system of routes where motorized access to the forest will be allowed. The currently scheduled meetings are as follows. All meetings will begin at 6:00 p.m.
Lone Pine - June 16 at Stathem Hall, 138 N Jackson St - (Monache Meadows and Sierra Escarpment). Areas covered by this meeting will include Monache Meadows, the area around the Kennedy Meadows Campground, and the foot hill canyons on the east slope of the Sierras from Tunawee Canyon north almost to Big Pine.
Mammoth - June 22 at Minaret Village Shopping Center, Suite Z (Upstairs) The area covered by this meeting is east of Mammoth.
June Lake - June 26 at June Lake Community Center, Howard Ave (Gull Lake) The area covered by this meeting will be the area around Mammoth.
Bishop - July 12 at US Forest Service Office, 351 Pacu Lane This meeting will be to cover the area around Bishop and also the Coyote area.
For more information regarding the upcoming meetings, see the Forest Service News release on the Internet at http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/inyo/news/2006/06/route_des.shtml
FOLLOW UP FROM THE MAY 24TH MEETING IN LONE PINE.
Unfortunately, the CDs with the maps were not available at the Lone Pine meeting. However, most people who requested the CDs received them in the mail last week. If you did not receive the CD or was unable to attend a meeting to request one, contact Asst. Project Leader: Nancy Erhardt (760) 924-5532 or Project Leader: Marty Hornick (760) 873-2461. The CDs distributed last week only included the areas for the first Lone Pine workshop. However, Nancy Erhardt recently indicated that they will be distributing CDs containing maps for the entire forest in the near future.
According to Marty Hornick, the forest service wants site specific information regarding each route and why it is important to the public. He indicated that the most helpful information is comments such as why a route exists, for what reason the route is important to the public, or what recreational activities does a specific route provide access for. He went on to say that the information is important for the Forest Supervisor to determine which routes to keep. Forest service personnel cited historical structures, mines, cabins, firewood gathering, commercial uses, and vista points as reasons for keeping routes open. Conversely, they cited resource concerns or items needing protection as reasons for closing routes. Mr. Hornick also stated that a whole lot of comments simply stating to keep a route open or closed would make no difference in the final decision.
The problem with the process explained by Mr. Hornick is that it turns that table on the public. Instead of the forest service identifying resource issues with specific routes, the forest service is requiring the public to justify the roads to keep in the forest travel system. This is wrong because it appears that the process does not comply with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The basis of NEPA is the requirement for site-specific analysis of a change in current conditions and public involvement before a final decision is made. In this case the forest should be justifying, through site- specific analysis, why a road should be closed not asking the public to justify why a road should be left open for public use. To do so will completely eliminate the forest service's burden of site specific analysis.
At one point the forest service was asked why some roads are indicated on the maps with dashed lines. According to Nancy Erhardt, the dashed lines represent routes that were found in the 2002 road inventory that were missed in the 1991 inventory. She indicated that those routes shown with dashed lines would not be included in the final system unless someone specifically requested to include one in particular. She went on to say that she had been out on the ground and a lot of the dashed lines that were not included in the 1991 inventory were "tiny little spurs" that really don't go anyplace. Nancy added, "I've ended up on so many quarter-mile dead-end roads that go absolutely nowhere", "There's no vista, there's no connecting roads, there's no campsite, there's nothing and it's stuff like that that we're looking at" [to eliminate from the system]. This statement is arbitrary and capricious and may indicate a premature decision. If a spur road is being used, it must be providing an attraction for someone. Very often these spur roads provide necessary opportunities for hunters to disperse and avoid other hunters or conflicts with other forest users. Other times they are used by rockhounds to access collecting sites, by Native Americans to gather pinyon nuts, by equestrians get off the main roads to unload their stock, or simply just an opportunity for dispersed recreation with peace and quiet or solitude. Just because a forest service employee can't see a "reason" for a spur road to exist, doesn't mean it should be summarily closed.
