FS-2025-0001-571104

I am writing to submit a comment on the Notice of intention to rescind the 2001 Roadless Rule. I am and avid outdoor enthusiast and I care deeply about our national forests because I use many areas that are protected by the Roadless Rule in my local area including Mackey Mountain, Balsam Cone, Bear Wallow, Craggy Mountain, South Mills River, and Jarrett Creek. Rescinding the Roadless Rule will is likely to result in an expansion of the 386,000+ miles of existing roads that the Forest Service already has to maintain if the stated goals of expanding logging and mining are to be achieved. Business will expand the road network to exploit and extract resources and will then leave the maintenance of these roads to the Forest service. This will exacerbate the $8.4 billion in deferred maintenance that the Forest Service already has(USDA Forest Service 2001 EA). Where will this money come from? Taxpayers will be required to foot the bill for the future maintenance of this expansion of the forest service road network. The returns for this expenditure are not clear. Studies have shown that counties with protected federal lands have faster growing populations, per capita income, and employment than counties without (Izon et al. 2010; Holmes & Hecox 2002). This growth is in recreation related industries like lodging, dinning, and professional services. The wilderness recreation industry generated an estimated $574 million annually with much of this going to local communities(Loomis 2000). This is also sustainable growth where as logging tends to only provide short term economic benefits to local communities. The Roadless Rule protects important wild lands that will be irreplaceable if they are exploited for extractive industries and will likely result in long term economic harm to the local communities that lose out on revenue from wilderness recreation. Personally Curtis creek in the Pisgah national forest is one of my favorite camp grounds and is a place where I have created lasting memories hiking and backpacking with my wife. It is surrounded by land that is protected by the Roadless Rule and allowing logging on this land would forever change the character of the land and degrade the quality of this site. Turkey Pen gap is where I went on my first backpacking trip and discovered my love of backpacking. The majority of this trip was spent in the South Mills River area that is covered by the Roadless Rule. Rescinding the Roadless Rule puts these areas that I love in danger for little to no gain. For this reason I strongly oppose the USDA Forest Service’s proposed rescission of the Roadless Rule.