Plan to manage federal roadless land in Idaho is good but it needs tweaking, Risch says

Proposed rules to manage roadless national forest lands in Idaho should be strengthened to prohibit commercial logging in some areas, but the rules overall deserve to be put into effect, Lt. Gov. Jim Risch testified Monday.

WASHINGTON - Proposed rules to manage roadless national forest lands in Idaho should be strengthened to prohibit commercial logging in some areas, but the rules overall deserve to be put into effect, Lt. Gov. Jim Risch testified Monday.

"This is a good plan," Risch said in Washington, D.C., where he spoke for 20 minutes in favor of the roadless rules he helped develop during his seven-month stint as governor in 2006.

But environmentalists weren't so sure. Some believe Risch, the probable Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate in the November election, has stepped back from wider protections he first proposed in 2006.

Monday's hearing opened a 90-day comment period on how to manage 9.3 million acres of Idaho's national forest lands that were designated as roadless by the Clinton administration.

Dozens of Idaho residents came to the capital as advocates for the state's roadless areas.

"I'd be on my knees if I could," said Jerry Randolph, a retired school counselor from McCall. "I'm here asking you to protect and preserve these open lands. They should be wilderness lands. Not for today, not for tomorrow, but for the next 100 years. They are precious jewels and should be honored and respected."

Conservationists are especially concerned about a provision that releases 609,500 acres now protected as roadless under the Clinton rule. Logging, road building, phosphate mining and other activities would be allowed in that acreage, mostly in Southeast Idaho.

The Wilderness Society and other environmental organizations also say language authorizing logging and road building in more than 5 million acres of land designated as backcountry restoration areas has too many loopholes. They worry that roads could be built deep into the areas instead of just on the edges, near communities. Logging already is allowed in roadless areas near communities under the Clinton plan.

"The threat is more of a piecemeal, gradual destruction of some of these lands," said Brad Brooks of the Wilderness Society. "You're not going to see a shopping mall in the middle of the Boise National Forest. We're talking about roads. We're talking about logging."

Risch said he wants the Forest Service to revise language that allows roads in the backcountry restoration areas. The current language would allow temporary roads and logging "to protect public health and safety in cases of significant risk or imminent threat of flood, fire or other catastrophic event."

That language should be re-written to prohibit commercial logging, Risch said.

The only roads in backcountry restoration areas should be temporary, Risch said, and should be built only to prevent wildfires or protect watersheds.

"I think that the language that we come up should be language that makes it very clear that temporary roads can be built only for stewardship purposes and not commercial harvesting purposes," Risch said. "I was very clear that commercial harvesting was not an objective for the backcountry restoration. I want to be sure that the final language that we come up with says exactly that."

Conservation leaders remained skeptical.

"We appreciate his statement that he wanted to have the Forest Service revisit some of the language, but frankly, I think it's bigger than that," said Jonathan Oppenheimer of the Idaho Conservation League. "Idahoans want to see these places protected and don't want to see them rolled back."