Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy joined six other groups in filing a formal administrative appeal over a plan that would have opened up much more area to off-road vehicle traffic in Superior National Forest.

The appeal asks Regional Forester Kent Connaughton to reverse the decision of Superior National Forest officials which the groups said would improperly add hundreds of miles of unauthorized roads to the forest’s road system and allow off-road vehicles on nearly all the roads.

Allowing off-road vehicles in more areas of Superior National Forest would hurt the more common and traditional uses of the national forest, affect threatened lynx and wolf as well as damage the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

“The Forest Service continues to fail in meeting its obligation to minimize harm to the environment,” said Cyndi Tuell, a conservation advocate for Center for Biological Diversity, one of the groups filing the appeal. “It continues to ignore the impacts of hundreds of miles of unauthorized roads and has no concrete plan to actually remedy this problem. Increasing the number of miles of roads in lynx habitat violates the forest plan and will put the species at increased risk.”

The environmental groups thought they were making progress when an internal forest service review team agreed with some concerns in their April 2009 appeal. The Superior National Forest was directed to analyze the impacts to air quality in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. However, other parts of the appeal were dismissed, including how 1,600 miles of roads and trails in Superior National Forest would increase water pollution, cause more noise pollution and harm endangered species such as Canada lynx and gray wolf.

Sadly, no appreciable  change occurred regarding the roads designation and 1,600 miles of roads and trails would remain open to off-road vehicles, affecting nearly three million acres of forest..

“The Forest Service has made no substantive changes to its original decision, thus leaving the Boundary Waters vulnerable to continued impacts from off-road vehicles,” said Brad Sagen, chairman of the Northeastern Minnesotans for Wilderness.

The appeal was filed Jan. 14 and it also involved Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness, League of Women Voters of Minnesota, The Sierra Club North Star Chapter and the Izaak Walton League of America.