Idaho lodges get a reprieve
When President Bush signed the omnibus spending bill, he granted a reprieve to some contested hunting and fishing lodges on Idaho’s Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness.
A U.S. District Court in Montana had ruled four years ago that the U.S. Forest Service should shutter the privately run Stub Creek, Arctic Creek and Smith Gulch lodges on a stretch of the Salmon River designated “wild” in 1980. The law did not mention the house-size buildings, used by rafters, steelhead fishers and hunters.
The court -- agreeing with the Montana advocacy group Wilderness Watch, which sued in 1991 -- said “permanent resort lodges” were incompatible with the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act and should be removed. The Forest Service set a December 2005 deadline.
Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) attached a provision to the federal spending bill to preserve the buildings.
“These are not sprawling settlements,” says Sid Smith, Craig’s spokesman. “If after 70 years they haven’t done damage or degenerated wilderness, why get rid of them?”
-- Ashley Powers
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