Roads in National Forests
The Position of the Society of American Foresters^*

 

Position

The Society of American Foresters believes forest roads, properly constructed and maintained, are a critical part of forest management and recreation use, and are an increasingly important part of the rural transportation system. Roads should be constructed and maintained in an environmentally sound manner following existing standards, laws, and regulations.

The National Forest Road System is facing a crisis. Maintenance and reconstruction (the practice of rebuilding, moving, or improving roads) of existing roads have not kept pace with repair needs in recent years. This is largely an issue of federal appropriations. The USDA Forest Service should propose a realistic work-plan and budget to address its road system backlog. Congress should seriously consider the proposal and fund the appropriate maintenance, reconstruction, or obliteration needs of roads in the National Forest System.

The environmental laws and regulations that govern the activities of the USDA Forest Service are intended to protect against environmental degradation that can result from poorly planned or constructed roads. Decisions about roads in national forests should be made at the local level, under an overarching legal framework. The manager on the ground, with input from the public, is able to make decisions about roads based on existing laws and regulations, the values the public holds for the forest, and the needs of the individual forest.

Issue

The practice of road building in the national forests has generated significant controversy in recent years. This controversy involves several connected but distinct issues, including building roads in areas where there are currently no roads (viewed by some as potential wilderness), the mechanisms available to pay for new road construction to support forest management needs and opportunities, the maintenance of existing roads, and the environmental effects of road building. The Forest Service is struggling to manage a road network that was largely designed to remove timber, but now serves a variety of purposes, including rural access, recreation, firefighting, and other forest management and administrative activities.

 

Background

The Condition of the Roads in the National Forest System

The condition of existing roads in the National Forest System is of real concern to the Society of American Foresters. According to the Forest Service, three quarters of the agency's roads are more than 50 years old, and 60 percent of them are being maintained below the Forest Service standards for which they were designed. (For Fiscal Year 1998, direct road construction is funded at $88 million, down $5 million from Fiscal Year 1997. Maintenance is funded at $85 million. The President's Fiscal Year 1999 budget proposal requests a 20 percent increase in funding for road maintenance.) Natural resource managers and the agency need to better understand the ecological impact of existing forest roads and the building of new ones, and how to minimize those impacts. The Forest Service needs to make sure these roads are safe for public and agency use and that they are not causing environmental damage due to inadequate maintenance.

Benefits and Costs of Roads

Most of the roads in the National Forest System were originally constructed to access timber, but now support many other purposes. Roads in forested areas allow access for the application of scientifically based forest practices designed to maintain or enhance the health of forest ecosystems. Roads provide access for recreation, rural travel, fighting forest fires, and controlling outbreaks of pests and diseases. Roads also provide people with access to commodities, such as timber, oil, natural gas, minerals, livestock grazing, and special forest products.

Roads represent an environmental challenge. Drainage from roads and their associated features can cause erosion and reduce water quality. Roads can help the spread of forest diseases, exotic plants and other pests, and fragment wildlife habitat (Gorte 1997, Johnson et al. 1995). The challenges roads present can be overcome through proper design, construction, use, and maintenance.

The Purpose of Roads in the National Forest System

Under the National Forest Management Act, the Forest Service must develop a management plan for each unit of the National Forest System. The Multiple Use and Sustained Yield Act, the Wilderness Act, the National Forest Management Act, and the agency's 1897 "Organic Act" together require that the Forest Service manage for seven separate purposes—water, wildlife, recreation, timber production, grazing, minerals, and wilderness. Roads in the National Forest System are important for all these purposes, but increasingly for recreation access. More people visit the national forests than the national parks by at least a factor of two. During Fiscal Year 1996, Forest Service roads carried 76 million Americans to 133,087 miles of hiking trails; 96 Wild and Scenic Rivers covering 4,348 river miles; 120 National Scenic By-ways extending for 8,000 miles; 397 designated wilderness areas totaling 34.7 million acres; and 23,000 developed facilities such as trailheads, boat ramps, visitor centers, campgrounds, picnic areas, and other special places the American people count on to enjoy their national forests. (USDA Forest Service 1997).

