My name is Kerry O'Connor and I oppose the proposal to fully and partially rescind the Roadless Area Conservation Rule.
I was born and raised and currently live in Virginia. The George Washington and Jefferson National Forest have been in my life since I was a kid. I have also benefited from traveling this great country for four years, visiting national parks and national forests. I've seen first hand and participated in the economic benefits of recreation and tourism near roadless areas. Rescinding the roadless rule will harm local jobs and economies - tourism brings in more money to these communities than timber. And our families have lifetimes of memories based in these lands.
I am also concerned about the longer term cascading and devastating impacts to the environment and to human health. Roadless areas rich in biodiversity help recharge water. The City of Harrisonburg - where I went to college - gets its water from a reservoir recharged by the headwaters in a roadless area. Approximately 2 million people in Virginia get drinking water from the flow from roadless areas.
More roads for timber harvesting increases soil erosion and compaction, which leads to an increasing negative feedback loop in which water quality is reduced due to sediment run-off, future seedling growth is reduced due to compaction, and the amount of rainfall that held on the land to recharge rather than run-off is reduced without a health stand of trees and vegetation. Virginia has experienced a serious drought this year. We cannot afford to play fast and loose with our natural water cycle.
Allowing new roads in these areas does not make budgetary sense. It degrades community economies. The Forest Service does not currently have the budget to maintain existing road infrastructure. And the impact of these roads hurts downstream communities - possibly for generation.
The roadless rule is good policy that helps maintain these forest for many generations into the future. We must keep this rule in place.