Recreation

More on Ski Area Water Rights- from Bob Berwyn

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Following the hearing (see previous post here) , Bob Berwyn did this story explaining the water rights issue that was discussed at the hearing.

National Ski Areas Association charges Forest Service with ‘takings’

By Bob Berwyn

SUMMIT COUNTY — A decades-old water-rights struggle between the U.S. Forest and the ski industry flared up again this week, as the National Ski Areas Association charged that the agency wants to make an end run around state law and “take away” water rights worth tens of millions of dollars.

The accusations came during a Nov. 15 hearing before the House Natural Resources Committee, as Boulder attorney Glenn Porzak testified on behalf of the ski industry, asking Congress to intervene in the matter. Porzak’s written statement is online here.

“All water rights owners should be concerned,” Porzak said, claiming that the change would require ski areas to transfer ownership of several types of water rights to the Forest Service.

“Ski areas would lose the ability to control future use of those water rights … they would have no guarantee on future use,” Porzak said, explaining that ski areas collectively have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in water rights used for snowmaking, lodging, restrooms, culinary purposes and irrigation.

At issue is a water-rights clause in the standard ski area permit that specifies who owns the water flowing down from public national forest system lands both within and outside ski area boundaries. The current language has been in place since 2004 and the ski industry says it’s been working well.

Under the 2004 clause, ski areas exercise almost absolute control over all water rights associated with ski area operations — to the point that a resort could potentially sell at least some of the water rights, potentially leaving a future ski area permittee high and dry.

The Forest Service is replacing that clause with new language that would prevent such a sale, but the ski industry claims the new clause goes far beyond that, and amounts to a takings of private property.

After the hearing, a top Forest Service official said the 2004 permit language wouldn’t stand up to a legal test in Colorado and possibly other states where ski areas operate under permit from the agency.

The agency is seeking to sustain resorts operating under permit for the long-term by ensuring that the water rights stay with the ski area even if there is a change in ownership or some other unforeseen circumstance, according to Jim Bedwell, director of the agency’s recreation and heritage resources programs.

Bedwell said the agency recognizes that the value of ski areas is tied at least in part to the associated water rights.

“If there’s a change of ownership, the buyers will know they have continued ownership of the water rights, They can’t be parted out,” he said.

The new clause would clarify and define ownership of various water rights associated with permitted ski areas, he said, adding that the language in the 2004 clause was not legally viable because ownership of the water rights was not clearly defined.

Porzak disagreed.

“In a nutshell, it takes away all the important water rights,” he said.

Via email, NSAA public policy director Geraldine Link explained it this way:

“The (new) clause requires certain on-site water rights (arising on permit) applied for before 2004 to be held solely by the US, and some water rights that arise off-site as well.

“The Forest Service wants ownership of these water rights in the future so it can control them. USFS should honor state law and state adjudication of water rights rather than making this end run via permit conditions,” Link said.

No Forest Service officials were invited to testify during the session, but former agency chief Mike Dombeck was there, and was asked if the Forest Service wants to take away ski area water rights as a way to exert more control.

“The land managers committed to the resource,” Dombeck said. “I see it as the desire of the agency to do the right thing for the land,” Dombeck responded when Republican Colorado Congressman Scott Tipton accused the agency of wanting to exert more control over the ski industry.

The Forest Service and the ski industry have tussled over the issue of federal reserved water rights on and off for decades, and the latest shift in the tide may reflect philosophical differences between the former Bush administration and the current Obama team, according to Mark Squillace, director of the Natural Resources Law Center at the University of Colorado.

Squillace said that the issue isn’t unique to the ski industry, referring to a well-publicized case involving a federal attempt to subordinate its own water rights in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. In the end, a judge ruled that the federal government can’t do that, he explained.

“I think it’s smart policy,” he said, referring to the Forest Service’s position on water rights. “From the federal government’s standpoint, they need to make sure the water rights stay with the land,” he said. “It would be a disaster if the ski areas walked away and sold off the water rights separately, he added.

