Court Upholds Road-Building Moratorium

by Caroline Byrd and Nancy Debevoise

In early January, U.S. Federal District Court Judge Clarence Brimmer issued a ruling upholding the U.S. Forest Service’s 18-month moratorium on road building in America’s remaining roadless areas in national forests and grasslands. The ruling dismissed a lawsuit by the Wyoming Timber Association and Frontiers of Freedom, a group headed by former U.S. Senator Malcolm Wallop (R-WY), which argued that the Forest Service could not stop building roads, did not have the discretion to stop road building and, in essence, was bound to keep building roads in the future.

WOC and 13 other conservation groups intervened in the lawsuit on the side of the Forest Service. WOC staff attorney Caroline Byrd acted as the conservation groups’ local attorney, along with Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund lawyer Jim Angell. The Forest Service and conservation groups successfully argued that the Forest Service is not mandated to build roads in inventoried roadless areas, that not building roads is well within the agency’s power and that calling a temporary halt to road building in roadless areas is environmentally and economically justifiable.

The Wyoming Timber Association had claimed that the moratorium could only be adopted on a very repetitive, forest-by-forest basis for all of the country’s 124 national forests. In rejecting these claims, Judge Brimmer upheld the Forest Service’s authority to embark on a system-wide rule-making procedure, ruling that the timber industry lacked standing to raise these arguments.

"We are pleased with the court’s ruling," said WOC executive director Dan Heilig. "Judge Brimmer correctly applied the law to the facts of this case and ruled in favor of the Forest Service and the environment."

"Fish, elk and grizzly bears alike all benefit from the protection of our remaining roadless areas," added Earthjustice attorney Angell. "Everyone who fishes, hunts or spends time in the backcountry should applaud this decision."

Assessing the damage

During the moratorium, which expires in August, the Forest Service is studying the damage that roads cause to wildlife populations and habitat, water quality and fisheries, biodiversity and backcountry recreation. There is substantial evidence that the nearly 400,000-mile network of roads that criss-cross America’s national forests and grasslands — more than eight times the length of the country’s interstate highway system — is the single greatest cause of environmental damage to these public lands.

Few human activities pose more of a threat to the well-being of wildlife and the integrity of forested watersheds than road building. Roads create human corridors that increase hunting pressure, particularly poaching, and fragment wildlife habitat into isolated islands, cutting animals off from their own species, food, water and cover, decreasing their chances of survival and making them more vulnerable to extinction.

Forest roads also have overwhelmingly negative effects on fish habitat. Road cuts, ditches and shoulders generate stream sediment, which fills in pools and smothers streambed cobbles vital for spawning. Stream crossings and culverts can block fish from moving up and down stream. Roads introduce fuel, pesticides, toxins from oil and gas development and mining wastes into streams and increase the likelihood of toxic spills. In addition, roads accelerate soil erosion rates from 30 to 300 times, inviting catastrophic landslides that threaten the environment, human life and property.

The Forest Service is also using this time-out on roadbuilding to assess its huge road-maintenance backlog. The agency readily acknowledges that it lacks the resources to manage the country’s existing road system; its current backlog of unmet road-maintenance needs exceeds $10 billion.

Permanent protection needed

The road-building moratorium and the President’s directive are especially appropriate given dramatic shifts in public use and demands on our national forests. Outdoor recreation in national forests generates approximately 10 times more revenue than timber sales. While Forest Service timber sales accounted for only five percent of domestic wood consumption in 1997, the American public paid $995 million to build logging roads, administer timber sales, repair damaged areas and replant trees.

WOC strongly supports the President’s directive. Our national forests are already inundated by roads that provide plenty of motorized access for recreation and resource extraction. It’s clear that we can’t afford the forest roads we’ve got, let alone build and maintain new ones. Our nation’s remaining roadless areas and the wealth of wildlife, fisheries and pristine recreational opportunities they provide must be permanently protected from human development and destruction.