Have you ever thought about going to the moon? The distance there and about halfway back equals the mind-boggling 371,000 miles of roads already crisscrossing our national forests. With a maintenance backlog of $10.8 billion already, you might assume that taking care of existing roads would precede building new ones. But logic has never prevented Trump from taking ill-considered action. The Forest Service already spends tens of millions of tax dollars subsidizing new roads for the timber industry. It’s little wonder that our ballooning national debt of $40 trillion is out of control.
The situation is about to get worse. The Trump administration plans to repeal the 2001 Roadless Rule, a farsighted measure protecting 58 million acres of wild national forest, about six million of which are in Montana. Iconic woodlands such as the Great Burn, Scotchman Peaks and the Gallatin Range come to mind as well as nameless blank spots on the map. No longer can their protection be taken for granted, so Americans need to speak up.
More than 99% of 1.6 million public comments received supported the Roadless Rule. The public obviously knows the real value of our unroaded land is intact fish and wildlife habitat, reservoirs of clean water and outstanding backcountry recreation. These benefits don’t require annual road maintenance that burdens budgets and produces sediment that chokes streams.
The Trump-aligned bureaucrats and politicians pushing for repeal of the Roadless Rule falsely claim that we need more roads to reduce wildfire risks. But research shows that wildfire ignitions are around four times more likely near roads than in unroaded forests. Further, the Roadless Rule already allows fuel treatments without permanent new roads that fragment the landscape.
You can join Montana Conservation Elders in supporting the Roadless Rule by commenting before September 21. Our Montana Congressional delegation has rubber-stamped its endorsement of doing away with our Roadless Rule. But public opinion has a way of changing positions, especially during an election year.
Bill Cunningham
Montana Conservation Elders