Forest Service extends public comment period for Roadless Rule rescission

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Public given an additional 15 days to give input on proposed rule and draft environmental statement

By Jasz Garrett

Juneau Independent

The U.S. Forest Service has extended its public comment period on its proposal to rescind the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which it announced on Aug. 18.

Originally a 30-day comment period, the Forest Service is now offering a total of 45 days to offer input on the proposed repeal and draft environmental statement. This makes the new deadline Oct. 6.

Nathan Newcomer, the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council's Tongass Campaigner, said that while it's good the public was given more time, traditionally the Forest Service has provided 90 days for input on draft environmental impact statements.

In the two years leading up to the Roadless Rule’s enactment in 2001, more than 600 public meetings were held across the country, including 30 in Alaska, according to Newcomer. Earlier this year, SEACC co-hosted four in-person events in Juneau, Kake, Klawock and Ketchikan, inviting members of the public to testify.

Patrick Baum, a Juneau resident, wrote he is not opposed to active management of the Tongass National Forest, but disagrees with how the process is being pursued.

"The pace of this process is another red flag," Baum wrote in a public comment Tuesday. "The Roadless Rule has been in place for twenty-five years. Something with that much history and that much effect on national forest management should not be undone through rushed public comment periods, especially while the Tongass is already in the middle of rewriting its Forest Plan."

The Forest Service is scheduled to hold four public hearings this fall to evaluate potential impacts on subsistence uses if the Roadless Rule is repealed. Oral testimony at subsistence hearings will be included in the record considered for the final rule and its supporting environmental analysis, according to the agency. Written comments will not be accepted.

Ketchikan resident Mitchel Turner, a small business owner and former boat captain in the tourism and sport fishing industries, expressed his support for repeal.

"I support rescinding the 2001 Roadless Rule because it has failed Southeast Alaska as a management tool and because my community needs a more diversified, year-round economy," he wrote on Sunday. "I ask the Department to do this the right way: return decision-making to the state and forest-plan level, and at the same time press Congress to lock in the sustainability standards that will keep this industry viable, keep our salmon streams healthy, and keep the benefits in the communities that live with the consequences."

Natural guide Sarah Drummond had a different view, asking the Forest Service not to rescind the Roadless Rule in support of tribal sovereignty, ecotourism and more.

"Allowing road construction and logging in these forests will destroy areas crucial to Native Tribes’ spirituality, culture, identity, and survival," she wrote in a comment Thursday. "These forests provide clean drinking water for more than 60 million U.S. residents and are crucial ecosystems for the wildlife that Tribal Nations depend on."

The Forest Service did not respond to a question from the Juneau Independent about what prompted the extended public comment period in time for this story.