“This is not a takings,” Bedwell added, emphasizing that the Forest Service has been working with the ski industry on the issue for a year.

“We tried to honor the spirit of the 2004 clause,” he said, adding that, from his perspective, work on the new clause is done.

Porzak said Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell indicated that there may be some additional room for negotiation. Failing that, the ski industry will continue to ask Congress for intervention, and as a last resort, the permit condition could be litigated, he concluded.

Study Examines Health Benefits of National Forests

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Here’s the link.

Outdoor recreation requires effective management and protection of the natural spaces where things like biking, camping, hiking and hunting are done. Sound like a no-brainer? The U.S. Forest Service wanted some research to back it up anyway – just in case.

Hence its recent study of how national forests contribute to the public health. The results were published in this month’s issue of the Journal of Forestry under the title, “A National Assessment of Physical Activity in US National Forests.”

Authored by Jeffrey Kline, Randall Rosenberger and Eric White, the study used as its starting point growing national concern about problems associated with inactivity, such as chronic disease and obesity. It then looked at a number of physical activities people do in national forests and estimated the energy they expend while doing them.

The authors concluded, “National forest contributions to physical activity among the American public likely are significant and could be enhanced with continued and targeted investments in recreation infrastructure and public outreach,” according to an abstract.

Here’s a link to the study.

California Snowmobile Lawsuit

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From the Redding Record-Searchlight here.

For the time being, north state snowmobilers won’t have to worry about the U.S. Forest Service limiting where they can ride, even as a lawsuit challenging the recreational activity makes it way through federal court.

On Nov. 3, the Snowlands Network, Winter Wildlands Alliance and Center for Biological Diversity filed a civil suit in federal court challenging whether the U.S. Forest Service has adequately studied the potential harms snowmobiling causes California’s forests. The groups allege snowmobiles are sources of toxic emissions, water and noise pollution, they disturb winter animals and damage snow-covered foliage. The suit also alleges snowmobiles are a nuisance for those who enjoy winter “nonmotorized recreation” like cross-country skiing and snowshoeing. The suit notes several members of the environmental groups are among those “seeking quiet recreation.”

“Due to the adverse impacts of snowmobiles, other governmental agencies that have extensively studied snowmobile impacts — such as Yellowstone National Park — have imposed restrictions on the types and number of snowmobiles allowed, and severely limited the areas in which they may be used,” according to the groups’ complaint. “The Forest Service has not taken comparable action.”

John Heil, a spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service’s Pacific Southwest Region, said Monday forest administrators won’t make any changes to how snowmobile riders access or use public lands while the suit is pending.

He declined to talk about the suit, saying the Forest Service doesn’t comment on ongoing litigation.

The suit was condemned by at least one local snowmobile rider, Sylvia Milligan, the former north region director of California-Nevada Snowmobile Association. The Anderson woman called the suit “frivolous.”

Milligan also is chairwoman of the Recreation Outdoor Coalition, a group that had challenged potential restrictions to off-highway vehicles on federal forest land.

She said snowmobile riders are a responsible group who ride machines that have limits on how much noise they can make and the amount of emissions they release. She said the state recently performed its own environmental reviews and found no problems.

“They couldn’t sue against it (the state),” Milligan said. “Now, they’re trying to sue the Forest Service.”

Milligan notes her fellow riders have tried to foster positive relationships with snowshoers and skiers, many of whom enjoy trekking on the groomed snowmobile trails and the ungroomed paths the snowmobiles pack down.

“We try so hard to get along with these folks,” she said.

There are 260 miles of groomed and ungroomed snowmobile trails on three national forests near Mt. Shasta. The primary access point for snowmobilers in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest is on the Pilgrim Creek Road outside of McCloud.

