President Clinton and his Forest Service are now attempting the largest land grab in U.S. history. It can be called the president's "legacy building" or "road management." It should be called theft. It affects all of us who use and enjoy our national forests.

These forests cover an area of around 192 million acres and are in almost every state. Congress has mandated by law that they be managed for multiple uses.

What Mr. Clinton and the Forest Service are now attempting is a dramatic limitation of access to our lands for those uses.

Mr. Clinton and the Forest Service have proposed that there be no road access to so-called roadless areas. They also propose closing ("decommissioning") existing roads.

The rationale for the action is that 383,000 miles of national forest roads already exist. But only one-fourth of these roads are arterial or collector roads that can be used by automobiles. Three-quarters are only passable with high-clearance, four-wheel-drive vehicles. The Forest Service already has closed 76,000 miles of these roads. The national forest roads, by the Forest Service's own estimates, are used by 1.7 million recreation vehicles per day. From 1991 to 1997, the Forest Service has decommissioned obliterated more than 19,000 miles of existing roads.

The existing national forest road system has between one-third and one-fifth the road density (miles of road per square mile of area) of the United States as a whole.

These traditional access roads have been used for decades for vehicular access by fishers, hunters, campers, sightseers, miners, loggers, ranchers and others. But what the Clinton Forest Service wants to do now is stop us from using roads in the national forests. We will only be able to walk into these areas if the Forest Service gets its way.

The elite backpackers and the rich Hollywood landowners who adjoin our forests will have our lands to themselves. If we want to use our camper, drive to a campground, favorite fishing or hunting spot or pursue many of the other activities Congress allows, we will be out of luck. The "No trespassing" sign will be up. Older Americans and disabled Americans who must rely on motorized vehicles will be especially hard hit.

How much land is being stolen? A lot. Congress has designated 35 million acres of wilderness in the national forests ù lands already off-limits to motorized use. What Mr. Clinton and his Forest Service propose would, at a minimum, more than double or perhaps even triple the number of acres designated as wilderness. This is not an issue that involves only the Western United States. It affects national forests from Maine and New Hampshire to Alaska, and Florida to California. It includes eastern forest access in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and West Virginia. It affects us all.

The president, in his effort to be a new Theodore Roosevelt with a lasting legacy, on Jan. 11 designated 1 million acres in Arizona and points out West as National Monuments. The legacy that Mr. Clinton and his Forest Service will leave is not that of Teddy Roosevelt, but of "Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves."

DAVID C. FREDLEY
Purcellville, Va.
David C. Fredley is a retired assistant director of minerals and geology management for the Forest Service.