Thanks to Ted Z. for finding this NY Times piece.
According to the NY Times, there is an undated secretarial memorandum which they obtained (?). They could have linked to the memo, but did not, which always makes me curious.
The undated Agriculture Department secretarial memorandum, which was reviewed by The New York Times, directs the U.S. Forest Service to identify which closed “roads, trails, areas, airstrips and waterways” in each national forest might be considered for year-round recreation access.
The memo would also immediately allow off-road vehicles in areas that the Forest Service has recommended to Congress should be granted wilderness protections. Right now, ATVs are not allowed in many of those areas, which are treated as if they were protected already. That move alone affects about 5 million acres, primarily in Idaho and Montana.
I’m not sure that an “immediately allowing OHVs in areas” is legal. Perhaps the memo’s undated as it never made it to OGC for review.
If, as some TSW readers say, what exactly is allowed in recommended Wilderness varies by forest or region, then it seems like if you wanted to change it, you would have to amend forest plans, or travel management plans or something.. Note that the reporter carefully said that ATVs are not allowed in “many” of the areas, “which are treated as if they were protected already”.
It seems to me that identifying closed roads that could be opened is one thing- and perhaps not all that controversial, but “immediately allowing” something.. does not sound like the FS at all.
Also note that the memorandum says “roads, trails, areas, airstrips and waterways” but the headline is only about ATV’s. Conceivably also jeeps/SUVs and cars could use roads; hikers, bikers and horses could use trails, and it’s dubious that ATVs would be using airstrips and waterways at all.
Dan Hartinger, the senior policy director at the Wilderness Society, an environmental group, said ATVs, dirt bikes and other off-road vehicles could severely damage wilderness areas.
Maybe he’s talking about wilderness-y areas, not Wilderness, because that would be illegal. You have to read carefully to pick out that these are RWs and not W’s. But I still don’t think you can just do that in 30 days, as plans would have to be amended.
“These are some of the wildest natural areas we have left in our forests,” Mr. Hartinger said. In particular, he argued, allowing off-road vehicles in areas the agency has recommended be protected “threatens our ability to ever protect them in the future if they’re irrevocably damaged.”
Some of the wildest, that is, that is not designated Wilderness already. This seems to call into question the popular (with some) idea of closing roads. If they’re “irrevocably damaged” due to roads, what’s the point in closing them? Maybe the damage is really somewhat revocable?
If I had been the reporter, I might have asked a lawyer about whether this memo contemplates doing things that are legal. But perhaps the story would have been “unsigned memo at USDA describes illegal actions.”
But perhaps this story is just pre-agitation to prepare us for the bigger event:
In the coming weeks, the Forest Service is expected to issue a proposal to rescind a Clinton-era regulation that prevents new road-building in nearly 60 million acres of undeveloped land.
But we know that the current proposal (unless it’s changed, which the Times didn’t say) leaves out Colorado and Idaho, which according to Trout Unlimited leaves 45 million acres. I didn’t look it up myself, but TU tends to follow roadless closely.
Anyway, perhaps a summer intern wrote the memo in question?
Sharon said:
“it seems like if you wanted to change it, you would have to amend forest plans, or travel management plans or something.”
True, and this statement is equally applicable to Trump’s recent Executive Order. Pronouncements are not actions; that’s why the English language has these two different words. And a memo cannot “immediately allow” anything that was previously prohibited by any document more substantial than a memo, like a plan, reg, or statute.
Perhaps the memo was leaked by someone who fears the agency is about to assert a legally unsustainable argument that the Secretary can unilaterally bypass those existing travel restrictions. Otherwise, the NYT story simply seems to stand for the proposition that the current admin favors motorized interests over nonmotorized interests … which isn’t really news.
As Patrick and others say, the Admin is planning on doing something with the travel management rule.. so again..in relation to potential real proposals, this memo seems..odd.
I wonder if and/or how the impending changes Trump intends for the Forest Service and the National Forest System will affect this….
I’m sure the memo is real as it’s part of a broader initiative the motorized community has been working on with FS leadership and the White House called “Minimization to Sufficiency”. The goal is to move from a focus on minimizing motorized recreation to to providing sufficient routes for a high quality recreation experience. As part of that I’ve built a web app for OneVoice with a dashboard comparing open vs. closed roads in every forest and district to identify areas where there are lots of closed admin and ML1 roads that could be opened to the public. https://forest-roads-dashboard.web.app
As for the memo, I doubt anything in it will have any immediate effect. At most it will be a directive for individual forests to revise their travel plans to consider opening currently closed roads. Sounds like there will also be some sort of directive mandating that forests revise their forest plans to remove prohibitions on motorized use in recommended wilderness. Or maybe some kind of legal interpretation that those provisions should be given no effect? We’ll have to see what exactly that means.
Oh and I am also endlessly annoyed by journalists who refuse to provide or link to primary sources they discuss. Do they think it gives them greater authority or exclusivity?
