County Declares Forest Service Emergency, Takes Back Management

Apache County Commissioners declare Forest Service mismanagement of local forests a "disaster", enact emergency eviction of BLM and Forest Service. 

The Apache County Commissioners issued a written statement which reads

“NOW THEREFORE, hereby be it resolved that The Board of Supervisors of Apache County hereby asserts its inherent right to control and manage the roads, rights-of-way and routes of travel located within the United States Forest Service land and Bureau of Land Management land located within the boundaries of Apache County but not located on any nationally recognized Indian reservation, tribal trust land, or otherwise located on Indian Country; and


...


“BE IT FUTHER RESOLVED that any existing physical obstructions, gates or other impediments on any roads, rights-of-way or routes oftravel located on National Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management lands be immediately removed. The Apache County Sheriff is directed to ensure the removal of such obstructions or to execute such removals at the expense of the persons or agencies responsible for their placement or maintenance. Placing or maintaining any unauthorized physical obstruction, gate or otherimpediment on, in or around any road, route o f travel or right-of wayin Apache County as described herein so as to prevent or impede thefree use ofthat road, route oftravel or right-of-way is hereby designated a Class Two Misdemeanor and punishable pursuant toTitle J3 of the Arizona Revised Statutes ...”

http://www.defendruralamerica.com/DRA/ApacheCounty.html

The Tucson Sentinel reports:

   "The U.S. Forest Service and Apache County have launched a first-of-its-kind management plan to thin more than 90,000 acres of forest in hopes of preventing catastrophic fires like last year’s record Wallow Fire.

The partnership grew out of county accusations last year that decades of forest mismanagement by the Forest Service aggravated the Wallow Fire, the largest in the state’s history."

Read more:     
http://www.tucsonsentinel.com/local/report/061312_az_apache_forest/forest-service-apache-county-team-thin-forests-tame-fires/

Scott Amos 

208.297.0634