The suit says there are more than 1,700 miles of groomed snowmobile trails on California’s national forests, providing snowmobile riders access to more than 8.3 million acres, a vastly larger amount than that given other nonmotorized recreation, where only 162 miles of trails are maintained for skiing and snowshoeing.

Here’s a link to the lawsuit.

My comment: it’s interesting that some have argued that non-recreation uses of the land interfere with recreation and the economic and social benefits of recreation. A brief look around on the internet suggests that snowmobiling is a positive tourism economic benefit to communities, and an activity that families enjoy outdoors (aka “kids in the woods”). My view is always that a more productive dialogue would be “I think you should manage snowmobiles differently in these specific cases for these specific reasons” rather than “you need to do more NEPA.” Just sayin’

“Privatization” and Forest Service Recreation Again..

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Here’s an essay from High Country News called:

Privatization threatens an Arizona national forest

When I think of “privatization” I think of something a bit more far-reaching than concessionaires… but OK, it’s an attention grabbing headline. Here are my questions for discussion:

What do you think about the use of concessionaires in recreation?

If you were the Forest Supervisor what would you do?

If you were the Chief what would you do?

What do you think keeps the FS from getting enough recreation funds?

Why don’t recreation groups get together and lobby Congress for enough funds?
Hypothesis: too busy debating each other to unite?

Here’s a website I found that points out some of the benefits of concessionaires, especially in this economic environment.

Here are the presentations from the 2010 NFRA conference.

Privatization threatens an Arizona national forest
Essay – April 29, 2011 by Kitty Benzar

Once upon a time, the Western public lands — places like our national forests and parks — were supported with American tax dollars.

In return, we were welcome to use them. Undeveloped areas required no money to enter, and developed facilities were basic but affordable. Land managers were public servants whose mission was stewardship – or so it seemed.

As in a fairy tale, public lands have fallen under an evil spell. Now the most popular of them sport high-end facilities with prices set to whatever the market will bear. Now, land managers implement business plans while we, the citizen-owners, have been downgraded to mere “customers.” Nowadays, even simple access frequently requires payment of a fee.

The latest place to fall under the spell is the Payson Ranger District of Arizona’s Tonto National Forest. The district is currently soliciting bids on the for-profit management of virtually all recreation there. The successful bidder will control more than 25 facilities located on your public land and constructed using your tax dollars. And the winning bidder won’t even be required to follow the same federal laws as the national forest would have to, if it continued doing its job.

The Forest Service defends recreation fees by claiming that the agency retains the money and uses it to directly benefit the very place you paid to visit. By leasing federally owned recreation facilities to private firms, the agency makes a mockery of that argument. Fees become just another tax, and concessionaires become private tax collectors.

In a prospectus issued in early March, the Payson District began soliciting companies to privatize six family campgrounds, four group sites, a horse campground, an interpretive site, 10 picnic areas and seven trailheads. The prospectus vastly expands the number of fee sites on the district and does so without public involvement or comment. It’s a clear attempt to evade federal legal requirements and prohibitions on where fees can be charged.

What’s more, the winning bidder will not be required to honor federally issued recreation passes. The concessionaire will be allowed to issue and sell a pass of its own creation and keep all revenues. Furthermore, the concessionaire will be allowed to charge fees that the national forest is prohibited from charging, including fees just to park your car and gain access to trails and the backcountry.

A law called the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act was supposed to set strict limits on the recreation fees the Forest Service can and cannot charge. But in a feat of hocus-pocus, the agency says it can simply set these limits aside when it surrenders lands to a concessionaire’s private control.

The Enhancement Act also requires that any proposed new fee sites must undergo a robust and transparent public process, with final review by a citizen advisory committee. Apparently, that’s become too much if a hassle for the agency, because it doesn’t always get the needed public support. Land managers on the Payson have chosen to hand over previously free recreation sites to a concessionaire and declare the process exempt from the law.

