Forest Service Sued Over River Plans

A coalition of environmental groups has sued the U.S. Forest Service over its management of three rivers in Los Padres National Forest, contending that plans to preserve the wilderness waterways are six years overdue.

Portions of Sespe Creek and the Big Sur and Sisquoc rivers were placed under the protection of the federal Wild and Scenic Rivers Act in 1992.

However, the Forest Service has not prepared the comprehensive management plans that were required under the law by 1995, according to the lawsuit filed this week in U.S. District Court in San Francisco.

The suit was filed by two local environmental groups, Keep the Sespe Wild and the Environmental Defense Center, and the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity.

It asks that the Forest Service be ordered to complete the plans in six months.

“The intent of the law is being subverted by the failure to have these plans,” said Peter Galvin, a conservation biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity.

“We want an assurance that this process is going to happen. At this point, that assurance has to be a court-enforceable decree.”

A Forest Service spokesman said the rivers will be studied in a sweeping revision of the plan governing the 2-million-acre Los Padres National Forest, a rugged swath spanning a 220-mile stretch from Monterey to Ventura County.

Matt Mathes said a draft plan is to be completed by the summer of 2002, with final approval expected in 2003. He would not comment on the lawsuit’s contention that the river plans should have been in place by 1995.

Galvin said his group learned only recently of the delay. He was skeptical that the Los Padres plan would be completed as soon as next year. “Forest Service timelines tend to be very optimistic,” he said.

Whether the rivers have suffered harm for lack of management plans is an open question.

The Big Sur is being “loved to death,” Galvin said.

In areas beaten down from overuse, a management plan could impose limits on the number of visitors and what they do, restricting river activities as diverse as washing dishes and gold-panning.

The Sespe and Sisquoc in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties are less frequently visited, although they are closer to more populated areas.

A management plan would be “more of an issue for future planning, to keep the area in pristine condition,” Galvin said.