Wyofile shared this headline:
“Trump Proposal Could Unleash ATV’s across Wyoming’s National Forests”
in the uniquely hyperbolic style of headlines nowadays. It was only Monday that we read in the NY Times:
“Bigger, Hotter Fires Are Slowly Erasing America’s Great Forests
Towering woodlands in the West are being permanently replaced by tracts of spiky shrubs. “
It reminds me a bit of the fable “the boy who cried wolf.”
Anyway, as a person who thought the TMR was too complicated to learn about (and that’s from someone who worked on Planning and Roadless Rules!), my first thought was that the processes could probably be improved, given the period of time that has elapsed (2005) and changes in mapping, climate change, additional recreation pressure (in some places), wildfire management, technologies and case law may have raised other opportunities for clarification and improvement.
Declaring that Forest Service regulations “for too long … have stood in the way of public recreation access,” the Trump administration seeks to open some 6.2 million acres of public forest land in Wyoming to virtually unbridled motorized access, prompting widespread criticism from conservationists.
What does “virtually unbridled” mean?
This is interesting..
The plan would strengthen rural economies, maintain safe and sustainable transportation systems, and support working lands, the USDA said in the announcement. A new “uniform national policy” would presume that all “existing roads, trails, airfields, trailheads, and other access routes and points on National Forest System lands are open to appropriate public use.”
Areas and routes that would be closed must be “supported by specific, documented and justifiable reasons based on science-based resource conditions, public safety, conflicts among uses, or maintenance and administrative capacity.” National forest supervisors and their staffers would enact the new plan and seek input on what areas might be closed to engine-powered access, the announcement suggests.
Don’t they already do that? Or do forest staff close roads willy-nilly and supported by their own druthers? I do know Patrick has questions about how decisions were made on one forest, including the process.
Apparently, based on the story there is a “spectrum of conservation organizations” but the quotes are from one, the Wyoming Wilderness Association. I resist lumping WWA with all “conservationists” and I wait to see what our hook and bullet friends have to say, especially about game retrieval. Or maybe folks at Wyofile have redefined “conservation” to a specific group?
It seems like an article would have quotes from, say, OHV groups to get both sides of the story. But maybe not. Here’s the other group the reporter contacted:
WyoFile sought reaction from Wyoming’s State Parks, Historic Sites and Trails agency, which operates a trails permit system and publishes off-road vehicle maps of trails on state and federal land, but officials did not immediately respond.
Back to dePasquale:
“The threat of changing the paradigm from closed-unless-designated-open to open-unless-designated-closed comes with the risk of widespread expansion of user-created motorized routes and a fear of significant damage to important habitat such as streams and wetlands,” dePasquale said.
I don’t actually see that in the proposal. There are routes, and there is off-route. Conceivably opening more trails is not the same as opening off-trail travel? Are these two different concepts?
In the comments earlier, Anonymous said that motorized people were hard to deal with because they were stuck on “no net loss.” Sure there is a risk of widespread expansion, but I’m curious about when do we trust local officials to make decisions and when not? I always thought the difficulty with the TMR was that it had different parts which were unevenly completed. After this time, again, like Roadless, with the mapping we have and our additional knowledge of critters and wildfire, as well as the increased demand for mountain biking and hiking trails (and conflicts) why not take another look?
Once again, beware of unquestioned elision of two different things…
“When people are able to go wherever they want, it’s not always malicious,” she said. But, user-created two-tracks and single-track motorized trails, “can create a large impact that is irreparable in a short amount of time.
That’s certainly true but is that what the Federal Register notice says? It’s only two paragraphs.
Travel management regulations, 36 CFR part 212. The proposed action would establish a uniform national policy favoring increased access while simplifying regulatory requirements and preserving local decision-making. The proposed access rule would establish a national policy with a presumption that existing roads, trails, airfields, trailheads, and other access routes and points on National Forest System lands are open to appropriate public use unless closure or restriction is required by applicable law, valid existing rights, or another governing instrument, or supported by specific, documented and justifiable reasons based on science-based resource conditions, public safety, conflicts among uses, or maintenance and administrative capacity. Commonly available public data sets, including aerial imagery, may be used as evidence that a physical route or airfield exists or existed at a time relevant under the definition adopted in the proposed rule, but would not by themselves establish that the feature is part of the forest transportation system, that the Forest Service has jurisdiction or sufficient legal access, or that it is open to a particular public use. The proposed access rule would require annual review of all trails, roads, airfields, trailheads, and other access routes and points that are closed or highly restricted. The proposed access rule would establish processes and conditions for limited off-route motor vehicle use and other motorized equipment for, among other things, downed big-game retrieval, firewood collection and dispersed camping, and for designating areas for over-snow and other motorized recreation.