The Tonto National Forest is attempting to do all this at the Payson District’s picnic areas, trailheads and a prehistoric Native American village, even though four of the picnic sites were improved in 2010 with taxpayer dollars. We own these sites, and we just paid to fix them up. Isn’t it an outrage that the Forest Service intends to allow a private company to sell us access to our own investment?

The Tonto did not invent this policy, but it is among the worst offenders. There is an America the Beautiful Pass that costs $80 and allows entry into all national parks for a year. It also covers day-use fees at virtually all Forest Service-operated recreation sites. But it won’t get you into the Tonto. For that, you need to upgrade the interagency pass and pay an additional $15. That makes the Tonto the most expensive federal recreational land in the country. And soon, even your pricey new Tonto Pass won’t allow you access to most recreational opportunities on the Payson Ranger District. As for your lifetime Senior or Disabled Pass, both of them will be nearly worthless.

Across the national forest system, creeping privatization has overtaken recreation like the briars that defended Sleeping Beauty’s castle. We need more defenders of free access to our public lands, and you don’t even need to kiss any frogs to speak out; just email Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell at [email protected] and tell him that federal law applies on all federal land. Otherwise, the concept of public lands is nothing but a fairy tale.

Kitty Benzar is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News (hcn.org). She runs the Western No-Fee Coalition in Durango, Colorado.

Sustainable Recreation

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Is discussed throughout the Proposed Rule. In case you missed it, here it is :

The USDA Forest Service Mission: “To sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the Nation’s forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations.”
The agency mission, one of sustainability, provides the foundation for the Recreation, Heritage, and Volunteer programs.
Our Vision … “Renewing Body and Spirit, Inspiring Passion for the Land”
We provide recreation on treasured lands that brings health and vitality to individuals and communities and showcases our country’s natural abundance. Recreation on the National Forests and Grasslands invokes feelings of connection to the natural world and inspires responsibility to care for it.
Guiding Principles for our mission and vision:
 Connecting people with their natural and cultural heritage is a vital thread in the fabric of society. It contributes to the American identity and reminds people of the resources that sustain life – water, soil, food, and fiber. Moreover, recreation is the portal for understanding and caring for natural resources and public lands. It provides opportunities and motivation to advance from fun and attraction, through awareness, education and understanding, to a role of citizen stewardship – one of “giving back” and supporting sustained management of natural resources.
June 25, 2010 Page 4
 Recreational activity in the great outdoors promotes healthy lifestyles. Combined with good nutrition, it contributes to improved physical, mental, and spiritual health, and a shift away from treating illness toward creating wellness.
 Sustainability underlies all program decisions. In order to sustain the benefits of outdoor recreation for present and future generations, the recreation program must address and work toward a sustainable balance among the three spheres of environmental, social, and economic conditions.
 Community engagement is essential for creating a sustainable recreation program. Our role is to serve as planners, facilitators, conveners, and collaborators, tapping the enormous energy and creativity of people in communities that care for and benefit from public lands, including both the private and public sectors.
 National Forests and Grasslands are part of a larger landscape that includes: other public lands; open spaces at the local, state, and federal level; tribal lands; working farms and ranches, and; towns and cities. Respecting and cultivating the relationships across all lands and communities is necessary to strengthen the health and vitality of each.
 The Recreation program is integrated into the larger agency mission. By working together with other program areas to integrate program goals and service delivery, we maximize our contribution by connecting programs, people, and landscapes. .
Our Goals
Building on the foundation of the Mission, Vision, and Guiding Principles, we will strive to:
 Provide a diverse range of quality natural and cultural resource based recreation opportunities in partnership with people and communities.
 Protect the natural, cultural, and scenic environment for present and future generations to enjoy.
 Partner with public and private recreation benefit providers that together we meet public needs and expectations.
 Perform and plan by implementing systems and processes to ensure: effective decisions, sound investments, and accountability; collaborative approaches to integrated solutions across the landscape; and enhanced professionalism of our workforce.

