Legislation to ban most road-building in national forests, including 46,000 acres in Clallam and Jefferson counties, has been reintroduced in Congress by U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell and U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee.
The Roadless Area Conservation Act would permanently protect 58.5 million acres of wild, roadless areas now protected from development under the 2001 Roadlesss Area Conservation Rule, including acreage in Olympic National Forest.
None of the roadless areas are in Olympic National Park.
Protected areas include Mount Baldy, Mount Zion, Green Mountain, Jupiter Ridge, Rugged Ridge, Madison Creek and the 19,000-acre Quilcene Roadless Area in Jefferson County.
The legislation — SB 1478 in the Senate and HR 3465 in the House — were referred last week to House and Senate committees for review.
The legislation protects pristine roadless areas by allowing new roads and logging only to fight forest fires.
It also would allow full access to recreational activities and continued oil and gas development on existing leases.
Bills’ critic
The legislation did not sit well with Carol Johnson, executive director of the North Olympic Timber Action Committee, a forest industry group.
“The politicians are making our public assets a political process rather than leaving it up to the scientists and professional foresters,” Johnson said Tuesday.
“Cantwell and Inslee have been extreme environmentalists most of their careers. It’s just more politics,” Johnson said.
“I would suggest legislators who want preserves and set-asides sit down and look at the intent of the Northwest Forest Plan,” she added.
“Look at that first, and then maybe we will have something to talk about.”
The Northwest Forest Plan covers 24 million acres of Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management land from Northern California to Western Washington.
It attempts to manage public land by meeting the need for forest habitat as well as forest products.
“It hasn’t met what it said it was going to do,” Johnson said.
Court upholds rule
Inslee spokeswoman Sharmila Swenson said the legislation on roadless areas was reintroduced in response to an Oct. 21 decision by the Denver-based 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.
The court upheld the roadless areas administrative rule, which had been struck down by a Wyoming federal district court.
The roadless rule also was upheld in federal district court rulings in Idaho and Alaska earlier this year.
Originally proposed by former President Bill Clinton, the rule has survived numerous legal challenges over the past 10 years.
“We have continued to try and protect roadless areas in our state on a permanent basis,” Swenson said.
One-fifth of national forests in Washington state are roadless, Cantwell said in a statement.
“These areas are a critical engine to our economy and quality of life and need to be a lasting part of the landscape,” Cantwell said.
“Our cities depend on roadless areas for drinking water, and our pristine forests support more than 100,0000 outdoor industry jobs here in Washington.”
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