Nice work on the web app pulling all that GIS data together. A recommendation that might make it friendlier to understand for those who aren’t so familiar with all the acronyms: You might include a brief explanation for each of the categories, eg what is MVUM or Public Motorized Miles, and how they relate. While it’s probably blindingly obvious to those involved in this stuff day-to-day, the average person might misinterpret some of the category headings. For example, are “closed roads” or “motorized trails” subsets of the MVUM dataset (so that, for example, the motorized trails # divided by the MVUM # tells me the percent of total road miles made up of motorized trails)?
Also, I can’t make sense of the access grades: are they calculated from the numbers in the table? The header they say they are based on the ” percentage of routes open to full-size vehicles compared to closed roads”, which sounds like “motorized trails” divided by “closed roads”, but when I check a few rows in the table I don’t get percentages that match the A, B, C ranges specified in the header. (And of course, that ratio could be larger than 100%, which I guess would be an “A”?)
Thanks for the feedback. I’ll see if I can clarify some of those things in the UI when I get a chance. Closed roads are from a separate dataset than the MVUM one. The FS has a separate dataset of system roads not open to the public. When totalling “roads” I grouped routes classified as roads and full size trails together. So the grades are calculated as open roads + full size trails / open roads + closed roads + full size trails. MVUM roads means open roads.
“focus on minimizing motorized recreation” is a misleading use of the term “minimize,” which in the Travel Management Rule refers to impacts and conflicts associated with motorized recreation. I guess we could debate whether that leads to the same thing, but it is a different “focus.”
That’s technically true but in practice it really was about minimizing motorized recreation. The minimization criteria made it clear that motorized recreation was a second class use of public lands to be permitted only where it didn’t conflict with a litany of listed values, including other forms of recreation. Any claimed conflict, no matter how minor, was enough to require the closure of motorized routes regardless of how popular they were or how crucial they were for facilitating public access.
The Forest Service went even farther with its travel management rule requiring the designation of a “minimum road system”, the objective of which was to minimize road mileage, not just minimize impacts and conflicts. Its explicit goal is to relegate motorized recreation to the smallest possible route network the agency can justify, regardless of any actual impacts. That seems like minimizing motorized recreation to me.
I remember the “road mileage” issue being the costs of maintaining the road system, which seems pretty reasonable. And arguably different from the amount of “motorized recreation.”
I’m amazed at what this Administration is up to on a daily basis! I have no clue whether the memo is accurate or not, or just a precursor to something more substantial. I would guess it’s part of that 92% negativity the media shows for this President. Travel Management rollbacks are certainly warranted to a more sensible system for access, even opening up closed or gated roads in some places. Having maps that are adequate and all the silly “vehicle classes determinations need to also go.
Wilderness is out; recommended Wilderness certainly could have more access available for motorized travel. I was flying a recommended Wilderness one day with my boss.- who was the pilot, and I had recently ridden the whole thing on an ATV beforehand (pre-decision). The boss looked it over and said “not really Wilderness material, what do you think?” I agreed, but I was the one clobbered over it by the Wilderness groups! 🤣🤣
Let’s roll! 👍
Many previous Travel Plans were ignored by Region One planners, as they did new Forest Plans and identified new or revised Recommended Wilderness area boundaries. The fact that every Region One Forest had to socially exclude existing formally compliant recreation tells me that they didn’t value the public who enjoyed those areas, that the public’s experiences were less valued than their agenda to designate administrative REA and fast track it to Congress. The attempt to disenfranchise the public has been a failed experiment since the 2003 Region One memo which started this mess. It’s actually been surprising that the overreach has gone on this long. I thought President Bush would have nixed it while in office. I may finally be able to pedal to some favorite destinations once again.
Greg, and the requirement for all Plan Revisions to have at least one proposed Wilderness!
You are correct at the contempt shown toward the public! Thankfully, Congress sat/is sitting on most proposals, or expansions…..
Tell me more about the plan revision requirement. Not one I’ve heard about (but maybe after my time).
This never was expressly about off-road vehicle damage. That’s just a convenient talking point. It was directly about removing a constituency from targeted lands to prevent them from opposing future wilderness bills. It has also been stated that congress may “have pause” when considering sponsoring a wilderness bill if non-conforming recreation is still taking place. It’s intentional disenfranchisement to influence Congress. Playing politics with our access. I’ve contended for many years this is not a land managers job. Now I’ve learned a new term: overreach. All started with a memo.
Speaking of memos, I too would like to see the one ordering at least one RWA for each plan revision.
Jon, doubt it was written but we could not brief WO and NRE without a proposed Wilderness, or expansion. Having staff with the Wilderness Society in NRE (at the time) most likely prompted the requirement…..
That makes sense. From a NEPA angle, there would need to be an alternative that addresses wilderness if that was an issue, and are there really any forests where it isn’t? (Assuming the wilderness evaluation turned up areas with wilderness characteristics.)
“allowing off-road vehicles in areas the agency has recommended be protected “threatens our ability to ever protect them in the future if they’re irrevocably damaged.””
Sharon’s question – If they’re “irrevocably damaged” due to roads ….
This could be an argument that allowing “off-road” vehicles might lead to damage from off-road use.