Colville Forest plan will ration recreation on 1.1 million acres

Something is at stake for everyone from mountain bikers to loggers in the 1.1 million-acre Colville National Forest as the July 5 deadline approaches for public comment on the draft forest plan.

The Forest Plan Revision is the final step in a multi-year effort of meetings, planning and environmental review that will guide use of the forest for the next 15-20 years.

“We have a meeting with Pend Oreille County commissioners this week to try to work out details and find common ground on things we all see problems with,” said Mike Petersen, The Lands Council executive director in Spokane.

Getting consensus before forest officials make final decisions is a goal worth pursuing, he said.

The Northeast Forestry Coalition proposed a model focusing on smaller diameter trees to take 80 million board feet of timber off the Colville over two decades. However, Forest Service officials came back with a preferred alternative to take a lesser amount – 30 million board feet – that would include more mature timber.

“We’re trying to generate more discussion on that for a healthier, less fire-prone forest,” Petersen said.

The Forest Service released preferred proposals and alternatives this spring based on science, feedback, compromise and other factors.

As a middle ground between multi-use management or restrictive wilderness protection, Colville officials proposed several Recreation Special Interest Areas that would be managed with feedback from advisory groups with representatives from various interests, including timber and ranching.

The Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance supports the Forest Service’s proposed SIA designation rather than wilderness for a ribbon of land along the Kettle Crest. The group opposes wilderness designation for the Bald-Snow-White mountain area of the crest south of Sherman Pass.

Wilderness designation would preclude mountain bikes as well as motorized use.

Mountain bikers conflict with a broader range of forest advocates by opposing wilderness designation for the Abercrombie Mountain area so they would continue to have the option of pedaling bicycles to the top of the second highest mountain in Eastern Washington.

The highest, Gypsy Peak, also is on the Colville Forest but is protected in the Salmo-Priest Wilderness, the only official wilderness currently on the Colville. Less than 3 percent of the Colville National Forest is managed as wilderness.

The Spokane Mountaineers, which has a mountain biking contingent as well as hiking and conservation committees, is coming out in favor of a more restrictive Alternative B that favors wilderness for the Abercrombie area.

Conservation Northwest faults the Colville draft plan for recommending only three of the forest’s 19 roadless areas for wilderness. The Western Washington-based group recommends wilderness designation for 15 percent of the entire forest, which is below the 19 percent average for national forests.

Petersen said The Lands Council and the Northeast Forestry Coalition also support more wilderness than the Forest Service is proposing. They’re especially miffed that the Hoodoo and Profanity roadless areas would not be given dependable protection from ATVs, mining or salvage logging.

“The Hoodoo is the second most popular (roadless area) in the entire forest,” he said.

“Every constituency has some issues with the draft plan and that’s not unusual,” said Petersen, who’s been involved in public lands conservation issue for decades. “What’s unusual is that everyone is trying to meet and push the Forest Service in a direction we can agree to.”