Forest Management

A Silver Lining for the Logging Road

By PJ DelHomme, 11-30-05

	Graphic courtesy of the Montana Wilderness Association

Montana is home to over 30,000 miles of active and decommissioned logging roads on national forest land. That’s enough road to wrap around the equator and still have 5,000 miles left over. Discussions are currently on the table regarding whether or not Montana needs new roads, after the Bush Administration overturned the Clinton-era ban on new road building in America’s national forests this year. Even if the state decides not to build new roads, the money to maintain those 30,000 miles of road simply isn’t in the budget. So, what’s a state to do?

Closed roads provide lovely two-lane trails for mountain biking, skiing, or just plain hiking. They’re a place to get away from the hoards of people up the Rattlesnake and let your dog be a dog off his leash. Roads are also a chance for Off-Road-Vehicle (ORV) users to get up into God’s country with a four-stroke between their legs. Many roads are left in place and gated so the Forest Service can have access to these areas for logging in the future or to suppress wildfires. But not everyone sees logging roads in such a light. Whereas some see the roads around Montana as access, others see them as scars, while others see them as a burden that could be turned into opportunity.

Many temporary logging roads don’t get re-vegetated and the Forest Service recognizes that they don’t need them anymore, says Marnie Criley of Wildlands CPR. That’s why one solution for unneeded roads in Montana is to simply remove them, which, according to Criley, could be a boom to local economies.

Economic studies in California’s Humboldt County, where road removal first emerged, have shown that restoration of old roads ranks right up there with northern California’s fishing industry, Criley says.

“We’re not saying that restoration is going to take the place of the logging industry [in Montana], but it has an important role to play in a diversified economy,� says Criley. She adds that outfits like the AFL-CIO have expressed interest in the restoration process and how it could create good, well-paying jobs. In the future, Wildlands CPR hopes to help fund and organize an economic impact analysis for road removal around Western Montana.

Locally, the Lolo National Forest is in the planning stages of decommissioning anywhere from several to 50 miles of old roads in the Lolo Creek drainage.

“There are just too many roads between the Forest Service and private landowners up there,� says Rod Blessing, a civil engineering technician with the Lolo National Forest. He adds that many of the roads are gravel and were expensive to build, but without the money to maintain them, they continue to erode and dump sediment into Lolo Creek.

Not so, says Fred Hodgeboom, a retired 32-year forester with the Forest Service and Executive Director of Montanans for Multiple Use. He says that Montana doesn’t necessarily have any of the roads that cause stream degradation because the agency’s so-called best management practices are being used on current roads and logging operations and the older roads have stabilized themselves.

Hodgeboom says the problem is that the Forest Service has lost sight of their mission in terms of multiple use management.

“They’re decommissioning way too many roads. Those roads were built for sustained timber management,� he says. “They’re using taxpayer money to rip out these roads. The agencies aren’t doing balanced management.�

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