I'm a hiker and backpacker from Portland, Oregon, and I'm writing to urge the Forest Service to select Alternative 1, No Action, and keep the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule in place. I oppose rescission.
The places that matter most to me are Mount Hood, the central Cascades around Three Sisters and Broken Top, and the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. Those landscapes are special because they are wild from the trailhead to the summit, and much of what makes them that way is the roadless country that surrounds the designated wilderness. It shields the views, the quiet, and the headwaters that flow into it. Road building along those edges would change all of it.
More than 25,000 miles of trails run through roadless areas nationwide, and rescinding the rule would remove the protection that keeps them wild. A road, once built, cannot easily be undone.
The rule's value goes well beyond recreation. These roughly 58 million acres include the headwaters of streams that supply drinking water to downstream communities. Road building and logging on steep, erodible slopes increase sediment, damage fish habitat, and raise treatment costs for the people who depend on that water. Keeping these watersheds intact is far cheaper than repairing them.
Rescission also does not make sense as a fire strategy. Most wildfires are started by people, and new roads bring more ignition sources into remote country. The Forest Service already cannot maintain the roads it has, so new ones would add washouts, failed culverts, and landslide risk, along with maintenance costs that taxpayers would carry. I understand the argument that roads aid fuels treatment and firefighter access. But the agency can thin and treat the areas near communities, where that work protects homes, without building new roads into the backcountry.
Roadless areas also provide large, connected habitat for wildlife that needs room to move, and mature forests that store carbon as the climate changes.
The rule has protected these lands for 25 years without closing them to the public. Hikers, hunters, anglers, and backcountry skiers all use them. I ask that the agency respond to these concerns in its final analysis, keep the Roadless Rule, and select Alternative 1.
Thank you for considering my comment.
Max
Portland, OR