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October 3, 2026 Comments on the proposal to rescind the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. Docket # FS-2025-0001. My name is Suzanne DeVore and I live in Mosca, Colorado at zip code 81146. I am a voter. I am an avid hiker, walker, bicyclist, Nordic and downhill skier, camper and birder. I spend a ton of time every year recreating on public lands. It is my understanding that despite 99% public opposition to its rollback, the Administration moved forward with its intent to rescind the 2001 Roadless Rule by publishing a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS). I oppose the proposal to fully or partially rescind the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. I strongly support Alternative 1, the No Action alternative. I love spending time in the National Forests near where I live in southern Colorado. Including the Rio Grande National Forest, the San Juan National Forest, the Gunnison National Forest and the San Isabel National Forest. I am fortunate to be able to walk to the Sangre de Cristo Wilderness from my home. I also spend weeks camping in the neighboring state of Wyoming. I particularly love the Medicine Bow National Forest and the dramatic Snowy Range in southern Wyoming. I also love to camp in the Bighorn National Forest and backpack in the Wind River Range. My husband is an avid fly-fisherman, so this determines a lot of the places we visit! We like to travel to the Coronado National Forest in Arizona for hiking and cycling during the winter. We particularly love the areas in and around the Chiricahua mountains. This proposal is just ludicrous for many reasons, but mainly because the current road system is stressed now! The U.S. Forest Service lacks the capacity, in funds and workforce, to support its existing roads, much less an increased inventory of roads. There are plenty of roads now. Roads cause excessive erosion and siltation to streams. Most of America's clean, fresh watersheds start in national forests. In this time of changing climate and severe droughts the current rule protects our valuable drinking water. Roadless areas help keep invasive species at bay and prevent pollution. The DEIS details many points on this topic. The current rule protects intact ecosystems for American wildlife. Roadless areas provide habitat for vulnerable wildlife species, including the Canada Lynx in our area. These roadless landscapes, often adjacent to other protected areas, like wilderness, are critical for habitat connectivity and health. Roads severely impact birds and wildlife. The DEIS cites the findings that bird richness declines with road presence in forested habitat, and that road-noise experiments in a roadless area cut bird variety and abundance. It is vital to avoid fragmentation of the roadless areas. The DEIS cites the finding that habitat fragmentation reduces biodiversity. Wildlife tend to disappear when forest cover thins; many avoid roads used by winter machines. The DEIS notes that wide-ranging mammals like the grizzly bear “have suffered habitat loss and the extirpation or fragmentation of their populations.” It is false that building more roads will help fight wildfires. Studies show that more roads do not lead to better forest health through increased fire-management activity. Conversely, Wildfire incidents happen near roads. Studies show that 90% of wildfires happen within 1/4 mile of roads. If more roads led to more fires, this action would increase the number of incidents, not improve response, as suggested. Our National Forests sustain some of our nation’s last stands of old growth forest. Here in Colorado our nearby Rio Grande National Forest and all the national forests across the United States are an economic boon for tourism and for well-planned and regulated timber sales. No new roads are required to support these benefits of the forest. It is widely recognized that the purpose of changing the roadless rules has nothing to do with forest health as it is proclaimed to do. The purpose is to reduce regulatory burden and return decision making to local officials, not U.S. Forest Service experts with years of education and experience managing our forests for all U.S. citizens. This proposal is a callous, greedy attempt to provide access to our public lands for oil, mining, timber and other extractive industries! It’s sacrificing our forests to make a few wealthy elite people richer. It would bring short-sighted and short-term benefits to these few, while ruining long-term, irreplaceable lands that belong to all of us, the public. I completely oppose the proposal to rescind or alter the Roadless Rule, and strongly support Alternative 1, the No Action alternative. Suzanne DeVore 113 Spring Creek Drive Mosca, CO 81146

Re: Rescission of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, Docket FS-2025-0001 While hiking in wilderness quality lands the last few years, I have seen and taken photos of bear, moose, elk, deer and attempting photos of raptors. The Western Slope in Colorado have endless opportunities for hiking and camping. I enjoy the solitude, the scenic landscapes and the wildlife - and just getting far off into the forest. The public lands out west have an abundance of valuable resources that provide for the local communities - recreation, clean water and clean air, hunting, fishing. These resources are vital to our communities and should be managed as such. Too much emphasis has been placed on the extractive industries which run counter to the resources mentioned above. I have a young daughter, and I feel we are not going to leave a valuable legacy to our kids of these public lands that need protection. The decades long drought out west and the way our distribution of water is managed has caused the disastrous current position in a water crisis out west. We need our watersheds to be a high priority for the Forest Service and BLM. Logging and the extractive industries present too high of a risk to this valuable resource. Living out west the last 30 years, I have experienced many wildfire events. A few of these have put me on evacuation notices; and many from all over the west has caused hazy, smoky skies that frankly add stress and anxiety to my life. On my comment in the 2025 round: "I can not recall receiving a reply from my comments from the first round." I work for a non profit conservation center and for the last 8 years have led a group hiking program. I take community members out into the nearby mountains, recommended wilderness areas, and canyon country. But mostly I explore these areas on my own. Of Special interest to me - the West Elk Mts, The Ragged Mts; the San Juan Mts. To name a few. Most of these areas are currently either part of the Roadless Rule or designated wilderness. It would be a devastating sight for me if a new forest road is added to this area. We have thousands of Forest Roads already - there is no need to add any more. The country I am writing about includes the San Juan National Forest. I am writing in opposition to the rescission of the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule. I raise the following issues for the record and ask that the agency respond to each of them: Issue 1: Fragmentation is quantified and not applied I go out to watch wildlife and birds, and what I look for lives in unbroken habitat. The agency measured what fragmentation costs and then set the finding aside. The DEIS cites the finding that habitat fragmentation reduces biodiversity by 13 to 75 percent. The number appears; no projection across the 40.1 million affected acres follows. I ask that the agency apply the cited fragmentation range to the 40.1 million acres of potentially affected environment. Issue 2: Elk survival, in the agency’s own citation I watch wildlife, and the animals I go looking for need country roads have not reached. The agency's own citation makes that point better than I can. The DEIS cites the finding that elk survival rates increased during a road closure and decreased when the gates were removed (Cole 1997), and that elk avoid roads and select unroaded habitat. No population-level effect on big game is projected anywhere in the document. I ask that the agency project the effects on big game populations and hunter opportunity. Issue 3: Carbon is stated and dropped The standing forests where I watch wildlife are doing quiet work the whole time, holding carbon. The agency states what these lands store and then drops the analysis. The DEIS cites the estimate that these inventoried roadless areas contain about 5 percent of the stored forest carbon in the coterminous United States, roughly 0.9 billion metric tons. The DEIS concludes these lands will continue to sequester and store carbon, with no analysis of harvest and roading. I ask that the agency quantify the change in carbon storage and sequestration under each alternative. I request that the agency respond in the record to each of the issues raised in this comment, and that it analyze in the DEIS an alternative that retains the 2001 rule’s protections. Where this proposal rests on factual conclusions that differ from the agency’s own prior findings quoted here, I ask that the agency acknowledge the change in position and provide a reasoned explanation for it on the record. Michael Burkley 40843 O Road Paonia, CO 81428