I am writing to declare my opposition to any attempt to fully or partially rescind the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule.
I reside in Upstate South Carolina, and spend time hiking, kayaking, and camping with my family in the Pisgah, Nantahala, and Sumter National Forests. In addition, my family owns a parcel of land adjacent to the Sumter National Forest in Oconee County, SC.
The increasing fragmentation of these wild areas by extraction and road building will continue to erode the value of the land for wildlife habitat and for recreation. We have seen first hand here how logging and road building have left our mountain slopes vulnerable to landslides after Helene and to fires before that. We know that road building contributes to the frequency of fires and to the occurrence of human caused fire in places not previously vulnerable.
I am concerned not only for the less quantifiable values above, but for the very real effects on the life of our communities. Many of our Upstate and mountain cities and towns really on the forests for our drinking water. Destruction of the forests, which follows road building as surely as night follows day, will increase runoff and reduce our ability to capture water for vital use. Pollution of our water will increase. Our neighbors in Oconee, who relay on hunting to supplement their food budget will have fewer game animals to hunt. Local businesses rely on tourism and recreation in the forests for their livelihood, and degradation of the quality of the forests will surely hurt them.
I ask, as a resident, taxpayer, and constituent that the U.S. Forest Service and the USDA to abandon the proposed rescission under Alternatives 2 and 3 of the draft EIS and maintain full, permanent protections for all inventoried roadless areas.