| Recreational Access and Conservation - Alerts and Notices | Short Cuts |
| | Introduction | News | Notices | Activities | | Education | Forums | Columns | Links | Edited by: John Stewart |
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| Recreational Access and Conservation - Alerts and Notices | Short Cuts |
| | Introduction | News | Notices | Activities | | Education | Forums | Columns | Links | Edited by: John Stewart |
|
National Forest System Road Management - Proposed Road Management Strategy
Few natural resource issues in recent years have attracted as much public scrutiny as the management of the Forest Service road system. Forest roads can have adverse impacts on watersheds, especially if poorly maintained. Few marks on the land are more lasting than roads. Yet, forest roads are essential for forest use and often serve as the backbone of rural transportation networks.
The estimated 380,000 miles of classified Forest Service roads on National Forest System lands are extensive and diverse. Most of the existing road system was built over the last 50 years for timber harvest and log removal. In the decades after World War II, logging traffic tripled, peaking in 1990. But when timber harvests on the national forests declined in the 1990's, logging traffic fell to 1950 levels. By contrast, recreation forest road use has grown to 13 times its 1950 rate. Driving for pleasure is the single largest recreational use of Forest Service managed lands, constituting 35.8 percent of all recreation in 1996. In summer, recreation drivers on the national forests account for 13.6 million vehicle-miles per day. The outlook is for recreational road use to grow by an additional 64 percent by the year 2045.
Managers today must wrestle with many complicated forest road issues.
Environmental damage. The negative effects on the landscape of constructing new roads, deferring maintenance, and decommissioning old roads are well documented. Unwanted or non-native plant species can be transported on vehicles and clothing by users of roads, ultimately displacing native species. Roads may fragment and degrade habitat for wildlife species and eliminate travel corridors of other species. Poorly designed or maintained roads promote erosion and landslides, degrading riparian and wetland habitat through sedimentation and changes in streamflow and water temperature, with associated reductions in fish habitat and productivity. Also, roads allow people to travel into previously difficult or impossible to access areas, resulting in indirect impacts such as ground and habitat disturbance, increased pressure on wildlife species, increased litter, sanitation needs and vandalism, and increased frequency of human-caused fires.
Substandard roads. Many roads on the national forests do not meet current standards for safety and environmental protection. Many of these are classified roads that have not been properly maintained for a variety of reasons. Some were crudely pioneered by early settlers. Others were planned for temporary access but never closed. Still others evolved from tracks made by off-road vehicles. Due to their haphazard nature, unclassified roads have far more adverse impacts on the environment than do permanent, properly planned forest roads that are well engineered and maintained. While the agency estimates more than 60,000 miles of unauthorized, unplanned, and temporary roads exist on National Forest System lands, a complete inventory of unclassified roads is needed to identify roads which should be decommissioned.
Roadless areas. The National Forest System has more than 50 million acres of inventoried roadless areas. These areas were inventoried through a national roadless area review in the 1970's (RARE II) or through subsequent regional and local forest planning activities. A further refinement of roadless area acres may occur through the agency's roadless initiative begun October 19, 1999. Because building a road in a roadless area often has an irreversible impact, the public debate over road building and other uses of these roadless areas has persisted. through public participation in forest planning and project-level proposals, through appeals and litigation, as well as through public forums over the last decade, the Forest Service has witnessed the increasingly strong public sentiment that new roads should not be built in the remaining roadless areas. Nevertheless, many others believe that these areas should be available for a wide variety of uses, including road construction.
The shift in public use of national forests and changes in user expectations require new approaches to deciding the appropriate extent, use, and standards of the Forest Service road system. Current funding is inadequate to maintain all Forest Service roads to their intended safety, service, and environmental standards. Therefore, to continue to effectively manage the Forest Service road system, the agency must carefully consider the extent of the system and applicable safety, service, and environmental standards, as well as explore new funding sources.
On January 28, 1998, in an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (63 FR 4350), the Forest Service announced its intent to revise regulations concerning management of the national forest transportation system. Simultaneously, the Forest Service published a proposed interim rule (63 FR 4351) to temporarily suspend permanent and temporary road construction and reconstruction in certain unroaded areas of National Forest System lands. The purpose of the interim rule was to take a "timeout" for 18-months while the Forest Service developed a revised road management policy and analytical tools to provide a more ecological approach to existing and future road needs.
A final interim rule, issued on February 12, 1999 (64 FR 7289), temporarily suspended permanent and temporary road construction and reconstruction in certain unroaded areas of National Forest System lands. The temporary suspension is in effect until development of a revised Forest Service road system policy, or 18 months from the effective date of the interim final rule, whichever is sooner.
In spring 1999, the Forest Service conducted focus group meetings for input from various segments of the public and Forest Service employees to gather detailed ideas about the development of the agency's revised road policy. Led by a facilitator from outside the agency, the focus groups contributed the views of specific interested groups, including employees, regarding roads and transportation on public lands. These ideas were considered along with the wide range of public comments received in response to the Advanced Notice and the proposed interim rule (over 164,000) in developing the proposed long-term road management rule and policy published in this part.
A summary of the information the Forest Service received from the focus group sessions is available at www.fs.fed.us/news/roads. A complete summary of the analysis of public comments on the Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking is found in "Proposed Rulemaking on Administration of the Forest Development Transportation System--Analysis of Public Comments: Final Scoping Report," dated August 20, 1998. This report is available upon request from the Director, Ecosystem Management Coordination, Forest Service, USDA, P.O. Box 96090, Washington, D.C. 20090-6090 and at www.fs.fed.us/news/roads.
The agency has identified three primary actions to help find an appropriate balance between safe and efficient access for all forest road users and protection of healthy ecosystems:
To achieve these objectives, the Forest Service is proposing revisions to the road system rules at 36 CFR Part 212 and to Forest Service administrative directives governing transportation analysis and management.
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Heidi Valetkevitch |