When it comes to salmon recovery, removing dams grabs the headlines, and when it comes to forest health, wildfire and thinning projects are in the spotlight. But there is an intersection between these issues that’s equally important, if not yet considered front-page news: reclaiming forest roads. That’s because decaying, unmanaged, under-maintained roads are a top threat to endangered salmon and clean drinking water for thousands of communities, as well as elk, grizzly bears and other wildlife that depend on large blocks of intact habitat to survive.

These decaying roads are finally getting some of the attention they deserve. In December, Congress approved and the President signed the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2008. Tucked inside was a new allocation of $39.4 million for watershed restoration through road decommissioning and remediation on national forest lands — the Legacy Roads and Trails Remediation Initiative (LRRI). Securing this funding was one of Wildlands CPR’s priority campaigns last year — and it is a huge, welcome victory!

So how did this funding come about, and how can we secure more in the future? Like many successful conservation initiatives, passing the LRRI was made possible by identifying common goals, building a diverse network, coordinating resources, and finding a champion to lead the charge. Congressman Norm Dicks (D-WA) provided Congressional leadership, backed by the brain trust and footwork of the Washington Watershed Restoration Initiative (WWRI), founded in late 2006. The WWRI includes Washington state officials, Indian tribes of western Washington, Wildlands CPR and about a dozen other conservation groups in Washington, plus other partners throughout the west, all committed to salmon recovery and watershed restoration. Wildlands CPR joined the WWRI in mid-2007 and hired Sue Gunn to represent us and serve as WWRI Campaign Coordinator. We view the Legacy Initiative as the start of a new effort to fund road remediation work in Washington and beyond.

The Washington national forest road problem
Back in 2000, the Forest Service and WA Department of Ecology signed an agreement that national forest roads would be subject to state forest practice standards, as well as those of the federal Clean Water Act. They agreed on a timeline: the agency would bring their roads up to standard by 2016.

Restoring Puget Sound was one the state’s critical concerns. Many Forest Service roads bisect the headwaters of streams that feed the Sound, and water quality in these streams was below standards. The state recognized that restoring the Sound would require a real investment to fix these road problems. By 2006, however, it had become clear that little progress had been achieved in meeting this goal. The Forest Service is woefully behind schedule on meeting their agreement with the state, in large part due to a lack of funding. Their failure to make significant progress is one of the primary reasons the WWRI was created, and one of the reasons Congressman Dicks made such a valiant effort to secure federal funding for road management. (We should point out that technically the funding is not new money. The Congress moved funds from an unexpended Forest Service account to be used for the LRRI, creating a one-time spending increase for road management.)

The Forest Service estimates it will cost $300 million in Washington alone just to meet the standards. Three action items are priorities: reclaiming unneeded roads; restoring fish passage and clean water flow through culvert improvements; and performing critical maintenance on needed roads. According to a letter to the Forest Service from Washington’s governor, the road problem in WA can be summed up as follows:

• “More than 1,700 culverts blocking or hindering fish passage;
• more than 3,600 miles of roads no longer needed and not decommissioned to protect water quality; and
• out of more than 22,000 miles of roads, less than 20% being addressed (and inadequately, at that) by USFS” (letter from Governor Gregoire to Undersecretary of Agriculture Mark Rey; 2-15-08).

To make matters worse, the Pacific Northwest has been experiencing increasingly frequent and intense winter storms that cause landslides and road failures. The storms in late 2006 caused more than $30 million in damage to Forest Service roads in the region. Another set of storms hit in December 2007, causing millions ore in damage. That damage can have long-lasting consequences, destroying fisheries habitat and clean drinking water, and damaging private and public property. Road triggered landslides have even resulted in lost lives.

