Idaho

Willderness bills have long divided Idahoans - and the people Idahoans elect to represent them on Capitol Hill.

But not this year. All four members of the delegation have signed on to Idaho's next good wilderness bill, the product of years of patient work by GOP Rep. Mike Simpson. They have agreed to cross party lines. They are moving forward, in an election year.

John Miller

Tribal rangers from a southern Idaho and northern Nevada American Indian tribe will fly helicopters over their ancestral homeland in the Owyhee Front starting this holiday weekend to keep watch on important cultural resources and protect them from vandalism and theft.

The Shoshone-Paiute Tribes on the Duck Valley Indian Reservation are descended from Western Shoshone and Northern Paiute groups that have made the Great Basin home for thousands of years. They have sacred sites within the new 517,000-acre federally protected Owyhee wilderness created in 2009, as well as across the entire canyon-laced region that includes parts of Nevada, Oregon and Idaho.

POTLATCH – Restoration work is underway in a meadow torn up by illegal all-terrain vehicle (ATV) use on the Palouse Ranger District of the Clearwater National Forest.

According to the Forest Service, the majority of the work is being funded by restitution paid by individuals responsible for the damage.

Eric Barker

POMEROY -- In a move to increase safety, some of the main roads in the Blue Mountains have been closed to all-terrain vehicle traffic by Umatilla National Forest officials.

The change has riled local ATV riders, who plan to form a group to protest the closures and to have a stronger voice in future management decisions.

I am opposed to allowing ATVs at Bruneau Sand Dunes State Park. There are legitimate places on "public lands" for the use of such vehicles. Units of the Idaho state park system should be the best examples of Idaho's natural and historic heritage. As "one of the largest sand dunes in North America," Bruneau Dunes is worthy of state park status.

If the director of Parks and Recreation has the authority to make such a radical change to the management parameters of such a state park, then there is an obvious flaw in the statutes that define what a state park is or isn't. Perhaps a legislative proposal to clarify the definition of "state park" is necessary to end the madness and prevent further aberrant proposals.

Allowing ATVs at Bruneau Sand Dunes is a terrible idea that would require an extreme act of negligence and forgetfulness. Why aren't motorized vehicles currently allowed on the dunes? Is it perhaps because they would destroy the very qualities that make this unique - dare I say sacred - place worth visiting?

At very least, a revision of the park description would be in order: "Feel the breeze on your face even on a rare windless day. Keep a sharp eye out for an array of extraordinary desert species - they're hard to spot as you whiz by at 40 mph, even for a seasoned land-mobiler. When you've had your fill, come rest your weary thumbs by the lake and bask in the serene, chant-like drone of engines ... ."

April Reese

Forest Service managers have allowed off-highway vehicles (OHVs) to extensively damage portions of Idaho's Salmon-Challis National Forest, including cutting deep ruts into riparian areas, wildlife habitat and potential wilderness areas, a new lawsuit filed by environmentalists claims.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court by the Idaho Conservation League and Wilderness Society, seeks to force the Forest Service to tighten restrictions on motorized recreation in roadless areas, reduce OHV impacts to natural resources, and restore "natural peace and quiet" that can be found only in remote areas like Salmon-Challis.

Todd Dvorak

BOISE, Idaho — Two environmental groups have filed a lawsuit in federal court claiming the new off-road vehicle plan for the Salmon-Challis National Forest fails to protect land, streams and wildlife across hundreds of thousands of acres of eastern and central Idaho backcountry.

The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court Friday also asks a judge to block the forest from implementing its new travel management plan, the policy rewritten last year to designate appropriate routes and areas for all-terrain vehicles and other off-road recreation.

TREASURE VALLEY — Three Idaho statutes undergo revisions beginning at the first of the year.

The first is Title 63, chapter 36, section 38, affecting the distribution of sales tax.