The Trump Administration is considering opening more than 180,000 acres of protected West Virginia national forests to logging and construction, a change that could affect wilderness areas in the state enjoyed by millions of people each year.
The Monongahela National Forest is one of three national forests in West Virginia whose roadless areas could be opened up for more logging as the administration considers repealing a Clinton-era rule.
The Roadless Rule is a federal conservation policy adopted in 2001 that prohibits road construction, reconstruction and commercial timber harvesting in certain areas. If the rule is repealed, protected areas would be opened up to cars, logging and road development.
“It would make a huge difference in the availability of wild, natural, relaxing areas that we have that are so valuable to us in West Virginia,” said Dave Johnston, coordinator of the Dolly Sods Stewards Program.
How does this affect West Virginians?
The Monongahela National Forest hosts 3 million visitors a year, and is the biggest of three national forests with roadless areas in West Virginia.
West Virginia has roadless areas from the Potomac Highlands to the Greenbrier Valley, and several along the Alleghany Trail, according to The West Virginia Rivers Coalition.
If Americans were to lose access to wild lands in the East, “it would be a matter of damage to the environment itself,” Johnston said. “But it would be equally important as a loss to people.”
The Monongahela was almost completely clear-cut and burned by the early 1900s, along with much of West Virginia. Johnston says the forest is still recovering.
Under the proposal, decisions regarding road building and timbering would fall to local forest managers and the plans that guide the forest.
A United States Forest Service spokesperson said the proposed Roadless Rule rescission would not make any changes to the existing Monongahela Forest plan. Development is limited in over 116,000 acres in and around the Mon Forest under the current forest plan, according to the Forest Service spokesperson.
The Monongahela National Forest Land and Resource Management Plan, last revised in 2011, is currently unclear as to what that development might look like.
Rescinding the Roadless Rule would not authorize new development, roadbuilding, or remove land-use designations, the Forest Service spokesperson said. Any new proposal made after the repeal would need to comply with the forest plan and existing laws and regulations, like the National Environmental Policy Act.
Wilderness areas will stay the same, even if the Roadless Rule is rescinded.
A wilderness area is designated by an act of Congress with a strict set of protections that can only be altered by another act of Congress, unlike the Roadless Rule, which can be altered by new administrative rules.
Roadless areas are essentially waiting to become Wilderness areas, Johnston said. “Most of them will never become wilderness, but they have that potential.”
They also serve as a buffer between developed areas and truly wild areas.
Olivia Miller, interim executive director of the Highlands Conservancy, said logging near wilderness boundaries can damage nearby earth and streams, extending its impact into protected areas.
“You don’t want logging to come right up to the border of a wilderness area,” she said.
The Forest Service estimates about half of previously roadless areas in the United States will have roads built.
Areas now protected by the Roadless Rule have more than 9,000 miles of roads that were built before the rule was adopted in 2001. The Forest Service spokesperson says that the Roadless Rule “left them to deteriorate.”
The Forest Service currently has a backlog of nearly $7 million of deferred maintenance for roads and bridges nationwide. They estimated 16% of forested areas across the country previously protected by the Roadless Rule could be timbered, which could generate an additional $5 to $11 million per year for the federal government.
A national forest is responsible for sustainable timber harvesting, said Michael Jones, conservation manager for the West Virginia Rivers Coalition.
“There’s nothing inherently wrong with timbering. As long as timbering is being done in the right place for the right reason,” he said.
The change comes amid a push by the administration to ramp up timber production in America’s public lands. During his first term, President Donald Trump lifted the rule in 7 million acres of Alaska’s Tongass National Forest to increase timber production.
Last year, Trump signed an executive order calling for an increase in lumber production on public lands, citing concerns about reliance on imported wood and wildfires.
Two months later, the U.S. Forest Service released a plan calling for a 25% increase in timber production and a goal to sell, at 4 billion board feet, enough wood to build 148,000 homes, by 2028.
The public comment period for the proposed rule on the Federal Register ends Oct. 6.
“They are, at the end of the day, our lands. And we have a say in how they’re managed,” Miller said.