From the 6/6/07 Feather River Bulletin Editorial “From Where I Stand”
I write in support of the status quo for Plumas National Forest roads, road access, and dispersed camping
policies, and I write in specific opposition to two letters printed 5/16 and 5/23 by Darrel Jury and Darla
DeRuiter, respectively. I should state up-front that, like others who have weighed in on this subject, I have my
biases.
My bias is that I believe in multiple use of forest resources and scientific management principles. I am a dirt
bike enthusiast, a hiker/backpacker, and a 17-year veteran of "dispersed camping" on the Plumas. I park a
self-contained travel trailer in a streamless area, on and accessed by flat ground, 1/4 mile off a paved forest
road where I have never built a fire or fire ring.
Let me begin my pitch by quoting the founding policy of the Sierra Club's John Muir: "Not blind opposition to
progress, but opposition to blind progress." Isn’t that what citizens are saying on the Plumas and other
national forests at this time? An example of blind progress is closing off our access to significant portions of
the woods. Such action may be a solution (theirs) in search of a problem (as yet unexplained)!
The Forest Service has made no direct case for road reductions or closures. Although their Web-posted
documents refer to a process of following NEPA (the 30+ year-old National Environmental Policy Act), they
simply do not make the case for restrictions or closures. Is it pollution? Is it erosion? Has all the sediment
mitigation of Plumas Corp's meadow restoration-sediment arrest team missed these demon roads?
Mr. Jury supported the closure of some roads as being beneficial to forest health. He said that some wildlife
species find roads to be a barrier and that roads are corridors to the spread of noxious weeds.
If the first were true, by now we'd have seen “threatened” or “endangered” classifications by Forest Service
biologists and a prescription to close those roads to specifically protect those affected species.
As for noxious weeds, there is evidently a narrow and limited “wash-down” procedure required of timber
havest equipment before it relocates within the forest, but none for any other motorized vehicles (including
logging trucks). Until more information is produced by the Forest Service, who could conclude that other
motorized vehicles present a problem related to noxious weeds? No environmental alarm has been sounded
by the agency.
There are many roads on this forest, but they have existed for a very long time, and the only endangered
animal noted thus far has been the spotted owl. Roads have not been cited as a cause for this problem.
Mr. Jury also applauds the work of the QLG but primarily its membership and policy operations. The QLG's
mission is to experimentally reduce fuels and thereby lower catastrophic fire danger, saving soils and
preventing erosion. Those efforts depend on road access for success.
If QLG’s experimental five-year work (signed into law nine years ago) continues its always challenged and
very slow roll-out, we will likely see more catastrophic fires than would be the case if the QLG prescription was
briskly implemented. Talk about losing soils and wildlife habitat—catastrophic fire delivers both!
The initial attack on catastrophic fires brings dozers and cat lines, trucks, choppers, and the rehab work that
will follow. Such fires would be more difficult to attack with fewer roads through the heavy fuel loads we
already possess here.
Prescribed burning would also be more difficult to prepare for, access, and contain with a lesser road
network. The QLG approach of DFPZs (defensible fuel profile zones) would be less achievable if there were
fewer roads in the Plumas National Forest.
And if the Forest Service would begin to actually tally lost owl habitat from catastrophic fires as fast as it
inventories QLG treatment areas for wildlife populations—perhaps then we'd have some real land
management progress, measuring all parts of this whole.
Fire is natural—but not catastrophic fire. If catastrophic fire was natural, the climax vegetation here would all
be brush, as in southern California’s chapparal zone.
As for Ms. DeRuiter's comments, she seems concerned that, mathematically, there are just too many roads
compared to this national forest's size. She also attempts to tie establishment of these roads to motorized
recreation and asserts that forest travelers should favor muscle-powered rather than motorized travel to
explore and enjoy these lands.
Our forest roads were all built for specific reasons, with the agency's encouragement. Usually, they were built
for management access, fire protection, and timber operations. Occasionally, they were built for access to
recreation destinations.
But we should keep in mind that there has never been any prohibition against using "muscle-power" to travel
them; those who enjoy hiking (myself included) can certainly continue to utilize foot power as their preferred
method of road use, as well as choosing to hike in roadless and wilderness areas.
If the Plumas has more forest roads than average, perhaps it is because this forest has been a prime wood
producer, often ranking number two (among 21 national forests) in our state. Even in today’s near no-
harvest regime, you can't get any wood or biomass out (protecting against catastrophic fires) without roads.
Neither can you manage the ground, get quick access to fires (to keep them small), slow a bug infestation, or
provide access for recreation without the road system we have.
Spreading our recreation (and other uses) over more road miles has a better chance of keeping everyone
happy and satisfied. If we are limited to a few roads only, or staying no more than 50 feet off an existing
road, the walker-runner, the woodcutter, the hunter, the OHVer, the road-driving or destination recreationist,
and the agency's green trucks will all converge on far fewer miles. This will become a mixed-use competition
problem and could result in safety issues.
I cannot accept Ms. DeRuiter's support of a reduction in roads to the point where she cannot hear or see
vehicles while presumably traveling under muscle-power. Spreading all of us over the existing road system
might serve her needs better.
The Spring, 2007, issue of National Forestry magazine addresses the trend of reduced Forest Service (non-
fire) budget dollars by stating that over the last seven years, those monies (adjusted for inflation) have
declined 35%.
Perhaps this has something to do with the current closure activities, but until the agency objectively
demonstrates a real cause for its interest in changes to road policy and dispersed camping, no one can claim
that this action is for the benefit of the resource itself.
Let science and objectivity prevail. The U.S. Forest Service review procedure should be resisted until any
specific damage to the forest as a result of current road use and dispersed camping policy is identified, along
with a variety of mitigation options to reduce or eliminate it. That's NEPA.
The Plumas National Forest has worked with citizen groups in the past. Stewardship contracts exist for land
management, and there has been a fine effort to satisfy the needs of snowmobile enthusiasts, for example.
The potential exists to do the same thing with hunters, woodcutters, OHVers, and the dispersed camping
public, but the agency will have to get out of the paper documents and on to the ground with representatives
of those interests. Now that’s NEPA with reasonable citizen involvement and the preservation of multiple use!
Bill Martin,
Retired forestry and life-science instructor, and member Sierra Access Coalition