Sean C. Morgan
The Willamette National Forest cannot afford to keep all of its roads open, and forest managers want input from the public to help decide which roads it should keep.
The Willamette National Forest, including four ranger districts – Sweet Home, Detroit, McKenzie River and Middle Fork, is 110 miles long and comprises nearly 1.7 million acres, nearly 400,000 of them roadless wilderness. About 6,500 miles of roads cross the forest landscape.
During the 1960s and 1970s, the Willamette National Forest sold 700 to 800 million board feet of timber annually, said Recreation Project Manager Matt Peterson told a group of 26 people at a Sept. 23 meeting at the Sweet Home Ranger District office. That production dropped drastically in the mid-1990s, and since then, the forest has sold about 70 million board feet per year.
Last year, he said, the Willamette had the second-highest timber production in the nation and is usually in the top five.
Road construction matched timber production, falling off substantially in the mid-1990s, Peterson said. People often suggest increasing timber production to 400 or 500 million board feet per year to help pay for the roads, but 136 million board feet is the maximum the Willamette could sell if the forest were funded for it.
Roads matter, Peterson said, for hunting, mining, hiking, tribal use, biking, skiing, timber and more.
“We have an administrative need for these roads too,” Peterson said. Resource management, fire management and restoration projects rely on roads.
The Willamette National Forest has 6,538 miles of road. Sweet Home Ranger District has 892 miles.
Some 1,078 miles of the roads on the National Forest, 39 of them in the Sweet Home Ranger District, are closed to the public and “stored” in case they are needed later. They are designated Level I.
Level II roads, maintained for high-clearance vehicles, comprise 4,890 miles in the National Forest, 747 in the Ranger District.
Designated Levels III through V are maintained for passenger vehicles. They cover 567 miles in the National Forest and 105 miles in the Ranger District.
“We have a lot of roads on our landscape,” Peterson said. “With those roads there’s lots of infrastructure.”
The National Forest has more than 210 bridges and 60,000 culverts, he said. At 20 years since the decline of timber harvesting, they are aging. Officials expect 40,000 culverts to reach the end of their design life in the next 20 years.
The road system is a $1 billion investment, Peterson said. The system costs $5.9 million per year to maintain. The Willamette has an average annual maintenance budget of $1.5 million. Those funds are drawn from several sources, including funds budgeted by Congress, Secure Rural Schools funding, timber sales and stewardship projects.
About a third of it is from Secure Rural Schools funds, Peterson said. Whether that funding is available is questionable every year.
Those funds were intended to replace tax revenues lost with the decline in timber harvesting in the 1990s. The funds help pay for roads and schools.
“The challenge we face on the west side is how do we stay ahead of Mother Nature,” Peterson said. Culverts become clogged, causing washouts. Hillsides can slide. The west side grows plants quickly, and brush may grow over roads.
“If we don’t maintain the roads, chances are Mother Nature is going to close the road itself,” Peterson said. The question is how to protect that infrastructure.
The Willamette National Forest is developing a Road Investment Plan, Peterson said. It is attempting to identify priorities for preserving access to places that are important to the public and for management purposes.
Forest officials are engaging the public, looking for comment online and through a series of public meetings to identify those roads.
The National Forest has several options. It may change the level of maintenance on the roads or convert them to recreation trails or off-highway vehicle trails. Some could be closed and stored, or they may be decommissioned.
Forest staffers need to identify risk factors on each road, the risks to fish, wildlife, plants, fire management, recreation, timber management and archaeological and culture resources, Peterson said.
So far, the National Forest has identified 885 miles of “priority” road, which it intends to continue maintaining, primarily based on timber hauling, off-highway vehicle recreation sites and fire management.
During the fall, forest officials will continue public meetings. During the winter, they will refine the Road Investment Strategy based on public input. In the spring, officials will host public meetings and share the strategy. Afterward, it will enter the National Environmental Policy Act public review process.
Three meetings are scheduled in October to solicit ideas and help from the public. Meetings will be held in Oakridge on Oct. 7, Upper McKenzie on Oct. 15, and in Springfield on Oct. 29, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Springfield Interagency Office, 3106 Pierce Parkway.
Meetings will start with a presentation about road management on the Willamette National Forest and a chance for questions and answers. After the presentation, there will be maps on tables, and visitors will be encouraged to draw on the maps to show areas or roads that are important to them.
“This idea of the Road Investment Strategy is about guiding the efficient use of public tax dollars, where do we invest the dollars to have the greatest impact that does the greatest good,” Peterson said.
Among comments was a suggestion to talk to different groups – mountain biking or off-highway vehicle groups in particular, for help. Peterson said many groups are excited to turn some roads into trails for riding, and mountain bikers have put in thousands of hours working on roads.
Where it can, forest officials are interested in that kind of arrangement, he said, but they want to make sure the system is sustainable.
Anyone interested in further information should call the Sweet Home Ranger District at (541) 367-5168 or visit http://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/willamette/landmanagement/resourcemanagement/?cid=stelprdb5436909.
Those who cannot attend a meeting are encouraged to provide comments and mark areas of interest on a map by visiting my.usgs.gov/ppgis/studio/launch/11943.