I spent my career as a forester and ecologist with the USFS, the USFWS and finally with the USDOT/FHWA. I retired 5 years ago with 33 years of federal service. During my career, I conducted field work to determine timber values, suitability of areas for timber harvest and the presence of federally listed plants and animals. I served on teams conducting NEPA analyses for a variety of project types in multiple landscapes. For 18 years, I was a liaison from the USFWS to the NC DOT and consulted on thousands of infrastructure projects for their impacts to streams and wetlands and endangered species. I won awards from both the FWS and the DOT for my work. At the end of my career, I was training State DOTs across the country in the applicability and implementation of the Endangered Species Act and NEPA and working as a subject matter expert to help solve problems with a nexus of transportation and the environment, particularly water resources and rare plants and animals.
In my time away from work, I have hiked and enjoyed the National Forests from Washington to North Carolina and most of the nation in between. I have found great value and experience in roadless areas across the country. From the Salmo-Priest area on the Colville NF ——where I conducted my MS research—- to St Peter’s Dome on the Chequamegon NF and finally to my home state of NC and Catfish Lake on the Croatan NF and Harpers Creek on the Pisgah NF, these roadless areas are crucial to clean air, clean water and the survival of multiple species of plants and animals. From migratory birds and forest dwelling bats to endemic plants and salamanders, areas that are not impacted by roads provide habitat not available elsewhere in our national forests.
With over 20 years of my career spent in transportation, I can attest to the permanent changes that road corridors, regardless of their classification, bring to the forest. Over decades, road corridors and culverts degrade and deposit sediment to streams and in extreme weather events cause further damage to both streams and the forest. In addition, these corridors provide travel routes for invasive species which can greatly alter habitat for native species. The scale of what roads have already done to the landscape is substantial. An estimated 15 to 20 percent of the contiguous United States is ecologically affected by roads — not just where roads exist, but where the edge effects, runoff patterns, and disturbance cascades from those roads reach (Forman & Alexander 1998).
These roadless areas are habitat gems that should never be exploited for the limited resources that they can provide commercially, but instead should be conserved for their tremendous capacity as large habitat patches contributing to biodiversity and conservation of all species, including our own.
DO NOT RESCIND THE ROADLESS RULE.