I had a feeling of déjà vu last week as I read through the environmental impact statement (EIS) for the U.S. Forest Service South Fowl Snowmobile Access project. It seemed as though I had read and heard all of this before. ThenI realized—I had!
I did a quick computer search and sure enough, in 2009, I wrote an article for the News-Herald
entitled Comments
sought on South Fowl Snowmobile
Access.
In the 2009 article, it was stated that the US Forest Service was accepting comments on the impact of the potential sound of a proposed snowmobile trail reroute near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW). If I hadn’t been so irritated I would have laughed. I could have just re-run the article, changing the comment period dates. Same concerns—different dates! I am very familiar with the South Fowl Snowmobile Access project, as I’ve been covering it as a news reporter since the controversy started. A further search of my computer displays an extensive list of articles on the Hovland area snowmobile trail from when the route between McFarland and South Fowl Lakes was closed in 2002 to the present.
I also know the long history of the trail. I know that logger Verl Tilbury constructed it in the 1960s. I know that the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness Act created wilderness boundaries where no snowmobiles can go. And I know that a small segment of the Tilbury Trail crossed into the newly created BWCAW. I know that in keeping with the BWCAW Act, the Forest Service should have replaced the trail lost to Hovland and Cook County residents back in 1978. They didn’t. They also didn’t put up any signage or officially announce the closure of the trail.
So, hundreds of local folks continued to travel the trail to get to their cabins or their favorite fishing hole. Most didn’t realize they were illegally traveling through the BWCAW. I was one of them. In 2002 Forest Service personnel began telling people that the trail was encroaching on the wilderness and that tickets were going to be issued. In the winter of 2003, signs finally went up and the access was closed—with no alternative route. I wrote stories about the frustration of the local anglers and cabin owners and the Cook County board of commissioners.
In July 2004, I wrote another article announcing that the Forest Service was accepting comments on proposals for replacing the Tilbury Trail. A few months later I wrote about the county board asking the Forest Service to build the “Alternate 2” trail—the one most closely resembling the historically used trail. In 2005, I wrote yet another article when Cook County commissioners, citing the two-year delay in creating an alternate trail, passed a unanimous resolution asking the Forest Service to reopen the original Tilbury Trail.
In story after story, I wrote about the concerns of environmental groups over this 2½-mile replacement snowmobile trail. First it was claimed that the trail was illegal because its terminus is a wilderness lake. Trail opponents claimed, 30 years after the creation of the BWCAW, that South Fowl was a wilderness lake. The courts upheld the 30-year Forest Service wilderness boundaries, but the frivolous lawsuit blocked trail construction for yet another year.
Deep-pocketed environmental groups with boards of directors and paid staffers continue to fight the snowmobile trail. Despite the fact that the trail is replacing a route that had been in use since the 1960s. Despite the fact that the trail is a narrow local route, not part of the groomed grant-in-aid statewide system. Opponents claim that a replacement trail in this area replete with snowmobiles and traffic on the Arrowhead Trail will disturb the wolf, the eagle, the lynx. They claim that the sound of a snowmobile on a trail outside the BWCAW will disturb winter campers inside the BWCAW.
The people who used to ride snowmobiles on scenic Tilbury Trail are getting frustrated. They are tired of trying to explain why the Tilbury Trail should be replaced with Alternative 2. They have jobs and families and they don’t know how to fight the people that, according to the Forest Service’s report, will be “negatively affected just knowing
the trail exists.”
It’s not fair and it’s very sad. It’s sad that the people opposed to the trail can’t live and let live like the people who preserved the wilderness long before it was legislatively designated as wilderness. It’s sad that there are people so unhappy that they can’t enjoy a snowshoe or skiing trip across glistening snow under a winter sun if they hear a snowmobile off in the distance. It’s sad that third generation cabin owners are blocked from safe winter use of their family’s property because an infrequent wilderness visitor doesn’t like the far-off whine of a snowmobile.
There is no way to appease these unhappy folks, so why does the Forest Service have to keep trying? Especially in light of the price tag. A Forest Service spokesperson contacted this week said that the Forest Service has spent approximately $340,000 on the South Fowl Project. That includes the 2005 environmental assessment and the current environmental impact statement. It does
not
include litigation costs, which are under the purview of the USDA Office of General Counsel and the Department of Justice. Since the South Fowl Project has been in litigation since 2006, I can only imagine the legal expenses adding up.
Just think what the Forest Service could do with $340,000-plus. Trails could be cleared; campground latrines could be replaced; naturalist programs could be expanded: more wilderness rangers could be hired and more conservation officers could be patrolling the forest. I would love to write an article about the Forest Service having a $340,000 surplus for a worthwhile project—clearing the Kekekabic Trail, perhaps?
I would love to write an article announcing that the South Fowl Snowmobile Project will be implemented this winter. I know it won’t happen. I’m not that naïve. I just hope that I get to write that story before the two-mile trail expenses tally more than a million dollars.
Conservation is the application
of common sense to the common
problems for common good.
Gifford Pinchot
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