New roads in Tongass must get Ag secretary OK

The one-year moratorium reinstates a Clinton-era rule and effectively brings to a halt new road construction and development in remote national forests. It's designed to provide "clarity and consistency" on a number of disparate court rulings while the administration develops long-term national forest management plans, said Chris Mather, a spokeswoman for Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

"This is a way to provide some clarity and consistency while we develop a long-term roadless plan," Mather said. "These conflicting court cases have created confusion, and we want to eliminate any inconsistency and, more importantly, ensure the decisions that are made are reflective of President Obama's commitment to protecting forests."

No new development or timber sales will go forward in roadless national forests unless Vilsack agrees to them, Mather said. He also has the authority to halt projects.

Vilsack's move will have the most immediate effect in Southeast Alaska, where it's likely to slow or even halt four timber sales in the Tongass National Forest, the nation's largest, which encompasses much of Southeast. Sales scheduled for this summer would have allowed the building of about 35 miles of logging roads to access the timber.

"This is great news for the Tongass," said Juneau lawyer Tom Waldo of Earthjustice, the environmental organization that sued when the Bush administration repealed the Clinton-era roadless plan. "These roadless areas are the heart and soul of the Tongass."

His colleague Kristin Boyles, a Seattle attorney, said they believe the new approach will allow national forests to avoid what she called "classic death by a thousand cuts" -- development decisions that were made piecemeal by managers of each individual national forest without taking into account watersheds and ecosystems that cross state and forest unit boundaries.

"The Obama administration inherited some awful environmental policy from the Bush administration," she said. "This is one of them."

The decision also marks something a setback for the timber industry, although Tom Partin, the president of the Portland, Ore.-based American Forest Resource Council, said it was a "responsible" approach to give Vilsack the final say.

"That's good he's doing it, the secretary saying, 'I will be the responsible one.' " Partin said. "There's so much confusion out there, with courts having jurisdiction over the roadless areas."

Eventually, Partin said, the industry would like see the national roadless plan mirror that of Idaho, where state officials have developed their own management plan for 9.3 million acres, the most national forest land of any state besides Alaska. Vilsack's moratorium won't affect Idaho, where last year a roadless plan went into effect that largely bans new roads but does open 405,000 acres of roadless lands to full forest uses, including logging, road construction and phosphate mining.

"That's really the best way to do it -- a broad view from above it isn't the proper way to do this," Partin said. "The local communities, counties and industries and other folks who use this land, they should have a say-so in how these lands are disposed of."

Idaho was the sole state to be exempted from the plan, Mather said, because officials "created a solution to the problem that is the impetus for us doing this today."

The one-year "timeout" is a major step in protecting roadless areas, said Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, who with 120 other members of the House of Representatives asked Vilsack to review pending proposals. They feared that they'd be unable to protect some of the land from damaging activities that might be able to proceed because of the conflicting court decisions.

Still, Rahall said, there's still work to be done: "These wild forests need permanent protection to continue providing clean water, wildlife habitat and boundless recreational opportunities."

Waldo of Earthjustice in Juneau said Thursday's decision could affect Tongass sales scheduled for Revillagigedo Island, Prince of Wales Island, Suemez Island, Kuiu Island and Etolin Island.

Find Erika Bolstad online at adn.com/contact/ebolstad or call her at 202-383-6104. Elizabeth Bluemink contributed to this story.