“October 5, 2026 U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service Attn: Roadless Rule Review Team Submitted via…”

October 5, 2026 U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service Attn: Roadless Rule Review Team Submitted via Federal eRulemaking Portal: https://www.regulations.gov Docket ID: FS-2025-0001 Regulation Identifier Number (RIN): 0596-AD66 Rule Title: Special Areas; Roadless Area Conservation (36 CFR Part 294) Subject: Public Comment Opposing the Proposed Rescission of the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule — Strong Support for Alternative 1 (No Action) As a hunter, angler, and fiscally conservative resident of Vernal, Utah, I urge the U.S. Forest Service to adopt Alternative 1 (No Action) and retain the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule. Living in the Uinta Basin, my backyard is the Ashley National Forest. I regularly hunt big game, pack into the backcountry, and fish across the unroaded drainages of the Uintas. While the congressionally designated High Uintas Wilderness protects the high alpine core, it is the surrounding Inventoried Roadless Areas (IRAs)—including the Whiterocks, Dry Fork, and Lake Mountain roadless blocks—that make these world-class pursuits possible. Hunters like me do not want to drive a truck on every ridge. Packing in on horseback or hiking miles with a rifle and pack frame is the essence of backcountry hunting. That experience of grit, self-reliance, and solitude is central to our American heritage, and it requires large, unspoiled terrain without motorized disruption. Maintaining large, undeveloped blocks of public land is essential for wildlife and watershed health. Unroaded terrain provides crucial summer range, security cover, and migration corridors for Utah’s trophy elk and mule deer. Roads fragment habitat and push herds onto private lands, degrading hunting quality for everyone. The roadless drainages of the Uintas serve as the primary headwaters for our local communities and sustain sensitive cold-water trout fisheries. Industrial roadbuilding leads to chronic sediment runoff that ruins spawning gravels and compromises water quality downstream. From a fiscal and economic standpoint, repealing the Roadless Rule is fundamentally flawed: According to national industry analyses, the total economic output and retail impact of the hunting and shooting sports industry exceeds $107 billion to $133 billion, supporting hundreds of thousands of jobs. With direct retail sales and economic generation around $45.2 billion—a figure higher than the individual annual GDP of roughly 121 countries—hunting is a proven, sustainable driver of real economic activity. In Utah, hunters pour money directly into local gateway communities like Vernal, buying fuel, groceries, sporting goods, lodging, and outfitting services season after season. In sharp contrast, the Forest Service's own estimates project an annual sawtimber harvest increase of just $5.2 to $11.4 million in revenue to the Treasury/USFS, and $4.6 to $10.6 million to the timber industry if the rule were rescinded. Jeopardizing high-value big game habitat that anchors a multi-billion-dollar sustainable recreation economy for a fraction of a percent in timber receipts makes zero business sense. Then there is the problem of increasing infrastructure maintenance liabilities. The Forest Service already manages roughly 370,000 miles of existing roads and faces an estimated $10.8 billion deferred maintenance backlog, with roughly 55% tied to roads alone. Building new road networks into pristine backcountry creates permanent maintenance obligations while diverting scarce funds from the decaying infrastructure the agency already cannot afford to maintain. Intact roadless areas are not economically "idle"—they are natural infrastructure powering a multi-billion-dollar hunting economy, sustaining clean drinking water, and sparing taxpayers from compounding infrastructure liabilities. I respectfully urge the Forest Service to protect these investments, adopt the No Action alternative, and keep the 2001 Roadless Rule in place. Respectfully submitted, Katherine M. Lawry