In 2008 Congress provided first-time funding to the Forest Service for the Legacy Roads and Trails Remediation Initiative [0] (LRRI). With $39.4 million in new money, the Forest Service will be able to being addressing some of the problems created by the legacy of logging roads in our national forests. According to the legislation, the money can be used for critical maintenance and restoration work, particularly where forest roads create risks to water quality and threatened or endangered wildlife species. Aging, undermaintained forest roads endanger public lands, clean water and fish populations. Thousands of miles of roads block fish passage and are at risk of triggering destructive landslides. And while $40 million may seem like a lot of money, the Forest Service estimates the maintenance backlog on our national forest roads to be as high as $10 billion. It’s our hope that the LRRI will become a permanent program, with annual funding to restore watersheds by decommissioning unneeded roads, while fixing culverts and performing regularly needed maintenance on those roads that we do need.

In July, we received a set of spreadsheets [0] from the Forest Service that describes how they intend to use the initial LRRI funding. According to the totals [0] calculated from these spreadsheets, the Forest Service will:

• Construct or reconstruct 407 stream crossings to restore fish passage,
• Restore or enhance 581 miles of stream habitat,
• Improve 236 miles of passenger car roads and 908 miles of high clearance vehicle roads
• Maintain 529 miles of passenger car roads maintained and 999 miles of high clearance vehicle roads,
• Decommission 303 miles of roads,
• Construct or reconstruct 66 bridges,
• Maintain 1165 miles of trails to standard,
• Improve 618 miles of trails to meet standards, and
• Improve a minimum of 60,831 acres of watershed (several regions did not report the acres of improved watersheds).

This is an impressive first step towards the comprehensive stewardship of our national forest watersheds. The totals listed above are based on the Forest Service’s allocation of funding. Most of these projects are expected to be completed in 2008, but we will be checking back again at the end of the year to see if the projects proceeded as planned. (Weather, cost-shares, or other factors could possibly delay some implementation.)

While ideally there would have been more miles of roads decommissioned, this is still a great start toward dramatically reducing the impacts roads have on water, fisheries and wildlife. Wildlands CPR is a key group in the Washington Watershed Restoration Initiative, which advocated on behalf of this initiative.

To find out what’s happening on your favorite forests, and to learn which projects have been funded in your region, download the Forest Service spreadsheet [0]. Please note that all Forest Service regions are included on this one spreadsheet and you can click on the tabs at the bottom of the spreadsheet to pull up the individual data for each region. If you have questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us. Below you’ll find a key to determine where your local forest is found and what some of the key abbreviations mean in the spreadsheet.

USFS Regions:
Region 1: Montana, Northern Idaho, North Dakota
Region 2: Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, Kansas
Region 3: Arizona, New Mexico
Region 4: Southern Idaho, Utah, Nevada
Region 5: California
Region 6: Oregon, Washington
Region 8: Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Okalahoma, Texas
Region 9: Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.
Region 10: Alaska

Abbreviations Key:
AOP – Aquatic Organism Passage (fish passage)
CMP – Corrugated Metal Pipe (culvert)
HC – High Clearance Vehicle
NEPA – National Environmental Policy Act
PC – Passenger Car
TMDL – Total Maximum Daily Load (of sedimentation in a stream)

There are several Forest Service abbreviations that are specific to funding or agency data and we have not listed those here (e.g. CMLG, RFFF).