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Route input deadline coming up fast |
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Monday, 10 December 2007 |
 A total of almost 3,000 roads, or 900 miles of roads, are not slated to be included in the Inyo National Forest’s officially designated road system. The scoping period on the proposed action ends Dec. 15, but the Inyo County Board of Supervisors is requesting a six-month extension so the public has adequate time to comment on each route. File photo By Darcy Ellis and Mike Gervais
Register Staff 12-8-2007
It’s not just the loss of 3,000 roads totalling 900 miles in the Inyo National Forest that has some local leaders bothered, it’s also the fast-approaching deadline to comment on the plan affecting those byways and a perceived lack of public awareness thus far.
Both the Bishop City Council and Inyo County Board of Supervisors have bemoaned in recent weeks what they characterize as threats to local heritage, recreation and even the economy, without adequate time to fully gauge the impacts let alone begin to address them.
The deadline for submitting comment on the Proposed Action for Inventory Motorized Travel Management Plan, which 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, is 5 p.m., Dec. 15.
The council sent a letter to the INF asking that it still consider comments received after the close of the official scoping period, while the supervisors are set to request a six-month extension to the comment phase.
Prior to the Inyo County Board of Supervisors taking up the route designation discussion on Tuesday, the Bishop City Council at its Nov. 26 meeting unsuccessfully urged INF Supervisor Jim Upchurch to extend the plan’s official comment period. Had he agreed, it would have been the second time the comment period was extended; Upchurch himself pushed back the deadline by 45 days not long after it was released for public review and comment on Oct. 1.
The council’s attempt to lobby for extra comment time came at the urging of Councilmember Bruce Dishion, who said he was personally “taken aback” upon realizing – late in the comment period – just how many roads on the Inyo National Forest will be lost as a result of the INF’s route designation effort.
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.
According to Dishion, he had been under the impression that the INF would primarily be closing (or rather, not adding to INF’s officially designated system) routes that don’t lead anywhere, run parallel to other roads or generally don’t serve a purpose.
“But it looks like all the short roads and the Indian roads, we’re going to lose them,” he said. “These are serious roads.”
Marty Hornick, INF route inventory project manager, said about 2,700 separate segments of road will not be included in the forest network. He confirmed that a lot of those routes are “old skid trails or little bypasstrails,” some of them as short as 100 feet long.
“There are some that are literally one-100th of a mile or less,” Hornick said.
But while the roads may be short jaunts into the forest, that doesn’t mean they are without legitimate value, Advocate for Access to Public Lands co-founder Dick Noles noted this week.
“We feel that those short pieces are there for a reason,” Noles said.
The supervisors and Noles explained on Tuesday that many of the “short roads” that didn’t make the INF’s list lead to hunting camps and fire rings that get recreators off the road when they are not traveling. Without them, they said, hikers, hunters and other recreators would “be forced to camp in the middle of the road,” impeding other traffic.
Upchurch, standing before the Bishop City Council on Nov. 26, said INF is doing its best to “accommodate the needs of the public and protect the resources” in deciding which routes in the forest become part of the official road system. Roads not chosen, and thereby slated for closure, have been carefully weighed by staff in terms of their value versus potential for harm.
“I won’t close any roads unless there’s a really good reason to do so,” Upchurch told the City Council. “My commitment is I will listen and not make any decisions that don’t make sense. I would hate to close a road to someone’s favorite hunting spot for no reason. Whether you agree with my reason or not, there will be a reason.”
One of those reasons, and one which gives the INF virtually no flexibility, is the Roadless Rule established by the Clinton Administration.
Of the 2,700 roads – equaling 900 miles – slated for closure, about 350 miles are located in designated “Inventoried Roadless Areas.” Another 50 miles travel in and out of the Roadless Areas. Those roads, by law, cannot become part of the forest’s official designated road system.
Exceptions to the Roadless Rule are trails, but only if they are managed as legitimate, high-clearance routes.
According to Hornick, the trail exception is a “gray area” that INF is trying to nail down, but “50 inches or less in width is the general guideline for the definition of a trail.” It also must be managed as a trail for trail vehicles.
“We don’t want to be in the situation where it looks like a road and quacks like a road, and we call it a trail,” Hornick cautioned.
In all, the forest physically includes about 3,760 miles of road, including about 700 miles of county-owned roads.
As it stands now, the INF’s Proposed Action for the Route Inventory Motorized Travel Management Plan calls for the official designation of 2,800 miles of road – “Enough to almost get across the country coast to coast,” Hornick said.
When INF began the route designation process, it started with a baseline of 1,240 miles of road, and over time identified an additional 925 miles to add to the system.
That means about 900 miles of existing roads, including the 400 miles affected by the Roadless Areas, could soon be relegated to the ash heap of history – without enough time for those in favor of saving those routes to do anything about it.
