Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act - IT'S BACK AGAIN!!! AND AGAIN!!!

2013-03-08T08:00:00Z Snowmobilers left out of forest jobs act discussionGuest column by STAN SPENCER missoulian.com
March 08, 2013 8:00 am • Guest column by STAN SPENCER
(3) Comments


A (Feb. 12) guest column by Alex Philip and Loren Rose applauded Sen. Jon Tester’s, D-Mont., proposed Forest jobs and Recreation Act. I would be the first to agree that a collaborative process to achieve a desired result for all parties is a good thing. I don’t see this as a true collaborative process. I would characterize it as a co-operative process because only parties sympathetic to the expected outcome were invited to the party.
As an advocate for snowmobiling and public lands director of the Missoula Snowgoers Snowmobile Association, I asked to be included in the initial discussions. My request was denied.
After reading the proposed Forest Jobs and Recreation Act, I could only surmise the following discussions:
Timber industry: We need wood to feed our mills and you wilderness guys are killing us with lawsuits.
Wilderness advocates: You timber guys want to cut timber where we like to hike and camp in the summer.
TI: how about we agree to not log some areas and you get off our case.
WA: OK, we will need about 1 million additional acres to recreate in, and by the way, no motorized access has to be part of the deal.
TI: It doesn’t seem right to shut down a bunch of historic snowmobile areas that you guys can’t get to in the winter, except by snowmobile.
WA: We don’t share our personal recreational space with anyone.
TI: But we told the public that snowmobilers across Montana agreed to this deal.
WA: Boy, you guys are not good at wordsmithing. We said “snowmobilers agreed to the deal.” We were very careful to omit the words “all” or “majority.” Notice we also did not disclose that only a few snowmobilers in one small geographic area agreed to support this bill because we made a special deal with them to only close half of the area they ride in, which by the way, we have a plan to undo down the road if the Forest jobs and Recreation Act is passed.
TI: That doesn’t seem very ethical.
WA: You want a deal or not?
TI: So the bottom line is even though snowmobiles leave no trace of activity after the snow melts and you don’t access those riding areas in the winter, you can still rationalize shutting them out as a “balanced approach.”
WA: Hey, it’s balanced in our favor. What part of that don’t you understand?
TI: Should we be concerned that our deal is not on solid ground because not all wilderness advocacy groups signed off on it?
WA: Trust us.
The Forest Jobs and Recreation act does not add any public land for snowmobiling. It substantially reduces, by hundreds of thousands acres, historic snowmobile areas, not because of any negative environmental impact but because non-motorized users will help keep Tester in office. The snowmobile community provides a lot of jobs and recreation for Montanans – about $90 million annual economic impact, according to a 2005 University of Montana study. Throwing a good portion of these jobs out the window to appease the wilderness groups does not seem like a collaborative agreement to me.
Stan Spencer is public lands director of the Missoula Snowgoers Snowmobile Association.

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Gager said:

If you are interested in knowing exactly what areas are affected then I encourage you to download the Google Earth maps that I found on the enemy’s website here:

http://www.wildrockiesalliance.org/issues/nrepa/googleEarth/geParcels.shtml

I downloaded the Idaho maps and overlaid GPS tracks in some of favorite riding areas. If you ride Freezeout near Clarkia, ID then you will be shocked to see that everything past Mark’s Butte will be off limits. If you ride the McCall area – forget about it unless you like trail riding because everything except narrow corridors along Goose Lake, Fisher Creek and Warren Wagon Roads will be off limits! This means no Twin Lakes, no Duck Lake, no Wong’s Bowl, no Backflip Bowl, no upper Hazard Lake, no Grass Mountain Lakes – you get the idea, this will kill snowmobiling in McCall!

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