UPDATE ON THE WASATCH NATIONAL FOREST

The never ending wait for the multi-year Wasatch-Cache National Forest West Fork Blacks Fork grazing draft EIS still churns around and around. (See, of late, HUPC LYNX 4/03.) It is clear the Forest Service simply does not want to proffer up any decision, good or bad, seemingly to opt for "make it go away." But it will be the seminal grazing decision for the Uintas, thus we wait. Prodding or chiding, whether friendly or sarcastically, with anger or understanding, seems not to have helped an iota. It is simply a decision overdue many years-- about a decade, in fact!

We still anticipate at least two major timber sales from the Evanston Ranger District (WCNF). We thought those days were behind us! One is on the East Fork Bear, a "fire salvage" sale within the area of the East Fork fire of a couple of years back (interestingly no citations, at least at this writing, have yet been issued for the East Fork fire even though early indications were that it started on the East Fork Boy Scout Camp and was human caused) and the other is a long coveted timber sale on the West Fork Bear. The WCNF has promised full scale Environmental Impact Statements for both timber proposals.

Of course, we still await the final appeal resolutions on the Wasatch-Cache National Forest plan (see HUPC LYNX 8/03.)