WASHINGTON — The Trump Administration’s Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins has announced the administration’s push to rescind the “Roadless Rule” in U.S National Forests.
The White House’s stated intent is to increase wildfire prevention efforts, though conservation groups say it may have the opposite effect.
It was created in 2001, when the Republican Party controlled the U.S. House and the White House and held the tie-breaking vote in the Senate. Tom Uniack, the director of Washington Wild, says it was created because logging and other forest-service roads were unable to be maintained.
“Fiscal conservatives [were] saying that we can’t pay for the number of roads that we had at that point on our national forests. And so why would we build new roads in areas that don’t have them if we can pay for those we’ve got?” Uniack said.
Across the country, it creates protections for 44 million acres. In Washington, two million acres fall under roadless area regulations.
The Washington Contract Loggers Association supports the change, pointing to a USFS analysis that 40% of roadless areas are at a “high” or “very high” potential for wildfire.
“The existing rule has left millions of acres of public land at risk of catastrophic wildfire, insect infestation, and disease,” WCLA president Jerry Bonagofsky said in a statement.
Bonagofsky says any development of roads or logging projects would still be subject to endangered species protections and environmental reviews.
“These forests are overstocked and filled with dead and dying trees. Rescinding the Roadless Rule would give local USFS professionals the ability to consider building permanent or temporary roads for forest management and restoration work. Roads that would also allow faster, safer and more effective firefighting,” his statement read.
Uniack doesn’t buy the wildfire aspect, saying the Roadless Area Regulations have exceptions for fire suppression. He points to research finding more than 90% of wildfires start within half a mile of a road.
“[The change] is going to create more fires and more danger for firefighters,” Uniack said.
Uniack also points to the problems opening areas would pose to drinking water, as he says the environment around headwaters where many municipal watersheds are sourced as a natural filter that roads and logging would disrupt.
“If a Roadless Rule was repealed, roads, logging, and other activities would definitely reduce that water quality before it went in to our homes and to our kids,” Uniack said.
More than 4,000 miles of hiking and recreation trails fall in roadless areas in all areas of the state that could be altered, cut off or destroyed if logging was allowed on them.
“This administration and Congress have put forward more than 50 proposals and laws that would threaten our parks and federal lands and wild places. Arguably, the roadless rural appeal is one of the most egregious.” Uniack said.
Public comment is open for people to submit their opinions or impacts from this change and can be found at this link to the USFS website.
Comment closes on September 20.