Current work in wildlife, rivers, public lands, and climate

Missoula, MT (September 11, 2013) – The Chief of the National Forest System released new rules today related to watershed restoration projects. The new rules provide the agency with the flexibility to use Categorical Exclusions – an abbreviated environmental analysis – for certain restoration projects, including the decommissioning of user-created, renegade roads and routes that are not part of the official Forest Service transportation system. Roads cause significant and long-lasting harm to water quality and wildlife. Our National Forests provide clean drinking water for 66 million Americans – protecting and restoring that water quality is one of the most important jobs the Forest Service has.

The new rules help the agency do its job. They apply to projects that restore wetlands, uplands, and stream banks to natural conditions, and only to projects that don’t have any significant triggers, like impacting endangered species. When effectively applied, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) discloses the environmental impacts of an agency’s actions, it is the “look” before you leap” environmental law.

“The National Environmental Policy Act is one of our most important environmental laws,” said Bethanie Walder, Executive Director of Wildlands CPR. “It makes common sense to identify a suite of restoration actions for expedited review, if those actions have no negative impacts on, for example, endangered species, critical habitat, and/or long-term water quality.”

The scope of the new rule is limited to decommissioning roads that are not part of the formal Forest Service transportation system. Such “nonsystem” roads were often created without any forethought or engineering to reduce their impacts, many were “user-created” by off-road vehicle recreationists driving cross-country across the land – a practice which is no longer allowed in most national forests.

“With water and wildlife on our National Forests more at risk then ever, this rule allows the Forest Service to act quickly to restore water quality and wildlife habitat,” said Bryan Bird, Wild Places Program Director of WildEarth Guardians. “The agency has identified as many as 60,000 miles of user-created renegade routes and other nonsystem roads in past analyses.”

The Forest Service is in the midst of a large–scale analysis to determine which roads are needed and which aren’t – both renegade routes and formal system roads.

“Identifying which system roads to keep is the hard part, and, appropriately, it is not subject to categorical exclusion. But once that formal access analysis is complete, if unneeded roads can be reclaimed without impacts on water quality, or protected fish and wildlife, then a Categorical Exclusion is appropriate” said Bethanie Walder. “The agency really missed out on an important restoration opportunity when they limited this rule to non-system roads only.”

For more information on the rules click here.