County criticizes wild lands proposal

By STEVE KADEL Western News Reporter

Lincoln County Commissioners on Wednesday criticized the amount of proposed wilderness in the starting option for updating the Kootenai National Forest's management plan.

Commissioner Rita Windom said she was "shocked" by the number of acres being proposed.

"People I talk to say we have enough wilderness," she said.

Commissioners John Konzen and Marianne Roose agreed, saying they would prefer to see those areas protected with a designation that allows re-evaluation in the future.

"The wilderness advocates are in the driver's seat and the rest of us are gasping for air," Roose said.

"We think there are other ways to have wilderness protection," Konzen said.

Their comments came during an informal meeting with Kootenai National Forest Supervisor Bob Castaneda and forest recreation staff member Bill Fansler.

The "starting option" is the basis for discussions about the new plan to guide management of the forest for the next 15 years. Fansler said provisions in the starting option, such as the amount of proposed wilderness, result from citizen meetings, phone calls and written comments received by the U.S. Forest Service.

There were more than 400 comments just on the forest's 85 inventoried roadless areas, he noted.

"We can't meet everybody's needs," Fansler said.

"We will be making changes, but I already have a good idea what people want and what they don't want," Castaneda said.

Windom said land being recommended for wilderness designation is following a suspicious pattern. It appears to be "an overlay" of the grizzly management areas, creating corridors where motorized use would be prohibited. She's concerned that private property would be affected and that areas previously designated for timber harvest would be lost.

"The public is not stupid," Windom said. "They're going to see that."

"From a biologist's standpoint it makes sense," Fansler said of the corridor concept.

Castaneda said some of the controversial areas might be labeled non-motorized rather than wilderness.

"That gives the release valve that people want," Windom said.

The current forest plan, adopted in 1987, includes 102,500 acres of proposed wilderness. The starting option now under discussion calls for 191,600 acres of proposed wilderness.

Early in the process to update the Kootenai's management plan, forest officials were still operating under federal guidelines requiring them to bring several alternative options to the public for discussion.

During an interview after Wednesday's meeting, Forest Service recreation staff member Fansler said some of those options called for considerably more recommended wilderness than in the starting option.

The increase in wilderness now being proposed is a modest boost, he said, compared with what forest managers had been discussing.

"We wanted to bring a range of options," Fansler said.

That was wiped off the books when top Forest Service officials decided to revamp the process, dumping the multi-option approach in favor of a starting option.

Castaneda took the commissioners' comments in stride Wednesday. He said that no matter what starting option had been brought forward, there would be significant opposition from some faction.