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Forest Service Road Study Comments and Outreach Meetings

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It would have been nice if they would have introduced the FS personal, for I didn't recognize anyone, probably most from the Sandy office. I'm sorry Bryon, but I'm not buying the BS! I heard during the meeting that there were more funds to decommission roads than there where for road maintainence which shows me where this agenda is going. It seems to me it would cost less if the FS didn't do anything but take the roads off maintenance. I have cleared more FS roads of downed trees and brush then the FS has on purpose. The FS doesn't do  any road maintenance unless they have to anyway.

Don

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Interesting fuzzy meeting. Must be a consultant giving workshops on that.

I would rather see some real leadership. A strong Chief capable of getting all the wagons into a circle when needed. Someone with a vision, direction, and guts.

One thought I have had is that the preservation of roads and access needs to be promoted in the interest of clean water and air. These massive and uncontrollable (wait for rain) fires will be even more difficult without roads. Not that a paved state highway helped much recently, but no roads would have made it worse. 

D 2

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Here is something about the evolving thinking at the Forest Service:

Expect spur roads that were only for logging to be blocked off or obliterated.

Expect roads to popular trailheads, campgrounds and other facilities to remain open.

Expect the level of road maintenance, perhaps for most or even all roads to drop. This is being considered as an alternative to closing even more roads.

Expect many roads to be blocked but not destroyed. They are aware of the need to maintain access for fire-fighting - and future tree cutting.

Forest Service thinking is taking into account previously closed roads (about 900 miles closed with Fish Creek a major contributor to that), and they will be using that as justification for closing fewer roads in the future.

Expect that the road to your favorite low-use trail to close especially if its not on the Forest Service list. Make sure they know you value that access and don't wait until they propose to close it. Comment now - there is a link to do it on the Mount Hood National Forest website.

Expect continuing slippage or rockfall along a road to bump it up on the list of roads to close, especially if that leads to organic debris or silt and clay getting into streams. Ditto for any condition that increases road maintenance costs. The USGS is studying pollutants that increase the difficulty/cost of treating drinking water - forest service lands are a big contributor of organic material that created toxic byproducts when chemically treated in water plants along the Clackamas. The Clackamas is the drinking water source for what will soon grow to half a million people. The USGS states that 91% of the organics (which lead to damaging byproducts during water treatment) in the Clackamas are in the river by the time it reaches Estacada above all the water intakes. The USGS is not shy about telling the Forest Service about all this.
There needs to be a commitment by the Federal Government to maintain our national patrimony the National Forests. Believe it or not there has never been a federal appropriation for road maintenance in the National Forests. All funding has been from resource extraction (mostly logging) and fire fighting. This needs to change if we want to keep a useable and sizable road system in our national forests. There needs to be direct funding of road maintenance in the Department of Agriculture budget. And this can be done but only by a lot of organizations working with this as a common goal. If this does not happen look for the deterioration of national forests be used as an argument to destroy them.

Don't hold your breath on 224 opening. Several cars of the limited number allowed up there have been hit by falling rock.

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After sending in my first comment, I re-looked at roads leading to obscure trails or other things, and came up with this list of roads to existing and/or abandoned trails (that aren't main roads):

Road            Trail(s)
4220            Horseshoe Saddle
4540            South Fork Mtn
4550            Music Creek Falls
4610            Huxley Lake, Corral Springs, Plaza Creek
4610-240    Grouse Point, Serene Lake, Signal Buttes
4611            Grouse Point, Huxley Lake
4613            Fanton, Old Baldy
4614            Bissell, White Iris
4620            Skookum Lake, Thunder Mountain, Fish Creek Mountain, East Mountain
4635-120    Cottonwood Meadows
4635-140    Cache Meadow, Cripple Creek, Rimrock
4635-146    Rimrock
4670            Rho Ridge
4671            Rho Creek
4672            Rho Creek
4691-120    Fish Lake
58-140        Pyramid Lake
58-160        Anvil Lake
58-210        Buck Lake
5830-190    Shellrock Lake, Hideaway Lake
6310            Rho Ridge, Hawk Mountain
6320            Skookum Lake, Thunder Mountain
6322            Skookum Lake, Thunder Mountain
6340            Bull of the Woods
6341            Pyramid Lake
6350            Rho Ridge, Hawk Mountain
6370            Round Lake
6380            Elk Lake Creek, Janus Butte
7010-160    Baty Butte
7020            Whetstone Mountain
Some of those are not spur roads, but could be in danger of decommissioning due to their light use.

Anyone have any other lightly used roads that I might have missed?
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Bryon Boyce said
Here is something about the evolving thinking at the Forest Service:
...
Expect roads to popular trailheads, campgrounds and other facilities to remain open.

This comment is what made me take another look at what comments I had made.  The problem with the Clackamas area is that there are only a few "popular" trails, so if that is a primary consideration, the majority of the trailheads in the district are in danger of being closed.  That is very concerning to me.  We have 64 trails on the trail index currently, and I would only consider 14 of them "popular" - that leaves 50 trails potentially being lost.  Not to mention all of the abandoned trails that could potentially be lost.

Bryon Boyce said
Don't hold your breath on 224 opening. Several cars of the limited number allowed up there have been hit by falling rock.

 I can't say I'm surprised by this one.  It saddens me, but I continue to hold out hope that by next spring, they will have figured out how to re-open 224.  I've given up on it re-opening this year at all.

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