Travel Management Unrest Reaches Colorado

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Here is a story about a protest of a travel management decision in Dolores, Colorado.

Speakers at the rally, including Edwards and Atwater, urged the Forest Service to reverse its travel management decisions and start over with a process that includes coordination with county governments and the general public.

“Coordination is a mandate,” Atwater said. “They have to work with us.”

The quote contains a reference to the concept of “coordination”. Previously, on this blog here we have asked about what this means.

I also found this paper on the web by John Williams of Oregon State University Extension. The paper is a summary, but, as you can see, most of these coordinating and cooperating requirements focus on NEPA documents or planning processes- and not so much the content of the decisions- which is where many of the local government groups want to go.

Of course, the recent ruling on the Southern California plan also lays emphasis on the importance of coordination (with the State, in that case) in process, yet the settlement seems to have substantive leanings. It is all certainly a dance between “process” violations; who’s at the table at settlement, and substantive settlements.

Previously most of the most controversial travel management decisions I’ve read about have been in California. Is there some broader trend here that we should pay attention to?

White Pass Expansion

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Did it really take 33 years? Here’s a blog piece by Ron Judd in the Seattle Times.

But because it was, technically, a sacrifice of a small piece of wilderness for ostensibly political purposes, the whole thing obviously still grates like a sharp rock in the hiking boots to at least some enviros, who see it as a black/white, corporate profit/vs. conservation matter. The Sierra Club’s Mark Lawler cited it immediately last week when I asked him how the White Pass expansion could legitimately be called a “major disaster,” as he suggested.

I get the emotions; conservation is an emotional issue to many Northwesterners, and for that we should all be grateful. I also appreciated attorney David Bahr’s important perspective — that important principles were maintained in the legal fight. Precedents from the case affected other litigation. But in this case, a bit of literal forest-for-the-trees logic should have come into play long, long ago.

It’s too late now, of course. But not for lessons learned. And one is that the environmental movement in this case would have been better served by focusing on its successes — celebrating the amazing lands preserved as wilderness for the small price of allowing a relatively green public use of a small, federal-highway-bordered parcel near an existing ski area — than by digging in for a legal battle which, over the years, increasingly smacked of crying wolf, if not vengeance.

With all that perspective knocking around in my brain, I made a visit to White last week and quickly fell in love with the new ski terrain on Hogback. It’s truly beautiful. Having hiked there on occasion in the summer, I realize it was truly beautiful as wilderness, as well (aside from the nearly lethal waves of mosquitoes; but that’s another story). But physical changes to the place indeed are minimal. It seems to me to be a shining example of limited development done correctly. And that became a focus of my piece.

Ranger Sue Ranger of the Naches Ranger District is careful not to criticize opponents of the project. They’re all constituents, as well, with a claim to proper use of public land. But as someone involved in the case for much of its history, she truly believes the best public use was accomplished.

She is one of those old-fashioned people (I count myself among them) who believe that environmental protection is essential — but not to the point that it prevents citizens from using public lands in low-impact ways, thereby creating a lasting political constituency for their protection from more egregious uses.

Most conservationists agree with that. The question, in this case, is whether alpine skiing and snowboarding is a low-impact use.

You an argue it both ways. And you should. I’ll probably even ponder it all over again myself, next time I’m at White Pass, making some turns up top and feeling fortunate to partake in a clean, green use my federal government decided — finally — to allow.

Recreation and the Planning Rule- New West Story

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Is Recreation in the Rockies Becoming a Bigger Forest Service Priority?
Ski resorts, outfitters and others in the recreation industry want the U.S. Forest Service to think about outdoor sports enthusiasts in the same way they think about species and habitat. Will the Forest Service listen? by Steve Bunk

This story is a description of the planning rule development and the interaction with people interested in recreation.
Well worth a read. Here’s a quote.

