12 — THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS
Local
Subpart
A draft
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 11
The letter to withdraw
the Travel Manage-
ment Plan was signed by
then-WWNF supervisor
Monica Schwalbach, and
simply states her decision
to withdraw the plan with
no explanation. Requests
made to former Regional
Forest Kent Connaughton
for the reason the Travel
Management Plan was
withdrawn resulted in
release of the letter signed
my Schwalbach with no
reasons given. In addi-
tion, several requests for
information regarding the
budget and amount spent
by the USFS on the failed
Travel Management Plan
have gone unanswered.
The withdrawn Travel
Management Plan had sev-
eral defining management
decisions that did not sit
well with a majority of the
local community. First, the
Travel Management Plan
called for a new “closed
unless designated open”
forest management policy,
counter to the traditional
policy that designated the
entire forest road system
in the WWNF open unless
designated closed. The
shift to a “closed unless
designated open” policy
in essence would have
closed all approximate
9,300 miles of roads in the
WWNF after which certain
roads would then have
been designated as open.
Also, the plan called for
the permanent closure of
approximately 3,300 miles
of roads and prohibited
cross-country travel.
Not long after the USFS
began public discussions
on the Travel Manage-
ment Plan in 2007, local
residents began to organize
and push back against the
newly proposed policies.
A petition was circulated
through the communi-
ties within Baker, Union,
and Wallowa counties
and garnered about 6,000
signatures protesting the
proposed Travel Manage-
ment Plan. Community
meetings were organized
by residents and were held
in Baker, La Grande, and
Enterprise and thousands
attended in protest.
An organization, Forest
Access for All (FAFA),
emerged through the
period of protest and has
continued to gain momen-
tum and today boasts about
1,500 members. Monthly
FAFA meetings are
convened and an annual
banquet is held in May
bringing several nationally
recognized individuals to
speak and lend support to
the group and to the cause
of local control over forest
management decisions.
This years’ speaker was
founder of Stewards of the
Range and renowned land
use attorney Fred Kelly
Grant.
Rep. Walden responds
The outcry regarding
proposed limited forest
access from local residents
was heard by US Repre-
sentative Greg Walden
(R-Oregon 2nd Congres-
sional District) who has
recently re-introduced to
Congress legislation titled
H.R. 1555 Forest Access
in Rural Communities Act
of 2015 that, if adopted
into law, would give local
government officials more
control in the federal land
management decision mak-
ing process. H.R. 1555 has
gained bipartisan support
and now has 11 co-spon-
sors as it works its way
through Congress. The bill
has been referred to the
Congressional Committee
on Natural Resources.
The introduction of
Walden’s bill reads, “A bill
to stop implementation and
enforcement of the Forest
Service travel management
rule and require the Forest
Service and the Bureau
of Land Management to
incorporate the needs,
uses, and input of affected
communities, and to obtain
their consent, before taking
any travel management
action affecting access to
National Forest System
lands derived from the
public domain and for
other purposes.”
Locals rebuffed on Sub-
part A document request
FAFA representatives
and FAFA member John
George recently requested
copies of the Travel
Management Plan Sub-
part A draft document.
Both FAFA and George
submitted the request
under the federal Freedom
of Information Act. The
USFS denied the document
requests. FAFA and George
filed appeals on the USFS
decision to deny release of
the Subpart A draft.
“I am again writing to
request the draft document
for the Subpart A Analysis
for minimum roads needed
on the Wallowa-Whitman
National Forest that your
staff is developing,”
wrote George in a letter
to Regional Forester John
Peña dated May 23, 2015.
“I have had this request in
since Sept. of 2014.”
FAFA also sent a Free-
dom of Information Act
FRIDAY, JUNE 26, 2015
request for the Subpart
A draft document. That
request was dated April
3, 2015. FAFA received a
denial of that request from
Peña dated June 2, 2015,
based on Pena’s claim that
the Subpart A document
did not exist in full.
