Roads to ruin?

Opponents weigh in on the Roadless Area Conservation Rule and its impact on Nevada

By Newt Briggs

From 1,000 feet above the ground, the Nevada land protected by the federal Roadless Area Conservation Rule doesn't look like something people would fight over--not unless they were mountain folk with a fondness for outhouses, woodland critters and family feuds. The land is rocky, dotted with scrub pine, juniper and the occasional Joshua tree, and is almost entirely uninhabited. Yet this land and about 58 million acres across the country are the subject of a bitter dispute that will fall into the lap of the president--incumbent or elect--on Nov. 15.

The Roadless Rule was one of the last executive orders issued by President Bill Clinton. Enacted in January 2001, the order protected 58.5 million acres of national forest land from graded road construction. In Nevada alone, it preserved nearly 3.2 million acres, which represented more than 50 percent of the state's federal wild land. According to Pete Dronkers, Nevada state coordinator for the Heritage Forests Campaign, the Roadless Rule was particularly shrewd environmental legislation because it didn't specifically prohibit extractive industry; it simply prohibited the roads that make resource extraction possible.

"This is one of the most effective conservation policies that the Forest Service has ever had, just because of the sheer acreage that is protected," Dronkers says. "According to the rule, each of the protected wild lands has to be at least 5,000 uninterrupted acres, so we're really talking about the building blocks of the natural ecosystem."

Before taking effect, the Roadless Rule underwent an extensive public comment period. Between Oct. 19, 1999, and Sept. 11, 2001, the U.S. Forest Service received about 2.2 million comments in favor of the Roadless Rule. It was more than five times the number of comments the Forest Service had ever received on any other federal policy. In fact, only one state, Idaho, did not support the mandate by a simple majority. As former Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman noted, never before had Americans "so actively participated in helping to decide how their public lands should be managed."

"The implementation of the Roadless Rule was a huge victory for the democratic process," says Brad Johnson, field organizer for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. "The fact is, Americans overwhelmingly support protection of our remaining forests and wild lands."

The rule has also received strong endorsements from everyone from hunters and outdoorsmen to scientists and economists. According to a poll conducted by the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Alliance, 84 percent of licensed U.S. hunters support efforts to maintain roadless areas in national forests. In a letter to the Forest Service dated Sept. 14, 2004, 100 American economists reached a similar conclusion: "Designating roadless areas in our national forests is an economically sound policy that saves taxpayers millions of dollars in road building and timber sale subsidies."

Despite this broad base of support, the Bush administration has proposed a permanent rollback of the Roadless Rule. In its place, the administration has endorsed legislation that would allow governors to petition for protection of roadless areas--or for increased logging, mining and drilling rights. If the new legislation passes, more than 30 percent of America's national forests will once again be opened to extractive industry.

Gov. Kenny Guinn has publicly registered his support for the Bush proposal. In a September letter to Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, Guinn's natural resource and rural adviser, Steve Robinson, wrote, "Nevada supports the administration's position regarding increasing and strengthening states' rights"--this despite the fact that more than 75 percent of Nevadans supported the Roadless Rule during the Forest Service comment period.

"Any time the feds come in and say, `We want you to be part of the process,' we're going to take them up on that," Robinson says. "That doesn't mean that it would all of a sudden be rape and ruin and a free-for-all for development interests. It just means the land could be used for other purposes."

According to Dronkers, however, this is only a political smokescreen. He says the petition process will not significantly increase the power of local government. He calls it "a way to disguise a complete gutting of the rule" and notes that there's no indication Gov. Guinn will take the steps necessary to protect the 3.2 million acres already preserved by the existing policy.

"It's so important to always remember that there are 40 million acres of land open to resource extraction in Nevada," says Dronkers. "Are we really going to compromise the most ecologically important areas of this state for minerals when we have a huge wealth of otherwise viable land? There are plenty of places for mining. But when you go into a roadless area where there are huge aspen forests and elk and mule deer and birds and perennial streams and meadows--things that aren't that common in Nevada--is it really worth it to subject those to development? I would say absolutely not. And Nevadans have said absolutely not, too."

The issue may prove to be moot in Nevada since the majority of the land protected by the Roadless Rule is not currently attractive to developers. As Robinson notes, "When the rule initially passed, there wasn't an outcry from mining. There wasn't an outcry from timber interests or anything like that. It was generally pretty well accepted as to not be onerous to the development community."

As a result, the impact of the legislative changes in Nevada could be quite small, but in states where timber or mining resources could be contested, the impact could be greater. "That's what I would anticipate," Robinson says. "The Forest Service may come back with something really radical, but I doubt it very much. We're looking at something pretty much status quo."

Still, says Johnson, there are lands across the country that will be dramatically affected by removal of roadless protection. "The same rule that protects these areas in Southern Nevada protects the Tongass National Forest in Alaska. It protects threatened forests in Idaho and Wyoming. It protects old-growth forests in the Sierra Nevada range."

The Forest Service comment period for the Bush-endorsed rollback of the Roadless Rule was recently extended to Nov. 15. According to Johnson, public comments--for and against--will have a significant impact on the outcome of the dispute. "It would be hard to imagine that after this many public comments that our administration could ignore us," he says. "Then again, you really never know."

Want to submit your own comment on the fate of the 58.5 million acres currently protected by the Roadless Area Conservation Rule? The Heritage Forests Campaign makes it easy at www.ourforests.org.

Better yet, you can pen a personal letter to the Forest Service. It doesn't have to be Walden or anything; just say that you dig trees and woodland creatures and unsullied wild lands. Or if you're in favor of ceding our public lands to private interests, you can say that, too. Either way, address the letters to:

Content Analysis Team

Attn: Roadless State Petitions

USDA Forest Service

PO Box 221090

Salt Lake City, UT 84122

And make sure to send a copy of the letter to Gov. Kenny Guinn:

Governor Kenny Guinn

101 N. Carson St.

Carson City, NV, 89701