Environmentalists are trying to raise public awareness about a plan within the Trump administration to allow roads, and potentially long-term business development, in much of the nation’s federal forest system, including the biggest undeveloped stretch of Orange County.
Recently, the effort has included rallies in Los Angeles, Orange and Riverside counties. More rallies are planned in coming weeks in central and northern California.
At issue is the fate of the “Roadless Area Conservation Rule,” an administrative regulation that has been in place since 2001 as a way to preserve 60 million acres of federal land for recreation and habitat protection. The rule, which is not a law, has survived every presidential administration of this century, and environmentalists say it has helped protect everything from the Pacific Crest Trail to the California Condor.
But it soon might go away.
Last year, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced that the roadless rule is “outdated,” and that it runs counter to the U.S. Forest Service’s mandate.
Specifically, Rollins issued an analysis that claimed lack of roads has left back country lands susceptible to fire. As an example, she pointed to studies that say the lack of roads makes 60% of Utah’s U.S. forest land, and federal lands in other states, “unable to be properly managed for fire risk.”
“In Montana, it is 58%, and in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, the largest in the country, 92% is impacted,” Rollins said in his analysis.
But other parts of Rollins’ analysis suggest the administration doesn’t like the roadless rule because of money. More roads, by Rollins’ own assessment, will lead to jobs that currently don’t exist in much of America’s back country.
“(The roadless rule) also hurts jobs and economic development across rural America,” Rollins said. “Utah alone estimates the roadless rule alone creates a 25% decrease in economic development in the forestry sector.”
Orange County environmentalists — who note that the roadless rule currently applies in places very close to home, such as the Trabuco Ranger District, a 138,000-acre stretch of land at the heart of the Cleveland National Forest that touches Riverside and Orange counties — say ending the roadless rule would be bad for the environment and for local property values.
“No matter where you look in Orange County, you can see those mountains,” said Melanie Schlotterbeck, who represents Hills For Everyone, referencing the Santa Ana, San Gabriel and San Bernardino ranges, all of which include lands that are protected by the roadless rule. She added that a local area that might be most affected by any change to the rule would the San Mateo Canyon Wilderness, which includes Orange, Riverside, and San Diego counties.
But beyond the changes that might come to local stretches of nature if the roadless rule is lifted, she said the biggest concern is fire. Contrary to the study cited by Rollins, many environmentalists and others argue that allowing roads — and the humans that roads bring — would pose a far bigger fire risk.
“When you increase roadways, you increase the number of roadway ignitions,” Schlotterbeck said. “That is a very hot topic locally and across the West.”
The topic also is hot in congress.
The Roadless Area Conservation Act, sponsored by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-WA, and Rep. Andrea Salinas, D-OR, would codify the roadless rule into federal law. Though it would preserve flexibility for the Trump administration, and future presidents, to allow the Forest Service to build roads or manage vegetation in specific situations, its broader effort would be to keep the 60 million acres that currently are protected as pristine as possible.
The push to preserve the roadless rule isn’t limited to politicians. At least 30 academics from western universities sent a letter of opposition to Rollins, citing data that show wildfires are four times as likely to start within 50 meters of a road.
And, wherever they start, fires are far more likely to be started by humans than they are by any natural cause, including lightening.
Schlotterbeck said forest fire ignition sources often are the hot catalytic converter on a car or SUV running off a road, or a cigarette tossed out of a car window.
“If we’re adding roadways to places like the San Mateo Canyon wilderness area, that’s not only going to decimate habitat and wildlife but also threaten the communities that border the Santa Ana Mountains,” she said.
“The privatization of public lands is a huge concern,” she added. “The fact (is), we have already contributed to this asset with our tax dollars. (But) by opening it up to logging, mining, and roadways, we are decreasing that natural value and the ecosystem services that come with it.”
Recently, Schlotterbeck and others held a rally at O’Neill Regional Park. The goal was to let people know that the roadless rule is under threat and that people have an opportunity to comment once Rollins’ Forest Service report is released. In 2001, when the roadless rule was announced, it came only after extensive research and no fewer than 400 public meetings that included millions of comments.
“Nobody knows this is going on. It’s being done behind closed doors without public input,” Schlotterbeck said, referencing the current push to end the roadless rule. “So, we’re trying to raise the flag and say, ‘pay attention,’ there’s going to be a huge impact, not just locally, but 60 million acres across the United States are going to be opened up to roadways when the rule is rescinded.”
Dyana Pena, director of programs at Orange County Coastkeeper, said her nonprofit works on many watershed and water quality projects that could be affected by additional road construction in wilderness areas. She worries that rescinding the roadless rule will fragment many of the pristine areas that currently are protected.
“These areas are not just green spaces on a map,” she said. “They are very important.”
Pena hopes anybody who has hiked in or otherwise used wilderness in and around Orange County will speak up to protect the rule.
“The Santa Ana Mountains are a well-known and loved area for recreation,” Pena said. “If we roll back these protections, we will start to see changes to our quality of life.”