Most disturbing were the comments by the facilitator who, it would seem, should be unbiased. However, at the May 24th meeting in Lone Pine, the facilitator indicated that she often facilitated the OHV Commission Stakeholders Round Table meetings and seemed to threaten those in attendance with the "El Dorado National Forest lawsuit". Very often, she would answer questions from the audience for the forest service as if she has some kind of a stake in the outcome. At one point she stated that because of budget constraints we may not want to keep a road open because "we [the forest service] can't afford it".
The forest service has rarely, if ever, maintained the vast majority of the roads being considered in this ongoing route designation process. These roads, in the past, have been maintained over time by commercial interests such as mining and ranching. More recently they have been kept open and passable by the pubic using hand tools and hauling rocks to fill in the ruts. It would be a shame for the forest service to close roads simply for budgetary reasons when they have never expended financial resources to maintain them in the first place. It would better serve the public if the forest service would seek out those wishing to provide volunteer labor to maintain different areas of the forest.
It was somewhat amusing to hear the forest service personnel at the meeting go to great lengths to avoid using the term "road". Very often they would use the word road in their explanation and then very quickly correct themselves by using the term "routes". It seems that a lot of the areas being discussed are officially designated as "Roadless Areas" under the old "Roadless Area Review and Evaluation" (RARE and RARE II) studies done in the 1970s in an attempt to catalog potential wilderness areas on National Forest lands. However by most people's definition they are, in fact, roads.
Finally, those attending the meeting were divided into three groups and provided maps to review and mark up to show missing roads and notes as to what a particular road is used for, what recreational experience it provides, or what resource issues are associated with a specific road. This exercise ultimately failed because major commonly used roads were not shown. Even some roads shown on the current Inyo National Forest maps were missing. The maps were also very confusing and inconsistent in that some roads administered by other agencies were shown as forest service system roads yet others were not indicated at all. Some roads were shown completely disconnected without access by other roads. When asked why some roads were highlighted in purple, we were told by Mr. Hornick that they were "Technically system roads" and the others were not considered to be part of the system.
After the map review exercise broke down. The workshop participants were brought back together before the meeting ended. Forest service personnel explained that this is the very beginning of the route designations and the process has not been fully developed. They agreed that they need to regroup and have a second workshop meeting for this area. (now scheduled for Friday June 16, 2006) It was indicated that public comments on the routes are needed within a month to be considered for the route designations. The forest service is planning to have the public comments and on-the-ground routes identified for the entire forest by the fall of 2007. This is to allow time for the environmental documents to be completed by September 2008, the completion date that the forest service committed to with the California Department of Parks and Recreation.
In conclusion, it is extremely important that the pubic remain engaged with the forest service during this process. Sure, it's time consuming and requires some effort but the consequences of not being involved in the process could result in a tremendous loss of access to our public lands. All interested parties should check the Inyo National Forest website very often for new information and to see which geographic area of the forest is, or will be, under review. The Inyo National Forest website is located at http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/inyo/projects/ohvroute5.shtml The website has considerable information regarding the process and includes downloadable maps for the areas being reviewed by the Lone Pine workshop. The maps are very large files and require about an hour each to download using a telephone modem. If there's a problem downloading the maps, contact one of the personnel listed at the end of the website to request a CD by mail.
DIRECTIONS TO STATHAM HALL
From the south, turn right on Mountain View St. (the second intersection beyond the traffic signal by the drug store). Proceed one block and Statham Hall will be on the far side of the intersection on the right.
NOTE: There is a possibility that there may be an opportunity for four or five people to carpool to the Lone Pine and Bishop meetings from the Ridgecrest area. If anyone needs a ride please call Ron Schiller at 760-608-3327.
This information is provided by Ron Schiller, Chairman, High Desert Multiple Use Coalition. As usual, please feel free to pass this information on to any other interested parties. Anyone wishing to receive future information regarding issues related to the management of public lands in the California Desert should send an e-mail to schiller@ridgecrest.ca.us and request to be placed on the distribution list. Please print "PLEASE ADD TO LIST" in the subject line.
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