I oppose the proposal to rescind or alter the roadless rule and support alternative 1. No action alternative. Reject all sell-offs, giveaways, and/or backroom deals affecting our public lands. Our National Parks are our country’s best idea. The roadless rule has resulted in several conservation benefits including decreasing the odds of wildfires, keeping ecosystems intact, preserving sources of clean water and protecting endangered species. According to the Government’s own analysis, rescinding the roadless rule will have a negative impact on these areas.
Building roads is expensive.Timber logging within USFS is unsustainable for long term profit. Increasing timber sale projects, especially in remote areas, will cost the USFS money, and contaminate watersheds. Additionally, based on a 2021 USFS report, there is already a 15.6 billion dollar backlog on maintaining the roads that are already in place.
Wildfires are incredibly expensive. The national interagency Fire Center ran the numbers, we spend roughly 3 billion dollars annually to fight wildfires and that is not including property damage, contractors, or health related issues sustained while fighting wildfires. It is substantially cheaper and more sustainable to put money into fuel mitigation. Rescinding the roadless rule could increase fire risk. Road density is linked to human-caused wildfires, and as the density of roads increases so does the probability, number, and frequency of wildfire ignitions. Recent studies have found that fires are 4 times more likely to start near a road than in a roadless area. Earlier this year, nearly 120 current and former woodland firefighters sent a letter to Congress defending the roadless rule.
Repealing the roadless rule will severely harm our drinking water. Inventoried roadless areas typically have good water quality due to limited disturbance and road construction and native surface forest roads are the largest source of sediment related to timber harvest operations, and sediment delivered to surface waters is a major source of water quality degradation. Roads are the largest controllable source of forest sediment as proven in the Roadless areas and clean water. Journal of Soil and Water Conservation. For example, Salem, OR had to spend roughly $100 million after sediment from logging related disturbances contaminated the water shed. Dominick A. DellaSala’s 2011 synthesis in the Journal of Soil and Water Conservation proves that 3,400 communities across 33 states rely on national forests for drinking water, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver, & California’s central valley, which provides food for the entire country. Roughly 124 million Americans stand to face contaminated water if the roadless rule is rescinded.
I am a retired teacher from Long Beach, California. My family, friends and students have benefited from our National Park System. I was introduced to wilderness areas as a 15 year old student, backpacking in the Grand Canyon, on a school camping trip. The formative experience inspired me to visit National Parks every year. I am always humbled by the beauty of the wilderness areas our country has conserved.
I intentionally spend/invest my travel dollars in the National Parks I visit and in the local communities because they are important to me. The tourist economy will take a big hit. Our public land system generates over a trillion dollars yearly and sustains roughly 5 million US jobs. If our National Forests are being logged and large swaths are being fenced off to mine, tourists will be less inclined to visit. Loss of recreation areas and visitor spending may result in a loss of $9 million in annual visitor spending in local communities.
From Alaska to Florida, Yosemite to Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon to the Grand Tetons, these areas need to be preserved for the public benefit. The proposal to take our nation’s Crown Jewel, Yosemite, and hand pieces of it over to the ultra wealthy is repulsive and undemocratic. No part of Yosemite should be given, sold or bartered for a private road for Jeff Pori, CEO of Kingsbarn Realty Capital, or anyone else. This proposal has been litigated previously and denied. Not a sliver of the Grand Tetons should be sacrificed for a baseball field for an exhibition baseball game. Nuclear powered data centers should never be allowed on Utah land or anywhere. These lands have always been open to everyone equally for recreation, education, hiking, camping, birdwatching, fishing, and conservation. These private use proposals are an insult to every American.
For the reasons listed above, fully or partially rescinding the roadless rule under alternatives 2 and 3 of the draft EIS would be a grave mistake. Just say NO to rescinding the roadless rule and protect our public lands.