Millions of acres across Oregon called “roadless areas” could soon lose protections. Trump Administration leaders say they need access to fight wildfires, and roadless rules are red tape that interfere with business and innovation.
Environmental advocates say those rules have been key to protecting watersheds, endangered species and recreation opportunities.
This week non-profit Ecoflight flew a group of journalists, congressional staff and environmental advocates over a rugged, difficult to reach Roadless area.
From the air – the border between private timber and the Waldo Lake wilderness and roadless area is clear. Both have swaths of burned forests from wildfires over the years, but the roadless and wilderness areas have larger, old growth trees, a carpet of several species, mixed with the occasional mountain lake, or meadow.
There are few roads below, the only one clearly visible from the sky hasn’t been maintained for decades.
“It’s a pretty dramatic difference – There’s just not as many squiggles on the landscape already.” said Madeline Cowen, one of the passengers on the EcoFlight and a field organizer for Cascadia Wildlands.
Cowen said roadless areas, and adjacent wilderness are an important part of Oregon’s identity. But they also play a key role in the state’s ecosystem in other ways.
"Many communities in rural places get their drinking water from areas that are roadless,” Cowen said. “We know that increased logging, and road building in watersheds really dramatically affects drinking water quality for communities. Additionally, these areas are sequestering and storing carbon that is so difficult to do."
Cowen said roadless areas also shelter species that can’t thrive near human development or industry, or animals like cougars that aren’t welcome near growing urban and suburban cities.
“These forests are incredibly biodiverse and provide habitat for imperilled species,” she said.
In an announcement this summer, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins said repealing the Roadless Rule would align with several of the Trump Administration’s priorities including getting rid of burdensome regulations, and reducing America’s reliance on foreign timber.
"Once again, President Trump is removing absurd obstacles to common sense management of our natural resources by rescinding the overly restrictive roadless rule,” Rollins said. “It is abundantly clear that properly managing our forests preserves them from devastating fires and allows future generations of Americans to enjoy and reap the benefits of this great land.”
In a hearing before Congress in July, US Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz also said roads are needed to fight wildfires.
"By not being able to have areas we go into and manage and put the fires out, that is a problem,” Schultz told Congress. “It doesn't help for sure, it definitely hinders."
In a separate announcement, Schultz argued roadless rules, which have been in place since 2001, have trapped the nation’s forests in a cycle of quote “neglect and devastation.”
Tim Ingalsbee, executive director of Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology, and one of the environmental advocates on the flight, said he anticipates building roads will increase the chance that Oregon’s remote, hard to reach areas will burn.
"The vast majority, 90% or more of wildfires, happen alongside roads,” Ingalsbee said. “What they might gain from the possibility of ferrying in large convoys of firefighters and dozers and all that stuff, they're going to lose in terms of vastly more wildfire ignitions from careless motorists, campers, or arsonists."
According to the USDA, the agency is looking to rollback roadless protection on 45 million acres. Roadless areas in Alaska and Idaho are not included in the potential rollback. In Oregon, there are about 2 million acres of designated, roadless area.
Public comment on the proposal to end roadless area protections ends Friday.
