Enviros Support Six Rivers Road Closure Plan

	After years of study, the Six Rivers National Forest (Six
Rivers) moved in late May to close some 45 miles of  its
2,000 plus mile road network to protect a unique botanical
area from the spread of Port-Orford-cedar root disease.  A
move then appealed by the off-road vehicle industry funded
Blue Ribbon Coalition and 74 other carbon-copy appeals.

	North Fork Smith River Botanical or "Special Interest
Area" (SIA) comprises 21,370 acres of the Smith River
National Recreation Area administered by the Six Rivers
National Forest.  It was identified for special protection
in the 1994 Forest Land Management Plan to provide for its
"exceptional botanical and ecological value." Not only was
this to protect the endemic Port-Orford-cedar (POC), but as
well to protect Darlingtonia fens and other rare plant
species found there.

	In 1997 the Six Rivers convened a series of public
meetings to further discuss the management of the seven
identified SIAs on the million acre forest.

	In January of 1998 Six Rivers published its Special
Interest Area Management Area  Strategy that listed the
concerns and management options it identified for each SIA
on the forest.

	Those protective measures identified for the North Fork
SIA included road closure to protect POC and other species.
That report noted that a root disease risk assessment
conducted by the forest indicated the roads in question
represented a high risk of importing the root disease,
closely related to that now killing oaks in California.

	The report also noted that the roads were already subject
to seasonal closures, and that in fact one of the roads in
question had been closed by a decision in the Forest Plan
in 1995 and that the other had been washed out by two
slides in 1997.

	Don Amador, writing the Blue Ribbon Coalition's appeal of
the road closure, flippantly accuses the Six Rivers of
failing to have an adequate range of alternatives because
it only looked at "two 'closure alternatives' and one
red-herring 'no-action alternative'" and that the decision
was based on "so-called 'coffee and donut' in-house
discussions between agency staff."

	Groups including the NEC, Sierra Club, EPIC and others are
sending interested party status letters to Regional
Forester Bradley Powell, USDA Forest Service, Region 5,
1323 Club Drive, Vallejo, CA 94592, in support of the
Forest Service closure decision in the matter of appeal
#01-05-00-0079-A215 and its dittos.

	The North Fork Smith area is one of only two remaining
root-disease free areas in the entire Smith River National
Recreation Area.  Bear Creek, High Plateau Creek,
Peridotite Canyon Creek, and Stony Creek form the largest
uninfected watersheds in the North Fork Smith Botanical
Area, making them essential refugia for the rare and
beautiful cedar, as well as and its world-class assemblage
of other endemic plant species.


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Tim McKay, ph 707.677.3172
712 Eighth Avenue
Trinidad, California 95570