"Everyone has a right to enjoy our national forests, but no one has the right to abuse them," said Brad Smith, of the Idaho Conservation League.
Conservation Groups are holding the Forest Service accountable for not protecting water quality and wildlife habitat from OHV abuses.
BOISE, Idaho — Two environmental groups have filed a lawsuit in federal court claiming the new off-road vehicle plan for the Salmon-Challis National Forest fails to protect land, streams and wildlife across hundreds of thousands of acres of eastern and central Idaho backcountry. The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court Friday also asks a judge to block the forest from implementing its new travel management plan, the policy rewritten last year to designate appropriate routes and areas for all-terrain vehicles and other off-road recreation. Brad Brooks, of the Wilderness Society, says the forest's plan is fraught with flaws, creates new miles or off-road trails in areas previously without designated roads and fails to balance off-road use with hikers and campers who head to the forests for peace and solitude. "The real issue is the forest service's failure to protect wilderness and the characteristics of the land in this plan," Brooks told The Associated Press. "There are thousands of miles of roads and trails across the state, and we only ask for a relatively small amount of land to be designated for non-motorized use."
