Forest Service Lies Ass Off About
Missouri Roadless Areas
Story and Photo
By Jim Scheff
On
November 22 the Forest Service released the new 2005 Forest Plan for
the Mark Twain National Forest in Missouri. And it’s bad. Really bad. Of course the
new Plan
emphasizes commercial logging over everything else, does nothing to
address
rampant illegal off-road vehicle use, and allows mining, particularly
lead mining,
just about everywhere. But the 2005 Plan also removes many of the
protections
provided in the 1986 Plan. Many of the provisions that remain no longer
have to
be followed. The Forest Service has also included loose “catastrophic
event”
language that allows the agency to throw out anything in the Plan
should something
that they determine to be a “catastrophic event” occur. And the Forest
Service
decided to remove several protective measures against mining, including
lead
mining, that afforded some protection for Missouri’s floatable streams, such as the Eleven
Point
National Wild and Scenic River.
But
the most outrageous part of the new Forest Plan is in its analysis of
Roadless
Areas in Missouri. Because according to the new Plan, other
than
already designated Wilderness Areas and a few small areas adjacent to
them,
there are no Roadless Areas in Missouri. The problem with this assertion is that
it’s simply
untrue.
“Roadless”
(that’s with a big “R”) has a particular meaning in public lands
management. It is derived from a
multi-step process toward determining lands appropriate for Wilderness
designation as described in the Wilderness Act of 1964 and the
subsequent
Eastern Wilderness Act of 1975. In this
process, potentially Roadless lands are reviewed and, if they fit
certain
criteria, become Inventoried Roadless Areas. Inventoried Roadless Areas
then
receive what is called a Wilderness Evaluation to determine if the
lands are
appropriate candidates for designation as Wilderness. Wilderness
designation
can only happen through an act of Congress. The significance behind
these terms
lies in how they impart certain management directions and protections
from road
building, resource extraction, and motorized use.
In
the new Mark Twain Forest Plan the Forest Service misapplied, made up,
and
applied rules illegally and with serious bias against any Roadless
designations. In addition, the agency misrepresented boundaries, roads,
and
adjoining lands, going so far as blatant lies, claiming roads and
buildings
where none exist. The full extent of the Forest Service’s “errors” has
yet to
be determined. The Forest Service included only useless maps of few
Roadless
Areas in the Draft and Final EIS and didn’t include any specific
information
about why any areas were excluded. After
publication of the Plan and Final EIS, it took more than seven weeks of
requests for the Forest Service to provide the necessary information to
investigate their claims. With an appeal period of only 90 days, the
Forest
Service’s delay ate up critical time.
Four
Roadless areas in the Mark Twain, Big Creek, Swan Creek, Spring Creek,
and Anderson Mountain, were all previously Inventoried Roadless
Areas under the second
Roadless Area Review and Evaluation (RARE II) of 1979. Each of these
areas has
been maintained in a management prescription since adoption of the 1986
Forest
Plan, including a settlement agreement with the Sierra Club, that
essentially
maintains their status as Roadless Areas. However,
the Forest Service has determined, illegally,
that they are no
longer Roadless areas. A number of other areas, including Van East
Mountain,
Lower Rock Creek, North
Fork, Smith Creek,
Big Spring Addition, and others, were
also wrongfully excluded. Two Roadless Areas in particular, Swan Creek
and
Lower Rock Creek, have received extra scrutiny and illustrate well the
lengths
to which the Forest Service has gone to exclude these important areas
from
Roadless designation.
The
Swan Creek Roadless Area is 8,756 acres in southwest Missouri. Swan Creek was designated Roadless under
RARE II. After
the approval of the 1986 Forest Plan the Sierra Club appealed the Plan,
eventually settling with the Forest Service over Swan Creek and six
other
roadless areas, known as the Seven Sensitive Areas. Under this
agreement, Swan
Creek and the other areas were to be managed for non-motorized and
semi-primitive use. Road building was prohibited, and the only road in
Swan
Creek, the unimproved Loving Ridge Road, was to be closed, excepting for
emergency use by a
few property owners during high water on Swan Creek itself.
However,
the Forest Service claims that Swan Creek does not meet the criteria
for the
Roadless inventory because it has too many improved roads and one
cannot find
“solitude” in the area. The agency cites Loving Ridge Road, calling this unambiguously unimproved
road an
“improved road,” as well as another mystery road bisecting the area.
The
mystery “improved road,” Tin Top, is a numbered hiking and horse trail,
NS
6107. Tin Top shows no sign of vehicular use in decades and at several
points
is not wide enough for any type of passenger vehicle to pass. Forest
Service
maps also show at least two buildings just outside of the area that do
not
exist.
Regarding
the Forest Service’s assertion that one cannot experience solitude in
the Swan
Creek, the concept of “solitude” was used illegally and deceitfully by
the
Forest Service to exclude all of the roadless areas in the Mark Twain.
The
agency used the concept illegally by using it as a limiting criterion
for
determining whether an area should be included as an inventoried
Roadless area.
