The National Forests have too many roads in some locations as a result of past outdated logging practices, historical uses, and over use. In these cases, the Forest Service plans to obliterate unneeded roads as rapidly as possible (See the road maintenance section in National Forest Systems Appropriation Account). In other cases, there are more roads than can be appropriately managed and maintained with the available funds to avoid environmental problems associated with erosion. Many roads are closed for all or part of the year to avoid safety problems or environmental degradation. An extensive road system on National Forests is necessary to meet public access expectations, and to manage and protect the resources. Over 60 million acres of the 191.6 million acre National Forest System are inventoried roadless areas of 5,000 acres or more. Only a small portion of this land will be accessed over the next 50 years. Additional roads, usually short sections, are required in areas less than 5,000 acres to provide basic access and to distribute program activities to meet standards and guidelines included in land management plans. Standards and guidelines govern activities associated with wildlife habitat distribution, hydrological effects, and other components of the forest environment. However, the great bulk of the necessary 1998 work is reconstruction of existing roads to meet environmental public safety objectives. The road program requested in FY 1998 is only that minimally adequate to support other national program targets. Engineering skills are needed to provide the planning and oversight of all road activities to ensure the minimum standards and costs consistent with Forest Plans and Guidelines. Direction is to minimize entry into roadless areas, and to proceed with new construction only where determined necessary through the NEPA process and public involvement. Priority is given to reconstruction of existing roads and bridges for essential public safety and correcting environmental impacts. Roads no longer needed for forest use or protection will be obliterated. For the last several years, miles of road obliterated were more than double the miles of new road constructed. This trend will continue in FY 1998. Management of National Forest lands and resources emphasizes a balance of commodity outputs of recreation, timber, wildlife and fish, soil, water, and air uses. The forest road system is dynamic. It needs continuous maintenance to safely accommodate the diversity of uses expected. Forest roads provide: • Access for over 300 million visitor days of recreation use per year Access to over 121,000 miles of trail Access to more than 34 million acres of designated wilderness Access to 19 national recreation areas, 6 national scenic areas, 4 national monuments and 20 other areas, and over 4,300 miles of Wild and Scenic rivers Access to over 18,000 recreation facilities Access to (and including) about 7,000 miles of scenic byways Access to 50 major visitor centers, 40% of all downhill ski areas, and sites of many lodges, resorts and more than 15,000 summer homes. Access for control of insects and disease Access for ecosystem restoration Access for wildlife and fisheries habitat management and improvement Access for about 9,000 grazing allotments and about 10 million animal unit months of grazing Access for timber management. Access to nearly a quarter of the Nation's potential energy reserves Access for the suppression of about 6,000 to 10,000 wildfires per year and reforestation of the burned over lands car use except when closed by weather conditions. Typically, these are single lane gravel roads. Local roads connect terminal facilities such as recreation sites, trailheads, and logging sites with forest arterial roads, forest collector roads, highways or public roads. They constitute about 74 percent of the forest road system (about 281,500 miles) and except for those serving recreation sites, most are built for high clearance vehicles such as pickups and trucks. Local roads may be closed or obliterated after the resource activity they were constructed for is complete. This is done to protect the environment, natural resources or the public, and to reduce maintenance costs. Sources of Funding for Forest Roads: Upgrading of forest roads and bridges is currently financed under three programs: the forest road program (FRP), the purchaser credit program (PCP), or the purchaser election program (PEP). Forest Road Program (FRP). This program finances planning, management, survey, design, project engineering, reconstruction, and construction of multipurpose roads on, or adjacent to, the National Forests. The FRP also finances the planning, management, and project engineering costs for forest roads constructed under the PCP. In some cases, Salvage Sale funds can be used for project engineering as authorized by Congress. In addition, collections from timber sales can be made to recover the cost of survey, design, and construction engineering for timber road reconstruction. About $1.5 million of the FY 1998 forest road program will be used through challenge costshare in conjunction with partnerships with public and private sector entities, such as conservation and other special interest groups. Purchaser Credit Program (PCP). Under this program timber purchasers reconstruct or construct the roads and bridges needed to access timber purchased. Purchasers receive credit for the value of the work they do. This credit is applied to reduce the cash amount paid for the purchased timber. Although there are no appropriated funds for PCP, Congress has 1998 Explanatory Notes USDA Forest Service established an obligation limit for each year since the National Forest Roads and Trails Act was passed in 1964. FRP funding is used to support the PCP for planning, survey, design and construction engineering. PCP program is proposed to be phased out in FY 1998. FRP funds will continue to be used to ensure that purchaser constructed roads meet required standards for safety and environmental protec tion. Purchaser Election Program (PEP). This program allows small business timber purchasers