To the Department of Agriculture and the Forest Service:
As someone whose work depends on knowing the difference between revision and erasure, I want to be direct: this isn't a reform, it's a rollback.
I grew up going to this area, seeing the redbuds in bloom in the spring, swimming in the river in the summer. Nature is our shared heritage, and it supports clean, bountiful water, clean air, and life.
I will lose clean and abundant water, breathable air, home for animals who help to maintain vegetation and the water cycle, recreation space for myself, and knowledge that nature is out there, regulating conditions for life on Earth.
Regarding the Tuolumne River in the Stanislaus National Forest, California:
Ground disturbance, sedimentation, and stream crossings in roadless areas degrade drinking-water supplies and aquatic habitat downstream.
Freshwater extinction risk. Aquatic species face disproportionate extinction risk globally. A multi-taxon assessment of 23,496 freshwater species found that 24% are threatened with extinction, driven primarily by pollution, habitat fragmentation, and sediment loading from upstream disturbance (Sayer et al. 2025). — Sayer et al., 2025 (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08375-z)
Rescinding the Roadless Rule would open the Tuolumne River, Stanislaus National Forest to road construction and associated ground disturbance. The direct and indirect effects of that activity are precisely what makes a specific comment about this area necessary.
Roads degrade watersheds. They cause erosion; silt up streams, harming fish; and they enable widespread logging that actually makes fires worse because it dries out the land. Trees and land are responsible for nearly half of rain over continents. The more we cut trees, the more we exacerbate never-ending drought.
A rule that has survived multiple administrations and multiple rounds of circuit-court review should not be rescinded on the present record.
Very truly yours, Erica Gies
CommentID: RLC-20261007-D7HXTD