The agency was deceitful by claiming over and again that one cannot
experience
solitude in any of these areas, including Swan Creek, that are known
for being
some of the most isolated and quiet places in Missouri.
Lower
Rock Creek is a Roadless Area of roughly 12,000 acres in the St. Francois Mountains of the eastern Ozarks. It includes
Kelley, Black, Patterson, Trackler,
and Jayce Mountains, with the deep shut-ins of Lower Rock
Creek, named “Cathedral Canyon” by lovers of the area, cutting through
the center. The pink, purple,
and grey rhyolite rock that makes up the area are the core remnants of
mountains that formed some 1.5 billion years ago. Few places in Missouri offer such grand views, hidden places,
solitude, and
beauty. But the Forest Service would disagree.
Protection
and consolidation of the area has long been sought. In fact, in 1977
the Forest
Service approached Leo Drey, Missouri’s largest landowner, to ask his
assistance in
purchasing key inholdings in an effort to protect the area. Drey,
through the
LAD Foundation, purchased 220 acres in the middle of Lower Rock Creek
for this
purpose. Ten years later Lower Rock Creek was given Sensitive Area
status as
part of the settlement agreement between the Sierra Club and the Forest
Service. Since then the area has, for the most part, been left alone.
Now
the Forest Service is pulling out every trick to break up the area,
even
opening the main access to the area, Wolf Hollow, an area of over 3,000
acres,
to motorized vehicle use. This would include the possibility of
reopening and
improving the old degraded road that climbs the back of Trackler Mountain. It has been reported that the Forest
Service is considering relocating
the road.
A
key part of the Forest Service’s method of disqualifying Lower Rock
Creek from
the Roadless inventory was to illegally break the area in to four
separate core
areas, and to then disqualify each of those areas, refusing to consider
the
Lower Rock Creek area in its entirety. Lower
Rock Creek does have a complicated ownership pattern
and
significant inholdings but still manages to exhibit some of the most
impressive
Wilderness qualities of any area in Missouri. As part of their strategy to break up
Lower Rock
Creek, the Forest Service has called unimproved roads “improved,” a key
issue
in determining whether an area is Roadless, and even labeled one barely
worn
foot path an “improved road” to minimize the connectivity between the
northwest
and southwest core areas. A key 40-acre parcel in the middle of this
connecting
stip of land between the northwest and southwest of Lower Rock Creek
has now
been listed as part of the recent Bush Administration and Forest
Service
proposal to sell off as much as 300,000 acres of national forests, over
21,000
acres of which are proposed in Missouri.
Another
amazing twist the Forest Service took was to arbitrarily break up the
northeast
and northwest cores where they cross the creek, and to insist that
northeast
and southeast cores don’t connect either. What’s fascinating about the
connection between the northeast and southeast, is that while the
amount of
national forest land connecting the sections is very narrow, it is
buffered by
the 220 acres that the LAD Foundation bought at the request of the
Forest Service
to consolidate the area. In fact, at the time the Draft of the Plan was
being
developed, the LAD Foundation was attempting to transfer the land to
the Forest
Service. Of course there is no mention of this potential acquisition in
any of
the Forest Plan documents, and the presence of the LAD lands is
actually cited
as a reason that the areas don’t
connect.
The
Forest Service also cited as one of the reasons, albeit illegal
reasons, to
exclude Lower Rock Creek from the inventory 5 buildings located on
private land
protruding into the Roadless Area. However, these buildings do not
exist. And
the problems go on.
As
one of his last acts as President, Bill Clinton instituted what is
known as the
2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule. The 2001 Rule received more
comments and
support than any other Federal action in U.S. history and offered major protections for
designated
Roadless Areas. Since that time the Rule
has been attacked through several failed lawsuits, and was rescinded by
the Bush
administration in 2005 in favor of a complicated and weak state
petition
process that leaves many Roadless Areas open to serious threats. On
March 2 of
this year, 275,000 people formally petitioned the Bush administration
under the
Administrative Procedures Act to reinstate the 2001 Roadless Rule. On this same day, Senator Maria Cantwell
(D-WA) introduced legislation to make the 2001 Rule law.
Bush’s Roadless Rule is also being challenged
through two lawsuits, one being brought by environmental organizations
and
another by several state attorney’s general.
A
formal Appeal of the 2005 Mark Twain Forest Plan was filed on March 6th
by several individuals and organizations, including Missouri Forest
Alliance,
Heartwood, the Sierra Club, and Ozark Riverkeepers Network challenging
many
aspects of the Plan, including the Roadless analysis. The fight to
protect Missouri’s Roadless Areas has been going on for 30
years and
is sure to continue for a long time to come.
Jim Scheff expands the Lowbagger Empire
into middle America and is a
member of the Missouri Forest Alliance. A
copy of the Appeal can be viewed at www.heartwood.org
Pictures
of Lower Rock Creek and other areas can be viewed at moforestwatch.shutterfly.com.