Peña’s June 2nd re-
sponse states in part, “That
although the Forest has be-
gun analyzing and review-
ing information related to
the preparation of the Sub-
part A report, at this time,
no draft Subpart A report
exists for the Wallowa-
Whitman National Forest.
Therefore, the Forest has
no records responsive to
your request.”
In a subsequent cor-
respondence addressed to
FAFA regarding the re-
quest, Peña writes, “When
Forest Supervisor Montoya
forwarded your request
to the Regional Office on
May 4, 2015, only portions
of the report existed. No
complete draft existed at
that time. That is why my
June 2 letter stated that a
draft report did not exist.
On June 3, 2015, the FOIA
(Freedom of Information
Act) staff learned that a
complete draft Subpart A
Report dated May 2015
had been submitted to the
Regional Office staff for
review and comment.”
After correcting the
first denial of FAFA’s
records request, Peña then
denied FAFA’s records
request invoking what is
referred to as “Exemp-
tion 5” citing Govern-
ment agency privilege:
“The deliberative process
privilege protects the deci-
sion making processes of
Government agencies, and
protects advisory opinions,
recommendations, and
deliberations comprising
part of a process by which
governmental decision and
policies are formulated.”
Peña wrote, “After
careful consideration, it
has been determined that
release of draft documents
could diminish the candor
of agency deliberations
in the future and thereby
injure the quality of
agency decisions. There-
fore, I am withholding the
complete draft Subpart A
Travel Analysis Report
for the Wallowa-Whitman
National Forest … For-
est Supervisor Montoya
anticipates having a final
Subpart A Report by this
Fall. You will need to
submit a new request for
the Subpart A Report after
it has been finalized.”
FAFA filed an appeal
to Peña’s denial dated
June 20, 2015 addressed
to USDA Secretary Tom
Vilsack, Under Secretary
Robert Bonnie, and USFS
Chief Tom Tidwell.
In the appeal letter,
FAFA writes, “Exemption
5 is meant for decisional
document development.
The residents of Eastern
Oregon have been told
repeatedly that Subpart A
of Travel Management is
not a “decision document.”
Mr. Peña has enacted Ex-
emption 5 to block access
to the documentation to the
people of Eastern Oregon
‘to prevent injury to the
quality of the agency deci-
sions’… Mr. Peña states
that the Subpart A report
for the Wallowa-Whitman
is a ‘decision document’
and therefore must undergo
the rigors of an EA (En-
vironmental Assessment)
process with the public
involvement and coordina-
tion with local government
bodies.
“If this is deemed not a
decision document, FAFA
requests that our FOIA be
honored and all documen-
tation provided that was
requested, as Exemption
5 does not pertain to this
denial of our request. If
the denial of our request
is upheld, we request the
Subpart A report be moved
into an EA process im-
mediately.”
FAFA ends the ap-
peal letter, “We would
also like to express our
grave concerns at what
is perceived as an open
attempt by the staff of the
Wallowa-Whitman Nation
Forest Supervisors Office
and the Region 6 Office in
Portland to misrepresent
the factual nature as to
the existence of the draft
Subpart A report. We know
the document existed at the
time the June 2nd response
was sent out stating no
draft document existed,
and we believe your staff
knowingly falsified their
statement in order to keep
FAFA from receiving this
information.”
When asked for a
summary of his journey
through the FOIA request
process and subsequent
denial and appeal, George
answers, “I started request-
ing information last sum-
mer from John Laurence
(previous supervisor of
WWNF), and he repeat-
edly told me it wasn’t a
decision document and that
he wasn’t required to take
pubic input on the report.
My last written request
to him was September of
last year, and he never
responded to me. I let it lay
till April of this year when
I followed up with Tom
Montoya, he forwarded it
on to the Regional Office
as a FOIA request, it took
them two months to tell me
the document didn’t exist,
and sent me an email June
3rd telling me the response
had been mailed, but that
there may be a mistake and
that they would look into
it, that letter showed up at
the house June 10th. June
17th I received another
letter stating that the report
exists, but that they feel it
could cause injury to the
candor of the report if it
was given to me, or FAFA
for that matter.”
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