to elect to have the Forest Service fund and construct roads or bridges required by the sale. Roads are built by contractors who are awarded competitively bid public works road contracts. Costs differ between purchaser credit and purchaser election funds by the Davis-Bacon minimum wage rate requirements included in competitively bid construction contracts funded by PEP. Purchasers who "elect" do not receive purchaser credits. Forest Road Program Funding Needs: A significant portion of the roads budget (37 percent in FY 1997) is programmed for recreation roads and general purpose roads. There is a growing backlog of rehabilitation needs in recreation and general purpose roads resulting from continuously growing high use by the public, and from limited maintenance funding. A major effort is being made to replace bridges that are no longer safe or are functionally obsolete. These bridges make up at least 15 percent of the 9,700 bridges on the national forest road system. Bridge replacement has averaged about 50 per year for the last 10 years but is declining. This rate must be accelerated or functionally obsolete bridges will result in critical parts of the transportation system being closed to national forest users. Road planning, location, design, rights-of-way purchase, contract preparation, contract administration, and monitoring activities are carried out over a one to five year span in a sequence necessary to sustain the orderly planning and implementation of projects. Therefore, FRP funding in a given year will pay for forest road activities tied to resource management projects Road construction and reconstruction needs are identified through transportation analyses completed in accordance with ecosystem management principles and forest plans. Forest plans identify the location corridor of arterial and collector roads, recreation developments, expected resource outputs, user services, and the need for local roads based on these activities. The transportation planning process is an interdisciplinary process and takes several steps to complete. Roads are built or improved only after careful analysis indicates that they are the most economic, efficient, and resource sensitive solution to long term access needs. Temporary roads are used whenever only short term access is needed. Directly funded timber road reconstruction, that is, not funded by the PCP or PEP, is occasionally needed for the following reasons: 1. To maintain legal obligations with costshare cooperators and fund the government's fair share of mutually agreed to access needs. 2. To avoid having multiple timber purchasers dependent on each other for completion of road work prior to hauling timber. This avoids likely contract claims and litigation from conflicts of use. 3. To insure timely access of timber sale areas for emergency situations such as fire or insect infestations. Technologies to support ecosystem management: - FRP funds finance the study and testing of emerging technologies that help reduce road 1998 Explanatory Notes USDA, Forest Service construction and maintenance costs and reduce environmental and resource impacts that roads may create. Examples are: is most cost effective that safe, adequate access be provided concurrently. Only the highest priorities will be met in FY 1998. Some road reconstruction needed for recreation reconstruction projects will be deferred. Additionally, FRP funds provide critical engineering support needed for the 2.505 billion board feet (BBF) of regular (green) timber volume planned to be advertised for sale in FY 1998. The timber salvage sale program supports an additional 1.275 BBF of salvage sale volume. Timber purchasers will reconstruct an estimated 2,000 miles of road and construct an estimated 300 miles of permanent roads. FRP funds are used for engineering support of this work which is funded by timber purchasers. These estimates do not include purchaser constructed temporary roads not needed for long term forest access. As with all estimates, there is considerable uncertainty associated with the road reconstruction and construction program to meet essential recreation access and critical general purpose (the primary access to National Forests) needs, and the planned timber sale level. The National Forest road system over a wide area of the west was severely impacted by storms and flooding in FY 1996 and again this winter. Work is underway to recover from last year's winter storms and to assess the significant damages from this winter's storms. If it is determined that emergency funds, e.g., Federal Highway Administration ERFO ("Emergency Relief Federally Owned") funds, are available for repair and reconstruction, and work complements the FY 1998 planned program, and can be completed in time, the FY 1998 program will be able to go forward as planned. The Forest Service will continue to assess the situation over the next several months. Direction is to minimize entry into roadless areas, and to proceed only where determined necessary through the NEPA process and public involvement. Entry into inventoried roadless areas proposed for FY 1998 is 132.6 miles of purchaser construction (Region 1, 40.3 miles; Region 4, 32.3 miles; Region 6, 6.0 miles; Region 10, 54.0 miles). Entry is made for salvage removal of fire damaged timber or control of insect and disease infestation, and implementation of Forest plans. Forest plans may include timber 1998 Explanatory Notes USDA Forest Service management activities in areas without roads for forest health purposes and sustained timber production. Forest Service standards and guidelines place limitations on re-entering previously harvested areas. In all cases, the proposed development has, or will have, environmental analysis - with extensive public involvement - completed before entry. FRP Breakdown Table: The table on the following page displays funding and accomplishments for the forest road program for FY 1996-FY 1998. The table shows that very little road reconstruction or new construction is planned in FY 1998. Most planned road work is associated with recreation site rehabilitation and reconstruction. |