Forest Planning Guidelines Revised
Forest Service gets back to work on forest plan
By K.C. Mehaffey, World staff writer, March 20, 2008 [here]
WENATCHEE — The Okanogan and Wenatchee National Forests will soon resume work on its Forest Plan — the document that guides what happens on the national forest over the next 15 years — a year after the process was put on hold due to a court decision.
Last March, a ruling in U.S. District Court in San Francisco overturned a Bush Administration policy that allowed forests to develop new forest plans without a lengthy environmental review.
The Okanogan and Wenatchee National Forests, which started developing its new Forest Plan in 2003, was using the new policy to revise forest plans adopted for the Wenatchee National Forest in 1990, the Okanogan National Forest in 1989 and the Colville National Forest in 1988.
A new planning rule, expected to be published in the Federal Register next week in response to the court ruling, will allow each individual national forest to determine which level of environmental review is necessary, said Margaret Hartzell, the Forest Plan revision leader for the forests.
“What we will do, when we revise the Forest Plan, is we will use the appropriate level of NEPA documentation to do that,” she said.
That means the plan could require an environmental impact statement, or it could be reviewed through an environmental analysis or a categorical exclusion, which are lower levels of scrutiny than the EIS.
“We are going to honor and pay attention to … what people have provided to us for the past couple of years, and we will be coming back and talking to even more people over the next year,” she said.
The team now hopes to have a draft Forest Plan ready for review by November, she said, and a final plan could be adopted in late 2009.
Debbie Kelly, spokeswoman for the Okanogan and Wenatchee National Forests, said the Forest Service will soon begin to schedule public meetings to continue the planning effort. Those interested in becoming involved can provide contact information through the Forest Plan Web site or at the Forest Service office in Okanogan, 1240 S. Second Ave., Okanogan, 98840.