Dear Secretary Rollins,
I strongly oppose the Proposed Rule rescinding the 2001 Roadless Rule.
Rolling back the Roadless Rule will open irreplaceable Montana landscapes up to large-scale logging, road construction, and other development that will industrialize our national forests. The Roadless Rule has protected irreplaceable roadless values while permitting fire suppression, fuels mitigation work, trail maintenance, and other forest management activities for the past 25 years. It is a fiscally responsible, environmentally sound, multiple-use management tool.
I served in a rural volunteer fire department, and from that direct, on-the-ground experience, I can reassure you that the greatest sources of wildland fire ignitions in my rural fire district were humans, and most of those ignitions occurred close to settlement and accessible by interagency firefighting forces, including my own. Adding more roads to the national forests will increase the likelihood of human-caused fires.
We need the roadless rule to preserve water quality, air quality, and wildlife habitat. The national forests already have too many roads!
I am a supporting member of the Montana Logging Association, and I do not oppose logging and legitimate multiple uses of our national forests. A better approach to rescinding the roadless rule would be to assess the rule in specific places and modify them accordingly to preserve natural values while enabling small forestry operations to sustain small businesses, timber dependent communities, and families. A blanket recission is crude and will lead to needless degradation of our precious national forests.
Please adopt the No Action alternative for the Final Rule.
Sincerely,
Mark Fiege
Montana -- Madison County / Beaverhead-Deerlodge NF