Communities, Cash and Collaboration: How to Create a Successful Road Removal Program

What makes for a success­ful road-decommissioning program on our national forests? Why are many programs so contentious? While some forests face heated battles at every turn, work being done in other forests serves as a prime example of how successful road-remov­al programs can be. In 2004, Wildlands CPR published a full report titled Com­munities, Cash and Collaboration. Below are three case studies from that report: the Clearwater National Forest (CNF) in Idaho, the Lolo National Forest (LNF) in Montana, and the Siuslaw National Forest (SNF) in Oregon. Based on these case studies, we have developed a mod­el that national forests can use to create or improve road removal programs.

Clearwater National Forest - Partnership
Severe rain and snow storms dur­ing the winters of 1995 and 1996 led to more than 900 landslides on the Clear­water National Forest in Idaho. Nearly two-thirds of those landslides were road-related, leading the federal govern­ment to provide millions of emergency dollars to start fixing the problems. During the last eight years, the CNF has removed nearly 500 miles of roads, us­ing many funding sources and building significant community support along the way.

The strength of the CNF’s road removal program lies in its partnership with the Nez Perce tribe. Not all na­tional forests have the option of work­ing with a Native American tribe, but this framework for a partnership could also work with local watershed groups, conservation groups and local job pro­grams. The underlying benefits include access to funding not accessible to the Forest Service as an agency, an expand­ed pool of skilled workers, and commu­nity benefits (such as employment) that help generate a positive local attitude toward road decommissioning.

The CNF and the Nez Perce tribe have a participating agreement, with the current one running from 2001 through 2006. Each year, the partners write new amendments for that year’s proj­ects, specifying who will provide the money, labor, planning, equipment, adminis­tration and other necessities, and in what amounts (Connor interview 2003).

Documents and formal agreements are only a small part of how the partner­ship functions. The tribe and the Forest Service decide together which projects should be a priority, and then they determine a budget, including what proposals to write. The two agencies trade work crews and individuals back and forth to where they are needed in the field.

“That’s probably why it is so successful, because we’re planning it, designing it and doing the monitoring and all of that together, so every phase of the project is a true partnership,” says Ira Jones, the Nez Perce watershed coordinator for the Clearwater River. (Jones interview 2003). Jim Caswell, a former Clearwater Forest supervisor, sums up the forest’s position by saying that if the CNF had to set up a list of programs to cut because of funding, the road-decommissioning program would be the last to go (Caswell interview 2003).

Siuslaw National Forest - Prioritizing
The federal listing of the spotted owl and marbled murrelet as threatened spe­cies and the subsequent 1994 Northwest Forest Plan radically changed the SNF’s priorities from timber harvesting to restoring riparian and terrestrial ecosystems (SNF RAP 2003). In 1993, the SNF held public workshops to develop criteria for de­termining key roads, and in 1994 they published the Access and Travel Management Guide, identifying 630 miles of “key roads” necessary for public and agency access to forest lands, about one-third of the then-existing road system (SNF RAP 2003). Non-key roads are basically on a waiting list for decommissioning. Karen Bennett, the Watershed Program manager, says the key road system makes planning much easier because the agency has already answered the question of which roads to maintain (interview 2003).

Since 1994, Bennett says, the SNF has “embarked on an aggressive program of stream and forest restoration with road management at the forefront.” The SNF removes an average of 20 miles of roads per year: in 2000, they took out 25 miles; in 2001, 11 miles; and in 2002 they removed 20 miles (2003 numbers weren’t available at the time of this report) (Rider interview, 2003; Bennett interview, 2003). Currently, the SNF is working on a Natural Resource Information (NRIS) database that will allow it to share detailed information with the public and other forests about decommissioning projects.

Lolo National Forest - Outreach
When a Fish and Wildlife Service Biological Opinion called for road decommissioning and closures for grizzly bear habitat in the Seeley Lake area of Montana, some Forest Service members began bracing for a long fight. The commu­nity, they felt, possessed the potential for a volatile reaction to removing roads. So Brian Riggers, a fisheries biologist who led the interdisciplinary team for the Lolo National Forest’s Clearwater Roads Project near Seeley Lake, decided to try a different approach. Before the Forest Service wrote alterna­tives for the draft Environmental Impact Statement, they con­tacted the local community for ideas. The LNF mailed maps to residents, telling them about the need for road closures and requesting suggestions or concerns. The forest managers also met several times with key interest groups and the district ranger spoke about the subject during his customary visits to smaller groups every month or so.