Seven leaders of the groups met with Tidwell later that month, including Lyle Laverty, CEO of the National Association of Gateway Communities, headquartered in Denver. Laverty’s job history includes Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Fish and Wildlife and Parks, director of Colorado State Parks, and associate deputy chief of the U.S. Forest Service.

He said the letter to Tidwell and the subsequent meeting with him were sparked by a Forest Service document issued during last year’s development of the planning rule. Addressing input received by the agency concerning the new rule, the document said, “Many noted that the Forest Service does not have much ability to influence economies, and should focus instead on the land management business it knows.”

“That stimulated a lot of angst,” said Laverty. During about 38 years working for the Forest Service, he never had heard anyone in the agency question its importance in influencing economies, he said.
For years, a notion has been brewing in the agency that it should leave the planning for recreational uses of national forests up to local and regional officials, Laverty said. “My personal sense is that this didn’t just happen. It’s a trend we’ve observed, starting back in the early 1990s.”

Derrick Crandall, president of the Washington, D.C.-based American Recreation Coalition (ARC), which organized the letter to Tidwell, suggested that other aspects of Forest Service work are trendier than planning for recreation. Global planning issues, such as climate change and biodiversity, “have a lot of cachet within the beltway circle,” he said.
Recreation is a key use of national forests under various federal laws, but the agency’s written materials that outlined the core concepts of the upcoming plan did not include it, he noted. “We did find it very serious that the number one benefit of national forests—camping, hiking, fishing, skiing, and other recreational activities—wasn’t even represented.”
Michael Berry, president of the National Ski Areas Association, headquartered in Lakewood, Colorado, which is the leading trade group for ski resort owners and operators, also attended the meeting with Tidwell.

“We all know that recreation, particularly in the 11 western states … plays a huge part in economies,” he said. “The issue of the agency’s ability to manage recreation is a topic that we want to continue to ensure will be addressed.”
The lobby’s emphasis on that topic bore further fruit last November, when 41 House of Representatives members wrote to Tidwell in support of recreational opportunities in national forests, including Rob Bishop and Jason Chaffetz of Utah, Doug Lamborn of Colorado, Denny Rehberg of Montana, Mike Coffman of Colorado and Mike Simpson of Idaho. Simpson is chairman of the House Interior and Environment Appropriations Committee, which overseas Forest Service funding.

“We were very interested to see the dramatic interest of the congressmen in this issue, and we think that’s probably been very helpful, also,” Crandall said.

In a recently updated list of core concepts for the planning rule, recreation now holds equal place with four other concepts: people and the environment, climate change, watershed health, and resilience, the latter of which is defined as “the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and still retain its basic function and structure.”
In terms of inviting public input, the process of developing the new planning rule has been impressive. More than 40 public meetings were held in 2010, and more than 26,000 written comments were received, plus many informal comments on the agency website devoted to the rule.

Even so, Laverty thinks that a deeper change might have been instigated by the recreational lobby’s involvement in developing the new planning rule. He said the traditional model of collaboration with interest groups is shaped like a wheel, with the Forest Service at the hub. That process involves one-on-one dealings between the agency and each interest group, with the Forest Service reviewing comments received.

The new model, which he and others suggested to Tidwell, is a circle with a number of nodes on it, one of which is the Forest Service. The others include representatives of county and city governments, wildlife management, ATV use, hunting, and numerous other special interest groups. Final decision-making power still resides with the Forest Service, but all the nodes interact with each other.

“It’s a table of trust,” Laverty said. “You have to take off your stripes and sleeves and leave your gun at the door when you come to the table.”

In the comments, Matthew Koehler linked to a couple of articles. I thought this one from 1997 was particularly interesting. It’s about Lyle coming to Denver to be Regional Forester for the Rocky Mountain Region.

