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California
Court decision reinstates 2001 Roadless Rule
August 6, 2009
The Monongahela National Forest contains over 115,000
acres of protected Wilderness, but for hundreds of thousands of
acres of the remaining wild, undeveloped land on the Mon, a recent
U.S. Circuit Court ruling in California has brought a protected
future one step closer to reality.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in California
has deemed a Bush administration’s changes to the 2001 Roadless Area
Conservation Rule unlawful in a three judge panel’s decision to
reinstate the original regulation. The ruling, which was hailed by
environmental groups, carries significant implications for public
lands nationwide, including roadless areas on the Monongahela
National Forest.
The Roadless Area Conservation Rule was put
into place by the Clinton administration in early 2001, and gave
protective status to around 58.5 million acres of public lands where
natural processes prevail, and few, if any, improved roads exist.
Shortly after the rule’s implementation, the Bush administration
sought to undermine the regulation’s scope, allowing individual
states to determine their own rules pertaining to roadless areas on
federal public land.
In 2005, the Bush administration formally
replaced the 2001 rule "with a petitioning process that would allow
Governors an opportunity to seek establishment of management
requirements for National Forest System inventoried roadless areas
within their States."
While no such action was taken by state
officials in West Virginia, several western states moved rapidly to
develop their own guidelines for managing roadless areas, creating
opportunities for industrial activities on wild National Forest
lands.
While the protective measures of the Roadless
Rule have been reinstated, the fate of the regulation remains tied
up in litigation. The most recent decision conflicts with a 2008
ruling by a U.S. District Court in Wyoming, which invalidated the
protections offered by the original rule. Numerous environmental
groups immediately appealed, and the Obama administration has
recently filed its own appeal to the Wyoming decision, following the
California ruling. The case is currently pending in the 10th
Circuit Court of Appeals, where arguments are expected to begin
before an appeals panel in Denver this fall.
For now, the decision to overturn the Bush rule solidifies federal
administrative protections for many of the Mon’s Inventoried
Roadless Areas (IRAs), areas of undeveloped forest, potentially
threatened by road building, logging and energy development. The
decision directly affects areas in the Mon’s roadless inventory as
of 2001. A 2006 inventory identified 18 roadless areas, including
six areas since designated as Wilderness under the Wild Monongahela
Act. Included in the final inventory are Big Draft, Spice Run and
Roaring Plains West, newly established Wilderness areas, as well as
Dolly Sods North, Cranberry Expansion and Dry Fork, an expansion to
the existing Otter Creek Wilderness. Initially, 41 areas, around
330,000 acres, were identified for consideration in the roadless
inventory, and all areas were evaluated against eight criteria. The
list was narrowed down to the 18 IRAs that met all criteria, and
areas omitted from the final list may have had disqualifying
features such as miles of improved roads, close proximity to
development, or a long, narrow shape.
While areas protected by legislative
designations such as Wilderness are safeguarded, the future of
roadless areas such as Seneca Creek, Canaan Mountain and Tea Creek,
is likely to remain tied up in the courts until a national policy
regarding our roadless forests is adopted. IRAs not designated by
Congress are generally managed on the Mon to maintain their
backcountry character, but such an administrative management
prescription is subject to administrative change, leaving the future
of vast wild areas uncertain.
In the face of heavy pressures from conservationists and industry
groups alike, Obama administration officials have stated a desire to
adopt new national guidelines for managing wild, undeveloped areas
across the country. In a recent interview with the Denver Post,
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the administration "is very
committed to protecting the roadless areas generally. We think there
needs to be a national approach to this," he said.
Until then, citizen groups across the U.S. will keep pushing
grassroots initiatives to legislatively protect their beloved wild
places; otherwise we’ll continue to look to the courts for decisions
on the fate of our unprotected natural treasures.
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