THE USE OF MINERAL RESOURCE INFORMATION FOR MINERALS PLANNING ON NATIONAL FOREST LANDS (MANAGEMENT, POLICY, EXPLORATION, LOCATABLE)

The effects of developing mineral resources on the public lands, and the way surface resources have affected mineral development, have made the mineral resource an emerging issue in land management planning. This research focuses on Forest Service planning for locatable minerals, and the way technical information on the resource is used in the land management planning process.;Two case studies, minerals related appeals of Forest Plans, are used to illustrate the role minerals information plays in: (1) defining the need for access, both from a development standpoint, i.e. unnecessary restrictions on areas with high mineral potential, and from an environmental standpoint, i.e. identifying restrictions necessary to protect surface resources; and, (2) suggesting approaches for managing minerals as a multiple-use, rather than "reacting" to minerals as a dominant-use.;The key recommendations that follow from this analysis are: (1) The Forest Service should have a minerals specialist as a permanent member of each forest planning team in order to improve minerals data collection and interpretation, and (2) should consider using an outside agency with mineral exploration expertise, like the USGS, to assist in assembling minerals information. (3) The Forest Service also needs to adopt a uniform rating system for mineral potential in order to present minerals resource information objectively and consistently to planners and other resource managers. (4) Finally, the level of detail required to properly address mineral development is too great for inclusion in the Forest Plan, so a resource-specific plan--an implementation plan, which would predict impacts and outline the necessary restrictions for several classes of mineral developments--should be developed for Forests with significant mineral activity.;Managing minerals means managing surface access. The Forest Service's management goal for minerals is to protect surface resource values. To accomplish this it needs to know when, where, and what type of mineral development will occur. The Forest Service is presently collecting the types of data needed to address these issues, but the format and timing of the reports has been inconsistent.