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Lawsuit filed protesting Badger-Two Medicine travel plan
By EVE BYRON Independent Record | Posted: Friday, October 2, 2009 12:00 am | (0) Comments
Seven individuals and three motorized use organizations filed a lawsuit in federal court in Great Falls Thursday saying a travel plan in the Badger-Two Medicine area of the Lewis and Clark National Forest violates their civil rights.
In the 38-page complaint, the plaintiffs - Clifford and Julie Fortune, Theo and Dianna Crawford, Arley Jolliffe, Dewayne Blackman, Larry Brown, the Montana Trial Vehicle Riders and Capital Trail Vehicle Riders associations, and Montanans for Multiple Use - ask for an injunction against implementation of the travel plan for the 129,500-acre Badger-Two Medicine (BTM) area.
They claim it "advances a favored Native American religion on a large portion of the BTM in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution; it violates the rights of Blackfeet Tribal members to access this area under rights reserved to them in an 1895 Treaty with the United States Government; and it violates the United States Constitution's guarantees of due process and equal protection of the law by enacting a recreation ban that can only be enforced against non-Blackfeet Tribal members on the basis of race," according to the lawsuit.
The plaintiffs also believe the plan violates federal environmental and Forest Service management acts.
The travel plan in question was released for comment in August 2002, and after a series of public comment periods and drafts, the final Record of Decision was released in March 2009.
In the final decision, Forest Supervisor "Spike" Thompson decided to close 182 of the 189 miles on the Badger-Two Medicine to all motorized vehicles. Six miles are open to licensed road vehicles in order to allow people to reach non-motorized trailheads, and about ½ mile is seasonally open to licensed road vehicles. Two miles out of the 189 are open seasonally to motorized use.
