Forest Service defends gravel mine easements

Last updated 9/26/1995 at Noon

The Sisters Ranger District is defending their role in allowing use of Forest Service roads to access a proposed gravel mine and crushing operation west of Sisters.

Several families who oppose

the mine have filed a lawsuit in federal court claiming that the Forest Service violated the National Environmental Policy Act in allowing the use of Forest Service roads to access the mine site. They met with Forest Service personnel Monday, September 25.

The families believe that the change in use of the roads from their original logging uses to commercial mining uses should have triggered NEPA and required an environmental impact study of the impacts of the new use.

The road easements date back to the 1960s and were passed through several owners before current land owner and mine partner Crown Pacific took possession of them.

Don Peterson, who works in the supervisors office of the Deschutes National Forest, said that the easement on the roads in question grants broad uses and the proposed use did not require any action by the Forest Service.

More recently written easements are more restrictive, Peterson said.

"Our legal advice is telling us very strongly that that is a very legitimate easement for the use that's proposed out there," Peterson said. "We've been told that the only way we could revoke that easement is to condemn it."

John Hornbeck, one of the mine opponents, insisted that the Forest Service is taking too narrow a view of the law.

"We're saying to you, open your minds; look at the law," Hornbeck said. "Don't just say, 'We're bound here.' Take an expanded view of things.

"You have a chance to say no," he said. "These rules were made for this set of conditions... Now that (mine applicant) Hap (Taylor) wants to change the rules, you don't have to say, gee, we quit."

Mine opponents also believe that the Forest Service should have recommended that Deschutes County deny the mine application because the traffic, noise and dust impacts of the mine are contrary to the values expressed in the Forest Service's plans for the McKenzie Highway as a National Scenic Byway.

District Ranger Karen Shimamoto acknowledged that the scenic byway plan is important to the Forest Service, but, she said, it is not a regulatory device and it does not give the Forest Service jurisdiction over the traffic on the highway.

The Forest Service representatives also defended the role of the ranger district in providing Information to the county in the land use process on the mine application.

Deschutes County asked the Sisters Ranger District, as an adjacent property owner, for input regarding the impact of the mine. The district raised some concerns about water conditions surrounding the site and about noise and dust.

The mine applicant provided studies on the areas of concern and the ranger district told the county that their concerns were addressed.

Jeff Sims of the Sisters Ranger District said that the district's actions were standard procedure in land use cases that involve private land adjacent to federal lands.

"We analyzed what Information was available -- and bear in mind that this is private land," Sims said. "It's not an action we have any control over. Deschutes County planning is the deciding agency."

A decision on the mine application is expected from the Deschutes County Hearings Officer this week.

The lines seem firmly drawn between mine opponents and the Forest Service, with the opponents arguing that the Forest Service should have acted under NEPA and the Forest Service arguing that their scope of action was tightly circumscribed.

"I think you want us to want what you want," Shimamoto observed. "And we continue to have a difference of opinion."

But the Forest Service representatives insisted that if the agency could act -- within its legal and jurisdictional boundaries -- to mitigate the situation, they would.

"Our people live here," Don Peterson said. "They have the same concerns that you have. You just have to put your government hat on."

And, wearing that hat, Peterson said, "if we can facilitate a solution, we want to do that."

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Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.