The presumption embodied in the national policy would guide future decisions and would not itself change the legal status of any road, trail, airfield, trailhead, area, or other access route or point. Any change in lawful use resulting from a vehicle- or use-specific exemption would be limited to the scope and conditions expressly provided in the revised regulations. Existing motor vehicle use designations and maps would remain in effect until revised under the amended regulations. The environmental impact statement will evaluate the impacts of the proposed rule revisions and study alternatives for managing public access, including the motorized and other forms of access addressed by the proposed rule, on National Forest System lands in the context of multiple-use resource management. USDA invites written comments on alternatives, effects, and relevant information, studies, or analyses related to the proposal.
I read it as “existing roads, trails, etc.” not “areas” except they would (again) have processes and conditions for the usual suspect issues (big game retrieval and so on). I see a couple of questions arising.. would this include user-created trails in the analysis? That might be something to comment on so that it’s clarified.
Finally, there are areas already for over-snow and other motorized recreation. So there must have been a process to create them? Or not? And of course, we know that creating any new ones would likely be controversial, and likely litigated.
For me, I think the whole thing will be more interesting when they have a proposal on the table, although I already think the idea of an annual review is too frequent.
If it were me, I would have said “the FS has posted an NOI that they will do a rulemaking, including a proposed rule and an EIS. What do you think is important to keep about the current regulatory situation? What needs to be changed?
These processes take time, so we, unlike Wyofile, apparently have time to get different views.
Sharon, I know that most recreation groups that I work with support the “reform not repeal” side of the land use equation including ORR – https://rv-pro.com/news/orr-issues-statement-regarding-usdas-proposed-forest-service-access-rule/
Not sure of the rationale for the crisis mongering from some groups?
Would like to know if this means that illegal, user created OHV trails would be included as open even though these trails were not approved in the travel plan or project level plans. If this is the case, then if will create incentive for more route pioneering and user created trails.
That’s a great question, Mitch! This is a request for comment… if you think that’s an important consideration, you should put that in your comments.
The whole point of this proposed rule-making document, as vague as it is, is to get ideas and concerns on the table.
The proposal says, “Commonly available public data sets, including aerial imagery, may be used as evidence that a physical route or airfield exists or existed at a time relevant under the definition adopted in the proposed rule, but would not by themselves establish that the feature is part of the forest transportation system, that the Forest Service has jurisdiction or sufficient legal access, or that it is open to a particular public use.”
To me that implies they plan to set some kind of cutoff date where if users can prove that an uninventoried route existed before then the presumption that it’s open applies. I think that’s intended to prevent new user created routes from being covered by it, though I suppose really old ones could still be. In my experience in Colorado, true user created routes of any significant length are extremely rare. Most are either short campsite access spurs less than 100 yards long or else trail braiding or unauthorized bypasses that form around obstacles or lingering snow drifts. The latter are easy to tell they’re unauthorized and are regularly blocked off by the Forest Service or 4WD clubs that have adopted a trail. If a route actually goes somewhere or is any significant length, it’s almost always an old logging or mining road that was deliberately constructed decades ago and just may never have been inventoried properly. Or maybe was officially “decommissioned” on paper at some point but never blocked off on the ground. Those are the kinds of routes I think the presumption is intended to apply to and would really benefit offroaders, along with the many routes I’ve seen where the official endpoint on the MVUM doesn’t match where the road actually ends on the ground.
“Forest System lands are open to appropriate public use unless closure or restriction is required by … another governing instrument … (and travel planning produced a “government instrument” that closed things).
“The presumption embodied in the national policy would guide future decisions and would not itself change the legal status of any road, trail, airfield, trailhead, area, or other access route or point.”
Maybe I’m dense today, but it sounds like this wouldn’t actually do anything now, and would not require that anything be opened, but if there are future closures proposed, they have to be “supported by specific, documented and justifiable reasons based on science-based resource conditions, public safety, conflicts among uses, or maintenance and administrative capacity,” which doesn’t sound much different than the original travel planning. What am I missing that makes this a big deal?
