The Wilderness Society says:
On July 29, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 5118, The Wildfire Response and Drought Resiliency Act. H.R. 5118 is a package of nearly 50 bills aimed at curbing wildfire and drought and improving forest management. The Wilderness Society applauds the inclusion of the Roadless Area Conservation Act in the package.
The Roadless Area Conservation Act would codify the 2001 Roadless Rule, and would provide permanent protection for inventoried roadless areas in the National Forest System by barring the construction and development of roads, timber harvesting and other development.
I looked at the text of the bill and found this:
The Secretary of Agriculture shall not authorize road construction, road reconstruction, or the cutting, sale, or removal of timber on National Forest System lands subject to the Roadless Area Conservation Rule as published on January 12, 2001 (66 Fed. Reg. 3243) except as provided in—
(1) subpart B of part 294 of title 36, Code of Federal Regulations (as in effect on January 12, 2001);
(2) subpart C of part 294 of title 36, Code of Federal Regulations (as in effect on October 16, 2008 for Idaho); and
(3) subpart D of part 294 of title 36, Code of Federal Regulations (as provided for Colorado on July 3, 2012 and December 19, 2016).
The bill was sent to the Senate, where my guess is it’ll die.
Forgot the links –sorry.
https://www.wilderness.org/articles/press-release/house-package-includes-key-win-national-forests
https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/5118/text#toc-H61196785B63D488C99C4E62E01E0F25A
While we’re on the subject of roadless areas, does anyone know exactly why the roadless area designation process ended up designating “roadless” areas that are in fact covered with roads? I know of a few instances in Colorado, but it seems to be particularly egregious up in Wyoming. When I was researching some Jeep trails up by Yellowstone last month, I noticed there are just tons of non cherry-stemmed designated Forest Service roads (most classified as ML2 roads) running through the middle of Inventoried Roadless Areas. For example, the Morison Jeep Trail (Forest ROAD 120 – Morrison ROAD in the FS MVUM GIS data) runs straight through the middle of the the South Beartooth Highway IRA.
I don’t know that much about the inventory process used to originally designate these areas, but I assume they must have used some kind of squirely definition of “road” such that what most people would consider roads somehow didn’t qualify as roads. I know the BLM wilderness study area process distinguished between “roads” which were cherry-stemmed out of WSAs and “ways” which were not. Did the Forest Service do something similar? What was the dividing line? Were ML3 and above routes considered roads while ML2 was not?
And then of course I know the Colorado Roadless Rule allows motorized trails, including those open to full-size vehicles, which I’ve always found hilarious because those are indistinguishable from ML2 roads on the ground and the only difference is in legal classification. Those are fully allowed and you can even build new ones, but only if you call it a trail and not a road.
At any rate, it would be a lot easier for people to take the Roadless Rule seriously if these areas were actually, you know, roadless.
Patrick, I worked on the Colorado Roadless effort and was once a Roadless Geek but that was ten years ago now. So I am saying what I remember with some humility.
My understanding was that the inventory for the 2001 Roadless was based on the best maps they had at the time 1999 ish. So that many roads did get included. Politically they were in a hurry to finish the effort before the next Admin. This caused consternation with many employees as well as many citizens and elected officials. But that has passed with time. That’s why I think this bill is unnecessary .. except perhaps it’s really about the Tongass, which holds some kind of symbolic resonance as an issue.
The other historical note on roadless is it was fundamentally about stopping “logging” so wasn’t really intended to be “about” recreation, or roads or trails.
Anyway it’s easy to take a look at the reg https://www.fs.fed.us/emc/nepa/roadless/2001RoadlessRuleFR.pdf
Here’s the need for action
“Promulgating this rule is necessary to
protect the social and ecological values
and characteristics of inventoried
roadless areas from road construction
and reconstruction and certain timber
harvesting activities. Without
immediate action, these development
activities may adversely affect
watershed values and ecosystem health
in the short and long term, expand the
road maintenance backlog which would
increase the financial burden associated
with road maintenance, and perpetuate
public controversy and debate over the
management of these areas.”
**********************************
If we look at the definition of road under 294.11
“Road. A motor vehicle travelway over
50 inches wide, unless designated and
managed as a trail.”
You can also look under 294.13 (4) (Geek term of art, “substantially altered”) to see that timber harvesting can occur where there are already roads in the roadless area.
“Roadless characteristics have been
substantially altered in a portion of an
inventoried roadless area due to the
construction of a classified road and
subsequent timber harvest. Both the
road construction and subsequent
timber harvest must have occurred after
the area was designated an inventoried
roadless area and prior to January 12,
2001. Timber may be cut, sold, or
removed only in the substantially
altered portion of the inventoried
roadless area”
Now there could be two reasons, (1) the original roadless maps were wrong (from even more ancient mapping in RARE’s I and II) and (2) from the fact that new roads had been built between the original IRA mapping and 2001.
The CRS has some of that history in this 2020 paper https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R46504
I’m sure other TSW folks may have been involved in earlier mapping efforts as well.
As to the Colorado Roadless Rule, we were not particularly interested in getting involved in travel management aspects, we just tried to fix the boundaries (adding and subtracting) and making the restrictions in 2001 fit our state, and made some more restrictions with regard to “things that judges think are not roads but various important actors don’t like,” aka pipeline construction).
One more historical thing, when Chief Bosworth identified the Four Threats Fire and Fuels, Invasive Species, Loss of Open Space, and Unmanaged recreation, I think was when people became super concerned about OHVs https://www.fs.fed.us/projects/four-threats/facts/unmanaged-recreation.shtml
Timewise, those concerns were after the promulgation of the 2001 Rule. The last update of that page was 2006, and Chief Bosworth served as Chief from 2001-2007. As I recall those concerns ultimately led to the Travel Management Rule.
Thanks Sharon. Good to know some of the history of the Roadless Rule. Interesting that it was originally supposed to just be about stopping logging. I wonder when the shift happened that got us to where we are today, where roadless areas are viewed by both the Forest Service and NGOs as essentially candidate wilderness areas like BLM WSAs. And the primary focus these days has very much shifted from stopping logging to stopping recreation. Amazing how inevitable mission creep is with these sorts of things.
Well I guess (before my time, I first got involved with Roadless 94-ish) it all tracks back to Wilderness in some ways..from the CRS report linked in the comment above.
I tried to avoid being involved in wilderness issues, but I also understood that the roadless area inventory was to be based on the criteria used for wilderness eligibility. Those criteria may now be found in the Wilderness Evaluation section of the Planning Handbook (Chapter 70). For roads, the general rule is to exclude from the inventory forest roads maintained to levels 3, 4, or 5.
https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5409886.pdf
I was surprised by your statement that this was “fundamentally about stopping “logging.”” The purpose statement says otherwise, and I always thought it was fundamentally about preserving options for wilderness (which is not precluded by logging). Areas were to be included in the inventory included: “3. Timber harvest areas where logging and prior road construction are not substantially noticeable, or if wilderness character can be maintained or restored through appropriate
management actions.”