“This is shocking,” Noles told the supervisors on Tuesday of the potential road loss, “it’s almost obscene.”
According to Noles, the only chance residents and visitors have to save important roads is to comment on each individual route.
However, “the frustration level on this issue is so high we’re having a difficult time getting people to respond,” he said.
And with about a week to go in the scoping period, the City Council, Board of Supervisors and groups like AAPL are worried.
“There’s a lot of emotion that we’re dealing with, this will affect millions,” Noles said.
The supervisors made it clear Tuesday they feel the deadline for route designation comments is approaching too fast and local citizens who recreate on roads and trails in the wilderness, not to mention tourists who visit the area regularly for the rural experience, won’t be able to get all their comments in.
The Forest Service is asking for individual comments on each of the 3,000 roads it has selected for new route designations or closure.
“At the very minimum we should support the roads that have already been commented on, but we don’t know which” ones have received comments, First District Supervisor Linda Arcularius said.
“I don’t want any of these roads closed,” said Fourth District Supervisor Beverly Brown.
The supervisors discussed the option of petitioning to keep every road on the list open, but that would take extensive research and be a tedious, time-consuming task.
“I think first and foremost we should ask for an extension,” said Second District Supervisor Susan Cash.
Third District Supervisor Jim Bilyeu suggested that the board request a 30-day extension on the comment period, but Cash, noting that the route designation process in California is operating ahead of the nationally mandated schedule, wanted more time.
“They have wiggle room,” Cash said.
City Council member Frank Crom noted at the council’s last meeting that at the very least, additional comment time would give invested parties the chance to better notify tourists of the proposed road closures.
Cash, who was in attendance at the Nov. 26 meeting, expressed her concern as well for the seasonal tourists who aren’t aware that 900 miles of road are “in peril” and could be in for a rude awakening upon future visits. “That is going to hurt us” economically, she told the council.
At Cash’s urging on Tuesday, the board moved to have county staff draft a sample letter to the Forest Service requesting such a six-month extension on the comment period. The board will review that letter at its next meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 11, just four days from the scoping period deadline.
Fifth District Supervisor Richard Cervantes also suggested that a citizen group be formed to review each road individually to develop compelling arguments that may persuade the Forest Service to keep them open.
Arcularius suggested that the supervisors get together for a community workshop in an attempt to learn what roads residents have already commented on or plan to comment on, and develop a united front in support of the roads.
Speaking for the AAPL, Noles told the supervisors, “we stand ready to support the board in any way we can.”
The Board of Supervisors, AAPL and the City Council aren’t the only ones urging the public to provide as much input as possible.
Upchurch told the City Council that it’s vital all those with a vested interested in the forest’s route system submit specific comments as soon as they can.
And while Upchurch told the council he wouldn’t be extending the comment period again, as INF is already “behind” as a result of the first extension and he has a responsibility to keep his people gainfully employed by letting them get to work on the comment analysis process, that doesn’t mean anything said or written on the matter after Dec. 15 won’t be taken into consideration.
The Bishop City Council elected to draft a letter to Upchurch urging the INF to continue to accept comment past the closure of the formal comment period, and Upchurch said he would give that input the same weight and consideration granted to comments received before the deadline.
He did say, however, that input received prior to Dec. 15 is most helpful. After the deadline, a Forest Service Interdisciplinary Team will begin analyzing the comments for use to help formulate a range of alternatives that will be examined in an Environmental Impact Statement. The statewide schedule has the draft EIS being released for public review and comment this summer.
“Comments received later on in the process will be addressed to the best of our ability, however the later they are received the more difficult it is to integrate them into the analysis,” Upchurch said in a press release issued this week. “I encourage the public to get their input to us by Dec. 15. If someone thinks of something later on, they are still encouraged to submit their comments for consideration in the analysis process.”
Comments may be mailed to Travel Management Team, Inyo National Forest, 351 Pacu Ln, Suite 200, Bishop, CA 93514, or e-mailed to
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(enter “Route Designation” in subject line).
According to INF, it is important to note that the quantity of comments received for a particular route is not important, as the current process is not a “voting exercise.”
On its Web site, INF states that “a single comment which raises an important issue will have the same weight as thousands of identical comments. Multiple identical comments provide the Forest with the same identical issue.”
Guidance for providing comments, as well as optional comment forms, are available on the Inyo National Forest Web site at www.fs.fed.us/r5/inyo/projects/ohvroute5.shtml, where the public can also find additional information on the Travel Management – Route Designation process, including the proposed action and Notice of Intent to Prepare an Environmental Impact Statement. To receive a CD with information and maps, call Marty Hornick at (760) 873-2461, or e-mail him at
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 29 January 2008 )
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