The state of Washington recognizes that they can prevent much of the damage by decommissioning roads, fixing culverts and remediating those roads that are needed so they can withstand future storms. “Storm proofing” makes both ecological and fiscal sense. It is far cheaper to fix a road before it fails than to clean up the mess afterwards. In the same letter quoted above, Governor Gregoire told Undersecretary Rey, “Unless we storm-proof our forest watersheds,the price tag to fix these sub-standard roads will skyrocket.” Unfortunately, government doesn’t typically invest in prevention, but preventing damage is precisely why Congressman icks pushed for the LRRI funding. Furthermore,he pushed for it nationally because the problem is not limited to Washington State.

The national picture
The Forest Service has accumulated a $10 billion national road maintenance
backlog. This backlog could be significantly reduced if the agency invested in road reclamation to lower the overall mileage of roads they are required to maintain over the long-term.

Nationally, the Forest Service estimates that they need to remove an estimated 186,000 miles of roads to bring the road system down to a manageable, maintainable system that still meets the needs of the agency and forest users. A 2003 Wildlands CPR study found that it would cost approximately $93 million per year for about 20 years to implement a national road removal plan. That $93 million would provide between 2,000-3,000 high-wage, high-skill jobs in rural communities, making such an appropriation good for the land and for the communities that depend on the land.

After becoming involved in the WWRI, Wildlands CPR worked with our partner organizations in California, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado to help generate broad western support for the LRRI. After its passage we pulled together a quick summary of road removal needs throughout the country, again with help from partner organizations in the states above and in the southeast (http://www.wildlandscpr.org/our-news/road-remediation-reclamation-needs [0]). We also met directly with Forest Service staff in DC to provide input on how the LRRI funding should be distributed nationally, and we provided numerous Wildlands CPR resources to help build effective road decommissioning programs. We also requested strong monitoring and guidance that the funding be used largely for decommissioning work, not just for critical maintenance.

Next steps
The LRRI is the first direct appropriation towards the agency’s long-term transportation goal to minimize the road system. It will help with the massive backlog of forest road maintenance, but one-time funding will not solve this problem. The WWRI and our partners throughout the country are committed to working for long-term, sustained funding for road removal and remediation in Washington and beyond. While this $39.4 million is a wonderful start, it is only a start and the agency still has a long way to go.

Investing in road decommissioning can save taxpayers billions of dollars over the long-term, while also providing high-wage, skilled jobs in rural communities. As such, it creates an economic stimulus that benefits people and the land. We hope the agency uses this funding wisely and is able to show real progress on the ground because of this infusion. Their capacity to do that will be the biggest indicator of future funding success.

In January 2008 Wildlands CPR released a report: “Road Remediation & Reclamation Needs throughout the National Forest System” (see New Resources, page 13). Based on that survey, we recommend the following approaches to implementing the Legacy Roads Remediation Initiative:

Implementing the LRRI
• Prioritize watershed restoration in areas where limited investment can result in significant returns. Identify priority basins and sub-basins with the best opportunities to attain water quality objectives with limited
investment and the treatment of relatively few road miles (e.g. treat healthier watersheds first).
• Prioritize the majority of funding for actual road decommissioning efforts on the ground rather than fixing roads that are likely to fail again in future storm/flood events.
• Upgrade culverts and fix barriers to fish passage on roads that provide
critical access, and therefore cannot be decommissioned.
• Provide dedicated Forest Service staff time to complete NEPA analyses
for future road reclamation and reclamation projects.
• Utilize Categorical Exclusions (CE) when conducting NEPA analyses for road reclamation and remediation projects. While some projects will require Environmental Analyses or Environmental Impact Statements,
many projects can be implemented efficiently and effectively using CE’s.
• Utilize some portion of the funding for monitoring project effectiveness over the short and long-term. Monitoring should include the collection of pre-project baseline data and post-project short- and long-term effectiveness.
Forests should also monitor the economic
benefits and impacts generated through watershed restoration activities.
• At the project level, use some portion of this funding to engage and inform the public about watershed restoration and remediation needs, projects and opportunities (including through the use of pre- and post-project field trips). The most successful watershed restoration
projects around the country are those that have strong community support from the outset.
• Assess road reclamation and remediation needs and incorporate decisions articulating these needs into the travel planning processes that are currently underway on many forests.