Viewpoint: Leave the Roadless Rule alone
Kiley Voss
When I worked for the Forest Service, I drove up and down some incredible dirt roads. Cleaning up campgrounds, completing whitebark pine and elk browse surveys, and patrolling trails for maintenance, I saw incredible sunsets, elk bugling, and rivers rushing.
That is, when my eyes weren’t laser-focused on avoiding the literal canyons of potholes carved into the road in front of me.
Once, I helped with a harlequin duck survey along a high, crisp, and cold river — the ducks favorite place to be. To survey, our team walked upstream five river miles, testing eDNA every few hundred yards. It was exhausting, lovely work — but the part I dreaded the most was the drive.
You see, we started our survey with river waders on at exactly 7 a.m. We dropped off a car at the end of our river survey (to avoid the five miles back… in the dark).
On the way home, the road had so many bumps, potholes, razor-sharp rocks, and at one point a loose electric wire, we barely made it past 5 mph. We inched, maneuvered, and got out of the car to make sure we didn’t drag the bottom on a rock.
We joked it would have been faster to walk, but with the eDNA machine weighing more than 30 pounds, and our wet waders weighing just as much, we decided that the terrible drive was necessary.
Memories of surviving the roughest Forest Service roads are coming back to me lately, given the push to rescind the Roadless Rule. It was established in 2001 and protects about 30% of Forest Service land from road building. I have to ask: Why is there a call to build new roads, instead of maintaining the current ones?
I imagine how much differently my work in wild places would have gone with a different, better road — less dread of driving I’m sure — maybe more alert for the surveys — but also how many more people would be able to access the river if the roads were maintained?
How many of you avoid a road because of how many potholes it has? I know I would go up to Priest Pass more often near Helena if the road wasn’t a nightmare to drive. I’m sure for other Montanans like me, who access public lands like I do, to hunt, fish, hike or bike — we all have a similar story of a terrible, bumpy, washed-out, unmaintained road. Or, when the road got too bad, you had to turn around before your final destination.
Maintaining existing roads means better access to public lands— not building more roads we can't drive on.
By protecting the Roadless Rule, we protect backcountry hunting, wildlife habitat, clean drinking water, and nature as a whole.
The Forest Service manages around 380,000 miles of road — more than the roughly 220,000 miles of road in the National Highway System.
Facing an $8 billion deferred maintenance backlog, the Forest Service is in no position to build new ones in roadless areas.
We don't need more roads. Instead, we need to protect the Roadless Rule and maintain the roads we already have.
If you agree we should focus on maintaining the 380,000 miles of road first instead of building new ones, the public comment period is open until Oct. 6. Go to regulations.gov and submit your comment to oppose rescinding the Roadless Rule.
Make your voice heard.
Kiley Voss is a former National Park Service ranger and Forest Service wildlife technician. She lives in Helena.