FSPW needs to get their facts straight
You’d think they’d learn after their embarrassing defeat in 2018, but the Friends of Scotchman Peaks Wilderness are still repeating falsehoods that led to their 2018 loss in the Bonner County advisory vote. The biggest whopper in the recent letter (Daily Bee, Dec. 12, 2021) was “since the 1970s, the area has been managed as wilderness by the Forest Service.”
They used to say “since 1987”, but now this big fib is apparently time-traveling. If this were true, we could confirm that with at least some wilderness-like restrictions in the Scotchman area after the “1970s”. Looking at the Idaho Panhandle National Forest Travel Plans from 1984, 1990 and 1998 (which identify restrictions on the forest), there are no area restrictions in the Scotchman area. In fact, until April 2015, snowmobiles, chainsaws and mountain bikes were not restricted (there were two trail-only snowmobile restrictions before 1998, like many other trails in the district, but these were removed in 1998) and motorcycles were allowed on some of the trails before 1998 (all of these uses are prohibited in Wilderness).
Both the Sandpoint District ranger and forest supervisor at the time, confirmed to me in 2018, that there was no wilderness-like management before 2015. As long as FSPW continues to spread misinformation regarding the management history of the area, their credibility will continue to suffer and they should not expect any change of how Bonner County views the future of the area.
STAN MYERS
Hope