By Josephine Johnson Mountain State Spotlight
For Charleston Gazette-Mail
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 If the rule is repealed, protected areas would be opened up to cars, logging and road development.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.
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