 A non-system road heads into the Inventoried Roadless Area south of Lone Pine near Lone Pine Peak. A non-system road is one that has never been formally and legally claimed or designated by the Forest Service. A ruling by a Wyoming judge could make it easy to designate this road to allow further public access. Photo courtesy of Inyo National Forest By Mike Bodine
Register Staff 8-26-2008
A Clinton-era roadless rule has been overturned by a federal judge in Wyoming, again. The ruling, made Aug. 12, is counter to a California judge’s ruling in 2006 upholding the Clinton law.
What impact the ruling will have locally is not yet fully known, however, the new development has local multiple use and access advocates excited at the possible ramifications.
“The ruling has huge potential in helping to keep more roads open in the Inyo National Forest,” said Greg Weirick, president of the local Advocates for Access to Public Lands.
He said the motorized community has “reserved excitement” about the new ruling. Along with helping to keep roads accessible locally, Weirick said U.S. District Judge Clarence Brimmer’s ruling could help to construct “a more reasonable process for route designation.” Under the Clinton rule it is not possible to add physical roads to the federal inventory if those roads are in designated roadless areas or not included in an older federal inventory, Weirick explained.
He also said the ruling has the likely possibility of going to the Supreme Court – a conservative court, Weirick added, that has a recent history of ruling in favor of public land access.
On Aug. 12, Brimmer issued a permanent injunction against the Roadless Area Conservation Rule of 2001 stating that RACR violated the National Environmental Protection Act and the Wilderness Act. This decision follows the revisited case of the State of Wyoming v U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Brimmer had made a similar motion in opposition to the 2001 rule in 2003 which was later appealed and then vacated by the 10th Circuit Court after the Bush administration implemented its own roadless plan, the State Petitions Rule in 2005, according to the U.S. Department of Forestry Web site. Bush’s SPR established a process whereby state governors had to petition to the federal government to “establish or adjust” road management within their states, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Web site.
In 2006, U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Laporte from the Ninth Circuit Court in San Francisco set aside the 2005 SPR and reinstated the 2001 RACR rule. This prompted Wyoming to reopen its case against the 2001 RACR ruling in 2007.
“The ruling (by Brimmer) did not directly remove Laporte’s ruling,” said Marty Hornick, a team leader with the Inyo National Forest’s Route Designation Project.
The ruling has caught Hornick and his team in the middle of trying to finish a Draft Environmental Impact Statement on the Travel Management Plan and Route Designation before the end of the year. “We’re moving forward without being in conflict of either rule, we’re trying to work with both.”
The Travel Management – Route Designation process, part of a national effort to define transportation systems on each national forest in the country, is essentially designed to streamline route systems into sustainable networks that somehow manage to preserve access and recreational opportunities while eliminating roads that lead to environmental degradation.
The Proposed Action for Inventory Motorized Travel Management Plan calls for the inclusion of 2,800 miles of roads and track in the INF’s officially designated road system out of about 3,700 that are actually on the ground.
Hornick said that approximately 400 miles of routes are in inventoried roadless areas and the project is analyzing them for possible addition to the inventory.
Brimmer’s ruling now creates a management conflict wherein his federal court ruling conflicts with Laporte’s ruling.
On Aug. 18, Joel Holtrop, deputy chief for the National Forest System, sent letters to all regional foresters, directors and deputy chiefs advising them against “taking any action that would have the potential to create a conflict with either court’s order.”
According to Hornick, the national forest is requesting clarification from the State of California and from Laporte on her ruling in relation to Brimmer’s ruling. He said it would be up to the courts to decide which direction to take.
Hornick explained the difference between the two previous rules. As under the 2001 RACR rule, roads that were not included in the federal Transportation Inventory System, although physically there, could not be designated as a road. The 2006 SPR rule allows for the potential designation of existing roads not in the inventory.
Hornick said the 2006 rule also gives a state’s governor discretion as to how to approach road designation and procedure. In California, the 2005 rule would allow Governor Schwarzenegger, to determine direction on designation rules, where, according to Hornick, the governor is expected to take as strict approach as Clinton did.
Weirick explained that the RACR lumped all roadless areas into a single category that excluded many roads from the original inventory and the SPR was designed to correct the RACR by giving more responsibility to individual states.
Brimmer’s decision has generated similar sentiment across the nation.
“We are obviously pleased by this decision and feel that it vindicates our position laid out over a decade ago opposing a top down ‘one size fits all’ roadless policy,” stated Greg Mumm, executive director of the Blue Ribbon Coalition, a national off-road advocacy group, in a press release.
“What it (Brimmer’s ruling) does is create two conflicting court decisions in different federal courts, different states, both issuing decisions with nationwide impact,” Mike Anderson, an attorney with The Wilderness Society, told the Los Angeles Times.
Weirick reported that no roads have officially been closed by the 2001 or 2005 rule, but he said roads are being deemed “unauthorized” and will eventually be set for closure.
Hornick explained “unauthorized roads” are roads that have not yet been brought into the system or designated a status. But, he added, if the roads are not eventually designated, they will “go away.”
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