The Plumas National Forest has made a decision on their Travel Management Plan. Alice Carlton signed the Record of Decision on August 31, 2010 and it was released to the public in early November.

This summary is written by Sierra Access Coalition, and it is more straight forward than the Forest Service version on several points. (For more details on the Forest Service version of the plan, click on this link to go to their website: Plumas NF Travel Management Plan.)

Historically, the Plumas NF has been an “open forest” which allowed cross country travel. Due to national direction, the Travel Management Planning process was undertaken to designate which routes would be added to the current road and trail transportation system. The current road system consists of approx. 4400 miles and these “main” roads are not affected by this decision. 1107 miles of additional routes were inventoried by the public and by USFS contractors. Out of the 1107 miles of additional routes, only 165 miles are being designated for public use in this decision. These are referred to as “Table 1 Routes”. There are further restrictions on some of those miles. 31 of the 165 miles (19% of the mileage) have seasonal restrictions which limits the use to those routes to approx. 2 months per year. The following chart shows a breakdown of the Table 1 mileage by class of route:

There is a second list of routes that may be designated for use at a later date, if time and funding is available. These are referred to as “Table 2 Routes”. The following chart shows a breakdown of the Table 2 mileage by class of route:

A further breakdown shows the mileage of routes in Table 1 and Table 2 by Class of Route and by Ranger District:

FRRD – Feather River Ranger District MHRD – Mt Hough Ranger District BKRD – Beckwourth Ranger District

Notes: This chart does not show seasonal restrictions

“Table 2 Routes” may or may not be designated in the future

The bottom line is 870 miles of inventoried routes are not being designated for public use.

There are other issues that will affect the public:

· Firewood cutting is limited to the roads that are designated by the Forest Service. And retrieval of firewood is limited to driving one vehicle length off the designated route.

· The Forest Service made an arbitrary decision to close short dead-end spurs without any analysis which is very unfortunate, because this is where most people cut firewood and camp.

· A person can only park their vehicle one vehicle length off a designated road. This includes taking a truck off road to retrieve firewood.

· A person can only drive one vehicle length off a designated route to go camping. If the campsite is further than one vehicle length from the road, a person must carry their camping gear to their campsite.

· A hunter can only drive one vehicle length off a designated road to retrieve game.

· 4.1 miles of Level 3 road in the Deanes Valley area will be designated for mixed use, which allows green sticker vehicles to use that section of road to access the campground and surrounding roads, which is beneficial to the public.

· The Forest Service says they will try to work with the public to add additional routes in the future, although they have given no solid commitment to do this.

SAC filed an appeal December 27, 2010. The Forest Service will make a decision on our appeal by February 10, 2011.

This is a complex process and Sierra Access Coalition has been involved since the beginning, 6 years ago. We will continue to discuss issues with the Forest Service. But it is critical that all SAC members send their opinions to sierraaccess@hughes.net so we can voice your opinions to the Forest Service. SAC is a local organization with over 1200 members, so we are viewed by the Forest Service as a major stakeholder in this process. Please send us your opinions so we can represent you.