In the latest change to federal land management, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has announced its intention to get rid of a rule which prevents road construction and timber harvest on nearly 59 million acres of national forest land. WMRA's Randi B. Hagi reports.
[waterfall rushing into pool]
The Hone Quarry waterfall cascades over a rocky ledge between verdant, wooded slopes in the George Washington National Forest. While hiking up the trail, you enter an expanse of around 57 square miles that has no roads. This is one patch of Virginia's 394,000 acres of "inventoried roadless areas." These areas have been protected from road construction, logging, and other industrial activities since 2001, when the so-called "roadless rule" was implemented under the Clinton administration.
In June, President Trump’s Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced the agency's intention to get rid of this rule, [quote] "allowing for fire prevention and responsible timber production." The agency has said this proposed change will have to go through an environmental analysis and public input process before going into effect.
ELLEN STUART-HAENTJENS: It protects an inventoried acreage of mostly intact, undeveloped public forest land.
Ellen Stuart-Haentjens is the executive director of the Virginia Wilderness Committee.
STUART-HAENTJENS: These are important and really popular recreation destinations. Reddish Knob in particular stands out. It's beautiful, it has really unique habitat, and a diversity of small little micro-ecosystems.
The possible rescission of the “roadless rule" is the latest of several changes to federal land management in recent months, all in the wake of Trump’s March 1st executive order calling for the expansion of American timber production. An "emergency situation determination" streamlined the process for activities such as commercial logging and wildfire prevention. The acting head of the Forest Service directed regional foresters to increase logging by 25% over the next four to five years. The Trump administration has imposed new limits on when and to what extent agencies have to follow environmental review processes.
KRISTIN GENDZIER: If all of these initiatives were to move forward, I think it is not hyperbolic to say that it would be disastrous for our national forests.
Kristin Gendzier manages the Southern Environmental Law Center's program to protect Virginia's national forests.
GENDZIER: There are hundreds of thousands of people who rely on the national forest for water, and a lot of those headwaters come out of roadless areas. It's not a coincidence that the clean water comes out of areas without roads and industry and the sedimentation that comes with it.
For example, Hone Quarry Run – which flows into the North River, which supplies parts of Harrisonburg and Rockingham County with drinking water.
I asked the U.S. Forest Service for an interview about how this rule rescission could play out in our area. A USDA spokesperson responded with an email statement. It reads, in part, the change [quote] "reflects the department’s commitment to President Trump’s executive actions to expand American timber production and unleash American energy."
Ron Jenkins, the executive director of the Virginia Loggers Association, is in favor of regional foresters having more control over the management of these lands – including areas that are set aside for recreation and conservation, and those that are opened to timber harvest.
RON JENKINS: We would like to see national forests managed in a way that is done by the professionals … like scientists, forest managers, ecologists, dendrologists and silviculturalists. … Having a big federal rule just doesn't do society, really, justice. … These professionals can make some of their own decisions as to where is best – with public input, I think that's very important. … These folks that are hired can determine a lot on their own which types of ecosystems should be set aside, and how much.
He noted that the vast majority of logging in Virginia occurs on privately owned land – about 97%, according to the most recent data available from the USDA. Part of that is because around 80% of the state's forestland is privately owned. But Jenkins sees the potential for expansion of logging on federal lands, if they became easier to access.
He said most loggers use the state's best management practices to preserve water quality around their tracts, and in general, want to harvest the raw material for wood and paper products in a responsible way.
JENKINS: Most of the people we work with are very aware of their stewardship value.
Both Stuart-Haentjens, with the Wilderness Committee, and Gendzier, with the SELC, noted that the George Washington National Forest's land management plan lays out additional protections for some of these areas covered by the roadless rule. It identifies about 42% of the forest that may be suitable for timber harvest, while conserving other areas through a complex jigsaw puzzle of management categories, such as remote backcountry areas and Indiana Bat hibernacula.
STUART-HAENTJENS: Many of our roadless areas, in at least Virginia, are roadless areas still because they're difficult to get to. … So I do think we will see some more logging in these – it may be more dramatic out west.
Regarding our case study of Hone Quarry – if the roadless rule goes away, that area is still currently protected from timber harvest in the forest's management plan, because it's part of the proposed Shenandoah Mountain National Scenic Area. But the bill that would create the scenic area, co-sponsored by Virginia’s Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, is currently under committee review in the Senate – so that land's future remains uncertain.
Full disclosure, the SELC underwrites programming on WMRA.