This method of soliciting public participation before the agency takes any official steps gives people a sense of ownership in the final project, which cuts opposition dramatically. Riggers says there is often confusion about the exact meaning of “road closures,” and that public re­action depends on the Forest Service’s approach. When he gave presenta­tions, he discussed the LNF’s limited road maintenance budget, as well as how the agency has to manage for wildlife and recreation. People seemed much more open to the idea of road closures when approached from these angles, rather than just being told which roads the Forest Service would close or remove (Riggers interview 2003).

The Model
Based on the case studies presented here, as well as others, there are three components that help ensure a successful road removal pro­gram: 1) winning the support of local communities; 2) carefully choosing, if possible, uncontroversial roads to remove at the beginning of a pro­gram to continue building community trust; and 3) being creative about funding, either through choosing categories within Forest Service fund­ing, finding funding through other agencies or establishing partnerships.

Key Components of the Model
Because it takes a lot of time and work, building trust with a commu­nity should begin as early as possible. Public education programs should include a list of benefits to valued local resources, such as clean water, restored fisheries, benefits to wildlife (especially game species) and local employment. According to Rebecca Lloyd, program coordinator for the Nez Perce Tribe, many people have come to depend on this work. She states, “I have a lot of pressure now starting about April from people who have worked for me, and operators, businesses—this is their bread and butter” (Lloyd interview 2003). To build local support, the most impor­tant thing is to talk to people, both on a one-to-one and a group basis to prevent misconceptions about what road removal entails.

A second critical component is setting priorities for initial road removal projects. Carefully choosing initial projects can help alleviate community fears about losing access. Starting with old, inaccessible roads can help build long-term support for removing more ecologically damaging roads in the future. It is important to publicize that some roads must remain open for local use. It also helps to ask the public for input on which roads are locally important.

The third important component for a road-decommissioning pro­gram is funding. Forests must look beyond their ever-shrinking road maintenance budgets to options such as watershed, wildlife and en­gineering funds. For example, the Forest Service may be eligible for emergency funds or grants outside the agency, depending on the focus of the project. Finally, partnerships can be an effective way to move beyond internal funding. Aside from tribes, other possibilities include nonprofits, watershed groups, state wildlife or environmental quality agencies, water boards, conservation districts or job training programs.

Conclusion
To work well, a road-removal program needs to have a strong infra­structure to hold it up and keep it moving forward. Public outreach and projects that take local needs into account are especially important at the outset of the program, when the Forest Service is establishing the relationship between its program and the surrounding communities. Public outreach—including clearly stated goals and methods of prioritiz­ing projects, benefits to valued local resources, and the opportunity for the public to voice fears and concerns—should start as early as possible. Prioritizing work sites should include not only the engineering and eco­logical aspects of the project, but also take into account the local use and needs in the area. Funding is what underlies the whole program. And by examining all the possible benefits of removing roads, forests can identify various funding sources, both internally and externally. Partnerships are an option to consider. In addition to forging community ties, they can also multiply funding and other resources beyond what the forest can provide on its own. While the proportions of the three keys—partnership/outreach, prioritizing and funding—may differ ac­cording to the needs of a particular forest, using these three basic components will help to create road removal programs that can accomplish their goals with a minimum amount of friction.

For the full report and more information on road removal, go to: http://www.wildlandscpr.org/model-road-removal-program

—Beth Peluso is the media coordinator for Southeast Alaska Conservation Council in Juneau. She earned an M.S. in environmental studies from the University of Montana in 2002. Her publications as a freelancer include writing and illustrating a children’s book on fire ecology and writing several reports for Wildlands CPR.

References
Bennett, Karen. Watershed Program manager, Siuslaw National Forest, Oregon. 2003, 2004.
Caswell, Jim. Former forest supervisor for Clearwater National Forest, Idaho. 2003.
Connor, Anne Hall. Watershed restoration engineer, Clearwater National Forest, Idaho. November 2003.
Jones, Ira. Nez Perce watershed coordinator for the Clearwater River, Idaho. 2003.
Lloyd, Rebecca. Nez Perce program coordinator for the Lower Clearwater River, Idaho. 2003.
Rider, Marci. Assistant forest engineer, Siuslaw National Forest, Oregon. 2003.
Riggers, Brian. Fisheries biologist. Lolo National Forest, Montana. 2003.
Siuslaw National Forest Website. www.fs.fed. us/r6/siuslaw. 2003.