BAKER CITY — Five Eastern Oregon counties are considering how road closures in the largest national forest in the Northwest could affect them.

The proposed travel management plan for the 2.4-million-acre Wallowa-Whitman National Forest is expected to have both a social and economic impact on Baker, Grant, Umatilla, Union and Wallowa counties.

The U.S. Forest Service plans to publish a draft environmental impact statement next spring on potential effects of each of six alternatives under the plan.

But the counties have only until Nov. 30 to report on the possible impact to their region.

“The counties are coming into the process a little bit late, and I have been trying to play catch-up,” said Bob Messinger, of Summerville, who’s representing the five counties.

Bruce Sorte, an Oregon State University Extension economist now working at Eastern Oregon University, is studying the impacts of each alternative on jobs, wages, hotel and campground occupancy, and other sectors of the economy.

Baker County previously hired Sorte to help study the impacts on the designation of bull trout as a threatened species, and some of that data will be applied to the travel plan.

Ken Anderson, a retired mining geologist, said he worries that a plan to close forest roads will make it even more difficult for miners to test their claims, gain approval and set up their operations.

He said that if 100 miners were allowed to mine in the Wallowa-Whitman and each found an ounce of gold per day, the financial impact figured with a multiplier effect used by the U.S. Geological Survey’s Statistical Division would be $4 million a day, “new wealth that adds to the economy.”

“We need access to and use of the land,” Anderson said.