A view of Mt. Hood from Timothy Lake. Photo by K. Carpenter/U.S.G.S.
Off roaders are going to start seeing a lot of “closed” signs in the Mt. Hood National Forest.
A new Forest Service plan dramatically cuts back where off road vehicles are allowed. Environmental groups couldn’t be much happier.
A view of Mt. Hood from Lolo Pass Road. Photo by Dennis Newman.
The Mt. Hood National Forest is giving itself more time to make a huge decision that will affect just about everyone who uses the forest.
It’s going to spend the spring and summer doing additional environmental studies before making a final ruling on where to allow off road vehicles.
That ruling was expected by today, but now it’s being put off until August.
In the past two weeks, Portland General Electric has held several public meetings about its plans for a new high voltage power line.
A view of Mt. Hood from Timothy Lake. Photo by K. Carpenter/U.S.G.S.
Called Cascade Crossing, PGE wants to build a 200-mile, double circuit, 500-kilovolt power line from Boardman to Salem. Along the way, it crosses two national forests and the Warm Springs reservation. If all goes according to plan, construction will begin in late 2012 and the power line will be operating during the first half of 2015.
Today, I had an interesting conversation with Amy Harwood of Bark, the group that acts as an environmental watchdog for the Mt. Hood National Forest. Like all of us, she’s just getting acquainted with the issue. Bark is withholding judgement on the power line until it gets more information. But her first impressions are worth passing along. They include questions all of us should be thinking about and asking. This story isn’t going away anytime soon.
Do We Really Need This Power Line?
PGE warns that our current transmission system to close to capacity. Despite the growth in population and the increased demand for electricity over the past 25 years, no new major power lines have been built. Without this power line, PGE says our grid may become unreliable, raising the odds of power outages or brown outs. It also says this line will help bring in more renewable energy from the wind farms in Eastern Oregon. It says that will help Oregon meet state mandates to get 15% of our power from renewable energy by 2015.
For now, Harwood is skeptical. “I start to get squirrelly on the reliability thing,” she admits. “A lot is being done in the name of reliability.” While not outright questioning the need for more lines, she’d like to see more attention paid to conserving energy and says some of the new projects being proposed may not be necessary. Some in the energy business, she says, are “operating on fear tactics.”
As we’ve seen recently, PGE isn’t the only company proposing a new power line in the area. The Bonneville Power Administration is looking at a 70-mile high voltage line in SW Washington and a 28-mile line that runs through the Columbia Gorge Scenic Area. In Eastern Oregon, Idaho Power wants to build a 300-plus mile high voltage line from Boardman to SW Idaho.
How Do Projects Like These Affect The Forest and Wildlife?
PGE says it wants to build this new power line along existing corridors. But Harwood says there’s too little information to see how that will be carried out. An energy corridor amounts to a path of clear cut through a forest. At best, PGE would expand a current corridor by several hundred feet. But Harwood says it could also mean a totally new path that just happens to be close to an existing one.
Harwood says energy corridors impact the forest in a number of ways. Creating a new path of clear cut makes it easier for invasive weeds to spread into the forest. Not only does it give them a foothold, but without tree cover the weeds thrive and become harder to control.
She says this will change the relationship between predator and prey. It creates more edge habitat that makes it easier for some predator species to hunt for food. This can have an impact on wildlife numbers.
The corridors interfere with the migration of large animals such as deer and elk. Harwood cites studies that show as wildlife moves from one site to another, they’re reluctant to cross these wide clear cut paths. In the winter, big mammals need trees and other cover to stay warm. Harwood says the end result is that these animals will have fewer options for habitat and tend to corral themselves into tighter groups.
Adding It All Up
It’s not just PGE that wants a piece of the forest. NW Natural is a partner in the Palomar Pipeline project. It’s proposing a pipeline that would run through the Mt. Hood National Forest to carry imported natural gas from an LNG terminal on the Columbia River to an interstate pipeline connection near Maupin.
Hardwood says Palomar is a good example of a bad plan. She says there’s no need to import natural gas and the pipeline route goes through old growth territory of the Northern Spotted Owl and other pristine forests around Mt. Hood.
Will PGE’s power line have a similar impact? Harwood says there’s simply not enough information out there yet.
But the demand for energy paths on public lands is likely to grow. Even the Obama Administration wants to speed up the process of siting these kinds of project.
Can Mt. Hood or any other National Forest handle all the new demands for power lines, pipelines and who knows what else?
As Harwood puts it, they “keep taking these little bites out of the forest.”
With summer over, now’s the time federal and state officials are taking a hard look at some controversial issues that affect a lot of people in the state.
