Meeting on forest roadless areas next week in Worland

WORLAND — The fourth meeting of a citizen-driven collaborative group established to make recommendations to Wyoming Governor Matt Mead on roadless area management on the Bighorn National Forest will be held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sept. 21, 2016 at the Worland Community Center in Worland.

This month’s meeting’s purpose is to continue to inform the collaborative members on roadless area management issues on the Bighorn National Forest. Presentations and discussions will focus on how to maintain roadless areas and their associated benefits, while providing an appropriate level of management tools for wildlife, wildland-urban interface areas, and municipal watersheds, to name a few affected resources.

“We’ve been pretty pleased (with the turnout of the previous three meetings),” Kristin Tilley of the Shoshone Conservation District said. “We’ve been getting the 25 members of the (collaborative) and 10 members of the public each time. It’s kind of a long process to get the groundwork formed for the trust. With the different interests that are there, you have to form the groundwork for the trust and we feel that came together last time so this next meeting will get into the meat of the topics.”

The collaborative currently includes commissioners from Big Horn, Sheridan and Johnson counties; two timber industry representatives, State Forestry representative, a citizen at-large, and representatives from grazing, wilderness, non-motorized (Backcountry Horsemen), motorized (Northwest Alliance OHV), municipal water pipeline out of Sheridan.

Tilley said they are hoping Washakie County joins at this next meeting. She noted the Washakie County commissioners supported the acquisition of the funding from the governor’s forest Collaborative Assistance program funding. “They have not given us a name on which commissioner will formally sit on the collab,” Tilley said.

Washakie County Commissioner Aaron Anderson said they are interested but due to meeting conflicts have not been able to attend. He said they’ll be discussing who might be appointed to attend the road area collaborative group meetings at their regular meeting on Tuesday.

According to a press release from the Shoshone Conservation District, the district proposed establishing a roadless area collaborative group for the Bighorn National Forest, since the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule is not consistent with the Bighorn Forest Plan. The intent of this project is to identify opportunities to reconcile these inconsistencies through a public collaborative process that would result in a recommendation to the governor for the management of roadless areas on the Bighorn National Forest.

Roadless rule

According to a press release from Tilley and the Shoshone Conservation District, it is important to note that the Roadless Area Conservation Rule (RACR) does not directly affect motorized recreation on the Bighorn National Forest; travel management is not within the scope of this collaborative. RACR prohibits timber cutting, and road construction and reconstruction, with certain exceptions, but it does not directly affect current roads or motorized trails within the ‘roadless’ areas.

Shoshone Conservation District Supervisor Keith Grant said, “This meeting, while open to the public, will focus on the collaborative group members. The collaborative group represents a diverse cross-section of people with Bighorn National Forest roadless area interests. We want this to be an open, transparent process, that the general public is able to attend and observe, but the collaborative group will do the majority of the work in making future recommendations to the governor.”

He added, “We welcome the public to provide comment to the collaborative group, either at the conclusion of the meeting or anytime via the collaborative website at https://goo.gl/IMNz6E.”

For more information, contact Tilley, Shoshone Conservation District, 307-548-7422 (Ext. 5) or [email protected].