OWYHEE AIRSTRIPS UPDATE 20 DECEMBER: In 1984 Congress designated The Owyhee River as a wild river under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. In 1993 the BLM (Vale District) published their Resource Management Plan for the Wild Owyhee River, and in it banned aircraft landings on some historic airfields. Many of you have volunteered to help us collect usage history on the Owyhee River airstrips, and several of you have already responded to our call, and have provided some very useful information. Thank you!
We have asked the BLM for documents pertaining to their developing the Management plan. We believe aviation users were not invited to the hearings and planning sessions, and that the BLM made their decision to ban landings without input from pilots or aviation organizations. We are also collecting information from BLM regulations to determine if they can actually ban landings in a ‘Wild River’ corridor--which is a different animal than a ‘Wilderness Area.’
The BLM has just determined that our request for documents under the Freedom of Information Act can be supplied without charge, and they are working now to provide answers to our questions. Furthermore, the Vale District office has, at our request, recently removed the obstructing boulders off the closed ‘Pinnacle Ranch’ airstrip (as it’s popularly called). As the documents become available, as more pilots report their history of using the Owyhee airstrips, and as we evaluate BLM regulations, we will be positioned to meet again with the BLM and ask for some relief from the closures. We believe the closures were incorrect, and also improper because of not having any aviators at the planning table when the 1993 plan was being prepared. Our best case will be helped by establishing the fact that there was much usage of the airfields, particularly before and up to 1993. Our next meeting with the BLM will be some time after the first of 2012, but it will take time. Time well spent to do the job right, I believe.
Thanks for your help with this important airstrip re-opening project. Encourage your pilot friends to report to me—in an e-mail is perfectly fine. Let us know: their name, address, landing sites and dates, how often they landed, and their recreational usage of the Owyhee River. This is especially important, for the BLM has to provide recreational opportunities along the River, and showing that access by aircraft allows us pilots to recreate is an important argument for re-opening the airfields. Here is an excerpt from a recent well-written report:
”...about thirty years ago I was flying up to the managed airstrips along the Owyhee, especially at the "Hole-in-the-Wall" and Birch Creek, as well as the strip at the start of the Owyhee lake and the graded airstrip downstream from the
Birch Creek airstrip. I used to be going in and out on a fairly frequent basis. Then, one day in the fall about 15 years ago or so the airstrips at Birch Creek and the Hole-in-the-Wall were closed! Not x-ed off, just "stuff" put on the strips with no notification. Indeed, the one at Birch Creek is
still listed as a developed and registered airstrip! I thought they were put that way to be developed, but they were never re-opened and from what I know it was the BLM that shut them down on their own. I certainly to this date have had no explanation!”
If you have already provided your input—thanks; if not, please do so before much longer. Obviously this is a ‘bulk’ letter, and I apologize for that.
On behalf of the Idaho Aviation Association, Idaho Aviation Foundation, the Oregon Pilots Association, and the Recreational Aviation Foundation,
Bill Miller
VP, Governmental Affairs
Idaho Aviation Association
5625 W Beachfront Ln.
Boise ID 83703
208 853-8585; 208 409-5713
[email protected]
Bill has been working very close with the Vale District BLM office and sounds like the talks are moving forward. But very slowly. It may pick up steam if we all get involved 
Thank you for your help!! Pat
