I am a longtime resident of Hot Springs, South Dakota, and since I was a child, nature has been one of the most important and guiding forces in my life. Everywhere I have lived and everywhere I go, my connection to the natural world has been foundational to how I experience life. The forest, the mountains, the water, and wild places are where I feel safest, most connected, and most at home. I hike, walk, explore, and spend time on public lands, and I value them not only for recreation, but for the clean water, wildlife habitat, quiet, beauty, and sense of connection to place they provide. The Black Hills are home, and I believe we have a responsibility to protect the remaining places where forests can function with as little human disturbance as possible.
I strongly oppose rescinding the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule (RIN 0596-AD66).
Roadless areas are some of the last places where wildlife can find relatively intact habitat and where natural ecological processes can continue without roads and the fragmentation, noise, traffic, and development that come with them. Once a road is built into a previously roadless area, the character of that place changes permanently. The loss is not simply the road itself. It is the access, disturbance, erosion, habitat fragmentation, and increased human activity that follow.
Here in the Black Hills, roadless areas are already limited. The Forest Service's own records identify inventoried roadless areas within the Black Hills National Forest. These remaining intact areas are especially valuable because so much of the surrounding forest is already accessible by roads and subject to human use. We should be protecting what remains, not making it easier to fragment these places further.
I am also concerned about the impact on water. The Black Hills are an important source of water for communities throughout the region. Forested headwaters and undisturbed landscapes help protect water quality and natural watershed function. Building roads into remote areas creates unnecessary risks of erosion, sedimentation, and disturbance to streams and wildlife habitat.
I understand that the Forest Service faces real challenges, including wildfire, forest health, and changing climate conditions. But rescinding a nationwide protection for roadless areas is a blunt response to problems that vary greatly from place to place. If specific management actions are genuinely necessary to protect communities or restore forest health, those actions should be evaluated carefully and transparently without eliminating protections for all remaining roadless areas.
I urge the Forest Service to retain the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule and, where appropriate, consider stronger protections for remaining roadless lands. I also ask the Forest Service to extend the public comment period and hold meaningful public hearings so that people who live near and depend on these public lands have a real opportunity to be heard.
These forests belong to all of us, including the generations who will come after us. Once roadless places are opened to roads and development, we cannot simply put them back the way they were. Please protect the wild and intact forests we still have.
Thank you for considering my comment.
Sincerely,
Rajni Lerman
Hot Springs SD