309 



Che p^elirainary drafts even with the counties which they 

 suppoiaedly represented. We were directly advised of this 

 fact of secrecy by members of the Coalition. I 



Obviously other parties were not so treated. A member of 

 our County Plauining Committee received a brochure from Boise 

 Cascade Corporation summarizing the preliminary draft. So, 

 obviotisly some influential private corporations were treated 

 differently than were the Counties involved in the leuid use 

 pla nn ing process. Moreover, Mr. James Rathbun reports that 

 Steve, Mealey told those in attendance at the recent meeting 

 in Libby, Montana that there had been some hard negotiations 

 between federal agencies and that the Forest Service 

 Employees for Environmental Ethics had made some statements 

 of satisfaction or dissatisfaction as to the preliminary 

 draft,. There is no statutory mandate of coordination with 

 such groups as the Forest Service Employees for 

 Environmental Ethics, yet they were apparently involved. 

 There is statutory mandate, and administrative mandate in 

 Forest Service Regulations, of coordination with land us6 

 planning county governments, yet the counties of Owyhee and 

 Lemhi which fit the category were not involved. That is not 

 evidence of the "meaningful" participation required by the 

 land use management statutes which Congress has enacted. 



Owyhee County Commissioner Dick Bass called one of the team 

 members of the ecosystem project and voiced the Owyhee 

 County Board's con^laint about the failure to comply with 

 the federal law. He further voiced our complaint about 

 being prevented from even reviewing the preliminary draft at 

 the same time the Coalition was reviewing it . The team 

 member acknowledged that he was aware of the federal 

 statutory requirement of coordination with coxinty 

 governments which had a land use planning process, and 

 further acknowledged that there had been no such <■ 

 coordination. The team member stated that the team simply 

 did not know how they could so coordinate development of a 

 plan with 109 covmties (referring to the total of counties 

 in all the states covered by the Bastside and Upper 

 Columbia; there are only 44 counties in Idaho and only a 

 handful have a land use planning process set up under 

 FLPMA) . Commissioner Bass' answer was, as we have said to 

 federal agencies for the past four years: we are expected 

 to follow the law regardless of the inconvenience euid cost. 

 As federal personnel, the ecosystem teams should have 

 followed the law to the letter with the same precision which 

 they expect of us . 



The simple answer as to how to coordinate with those 

 co\inties which have a land use plcinning process is "talk to 

 them'', "write to them", "allow them to provide meaningful 

 input during the development stages of the federal plan." 

 Allow our planning specialists and range experts to sit down 

 with you at the planning tc±)le ouid analize the data 



