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Cheers, boos greet BLM plan By Paul Fattig ASHLAND -- A Bureau of Land Management draft proposal to expand by nearly 10,000 acres a biologically diverse area specially protected by Uncle Sam is being both condemned and complimented. "There is something wrong with process when local people are not listened to," concluded Jack Walker, a member of the Jackson County Board of Commissioners. "(Interior Secretary) Bruce Babbitt's trip back here was just lip service," he added. "It's been a done deal from day one." Not so, responded Dave Willis, chairman of the Soda Mountain Wilderness Council. "It's a great half-step in the right direction," Willis said. "It's refreshing to see the BLM honestly wrestling with the question of what it means to manage and maintain the area while enhancing its ecological integrity." They were reacting to a draft management and environmental impact statement and draft management plan released Friday for the Cascade Siskiyou Ecological Emphasis Area in the mountains southeast of Ashland. In its preferred alternative, the agency said it wants to increase the area to 40,975 acres while further restricting timber harvest and cattle grazing there. It also calls for closing some 17 miles of the controversial four-wheel-drive road that runs for about 25 miles through part of the area. The Soda Mountain area within the study area has been proposed for a national monument, an idea that brought Babbitt to the region twice in the past six months. The area has been the focus of recent debate among environmentalists, the timber industry, ranchers, recreational users and others on how it should be managed. Currently, the ecological emphasis area covers 31,575 acres and includes land on the Oregon side of the border where the Siskiyou Mountains meet the Cascade Range. Environmentalists have been pressing for additional protection of up to 70,000 acres of federal land in the area. Release of the draft marked the beginning of a 90-day public comment period that ends June 14. A final decision is expected Nov. 1. Four other management plans were considered, ranging from no action to focusing on commodities such as timber and grazing. The draft plan is not connected with proposals by an environmental group and government officials hoping to make Soda Mountain a national monument, according to BLM officials. But Walker, while complimenting local BLM employees for their management of the area, isn't buying it. He believes there is a strong connection between the monument proposal and the preferred alternative. "This is all Bruce Babbitt," he said. "We pretty much know what the true BLM feelings are in this. I think they are being forced to come up with this." Walker has told Babbitt that the area's management should remain unchanged to allow continued access and resource use. "We (commissioners) don't deny that unique and diverse ecology is there," he said, adding that human impact on the area for the past 100 years is what created that diversity. The commissioners are also concerned that enlarging the area will further reduce timber revenues to the county. "And the media never even questions the qualitative nature of these environmental organizations," he said. "They are listened to, yet we in the local government, in the business community are not. There is something wrong with that." Dave Hill, executive vice president of the Southern Oregon Timber Industries Association, is concerned that the BLM's preferred alternative calls for enlarging the area before all the comments are received. The private lands encircled by the boundary will be greatly impacted by further restrictions, he predicted. "Even though we heard Babbitt proclaim that private lands wouldn't be affected, I really question that," he said. "And I don't think it's much of a question that it will be a national monument after the Clinton administration and Babbitt are done with it." Medford resident Rocky Reeser, a member of the Motorcycle Riders Association, agreed. "No matter how much multiple-use logic is put on the table ... it appears the radical environmentalists are getting their way," he said. But Willis, while noting he is not completely pleased with the alternative, believes there is nothing radical with protecting the area. "This is an ecological emphasis area, not an off-road-vehicle emphasis area," he said. Yet he was concerned that the preferred alternative calls for using cattle and timber harvest as management tools. "We don't think an ecological emphasis area is a place to try out the next experimental technique," he said. "It's a place for an extremely light touch, if any touch at all." Beginning Monday, the draft document and the preferred alternative will be on the agency's Web site at: www.or.blm.gov/Medford Today's Edition : News | Sports | Business | Weather | Tempo | Classifieds Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA