Forest Service sued in Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness road dispute
Copyright 2000 Associated Press
December 21, 2000
LIVINGSTON - The U.S. Forest Service is named in a suit filed as part of a continuing attempt to punch a road through part of the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness to reach a 124-acre piece of private property.
The suit follows the agency's denial of a road application for an area south of Boulder Mountain and owned by the Montana-based Absaroka Trust.
The trust wants to construct a six-mile, 20-foot-wide gravel road along Speculator Creek from the Boulder River road.
The trust argues it needs adequate access to the property to explore mining claims and build a fishing lodge.
Trust attorney Gerald Wright said the road would first be used to transport drilling equipment to explore an estimated $20 million in mineral deposits.
The road would also be used to build a hunting and fishing lodge, cabins, septic tanks and installing a hydroelectric generator on the property, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court.
"The only reasonable means available for adequate access to the property is the construction of a road across National Forest System land. Under federal law, the Forest Service bears the responsibility of assuring that the trust has adequate access to its property," the complaint states. "The Forest Service also bears the financial responsibility of all costs incurred in assuring that the Trust has adequate access to its property."
The property is in the middle of a wilderness created by Congress in 1978.
Under the federal law, all road construction, logging, mining and motorized travel is banned in wilderness areas.
Wright said the trail leading to the property also has not been maintained by the Forest Service and is blocked by "hundreds" of dead, fallen trees, preventing the use of pack horses on the trail. "There's no access to the property except by helicopter or on foot."
The property was purchased by Paradise Valley resident Jim Sievers in 1991. During summer 1999, Sievers contracted helicopters to fly survey and trail cutting equipment to the parcel.
The property's patented mining claims were transferred by Sievers to the Absaroka Trust - and another trust called the Granite Mountain Trust - a year ago, according to deeds filed at the Park County Clerk and Recorder's office.
Two construction requests by the trust were turned down by the Big Timber Ranger District's office. The Forest Service argued in its responses the proposed road was inconsistent with federal statutes, including the Wilderness Act.
Acting-Big Timber District Ranger Brent Foster and Bob Dennee, lands staff for the Gallatin National Forest, both declined to comment on the specifics of the lawsuit.
Bob Ekey of The Wilderness Society said Thursday the society, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, the Park County Environmental Council and the Montana Wilderness Association plan to join the suit to defend the Forest Service's decision to turn down the road application.
"This proposed road would severely violate the Absaroka Wilderness - it goes right into the heart of it," Ekey said. "This is not what the people of Montana had in mind when they designated it wilderness in 1978."