On Tuesday, the Mt. Hood National Forest holds a public hearing on a plan that will dramatically cut back where off roading is allowed in the forest. The off roading community has a lot to lose here, but its members are motivated to speak out and they could dominate the discussion. Environmental groups are trying to get “quiet” users of the forest, such as hikers, backpackers and mountain bikers, to show up as well.
A concern enviros have about the plan is that one of the places set aside for off roading will be next to two wilderness areas. Mt. Hood officials also want to build 40 brand new miles of off road tracks on the north side of the mountain.
(For more information click on the Quiet Forest category for all our stories on this issue.)
Tuesday’s hearing starts at 6pm in Portland at the University Place Hotel & Conference Center, 310 SW Lincoln.
A second hearing takes place in Hood River on Wednesday at the Hood River Inn, 1108 East Marine Way. This also starts at 6pm.
The yurts at Beverly Beach State Park near Newport. Courtesy Oregon Parks and Recreation
Then on Thursday, Oregon Parks and Recreation begins a series of meetings around the state on a fee increase for state parks. They want to raise day use fees from $3 to $5, and annual passes from $25 to $30. Fees for camp sites would go up $4 per day, and fees for yurts and some cabins will rise $10 per night.
Parks and Rec says the increases will raise more than $4 million from January 2010 through June 2011.
Here’s a full schedule of the meetings. All start at 6pm and should conclude by 8:30pm.
Sept. 17: LaGrande
City Library, 2006 4th St, Colleen F. Johnson Community Room
Sept 18: Bend
Parks and Recreation District Meeting Room, 799 SW Columbia Street
Sept. 21: Champoeg State Heritage Area Visitor Center
8239 Champoeg Road NE, St. Paul
Sept. 22: Newport
Central Lincoln Public Utility, 2129 N Coast Hwy
Big changes are coming to the Mt. Hood National Forest. Soon, the days of wide open access for OHV riders will be gone. For others, expect more quiet time in the forest with fewer noisy disruptions from off road vehicles.
These changes are outlined in a new off road travel plan that was just released by forest officials. If it goes through, off roading will be banned in most of the Mt. Hood National Forest, except for six areas that are scattered around the mountain.
Here’s a quick look at what’s being proposed:
Right Now:
Under the new plan:
Courtesy NOAA
The history behind this goes back a little more than a decade. Starting in the late 1990′s, OHV use skyrocketed around the country. Forest officials became worried about the damage caused by off road vehicles that were getting bigger, faster and more powerful. In 2004, the U.S. Forest Service named unmanaged off roading as one of the four top threats to National Forests and Grasslands. The following year, it issued a new rule requiring all National Forests to draw up plans to control the use of OHVs. While recognizing off roading as a legitimate use of forests, federal officials said something had to be done to protect the natural resources.
The plan proposed for Mt. Hood calls for six OHV areas, some of which are controversial with environmental groups.
Bear Creek, on the north side of the mountain near Laurence Lake, calls for building 39 miles of new trails for off road motorcycles and brings off roading to an area where it hasn’t been before.
La Dee Flats, an area near Estacada, has seen heavy OHV use in the past. Environmentalists object that one of the trails goes right between two wilderness areas.
Gibson Prairie straddles the Hood River/Wasco County line northeast of Mt. Hood. The area is shared by horse riders, mountain bikers and off roaders. Forest officials expected the shared use to continue.
McCubbins Gulch near the intersection of Highways 26 and 216 is another area that already gets heavy OHV use.
Peavine, located in southern Clackamas County, is somewhat remote and accessible via forest service roads.
Rock Creek, in the eastern part of the forest, is controversial because it’s near a residential area. Some neighbors welcome the idea of having OHV access nearby while others worry about the noise and pollution.
To learn more, see the DEIS for the Mt. Hood Off-highway Vehicle Travel Management Plan. It lists four alternatives, ranging from doing nothing (very unlikely) to reducing to OHV travel to 3 areas with 96 miles of roads and trails. Mt. Hood officials are calling for Alternative 2 to be approved.
Today’s announcement kicks off a 60-day period of public comment. See the Mt. Hood travel management webpage for information on where to send letters or e-mail.
Forest officials have also scheduled two public hearings.
September 15
University Place Hotel & Conference Center
310 SW Lincoln
Portland
September 16
Hood River Inn
1108 East Marine Way
Hood River
Both meetings start at 6pm.
In the next few weeks, the Mt. Hood National Forest is expected to release a new plan that may dramatically change how many of us play in the woods.
It comes with the rather boring sounding title of “Travel Management Plan”. But it represents a major shift in thinking and management of the forest.
Like all National Forests, Mt. Hood must come up with a new travel plan that limits the areas where off-road vehicles are allowed to go. Under the old way of thinking, off-roaders can go pretty much everywhere, even if that means going blazing a new trail through a forest, a meadow, or across a stream. Some areas are closed to off-roaders, but for the large part the forest is wide open to them.
