Several organizations that advocate for motorized recreational access in Northwest Montana have filed suit in U.S. District Court against the Kootenai National Forest, alleging its 2015 forest plan revision erred in prohibiting motorized access from certain areas.

Among other issues, the lawsuit states that the Kootenai Forest’s plan, finalized Jan. 6, failed to follow agency guidelines for recommended wilderness areas and did not allow sufficient public input before deciding on which of those areas to designate under the plan.

Robert Bell is one of the attorneys representing the seven organizations listed as plaintiffs in the lawsuit, filed Nov. 12.

“As it affects our clients, they’re eliminating all mechanized and motorized means of transport, and a lot of wilderness has exceptions,” he said Wednesday. “Some of the recent wilderness designations, for instance, have allowed specific roads to be traveled.”

In the plan revision, the forest designated 89,000 acres of land as recommended wilderness areas and identified another 26,000 acres within the 34,000-acre Ten Lakes wilderness study area as recommended wilderness.

The plaintiffs allege that forest officials used conflicting methods in the recommended wilderness designations and failed to give full consideration to whether motorized access could continue in those areas.

“What’s particularly frustrating about it is that most modern wilderness designations are somewhat creative in how they interpret the [Wilderness] Act, and we contend the Forest Service is trying administratively to create a pure notion of wilderness that even Congress hasn’t really attempted in recent years,” Turcke said.

The suit also questions the procedures employed by the forest in proposing additions to the national Wild and Scenic Rivers system.

The last forest plan, completed in 1987, had found that 112 miles of streams and rivers in the Kootenai were eligible for the designation. While drafting the most recent plan revision, the forest considered 752 segments, identying about 63 miles as eligible in its draft environmental impact statement.

The suit contends that following objections from environmental groups, the forest removed some of the proposed segments and added others, resulting in a net increase in proposed Wild and Scenic River designations.

“They only published their determination on the segments they were proposing for designation, so you couldn’t see the ones that made the short list,” Turcke said. “That basically was part of the negotiations with other interests that were dissatisfied with WSR designations. And those might be great segments, and worthy of protection, but they didn’t go through public scrutiny. That didn’t happen in sufficient daylight, in our view.”

Officials with the Kootenai National Forest declined to comment on the pending litigation, but confirmed they have 60 days to respond to the suit.

The plaintiffs in the case are the Ten Lakes Snowmobile Club, Montanans for Multiple Use, Citizens for Balanced Use, the Glen Lake Irrigation District, Backcountry Sled Patriots, the Idaho State Snowmobile Association and the Blueribbon Coalition.

Reporter Sam Wilson can be reached at 758-4407 or by email at swilson@dailyinterlake.com.