Blasting of Idaho logjam stirs criticism
Published 9:00 pm Monday, July 31, 2006
BOISE, Idaho – Last week’s dynamiting of a logjam on the Salmon River in central Idaho’s Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness has prompted criticism from groups who say federally protected reserves are no place for high-explosive intrusions on nature.
The logjam, the result of a washout from a sudden storm, forced 250 whitewater rafters on guided trips to camp upstream for three days until Forest Service officials removed the obstruction.
Agency officials analyzed several options, including waiting for spring floods to wash out the logs jammed into the tight Pistol Creek Rapids. They also considered evacuating boaters.
While guides and outfitters who earn millions from rafting trips annually say blasting was a “common sense” solution, George Nickas, the Missoula, Mont.-based director of Wilderness Watch, said letting human schedules dictate wilderness management goes against the whole idea of what wilderness is about: protecting an area where man is a visitor, but doesn’t remain.
His group argues for strict interpretation of the 1964 law that created wilderness areas.
“The Forest Service missed an opportunity to teach a valuable lesson,” Nickas, whose group often sues the agency to limit human activity in these federally protected reserves, told the Idaho Statesman newspaper. “The Forest Service’s response reminds me of former Interior Secretary Wally Hickel’s statement, ‘We can’t let wilderness run wild.’ There was no emergency. There were many options for people to get out of there.”
The Forest Service, however, says it must balance competing aims of the federal Wilderness Act. While it bans logging, motorized use and development, it also calls for finding a middle ground between human recreation and allowing nature to exist in its natural state.
The Salmon River is hardly pristine: Thousands of people float the 100-mile river on large rafts every year. Outfitters keep in touch with civilization via cell phones, cook up gourmet meals in relatively luxurious camps and guests fly into the Indian Creek airstrip by the dozen during peak season.
Officials say this balance helps acquaint regular folks with wilderness, creating new generations of advocates for setting aside land that’s off-limits to most mining, logging and development but still provides opportunities to recreate.
Regional Forester Jack Troyer, based in Ogden, Utah, finally called for the logjam to be blasted to protect the safety of the people stranded, who included elderly and disabled people and children, said Kent Fuellenbach, a Salmon-Challis National Forest spokesman.
“If they hadn’t had all those people there it would have been strictly a wilderness question and they probably wouldn’t have done it,” Fuellenbach said, adding the Forest Service regularly uses explosives in wilderness areas in trail building and maintenance work.
He said the only deviation from wilderness rules in this case was to allow workers to use a motorized drill to make holes in the logjam for the dynamite.