To implement management plans, the Forest Service must have access to the forests through a well-maintained road system. This requires a substantial, dependable road budget for maintenance as well as reconstruction. Severe cuts in the Forest Service's road program have resulted in the agency's using timber purchasers to perform some work on existing roads that are in need of repair. A purchaser of Forest Service timber often needs to build or reconstruct roads to access a timber sale area. For example, for the 2,844 miles of road reconstructed in 1996, 80 percent of the reconstruction work was performed by timber purchasers (Gorte 1997, Price Waterhouse LLP 1997). It should be noted that new road construction on the national forests has declined by 75 percent in the past decade (Gorte 1997). The work the purchaser performs on the road is essentially paid for by part of the price paid for timber the purchaser harvests: the agency allocates assets in the form of timber as payment for building or reconstructing assets in the form of roads. Roads should be seen as a capital investment. This system of trading one asset (timber) for another (reconstructed roads) should be maintained as an option for forest managers. When it comes to roads, the Society of American Foresters' primary concern is maintaining an infrastructure to address the health of our national forests.

Federal direct appropriations provide a line-item in the Forest Service budget for funding road construction. These limited funds primarily go toward the reconstruction and repair of existing roads, not new road construction.

Road reconstruction and maintenance are critical to helping maintain healthy forests. The Forest Service may maintain only a segment of a transportation system that is supported by broader jurisdictions. Oftentimes there are several entities responsible for maintaining part of the system. All such legally responsible entities should maintain their share of the roads, otherwise the poor stewardship of one can result in the breakdown of the entire system. There are also serious liability reasons to keep roads in good condition.

The Forest Service should be addressing the backlog in maintenance and reconstruction needs of its existing road system. The agency has the tools, environmental protections, and knowledge to develop a realistic work-plan and budget to address this serious road system backlog. They should submit this plan to Congress, which, in turn should take this proposal very seriously. A road in a serious state of disrepair can contribute to undesirable environmental and social conditions within as well as far from forest borders.

*Adopted by the officers of the Society on February 20, 1998. This position statement will expire on February 20, 1999 unless, after subsequent review, it is decided otherwise by Council.

References

The Federal Budget Consulting Group and Price-Waterhouse LLP. 1997. Financing roads on the national forests. Washington, DC.

Gorte, R.W. 1997. Forest roads: Construction and financing. CRS Report for Congress. Congressional Research Service. Washington, DC.

Johnson, K.N. et al. 1995. Forest health and timber harvest on national forests in the blue mountains of Oregon: A Report to Governor Kitzhaber. Salem, Oregon.

USDA Forest Service. 1997. Report of the Forest Service: Fiscal Year 1996. USDA Forest Service. Washington, DC.

USDA Forest Service. 1997. National forest road system and use. (draft publication.) USDA Forest Service. Washington, DC.

 

 

ABOUT THE SOCIETY The Society of American Foresters, with about 18,000 members, is the national organization that represents all segments of the forestry profession in the United States. It includes public and private practitioners, researchers, administrators, educators, and forestry students. The Society was established in 1900 by Gifford Pinchot and six other pioneer foresters. The mission of the Society of American Foresters is to advance the science, education, technology, and practice of forestry; to enhance the competency of its members; to establish professional excellence; and to use the knowledge, skills, and conservation ethic of the profession to ensure the continued health and use of forest ecosystems and the present and future availability of forest resources to benefit society. The Society is the accreditation authority for professional forestry education in the United States. The Society publishes the Journal of Forestry; the quarterlies, Forest Science, Southern Journal of Applied Forestry, Northern Journal of Applied Forestry, and Western Journal of Applied Forestry; The Forestry Source; and the annual Proceedings of the Society of American Foresters national convention.