The Bogus Roadless Rule

The Bogus Roadless Rule

By Jerry Smith

This is mostly a rebuttal to an article in the Moab Sun News posted November 15^th, 2018 titled “County Voices Support For Roadless Rule”.  The italicized print are direct quotes.

The Forest Service 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule (Roadless Rule) and the Wilderness Act of 1964 are poorly thought out congressional laws.

Shortly after the Wilderness Act was signed, the first “Roadless Area Review and Evaluation” study was implemented. The results of the RARE study did not meet with the environmental communities’ liking, so a second study, RARE II, was done.

As one might surmise, the initial premise of these studies were to find and document areas of public lands, 5000 acres or larger, with no roads within their boundaries.  The thing that Congress did not think to include in the Wilderness Act was the definition of “road”, the one thing that any thinking individual would find useful when “studying” land for being “roadless”.

Even in the RARE I and RARE II studies procedures there was and is no “definition of road”.  I asked many people many times for that definition only to have that “deer in the headlights” look given.

Back in those years, it was extremely rare for a USFS Ranger District or BLM Field Office to have an inventory of all roads and trails within their territories.  Therefore, the inventory and the determination of what constituted a “road” was left entirely to the field study team.

During the public comment periods of RARE II, I found a particular area in Montana was being “studied” for “Roadless Area” suitability that I was familiar with and attended the meetings in Missoula.  At the first meeting, a BLM handout was provided that gave a written description of the area.

The description included a paragraph with the name of the construction company that “constructed” a “road” with culverts and drainage in this “roadless” area. My written comments pointed this out and at the second meeting, that paragraph had been deleted and no further explanation or debate was allowed.

Many times since then, when these kinds of “studies” have been done on public lands, other roads and vehicular trails have been included and many of the current “Wilderness Study Areas” and Congressionally designated Wilderness Areas have old roads and other man-made/caused issues that were specifically prohibited in the Wilderness Act 

DEFINITION OF WILDERNESS – (taken directly from the Wilderness Act)

 is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man.  

An area of wilderness is further defined to mean in this Act an area of undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions and which (1) generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man's work substantially unnoticeable;

For instance, at one time I had USFS maps that showed a road to a sawmill within the Welcome Creek Wilderness Area in Montana.  One day, I decided to see where the western boundaries of the Wilderness Area were located.  I followed the road on the map expecting to come to a USFS sign-proclaiming Wilderness behind it.  

As I drove through the area, it was very plain that the area had been logged in the past as old stumps and slash piles were still prevalent.  When I finally came to a sign, I had to get out of my Jeep and walk around the sign in the middle of the road to read it.

Less than 50-yards from the sign was a full-width active logging road that the road I was standing on intersected.

The area I had just driven through was designated Wilderness with massive signs of man’s presence and nothing particularly noteworthy about the area. It was a common forest on low rolling Montana hills.

With these kinds of evidence in conflict with the law, my confidence in the land management agencies was diminished to zero.

I can take anyone to numerous instances of the abuse and misuse of the law today.  Vehicular gates on the roads entering designated Wilderness and Wilderness Study Areas exist.  Land management signs saying “Route Closed” are just a few feet inside the Wilderness boundaries.  Physical admission to the knowledge that a “route” existed and exists by land management who could not be honest, even with themselves, in order to further their personal political agendas.  In some instances, mining exploratory digs along the road are more sign that man had been there.

The entire concept of a “Roadless Rule” is bogus right from the first letter on the page.

To make these “Roadless Areas” and “Wilderness Study Areas” legitimate, a working definition of “Road”, “Primitive Road”, “Trail”, and “Primitive Trail” that any honest layperson could recognize the difference between an existing road and barren land from MUST be agreed to.

Is this an official admission that a "route" entered the Wilderness??

That "roadless" runs right through that gate into the Wilderness.

This vehicular gate is on the border of the Wilderness.

Then, and only then, every Wilderness Study Area and “Roadless Area” must be RE-evaluated for proper designation.  Any area NOT able to pass the evaluation must be returned to actively managed public lands with no future “roadless” studies done.

This "roadless" does not exist.  It's in a Congressionally designated Wilderness.

Now, rebutting some of the issues in this “news” article.

First;  “Utah Public Lands Policy Coordinating Office Director Kathleen Clarke said in a letter to county officials statewide that the 2001 rule does not take Utah’s unique forests and needs into full consideration.

