Forests: Boundary Waters air pollution concerns stymie Superior NF travel plan

The Obama administration has agreed to take a closer look at the air quality impacts associated with off-highway vehicle (OHV) use in portions of Superior National Forest that lie adjacent to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northern Minnesota.

According to a March 30 notice issued by the Forest Service's Eastern regional office, the government will re-evaluate a "no significant impact" finding associated with a new transportation plan announced last December for the Superior forest, including provisions governing OHV use on approximately 1,600 miles of forest.

Environmentalists appealed a December decision by Superior Forest Supervisor James Sanders authorizing the "travel management project" for the 3-million-acre forest, which abuts Lake Superior and the Canadian border and is home to several iconic species, including moose, black bears, gray wolves and Canada lynx. Nondesignated trails such as this one in the Superior National Forest have long been used by off-highway vehicles. Many such trails would be decommissioned under the service's travel management project. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Forest Service.

The 1.3-million-acre Boundary Waters wilderness, one of the first designated under the 1964 Wilderness Act, is immensely popular with paddlers, anglers and outdoor enthusiasts who ply its 1,500 miles of canoe trails and camp under dense canopies of aspen, fir and northern pines.

"This is definitely a victory for Americans who treasure wilderness and quiet recreation on their public lands," said Cyndi Tuell of the Center for Biological Diversity, one of six groups that challenged the travel management project in February.

In their appeal, environmentalists argued that the new roads-and-trails blueprint, required under the 2004 updated forest plan, would allow for an "extensive OHV trail system adjacent to the Boundary Waters," posing significant new threats to the area's overall forest health, including effects to wildlife, water quality and sense of solitude.

A 'narrow' ruling

While rejecting most of the environmentalists' claims -- the project actually reduces the number of trail miles available to OHV users in sensitive areas -- the service agreed to reverse Sanders' decision "on the narrow issue of air quality effects to the BWCAW."

Eastern regional forester Kent Connaughton, who oversees Forest Service activities in 20 states from New England to the Great Lakes, granted the reversal based on the recommendation of Meg Mitchell, forest supervisor for Green Mountain and Finger Lakes national forests.

Mitchell reviewed multiple challenges to the Superior travel project, including ones from OHV user groups but recommended reversal only on the environmentalists' claims about air quality impacts. She based her decision on the Boundary Waters' status as a Clean Air Act Class 1 airshed, meaning its air quality must meet the highest federal standards.

While granting further review of OHVs' air quality impacts, the Forest Service expects the machines to contribute relatively small amounts of pollution to the Boundary Waters' air compared to other activities such as prescribed burning.

"Notwithstanding this fact, or the obvious reductions in the numbers of miles of open roads for ATV use, I find no analysis or discussion of air quality impacts for this project on the BWCAW" in the environmental assessment or decision notice, Mitchell wrote in her recommendation. "I agree with the appellants that this discussion is important since the BWCAW is designated as a Class 1 area under the Clean Air Act."

Other groups involved in the appeal, including the Minneapolis-based Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness, called the decision "a significant step toward protecting the wilderness from the negative impacts of these vehicles, which can shatter the silence and solitude that so many of us love about the Boundary Waters, destroy habitat for iconic species like the Canada lynx, and cause pollution that degrades the ecosystem."

OHV users' defense

OHV users say such concerns are overstated. They note that thousands of wilderness area recreationists drive their vehicles right to the edge of the Boundary Waters to launch canoes and kayaks into the wilderness, and many of those vehicles pose equal or greater noise and pollution threats.

"It's not like the noise magically stops at the edge of the wilderness," said Rhonda Silence, secretary of the Cook County ATV Club, which represents 350 OHV users. "There's always been noise. You have to paddle pretty far into the Boundary Waters if you want to get a true wilderness experience."

Moreover, Silence said, most current model all-terrain vehicles are equipped with advanced pollution controls that cut down significantly on both emissions and noise. "You can stand next to my ATV and breathe in and not smell any emissions," she said, though she also acknowledged there are some users who "jack theirs up and make it noisier."

More important, Silence said, is that OHV use is deeply embedded in the north woods culture of Minnesota, where many people use three- and four-wheelers to travel between neighboring cabins and businesses or to reach boat launches and fish camps that are reachable only by trail or unimproved logging roads.

Far from expanding OHV access, Silence said the Forest Service Travel Management Project is actually decommissioning many sections of road or trail that were once available for motorized recreation. "With this plan, they really aren't giving the ATVers anything," she said. "There are some rugged individuals who like to get out in the woods and do their own thing, and that was kind of ignored."

But Kris Reichenbach, a Superior National Forest spokeswoman, said the plan provides roughly the same number of trail and road miles to OHV users, but strikes a better balance between OHV user access and protecting the sensitive Boundary Waters wilderness.

"The intent of the decision was to eliminate large portions of old roads that were built as temporary roads where we know there's resource damage and we know there are problems of unauthorized use," Reichenbach said. "What we wanted to do was consolidate use on the trails that are most appropriate for off-highway vehicles and create connectors between those roads and trails."

Source: http://w3.nexis.com/new/results/docview/docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T6827559424&format=GNBFI&sort=BOOLEAN&startDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T6827559428&cisb=22_T6827559427&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&csi=250042&docNo=2

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