Roadless Rule Attack in the Senate

[CJ19]

Being roadless, doesn’t mean no one should access what Americans own to prevent forests fires. Hike, ride a horse, got on a bike, do what fits you. It means no more roads “we” can’t maintain. Now that seems simple.

How do you personally benefit from more roads, financially? If you do, I’d understand that. If you don’t then why are people so adamant that we need more roads in the roadless areas? I’m waiting for reasons why this is good, haven’t seen any yet. We can’t fund the projects that needs to be done on current road areas in FS/BLM lands. Still people believe, cutting more roads will make the fairy appear.

The point of my statement was that I can not find restricting public access as a fire mitigation measure as a rational for the Roadless Rule federal register entry. If that is what the rational is, it should have been presented as such in the lengthy documentation on the federal register. This Roadless Rule recension is an issue I choose to simply remain neutral on. There are clearly some areas that need management via things like timbering. I don't know that I am a fan of revocation of the Roadless Rule in the manner that it has occurred here, which is at the last minute out of committee. Personally, I like roadless areas, but I am not as knowledgeable on the RR as I need to be in order to take a firm side at this time.

As far as not seeing any benefit...Really? We are told public land sales are financially foolish because the incredible mineral, OG, grazing, timber value to the public. Now when someone is like "hey lets get those resources you were talking about", its ... we can not mine, log, or access those other resources because there is just not a financial benefit to the public. Which is it? Again, I like roadless areas and don't want cars, atvs, mines, and OG wells everywhere, but it can be acknowledged there are public benefits to roads and still make a robust defense of the roadless rule.

 

[WRO]

The point of my statement was that I can not find restricting public access as a fire mitigation measure as a rational for the Roadless Rule federal register entry. If that is what the rational is, it should have been presented as such in the lengthy documentation on the federal register. This Roadless Rule recension is an issue I choose to simply remain neutral on. There are clearly some areas that need management via things like timbering. I don't know that I am a fan of revocation of the Roadless Rule in the manner that it has occurred here, which is at the last minute out of committee. Personally, I like roadless areas, but I am not as knowledgeable on the RR as I need to be in order to take a firm side at this time.

As far as not seeing any benefit...Really? We are told public land sales are financially foolish because the incredible mineral, OG, grazing, timber value to the public. Now when someone is like "hey lets get those resources you were talking about", its ... we can not mine, log, or access those other resources because there is just not a financial benefit to the public. Which is it? Again, I like roadless areas and don't want cars, atvs, mines, and OG wells everywhere, but it can be acknowledged there are public benefits to roads and still make a robust defense of the roadless rule.

I think within reason multiple uses are very valuable, unfortunately there is no middle ground anymore where rational decisions can be made. It’s all or nothing.

 

[MTBackroads]

Being roadless, doesn’t mean no one should access what Americans own to prevent forests fires. Hike, ride a horse, got on a bike, do what fits you. It means no more roads “we” can’t maintain. Now that seems simple.

How do you personally benefit from more roads, financially? If you do, I’d understand that. If you don’t then why are people so adamant that we need more roads in the roadless areas? I’m waiting for reasons why this is good, haven’t seen any yet. We can’t fund the projects that needs to be done on current road areas in FS/BLM lands. Still people believe, cutting more roads will make the fairy appear.

Nope. Humans cause most forest fires, less access means less fires.

 

[Wrench]

Ban all human access from july 1st till it snows.

Save the world.

 

[MTBackroads]

Ban all human access from july 1st till it snows.

Save the world.

Exactly

 

[CJ19]

Here is the Democratic Perspective from Committee Hearings. I am not really sure what he means by the Roadless Rule is the most responsive tool we have for managing wildlife. Maybe he is talking about limiting access to areas? Maybe someone else here can shed some light on what that comment means.

