2008-09 Legacy Roads Accomplishments

The Forest Service Legacy Roads and Trails Remediation Initiative (Legacy Roads) was adopted in late December 2007, providing ~$40 million in funding for the Forest Service to protect and restore clean drinking water, fisheries connectivity and sensitive, threatened and endangered fish habitat.  The funds were specifically designed to reduce the impacts of roads on these resources by undertaking critical road maintenance such as culvert upgrades on needed forest roads while reclaiming unneeded forest roads.  The program was continued in 2009 at $50 million.

In both FY08 and FY09 the agency published projections for how these funds would be spent in each region.  They have not released comparable reports on actual expenditures at the end of each fiscal year, but the initial allocations are likely to be indicative of final expenditures. 

Project reporting requirements included information such as the number of culverts upgraded to restore fish passage, miles of roads and trails maintained, miles of roads decommissioned, miles of stream habitat improved and acreage of habitat improved.  Not all forests responded to each of the questions, for example, many forests did not list the acres of habitat expected to be improved, thus this information may be significantly underestimated.  In addition, important questions regarding monitoring and green jobs have not yet been included in agency reports.  According to Forest Service spreadsheets, in its first two years Legacy Roads funds were projected to:

• Fix 820 culverts restoring at least 1147 miles of stream habitat;
• Improve 2215 miles of road;
• Maintain 3089 miles of road;
• Decommission 2194 miles of system and unauthorized roads;
• Fix 166 bridges;
• Maintain or improve 3170 miles of trail; and
• Improve a minimum of 126,008 acres of habitat.

Download the attached file to see a spreadsheet showing regional breakdowns of projected Legacy Roads accomplishments for FY08 and FY09.