Like many longtime Montanans, I view public lands as my second paycheck. While they don’t literally pay my bills, the boundless opportunities they provide for me to fish, hunt, hike, paddle and ski are what have kept me here for most of my life.
That’s why it was beyond disappointing to learn that the U.S. Department of Agriculture recently announced it is filing a rule to fully repeal the 2001 Roadless Rule, after holding no public meetings and receiving over 600,000 public comments, 99 percent in support of keeping the Roadless Rule.
Understandably, this decision has drawn the ire of hunters, anglers, conservationists, and opponents of wasteful government spending.
It should also raise the ire of anyone who cares about the nation’s clean drinking water. The Roadless Rule currently protects 58 million acres of national forest lands fed by 80,000 miles of pristine streams that deliver clean water to downstream communities. Repealing the Roadless Rule would result in the largest loss of stream protections on federal public lands in U.S. history, threatening the drinking water of 25 million Americans.
While revoking the Roadless Rule is a gift to the extractive industries that profit off our public lands, it is wildly unpopular with most Montanans. That’s because as outdoor people, we understand the benefits of roadless areas far better than Washington, D.C. policymakers who view our public lands solely as an asset on a balance sheet. A recent University of Montana public lands survey found that 80 percent of Montanans support the Roadless Rule.
Why do so many Montanans support the Roadless Rule? Here are a few compelling reasons.
• Drinking water: In Montana alone, the Roadless Rule is the primary form of protection for more than 11,000 miles of streams that provide drinking water for one-third of Montanans. Because water originating in roadless areas is so clean, it needs less treatment before it comes out of your tap, saving communities millions of dollars.
• Wild trout: Streams in Montana’s roadless areas harbor some of the healthiest wild trout populations in the West. Many of our most cherished trout streams, including the Bitterroot River, Smith River, and Gallatin River, are fed by tributaries that originate in inventoried roadless areas, contributing to the state’s $1 billion sportfishing industry.
• Big game hunting: Roadless areas provide 93 percent of the elk summer range in Montana. If you’re a hunter like I am who heads into the field each fall to fill your freezer with nutritious wild meat, you know that roadless areas are the best places to find elk and other big game like mule deer, moose, bighorn sheep, and mountain goats.
• Taxpayer funds: The Roadless Rule saves taxpayer money by preventing the Forest Service from building costly and unnecessary new roads that dump sediment into streams, degrading water quality and harming aquatic life. The Forest Service currently manages a 380,000-mile road network with a deferred maintenance backlog of over $8 billion. If it can’t afford to maintain that network now, how can it possibly justify building new roads in our most rugged and remote backcountry areas?
Fortunately, there are a few things you can do to express your opposition to the administration’s Roadless Rule rollback. First, you can submit a public comment at https://www.regulations.gov/docket/FS-2025-0001 until midnight on September 21. Second, you can call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask all four members of Montana’s congressional delegation to support the Roadless Area Conservation Act (S. 2042 in the Senate and H.R. 3930 in the House), which would permanently enshrine the Roadless Rule into law.
If you cherish our public lands and waters, there’s too much at stake to remain silent.
Scott Bosse is the Northern Rockies Regional Director for American Rivers based in Bozeman.