Two years after a federal judge ordered the Forest
Service to remove outfitter structures from the Frank Church/River
of No Return Wilderness in central Idaho, the agency has been hit
with a motion for contempt of court. Filed recently by Wilderness
Watch in Montana, the suit contends the agency has been lax in
forcing outfitters to remove horse corrals extending across creeks,
permanent camps, wooden buildings and garbage.
Outfitters have had fixed camps in the
2.4-million-acre wilderness area since 1945, but in 1993 Judge
Thomas Hogan ruled that the Forest Service had to remove all
permanent structures (HCN, 2/7/94). Wilderness Watch, which brought
that suit, inspected 56 of the Frank’s 89 campsites last summer.
“There were just as many permanent facilities
out there in “94 as there had been before,” says Wilderness Watch
president William Worf. Gerald Fish, a Justice Department attorney,
says the Forest Service has made “reasonable progress.” Serious
fires during the summer of 1994 sapped the Forest Service’s
resources, he says, preventing it from inspecting many of the
remote campsites.
* Ray
Stout
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Judge cracks down on Idaho – again.
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