Under the new way of thinking, off-roaders will only be allowed on trails that are designated for that kind of activity. And no more going off the trail. That kind of recreation, officially called “cross country travel” won’t be okay any more. In other words, unless off-roaders have permission to be there, they have to stay out.
The change began in 2005 when the U.S. Forest Service ordered all National Forests to draw up plans to limit off-road travel. Back then, we were on the tail end of huge explosion in the numbers of off-roaders using the woods. Off-road machines were getting bigger, faster and stronger – making it easier for the drivers to do great harm to the environment. In 2004, the damage caused by off-road vehicles was officially named as one of the four top threats to the health of the National Forests and Grasslands.
What will happen on Mt. Hood?
It’s too early to say. In a preliminary plan, known as a Scoping Document, Mt. Hood officials propose creating six areas throughout the forest where off-roaders will be allowed.
The next step is the release of the Environmental Impact Statement, which is expected to come out this week or next. The EIS will have an updated version of the Travel Management Plan, plus some alternatives to consider. This will be a very influential point in the process, and will set the agenda for the debate that will play out in September and possibly into October.
At first, the change appears to be a slam dunk victory for environmentalists and quiet recreationists, a group that includes hikers, bird watchers, fishermen, horse riders, mountain bikers and hunters. Any new plan is expected to dramatically limit off-road travel. There are an estimated 3500-4000 miles of roads in the Mt. Hood National Forest. If the current plan was approved without any changes, off-roaders will be limited to about 224 miles of roads and trails.
But local environmental groups are concerned for a number of reasons. One of the proposed off-road areas, called LaDee Flats, is wedged up against two Wilderness areas, the Salmon Huckleberry Wilderness to the northeast and the newly created Roaring Fork River Wilderness to the southeast. An off-roader who doesn’t understand or won’t obey the new rules could easily stray into these wildernesses and do severe damage to environmentally sensitive areas.
Another area, called Bear Creek, is on the north side of Mt. Hood. Deb Wachselblatt of the environmental group Bark says this is considered the “quiet” side of the mountain. “There’s no documented use of that area by motorized users and it’s adjacent to wilderness area,” she says. “It would really diminish that quality if there was motorized use there.” Forest officials propose adding 40 new miles of off-road, single-track, trails at Bear Creek. Mt. Hood’s Jennie O’Connor Card says the off-road community wanted an area where only motorcycles would be allowed, and the forest is trying to fill that niche for them.
Wachselblatt says with only a few law enforcement staffers on the payroll, Mt. Hood officials simply don’t have the resources to make sure the new rules are followed. “It may be the case of a few bad seeds that make rogue trails. But once those rogue trails are established I think other people will probably ride on them,” she says. “The Forest Service is still going to have a problem on their hands.”
O’Connor Card agrees that Mt. Hood has “limited” law enforcement staff, but adds the Forest also works cooperatively with other law enforcement agencies.
(NOTE: Deb has left Bark since our interview with her.)
What’s happening elsewhere in Oregon?
Probably the best person to answer that question is Randy Rasmussen, the West Coast representative for the American Hiking Society. Based in Corvallis, Rasmussen has worked with environmental groups around the state on Travel Management Plans.
Rasmussen says, so far, the results are mixed. For the most part, he likes the plans that have been approved for the Willamette and Siuslaw National Forests. On the other hand, he’s says the draft plan for the Rogue River-Siskiyou Forest is about as bad as it gets. Rasmussen says it converts hiking trails into off-road trails, gives official status to some rogue trails, adds trails in potential wilderness areas and in parts of the forest that are considered “sensitive botanical” areas.
He and Wachselblatt believe that quiet users of the forest have been outgunned in this debate by the off-road community. Rasmussen says quiet users have a big stake in these plans. “If you’re a quiet recreationist, you’re trying to get away from the sights and sounds and mechanized intrusions of modern society,” he says. “But it shouldn’t mean you have to go to wilderness to get that.” Rasmussen thinks it should be easier to find quiet forests that are closer to home.
“Quiet recreationists, by definition, seek out quiet opportunities and that’s becoming a limited resource in our national forests. There are fewer and fewer quiet places in large part because of off road vehicles.”
What happens next?
Once the Mt. Hood travel plan EIS is released, there will be a minimum 30-day period for public comments. Mt. Hood officials will also hold a series of public meetings, and one of them is expected to take place in Portland. A final decision is expected before the end of the year.
RESOURCES:
American Hiking Society: Travel Management Planning
Bark: Mt. Hood Off-Highway Vehicle Plan
Mt. Hood Travel Management Plan (you may have to scroll down this page to find it)
Blue Ribbon Coalition (off-roading group, supported by members and the off-roading industry)