“The Roadless Rule, though maybe well-intended, has impeded active forest management and, in some cases, even limited local and state governments from protecting homes and property from the threat of wildfire,” Clarke wrote.”

Roads in an area are useful for many reasons.  Fire suppression, area agency management, grazing access, recreation, (hunting, camping, equestrian, picnicking, etc.) logging (if appropriate), mining, game management, watershed management, and others.

Next; “But council member Greg Halliday, who also serves as the Castle Valley Fire Department’s training officer, said he worries that greater vehicular access to roadless areas like Horse Mountain could actually worsen the fire danger in the La Sal Mountains.

Based on his experiences, he said, most backpackers have usually been “a little bit more responsible” when it comes to concerns about wildfires.”

With all due respect to Mr. Halliday, that is his opinion, not a fact.  His opinion can and should be argued with great difference.

Next;  “Wells countered that Utah officials believe the changes they’re seeking will give the state and the U.S. Forest Service more flexibility to manage unhealthy forests and prevent wildfires.”

“Wells said he spoke with a Forest Service representative at a recent open house, and that person brought unspecified concerns about local forest management to his attention.”

“We didn’t get into the specifics of things, but he outlined to me very clearly: There areas of great concern to him on the La Sal Mountains for forest health ... and felt that we quote-unquote dodged a bullet last year,”

In Nature, fire once created the conditions for new growth to begin in an area.  Man, in his wisdom, suppressed all the fires.

In many areas, logging replaced the fires and the forest was healthy again.  Man, in his wisdom, largely curtailed logging.  Now entire forests grew to maturity – unnaturally.

Maturing forests become more susceptible to disease, insect infestations, drought, and fire.  As trees mature, most drop their lower limbs and others die and fall creating a heavy fire fuel load that when burned, creates extreme heat that rises into the forest canopy and burns the entire tree.  The heat is so intense, it sterilizes the ground and leaves seeds that have laid dormant for years dead and useless.

“Forest fires” back in time, burned only the low brush and duff leaving most trees alive and islands of green forest from which to Reforest.  Current extreme wildfires leave nothing alive for miles.  This also promotes extreme flooding, pollution, and watershed destruction.

Wildlife is displaced indefinitely (if they survive), recreation is usually closed, and the land is left ugly and abused.

Most of our forests today are very unhealthy, dead or dying.  The “Protect and Preserve” management style promoted by the radical environmental community has proven a massive failure.  The only logical remedy is to return to the “Multiple Use and Sustained Yield” LAW that once maintained healthy forests.

Healthy forests would help greatly with the “Endangered Species” problem.  Animals have been relocated because their habitat became unsuitable… not because of “climate change”, but because of bad management policies.

Returning the forests to health will eventually bring animals back to their native habitat and a normal and fruitful existence.

Next;  “Council member Jaylyn Hawks, who presented the council with a draft version of the county’s response to Clarke’s office, questioned the state’s rationale for the changes it’s seeking.

She said she spoke recently with Forest Service representatives about the rule, and they confirmed that in Grand County, at least, it allows for temporary road construction and access to perform forest-restoration and fire-prevention activities.

“They said, ‘No, the roadless rule does not prohibit temporary road (construction activities in Grand County) for those purposes,’ and so I feel like we already have the mechanism to do that,” she said.

I don’t know if Ms. Hawks has ever applied to build a “temporary road” in a Roadless Area, but it is a very long, difficult, controversial, and extremely expensive venture.  Look to a coal mine near Paonia, CO for the details.

Next; “The U.S. Department of Agriculture — which oversees the U.S. Forest Service — adopted the roadless rule in the final days of former President Bill Clinton’s administration. It generally prohibits road construction and timber harvesting on 58.5 million acres of inventoried roadless areas nationwide.

State officials say the rule led to prohibitions on road construction and reconstruction — as well as timber harvesting — on 4,013,000 acres of 8,179,000 acres in Utah. That’s more than 49 percent of all National Forest lands in the state, they say.”

We have already established that many of the “roadless areas” are NOT roadless.  We all know that our forests are generally unhealthy.  

Are we going to stand aside and allow a small minority of people to dictate the failed policies and failed management practices be followed, or are we going to demand “active” management of the forests be reestablished and return to healthy forests??  Those ARE the options!!