New plan allows motorized vehicles at Fish Lake Trail

The Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest has updated a 36-year-old Forest Plan to allow the use of motorized vehicles in the Fish Lake Trail area.

Last year, U.S. District Court Judge B. Lynn Winmill at Boise ruled the forest violated its management plan and travel rules when it OK’d motorized vehicles to access the remote lake in the upper reaches of the North Fork of the Clearwater River Basin not far from the Montana state line. The Moscow-based environmental group Friends of the Clearwater sued the agency, arguing motorized use violated Forest Plan standards that called for strict protection of elk habitat.

Andrew Skowlund, ranger of the North Fork District, said the modification reduces the strict elk habitat standard from 100% to a range of 91% to 98%, depending on location. Skowlund said the 100% standard is unachievable.

“This is an amendment that ... reconsiders new scientific information around elk habitat,” Skowlund said Tuesday.

“The metric that was used for those areas surrounding Fish Lake and the trail itself was supposed to provide everything that elk need to be happy in their environment. 100% is not real in a natural dynamic, but that original analysis did not take into account the original context of that environment.”

Skowlund said years ago the Fish Lake Trail was a primitive-type Jeep road in the 1950s and 1960s and those elements of human disturbance mean that the pristine conditions for elk habitat effectiveness cannot ever reach 100%.

“So we’ve reduced the standard to say that the area is sufficient to provide 90% effectiveness,” Skowlund said. That would allow continued summer motorized use of the trial.

“That is intended to be the ultimate outcome,” he said. “It’s supported by science and the historical use of that area and trail corridor. It’s a motorized trail and we are hoping we will be in compliance with the court’s order to re-evaluate.”

Hedberg may be contacted at khedberg@lmtribune.com.