To the U.S. Forest Service / USDA
Re: Proposed rescission of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule (RIN 0596-AD66)
I am writing to ask the Forest Service to keep the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule in place and not rescind it.
My husband and I regularly camp and travel in Oregon's national forests, including the Ochoco National Forest, in a Jeep with a small trailer. We fish, read, and camp along the Crooked River and in the Mill Creek area. The quiet, undeveloped character of these inventoried roadless areas — clean headwater streams, intact habitat, and places you can still experience on foot or on a forest road without new road construction cutting through them — is exactly why we go.
Roadless protections do not close these forests to the public. They keep the existing road system in place while preventing new permanent roads and most commercial timber harvest in the wildest remaining backcountry. That balance has worked for 25 years: it protects drinking-water headwaters and fish and wildlife habitat while leaving recreation, existing access, and forest management tools available.
Please retain the Roadless Rule as it stands. At minimum, I ask that the agency fully analyze, in the final environmental impact statement, the effects of rescission on recreation access and experience, water quality in headwater streams like the Crooked River, and wildlife habitat connectivity in Oregon's national forests before making any change.
Thank you for considering my comment.
Anna Streano
Lake Oswego, Oregon