Outdoor enthusiasts like Laverty used to be seen as friends of the environment, but conservation groups increasingly contend that the growing demand for outdoor recreation is wreaking havoc on national forests. They argue that ski-resort construction, off-road vehicles and mountain bikers not only drive reclusive animals out of their natural habitats, but also create trails that irreversibly damage soil and plants. “There’s no shortage of favor for the Forest Service from ski resorts and the like,” says Rocky Smith of the Colorado Environmental Coalition. “Sometimes it seems like the Forest Service is acting as an agent for the ski areas, especially since the Forest Service has been promoting this sort of industrial-strength recreation.”

Colorado environmentalists are already firing warning shots at Laverty, sending letters of concern and other documents to his D.C. office.

“I don’t have a problem with ski resorts or recreational trails,” says Jasper Carlton, “but we’re afraid that Laverty is going to allow all-out development and the forests won’t tolerate it.”

McClellan points to the impact caused by the 100,000 mountain bikers she estimates visited Vail last summer.

“The mountain bike is dangerous,” she says, “because of its potential to get people further into undisturbed backcountry–the last refuge for reclusive species like the lynx and wolverine. Where a hiker can maybe get ten miles into the backcountry, a biker can get forty and an off-road vehicle one hundred. When you throw in skiing, the result is a year-round gridlock of recreation, which is a greater threat to our lands than logging ever was. Twenty years from now, forests harvested for timber will have grown back, but a trail will always be there.

“If this kind of proliferation continues, which it looks like it will when Laverty gets out here, I predict that we’ll have uniform saturation [of Forest Service land] within two decades.”

It’s 14 years out.. I wonder how we are doing with the “saturation” idea?

Rethinking the Recreation Opportunity Spectrum in Forest Service Plans

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“Primitive.” 

“Semi-primitive non-motorized.” 

“Roaded-natural.” 

The fine print of most Forest Service Plans contains terms from a recreation zoning scheme that is essentially the same as when it was developed in the 1980s.  The Recreation Opportunity Spectrum (ROS) is a means to subdivide a forest by desired physical, social, and managerial features to provide a setting for compatible recreational activities.  Although the basic framework has been in place for nearly 30 years, it may be lost in the discussions about a new forest service planning rule, and the system is showing some wear.  The system was never fully integrated across resources.  Forests and Regions have developed processes independently, leading to inconsistencies within and across Regional boundaries.  Naming conventions vary, and there are differences in how wilderness areas are mapped, and how seasonal distinctions are addressed.  Now, the importance of ROS maps in Forest Plans may be even greater than previously thought, after at least one court ruling saying these maps are constraints on recreational activities.

The 1979 ROS Users Guide, the 1990 ROS Primer and Field Guide, and the 2003 National ROS inventory mapping protocol describe the six distinct settings that are mapped in a Forest Plan:  urban, rural, roaded natural, semi-primitive motorized, semi-primitive non-motorized, and primitive.  Used in conjunction with Sense of Place (SOP) mapping, the Scenery Management System (SMS), and Benefits Based Management (BBM), ROS is an approach to display human values, meanings and attachment to the landscape.

The ROS system was at the heart of a sixth circuit decision discussed here a couple of months ago which struck down the revision of the Huron-Manistee Forest Plan.  In that decision, the court addressed the concern about providing “quality recreation opportunities for hikers, backpackers, and cross-country skiiers” by upholding the ROS system as a “thoughtful methodology for matching settings and activities, among other planning purposes.”   However, the court then went further and said that the Plan should not allow activities such as gun hunting and snowmobiling that are inconsistent with ROS descriptions like semi-primitive non-motorized.  The court said: ”The [Forest] Service cannot expect us to defer to its ROS descriptions when they support its decision (which we have done above), but then to disregard those same descriptions when they conflict with its decision.” ….  “the [Forest] Service’s decision not to balance these competing uses, and to disregard its own ROS descriptions, is what fell outside the relevant standards.”