The Committee Ranking Member is Martin Heinrich from New Mexico. He is a hunter and fisherman and that is a very good thing to have as a committee party lead. He has appeared on several large hunting podcasts to talk about his love for hunting, fishing, and public land and his view on those issues. It is disappointing to me that those interviews have failed to discuss his other positions that have extremely negative consequences for hunters and public land users in addition to creating additional wildfire risk. Discussing issues from a balanced perspective is the best way to allow members of the hunting public to make informed decisions about policy that impacts that land use.

https://twitter.com/x/status/2065514799442584043

 

[JustABritCrazy]

After some internal debate with myself and sitting on my back porch drinking a beverage or two I’ve decided against my better judgement to jump into this. I’ve been a forester for 45 years. Held a red card for 40. Managed a large eastern public forest as a district ranger equivalent. Here are some basic facts

The 300,000 acre public forest I managed had 330 miles of roads open to year round public access that we maintained. Another 100 miles of roads open to public access we didn’t maintain and around 200 to 300 miles of roads behind gates. The goal each year was to grade once each mile of the 330 miles of maintained road. Crown the road, open the culverts and maintain the ditches. Rarely hit that goal with 6 road graders operating. We figured each grader was capable of about 60 miles per grader per year. Issues ranged from equipment breakdowns to personnel issues to weather issues. Maintenance season was May till the end of September. I easily spent an over third of my operating budget on road maintenance from fixing equipment to buying diesel to buying stone to fix wash outs.

If a timber sale has $100,000 worth of timber and a new road into costs $25,000 then you are only going to get paid $70,000 for the timber. The logging contractor will deduct the cost of the road building and repairs from his bid. And they are going to pad it to make sure they have no unexpected out of pocket costs. So ultimately the tax payers have paid for the road thru not getting the true value of the timber.

A gated road still needs maintenance. Culverts and water bars will fail over time. Road banks slough off, rocks slide down the hill. Trees blow out taking the road with them. A gated road still open to public use. You just need to move your feet. We would open over a 100 miles of gated roads for hunting season to vehicle traffic. It usually ended up rutting them and destroying the ground cover. Probably three quarters of the traffic was road hunters driving in and back out.

Roads were gated mostly due to morons and idiots. Had multiple drinking parties, garbage dumping and mud bogging occurring. Driving up and down streams. Hill climbing on pipelines. Damage to infrastructure from vandalism. From an environmental and an administrative standpoint the cheapest fix is a strong gate or several large rocks. Had several roads where we brought in the barriers from interstate highway projects due to the gates being repeatedly pulled out. The rednecks couldn’t move them with their diesel pickups to get to the wetland they liked to mud bog in.

After I retired I took a weeklong horseback trip through the Thorofare from Jackson to Cody. I know it’s not a Roadless Rule area but let’s pretend it is for the sake of this thread. Let’s just figure on getting a road from Tarpin Meadows to Hawks Nest. Call it 30 miles. Figure $25,000 per mile which is probably low. That’s $750,000 just to build the road into lodgepole pine timber. No way your going to cover that cost with the timber in there even if you were to clearcut every reachable area.

I’ve worked fire my whole career as a member of the militia. I was a crew boss with a hand crew in 1996 working a fire with the District FMO. We were using the existing road system as our main control lines. We were getting chased out every afternoon with the fire making short crown runs. Was back on the same ranger district in 2022 as a FOBS. Different area but basically the same timber and similar road network. No effort was made to directly attack the fire or use those roads as control lines. I felt it was very doable given the existing weather conditions, but it wasn’t my call to make.

My point is I’ve watch fire suppression change dramatically over my career. To put in blunt terms we used to knife fight with it in the 80s and 90s. Now we fight with it like snipers from a 1,000 yards away. It’s a direct result of the multiple fatality events that occurred in the 90s. Basically the decision is 1,000 acres is not worth the cost of someone losing their life.

Building a road takes months. You have to lay it out, get your grades right (here in the east nothing over 10%), figure out water management. You then need a dozer and an excavator to get the work done. Not going to happen on a fire when it needs to be constructed tomorrow.

I’m will not even touch the political end of this. The above is all real world experience. Much of it from the east coast, but I think the principles work across the country.