Supes want say on forest initiatives

Federal land management issues are set to be part of the discussion at Tuesday’s Tuolumne County Board of Supervisors meeting.

First, supervisors will consider drafting a comment letter in response the U.S. Forest Service’s intent to prepare an environmental impact statement for a proposed management rule for the national forest system. The new rule will impact how the country’s 155 national forests and 20 national grasslands are managed for years to come.
   

County Administrator Craig Pedro has given supervisors as a possible template a comment letter on the proposal from the Inyo County Board of Supervisors. The template letter asks that the Forest Service consider local economic impacts when it formulates the plan and involve local governments in the discussion.

Next up at the meeting, supervisors will discuss strategies regarding an appeal it filed last month against the U.S. Forest Service’s proposed plan to manage motorized vehicles in the Stanislaus National Forest.

Three of the five supervisors — Dick Pland, John Gray and Teri Murrison — worry that the plan is too restrictive and will hurt the local economy. They have allies in a variety of sportsmen’s groups — including ATV clubs — that have also filed appeals.

Environmental groups, however, like the Twain Hart-based Central Sierra Environmental Resource Center, have appealed the plan on the claim that it allows too much off-road vehicle access, which could damage streams and harm wildlife.

The next step in the county’s appeal process is for supervisors to appoint representatives to meet with the Forest Service to point out what the county sees as the plan’s shortcomings. That meeting — or series of meetings — will be open to the public.

Supervisors are expected to discuss that issue at Tuesday’s meeting.

According to assistant County Counsel Carlyn Drivdahl, when an appeal is filed, the appeal-deciding officer has 45 days to render a verdict, which puts the latest-possible decision date for the county’s appeal at March 5.

Supervisors are primarily appealing two points in the several-hundred-page plan, which will set motorized recreation patterns for years to come: A rule that would require travelers to park vehicles no more than one car length off of forest roads; and another that would close forest roads during the winter.

Winter road closures will potentially limit access during favorable weather conditions, and the vehicle-length rule will prohibit people from pursuing dispersed — or non-campground — camping, especially those who use campers, supervisors said in a letter to the Forest Service’s Regional Office in Vallejo.

Supervisors said the Forest Service should allow parking up to 100 feet off forest roads and roads should be considered open year-round unless posted as closed.