Obama Economic Stimulus; Another Way to Close Forest Roads

[MountainDon]

EXtreme Environmentalists, so-called Greens, many of whom are liberals democrats, have been trying to close thousands of miles of existing roads through our public lands for years. In some cases roads are duplicates or near duplicates of other roads. Those could be decommissioned with little effect to forest access. However, they always push for more and more closures, less and less access. For example the current review of the Santa Fe National Forest that surrounds our mountain cabin site proposes to reduce the forest road mileage from something over 7000 miles down to 2500 or so.

Anyhow,  a coalition of environmental groups have come up with their own "economic stimulus" plan. Except this one obliterates Forest Service roads.

A National Proposal for a National Forest Watershed Restoration Corps

The proposal: Create a Forest Watershed Restoration Corps within the Forest Service
funded at $500 million over the next two years to decommission forest roads, repair fish
culverts and maintain forest roads used for recreation and administration. A Forest
Watershed Restoration Corp can provide jobs in communities adjacent to national forests
through contracts to local community members to complete restoration work and also create
staffing opportunities within the Forest Service, such as term appointments that may be made
permanent if the Forest Service's budget is restored in subsequent years.

Full article link below (173 KB PDF file)
http://www.wildlandscpr.org/files/econstimprop.pdf

[alcowboy]

Don,

I am not advocating any of what the liberalists do but to some degree I have to agree.  With that, I MEAN SOME DEGREE! Think about it, the exhaust from the vehicles choke out the vegetation etc., people throw trash along the roadside and so-on. I think the alternative to shutting down accessibility to the forests would be to allow limited number of gas/diesel burning vehicles and have electric vehicles available or something to that effect. What I am trying to say is that the beauty of our land is being destroyed by none other than US. Better yet, why don't we all go back to horse and buggy and do as our ancestors.

[Whitlock]

Flipin nature nazis get out of our forests

[ScottA]

This sort of thing has been going on for years. I think it has more to do with blocking access to resources than saving the forest. The government wants to stop people from harvesting wood and wildlife. Also public land is being sold to developers for exclusive housing devlopments where they have sole access to the surrounding forest. I don't know if it's true but I also heard the US has signed some U.N. resolutions that require land be cut off to public access and that much of the land has been pledged as collateral on the government debt to the IMF.

[MountainDon]

to some degree I have to agree......

Agreed, there is a need in some places to ameliorate the ultra heavy use. However, in many ways this is similar to gun rights issues. Take a little here, a little more there, and so on. First ban "assault type" semi automatic weapons. Then certain types of ammunition, or handguns, or...

Same with all the Forest Service and BLM road closures I've lived with in the past two decades. Many of the roads they have already closed have been there since the 30's, 40's and 50's.

This is an endangered road. It is just behind our property. It is a direct route up to a nearby peak. The road has been there since the 30's. It is scheduled to be decommissioned unless the Forest Service is convinced otherwise. It is also my back way out in case the normal route in is blocked by a forest fire. That doesn't even faze the FS folks.



I want to make it clear that I get very upset as well every time I see that some jerk has taken his vehicle across a hitherto untraveled area. That is not necessary either. There are plenty of trails already.

This type of closure has nothing to do with blocking access to resources Scott. Every meeting I've been to has been filled with people who have a grudge against motorized access. Ordinary people, but in many ways misguided or plain lied to by the extreme green leaders. Pure and simple. Some don't even want to allow any mechanized access, bicycles and or wheelchairs. There are places like that already. We don't need more. There are lots of fringe nut groups out there without getting into the UN thing.

[r8ingbull]

What exactly is involved with the closure of a Forest Service road?  Does the road actually get removed, is it just blocked off at the trail head?  Once it is "closed" can you still use it?  I'm used to the National Forest in northern Michigan.  They "close" a road w/ a few wood pilings that everyone just drives around anyway.  If that's it, and we aren't paying to maintain it, seems like a good idea to me. 

If a road is seeing enough use to stay clear, and the users don't mind cleaning up the dead fall, the enviro nuts should just stay away...

[peternap]

I hope they don't get far with that Don. While I am in favor of wilderness areas, I am equally in favor of areas with motorized access. After all, it belongs to all of us. As far as the slobs that dump trash , etc. Don't be shy about making their life miserable. They'll stop.

[MountainDon]

What exactly is involved with the closure of a Forest Service road?  Does the road actually get removed, is it just blocked off at the trail head?  Once it is "closed" can you still use it? 

Historically forest and BLM roads have been closed by digging a trench across the road and piling the earth on the other side of the trench. Signs signifying the road has been decommissioned and is not maintained are sometimes placed, sometimes not. Roads that have been closed due to some real or perceived environmental reason are usually posted with signs informing of the possible consequences of violaating the closure, along with the statute. Here's a typical sign...



These signs are very durable, made from some sort of flexible flexible material with barbs underground that make them very difficult to pull out. One BLM guy in UT told me that a 12 gauge is one of the few effective removal tools. Being flexible they can be driven over and they pop back up.

Very few roads to date have been removed, that costs too much. But give it a few years of no travel and you'll find all sorts of blown over trees. Give it a decade or so and young trees will be growing in places inconvenient to travel.

Some of my favorite roads in the Jemez are old decommissioned logging roads. There are no signs denoting they are closed, just a berm or two that is no real challenge to a well outfitted 4X4.  There may have been a sign at one point as I have noted the disappearance of one or two over the years. I do not condone that.

Now we come to the big changes under the new National Forest Travel Management Rules. The same sort of changes are coming to the BLM lands as well. The old traditional rules were "Open Unless Marked Closed". The new rules are "CLOSED Unless Marked Open". If there's no sign saying OK to your vehicle class, the road or area is Closed. Some roads will be designated for only ATV or ony dirt bikes.

At this point there seems like there is no stopping the new rules. Each National Forest is doing or has done their own Travel Management Plan. Here in NM we are currently in the middle of the process in the 2 national forests that are nearby. All the options presented by the Forest Service close mammoth amounts of forest roads. They want to close some of our mos favored roads, the ones with more challenge in many cases.

If a road is seeing enough use to stay clear, and the users don't mind cleaning up the dead fall, the enviro nuts should just stay away...

I agree with that. Over the years some of my most cherished 4-wheeling memories are of trails that required work to get safely through.

[MountainDon]

While I am in favor of wilderness areas, I am equally in favor of areas with motorized access. After all, it belongs to all of us.

Right Peter, here in NM we have some wonderful virtually pristine Wilderness areas. Designated official Wilderness areas are, by law, only open to foot and horse traffic. No bicycles allowed; nothing mechanized. That is even carried to the point of no helicopter rescues; at least they are strongly discouraged. Then we have BLM and National forest lands, plus some state lands. Most of these areas are open to vehicles.

I don't like to stereotype groups, but I have seen more ATV abuse than dirt bike or 4X4. There are also 4X4 and dirt bike violators, but it seems to me that ATVers are the worst offenders.

I know of a couple of cases where the abusers were caught in the act. In one he had to appear in federal court and ended up with a $1K fine. That was in a National Park managed area. I also know of two cases in UT where the offenders had to take part in restoration efforts in the area they damaged. Along with that they were educated. Unfortunately most of the damages I see go unsolved. In part it is that sort of thing that has fueled the changes.