Utah asks for exemption from Forest Service roadless rule

...This is thanks to the U.S. Forest Service’s two-decade old roadless rule, which bans construction and logging on nearly 60 million national forest acres across the country, including some of Utah’s most remote and rugged areas. Conservationists regard the roadless rule as a landmark piece of environmental policy, preserving what remains of the agency’s relatively undeveloped land. But the state of Utah has always disliked the rule, and now it wants out. In a petition to the Department of Agriculture released in early March, Utah Republican Gov. Gary Herbert’s administration requested a new roadless rule that would weaken restrictions on logging and road building on more than 4 million acres of national forest in the state. The roadless rule changes would vary according to county preferences, which are included in the petition. According to Herbert’s administration, the roadless rule puts Utah at greater risk for wildfire by preventing the removal of dead trees and thick plant growth built up over many years. The state began assembling the petition last fall, following one of Utah’s worst wildfire seasons in years, during which hundreds of thousands of acres and dozens of homes burned. But an analysis by The Wilderness Society shows that 90 percent of Utah land that burned from 2013 to 2017 was outside the roadless rule areas, and scientific evidence suggests that road-building in Western forests is associated with high risk of human-caused fires. And as noted by Mark Brunson, environment professor at Utah State University, the petition ignores wildfire’s ecological role in restoring nutrients to the soil and promoting healthy ecosystems...MORE