The language about “data sets” sounds more to me like it’s aimed and RS 2477 roads to determine “that the Forest Service has jurisdiction or sufficient legal access.” (This is the other meaning of “access” that sometimes makes discussing it confusing.) Oh, and maybe they should use this effort to legalize “corner crossings” for access.
This is probably something to comment on and ask to be clarified in the final rule, but I think there are actually two presumptions described here: the presumption during travel management proceedings that existing roads should be open to the public unless there is clear justification to close them, and the presumption for forest users that existing roads are open unless signed or barricaded closed.
The latter would be a big change that would be effective immediately, because tons of roads were either never inventoried and considered in a travel management process or were technically closed on paper but never signed as closed on the ground. Many others have incorrect endpoints shown on the MVUM that doesn’t match what’s on the ground.
Right now it’s often really hard to tell what the absence of a road on the MVUM actually means. Was there a deliberate decision to close this or was it just left off because of some kind of error? Is this a weird edge case where it’s a road on Forest Service land that is actually under county jurisdiction so it’s not on the MVUM even though it’s a legal road to drive on? It’s often hard to know. So that presumption would give a lot of clarity and would mean users could not be cited for driving existing roads that look open on the ground.
Patraick, in this day and age, I don’t see why the FS couldn’t just map them all while openly talking to neighbors and users about what the FS thinks the current status is, and whether it needs to be clearer, or to be changed, or to be signed. Just like Roadless, in a way, the first step to me should be an accurate map using today’s technology. And why wouldn’t we? 2001 and 2005 were pre-GIS.
Agreed. And I’d be happy to help with that in my area. I regularly map both open and closed roads on OpenStreetMap (an open source mapping project basically like Wikipedia for maps, which powers most outdoor recreation focused map apps).
I once had a big discussion with someone at the Leadville Ranger District who discovered OpenStreetMap and went in and deleted a bunch of “unauthorized” roads and trails. I had to explain to him that OSM’s policy is to map what’s on the ground, not just routes considered “official”, and that I had specifically mapped a lot of existing undesignated routes in the Leadville area in particular because so many of them had never been inventoried for travel planning and I want there to be a record of them somewhere so they could potentially be considered in a future travel planning process. I had to then re-add a bunch of the features he deleted.
Public mapping datasets like OpenStreetMap are often far more detailed and more accurate than Forest Service GIS data, and I’d love to see the Forest Service incorporate OSM data to make its own maps more accurate/complete, and even contribute to OSM directly to add things like access tags clarifying what they think the current status of a route is. In the end, more complete maps that show even “closed” routes would be much more helpful to the public and could inform future discussions on their status.
I agree. I have to wonder why this hasn’t happened? Hypotheses
1. bad government tech ability to do things
2. No Admin gets kudos for mapping and it could take one Admin to get done.
3. If you map, you could open Pandora’s Box on actual decisions.
4. Don’t rock the boat, Agency folks have enough on their plates.
Let’s give equal treatment to the hyperbolic headlines from the other side:
“Trump wants to kill the roadless rule: Trees aren’t worth more than lives” https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/op-eds/4693023/trump-forest-service-roadless-rule-wildfire-prevention/?itm_source=parsely-api
But that’s an op-ed.. so not really comparable. I still think news stories should be different from op-eds. Maybe I shouldn’t use AI for this, but here’s what Google AI says..
A news story reports objective facts about current events, while an op-ed shares a persuasive, personal viewpoint written by an outside expert.
News Story
Main Goal: To inform the public with verified facts.Who Writes It: A staff journalist or professional reporter.Content: Includes the who, what, where, when, why, and how of an event, plus multiple perspectives.Tone: Neutral and unbiased. It avoids taking a side.
Op-Ed (Opposite the Editorial Page)
Main Goal: To persuade readers and spark debate on a specific issue.Who Writes It: A guest contributor, community member, or subject-matter expert who does not work for the publication.Content: An argument supported by the author’s personal experience, research, and analysis.Tone: Subjective, passionate, and persuasive.
I guess I couldn’t tell that from your post, and I would agree they should be different (but I’m not sure it’s a hard rule in many places). Then there’s the problem of headline writers not being the author.
I was criticizing the outlet for picking the headline, not the reporter.. that’s the difference.