One of the esoteric debates among forest planners these days is where exactly an ROS map fits in a forest plan.  Often, ROS maps don’t match management area maps, and treatment of ROS zones varies from plan to plan.  Some plans contain ROS elements as part of an aspirational “desired condition” while other plans list the identification of an ROS class as a “standard” that all projects must meet.  Although ROS is very similar to the idea of a suitability map, like timber suitability or grazing suitability, ROS is not specific to a particular activity.  It merely describes a setting for recreation activities, and only suggests certain recreational activities that might be compatible in that setting.  Because the actual conditions of the recreation setting need to be validated on the ground, it’s difficult for a forest plan to specifically identify recreational opportunities.

Arguably the most important element of the ROS mapping process is the separation of semi-primitive non-motorized areas from other motorized or roaded settings.  Essentially, a SPNM area is a contiguous unroaded area of at least 2,500 acres. A plan should have consistent direction for ROS, scenery management, travel management, road construction, and other developments.  This part of a forest plan can be very important, because it can limit road building and other development on parcels smaller than the 5,000 acre threshold for potential wilderness areas, or areas previously mapped as roadless and controlled by roadless policies.  While a “roadless” area by definition is larger than 5,000 acres, backcountry recreation activities are certainly possible in areas as small as the 2,500 acre threshold.

ROS needs to be featured as a central part of the forest planning rule.  But it needs to be updated.  Here are some considerations:

  • The terms need to be simplified.  Many people don’t understand the concept of “semi-primitive.”  In some forest plans, management areas adopted a simpler concept known as “backcountry.”
  • New categories may be necessary, to address distinctions between summer non-motorized and winter non-motorized, variations within Wilderness areas, or roaded-natural areas that may be roaded but generally non-motorized.
  • The ROS concept should be expanded to incorporate other activities and resources.  This might best work by requiring ROS zones to be integrated into the forest plan management area process.
  • ROS classifications probably shouldn’t be treated as forest plan standards.  There are too many variables that influence what recreational activities can occur in an area.  However, the planning rule should treat the ROS idea as an important feature of forest plans and plan objectives, standards, and guidelines should be consistent with the ROS classifications.
  • The designation of ROS zones needs to be made at multiple scales.  ROS zoning is subject to the same pitfalls as general management area zoning – it can tend to fragment a forest, and doesn’t lend itself to the larger question of regional recreational experiences.  One report suggests that the inability to “think and act regionally” leads to a homogenization of recreation experiences which suboptimizes and reduces the flow of recreational experiences in the region. 

The ROS system is a sophisticated tool that has been adopted by other agencies and even extended to nonfederal lands.  It’s time to dust it off, and make sure it’s a key element of the new planning rule.

Rep. Rehberg of Montana on Planning Rule and Recreation

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Here’s an article in the Clark Fork Chronicle.

Here’s a quote

Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-MT) is demanding the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) protect recreation and access in national forests when drafting National Forest System land management planning rules. The letter is in response to concerns being raised in Montana and elsewhere that current draft planning concepts are ambiguous and leave critical decisions to unelected bureaucrats.

“We’ve seen time and time again that when a regulation is vague, unelected bureaucrats tend to abuse the wiggle room to the detriment of the people of Montana,” said Rehberg, a member of the Congressional Western Caucus and the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus. “It takes more work to get it right the first time, but in the long run, it saves money and leads to better policy.”

The USFS is in the process of developing a new national planning rule, which will be used to guide local officials with developing individual forest management plans. Draft concepts, which will ultimately be used to develop the rule, have been posted on the agency’s website.

Unfortunately, these drafts include vague and ambiguous terms that could lead to reduced recreational opportunities on forest lands and endless litigation. For example, the Draft Recreation Approach (DRA) specifies that recreation must be “environmentally and fiscally sustainable”, but fails to define what that means. Because stakeholders may be unable to agree on definitions, this could hamper individual forest supervisors’ ability to develop land management plans that include robust and diverse access and recreation provisions.

The complete letter from Rehberg to Chief Tidwell is reprinted in the article.