EVOLUTION OF THE TRAVEL PLAN
Updated 07/15/09
BACKGROUND
Implementing the national travel rule on the Clearwater NF is a two step process that began in the summer of 2006. It started with a Travel Planning effort to identify needs for change and a request for public suggestions for routes that were not in 2005 Travel Guide, which was our starting point. A proposed action, which is a rough proposal to address the needs for change was advertised and public comments were solicited in a process called scoping. Those comments were used to identify significant issues which shaped alternatives to the proposed action.
CLEARWATER NF 2005 TRAVEL GUIDE
Prior to the 2005 edition, the Clearwater NF Travel Guide included only those roads and trails that had some sort of formal restriction to motor vehicles, oversnow vehicles or bicycles. Roads or trails without any restrictions did not appear in the guide. In July 2005, with adoption of the national Travel Plan rule on the horizon (implemented later that year) the Clearwater NF elected to add all system roads and trails that were known to be physically travelable to the 2005 Travel Guide whether they were restricted or not. That was done to provide an idea of what a designated system of roads and trails might look like as of summer 2005.
ORIGINAL PROPOSED ACTION AND SCOPING
The proposed action was an initial cut at identifying changes to travel management for the Clearwater NF. See the overview of the proposed action for a summary of the proposal, the location and the scoping letter for information on the original proposal. The scoping notice and comment request was mailed to people, organizations, Indian Tribes, local and state governments, and state and federal agencies interested in management of the Clearwater NF in November 2007.
All told almost 4500 comments were received on the proposed action during the scoping phase of the NEPA process which ended February 29th 2008. In a process called "content analysis" all the comment letters and emails were read and the individual comments were extracted and summarized in the reports below.
- Summary of Public Comments (373K pdf July 2008) gives a quick overview of who commented, the general themes of the comments, and common concerns.
- Content Analysis Report (2700K pdf July 2008) is the full report showing categories of comment as well as the specific comments received including suggestions for additional routes and restriction changes.
ALTERNATIVE DEVELOPMENT AND ANALYSIS
The project team then analyzed these comments looking for issues and concerns that would need to be addressed in the project design and analysis and identified "significant issues" that could only be addressed by an alternative to the proposed action.
This effort produced three action alternatives as well as a "no action" alternative that serves as a basis for comparing the effects of the action alternatives. See the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) page for an overview of the alternatives and for the DEIS itself. Additional information is available on the Maps/Reports page.
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