I strongly oppose the proposed repeal of the 2001 Roadless Rule.
Our national forests are public lands, our shared birthright, and they should be protected for the benefit of everyone, not opened to greater roadbuilding and commercial logging. In West Virginia, the Roadless Rule safeguards treasured places like Roaring Plains, Seneca Creek, Cheat Mountain, Canaan Mountain and Tea Creek, while protecting important buffers around the Dolly Sods, Otter Creek and Cranberry Wilderness Areas.
Having visited the Monongahela National Forest many times over the past 25 years, I have never felt that the Forest required greater or more extensive road access. The existing Forest Roads are more than sufficient to provide reasonable access for recreation and occasionally sanctioned commercial activity, and thus to expand road building on the Mon into previously undisturbed areas and sensitive plant and animal habitat would go against the entire rationale behind our National Forests and the Mon in particular.
These wild, unfragmented landscapes provide clean water, wildlife habitat and irreplaceable opportunities for outdoor recreation. Once they are lost, we cannot easily restore them. Please preserve the Roadless Rule and protect our shared public lands for future generations.
Sincerely,
Bradley W. Stephens
Morgantown, WV