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Quoted from the appended article about the ever more contentious Recreation Site Facility Master Planning Process and the proposed closing down of perhaps thousands of campgrounds nationwide:
[(Deputy chief of the Forest Service) Holtrop emphasized that recreation facility planning is not a decision process. Rather, it is an analysis tool, and therefore is not subject to the national environmental policy act's environmental impact statement requirement.]
There are two problems with this statement.
Firstly, whatever analytical value the RS-FMP had was negated when the USFS inappropriately applied their "Multiply by Zero Fiddle". By arbitrarily zeroing out the ranking score of unfavored facilities, the analytical process was turned into a frightful waste of taxpayer's money.
Secondly, and contrary to Holtrop's assertion, NEPA and other environmental laws apply. Before the USFS goes bulldozing any more campgrounds they had better start paying attention to the laws that they are breaking.
That's not a threat. That's merely a friendly reminder letting the USFS know that they are pissing off a great many recreating Americans and to inform them that there are many in Congress who are weary of their incompetence and arrogance. When the USFS starts over, it will behoove them to do things, and get things, right.
Scott
--- begin quoted ---
January 30, 2007
Closing campgrounds
By BRODIE FARQUHAR Star-Tribune correspondent
Stung by negative press about campground closures, as well as criticism
from conservation activists about a lack of public involvement in the
process, the U.S. Forest Service says it wants to do better.
"Our aim is to raise the standard for participation and strengthen our
work with the public so we can collectively determine the needs for
forest recreation facilities and meet future demands," said Forest
Service Chief Dale Bosworth this week in a letter to regional
foresters. "The ultimate goal is to improve recreation opportunities
and experiences on national forests."
The agency's recreation site facility master plan looks not only at
campgrounds, but also assesses the viability of picnic areas, boat
ramps, vehicle pullouts with interpretative signs and trailhead kiosks.
In one of his last acts as chief of the Forest Service, Bosworth has
tapped a national review team to gauge the effectiveness of citizen
participation in the recreation facility planning process. He charged
the national team to conduct a thorough review and make recommendations
by April 2.
For the next 60 days, said Joel Holtrop, deputy chief of the Forest
Service, no national forest will make any decisions about what
recreational facilities will be closed, kept open or changed to meet
public needs.
Asked what was the genesis of the recreation facility planning program,
Holtrop said it was an internal initiative, not prompted by Congress or
the Bush administration. He acknowledged that in the face of mounting
criticism and press attention, it was time to figure out how public
participation in the process might be best improved.
Scope of closures
The Forest Service manages about 15,000 camping areas and other
recreational sites on 155 national forests and 193 million acres of
public lands. The agency is imposing a for-profit model on those sites.
In Oregon's Deschutes National Forest, for example, only 14 out of 212
existing developed recreation sites will remain open and free to public
use, according to research by Robert Funkhouser, president of the
Western Slope No-Fee Coalition in Colorado. All the rest will be shut
down, turned over to concessionaires or kept open as fee sites, he said.
In Colorado, half of the 140 campgrounds and other facilities in the
Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison national forests face closure.
Last month, the Denver Post reported that 44 national forests have gone
through the recreation facility planning process, and 10 percent of
their facilities are marked for decommissioning or closure, with
another 175 forests and national grasslands to complete their reviews
by the end of 2007. The Post also reported that seven Rocky Mountain
region forests in Colorado and Wyoming have submitted plans which call
for either closing or reducing services to about 150 sites. The
Shoshone National Forest proposes decommissioning 42 sites.
According to Scott Silver, director of the Wild Wilderness conservation
group, "The U.S. Forest Service is generating dozens of 'proposed
five-year programs of work' which collectively call for the closing,
decommissioning and privatizing (of) hundreds upon hundreds of
recreation sites and facilities. The process had been on track to
shutter, demolish and/or reduce the season of operation for thousands
of recreation facilities from coast to coast.
"The process is geared to concentrating access into relatively few,
crowded and expensive to visit, facilities," Silver said. "The process
calls for doing away with those special places in the forest were one
could enjoy uncrowded, minimally developed, camping. The process is one
of transforming the great outdoors into a place where recreation is
sold to paying customers and where the quest for making a buck off
recreation dominates."
Team leader
Beth Pendleton, deputy regional forester for the Pacific Southwest in
California, heads the new review team. She said the team members will
study what has happened to date regarding public participation, and
will also look at all communication methods and avenues, such as public
meetings, public notices, postings on the Internet and working with
journalists to get the word out.
Holtrop emphasized that recreation facility planning is not a decision
process. Rather, it is an analysis tool, and therefore is not subject
to the National Environmental Policy Act's environmental impact
statement requirement.
Holtrop was asked if individual national forests that have announced
facility changes and closures would "have to start over." He said
different circumstances would apply to different forests, based on the
degree that the public was or was not involved. Holtrop did keep the
door open to reversing national forest decisions to close individual
recreation facilities.
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- Land management 
