Grooming problems in National Forests
As you may know, there was a recent decision by the Eastern District of California in a case referred to as Earth Island Institute vs Ruthenbeck. This case has huge implications on the operations of the Forest Service.
The Forest Service has been investigating all of their options for the past few days. They are working on this from the DC level to the local level....and in many cases are having conference calls at least daily, if not more often. And their decisions have been changing at least daily, if not more often.
In the meantime, I would suggest that you contact the Forest Service folks that you work with for snowmobiling. If you are not the normal contact, I would suggest you delegate this to the normal contact person.
It appears the FS will now only be able to issue Categorical Exclusions after going through a public notice, comment period and appeal process. If your grooming program operates under a CE, then check the date that the most current CE was issued -- anything after July 7, 2005 has been or will be invalidated.
If you operate your snowmobile grooming program under a Special Use Permit or if an EA has been performed, then you can probably continue your grooming program this winter.
Do you know if your snowmobile trails were specifically listed in a Travel Management Plan or a Forest Service plan? Or any other document that would have gone through public notice, comment and appeal? If you do not know, ask the people at the Forest Service...many forests are currently digging through documents that are 20+ years old trying to gather this information.
Do you have an MOU with the Forest Service? If so, you should review that document carefully. What is the expiration date?
In the short term, it appears the Forest Supervisors are being given direction to work with the users and if necessary, publish notice and enter into a comment period. Again, details are not clear and seem to be changing regularly. But don't be afraid to raise the issue and ask questions.
Let the Forest Service know you are concerned....this does not impact only snowmobiling, but everything including logging, grazing, road maintenance, campground maintenance, hunting, ski resorts, etc.
Many details are not clear at this point, but it appears our best course of action may be to seek legislative relief. This is not something snowmobilers will be able to do on their own, but rather all forest service users will have to unite like never before.
Whatever you do -- remember the Forest Service is not the bad guy. This is the result of a lawsuit that the Forest Service will more than likely appeal.
The following link will connect you to the Order(s) issued in this case. www.fs.fed.us/emc/applit/litigation.htm