Public Comment: Letter to Chief Dombeck - Withdraw the Roadless Rule

The Forest Service is accepting public comments until July 17, 2000 on the Roadless Area Conservation Draft Environmental Impact Statement.

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USDA Forest Service CAET Attn: Roadless PO Box 221090 Salt Lake City, UT 84122 E-mail: roadlessdeis@fs.fed.us Dear Chief Dombeck: I wish to inform the Forest Service of my concern with the current Roadless area proposed rule. The plan to limit any future roads to only the current roads that are now in place effectively limits the ability of the Forest Service to properly administer the land as a true multi-use public resource. The plan as currently proposed will set aside 54 million acres now available as multi-use public land and set them aside to be administered basically as wilderness land. That is not what this land should be used for. This publicland should continue to be administered as multi-use land, not wilderness land. The National Forest system currently has 22% of its 192 million acres already set aside as wilderness or natural areas. If this proposed rule is adopted, an additional 28% of the National Forest land would be set aside as permanent roadless areas. That would severely restrict the public's access to 50% of the total National Forest land. That, in my opinion, is too much public land with severely limited access - public land that is available to only a very small minority of Americans. This proposed rule also greatly limits the ability of the Forest Service to manage forest resources far into the future. Proper forest planning needs to consider the local social, economic, recreation and resource situation based on proper science over a 30-year or longer timeframe. This proposed rule assumes that all forests are a static resource that will never require any future changes. This proposed rule assumes that only the areas that now have roads will ever require future roads and that the areas that currently do not have roads are best managed as wilderness. This proposed rule assumes that the best land use control should come directly from Washington D.C. These assumptions simply are not correct. Forests change, social needs change, land management requirements change - and the resource management people need the ability to adjust to these changes. I request that the Roadless rule be withdrawn. Let wilderness land be maintained as wilderness, let multi-use land remain as multi-use. Sincerely,

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