Clackamas River Road Restoration
Roads are widely recognized as a risk to aquatic ecosystems and terrestrial species on federal lands nationwide. They have numerous widespread, pervasive and, if left untreated, long-lasting biological and physical impacts that continue long after completion of construction. Road restoration has been specifically identified in the Northwest Forest Plan and other recent federal policies as a high priority for aquatic conservation on federal lands. Moreover, climate change will exacerbate current problems. For instance, high quality drinking water and fish habitat will be threatened by the increasing frequency and severity of floods; and access to public lands for hunting, camping and other recreational activities could be limited by the deteriorating and flood-impacted road system.
Addressing the impacts of the Forest Service's crumbling and destructive road system is one of the most important actions the Forest Service can take to help species and communities adapt to climate change. The Mount Hood National Forest has 3,407 miles of roads in just over 1 million acres of forest. Many of these roads are deteriorating, impacting threatened fish populations and fragmenting habitat for sensitive wildlife populations. The Mt. Hood National Forest has taken on the challenge of addressing the road system by strategically closing unneeded roads on the Forest that have a variety of impacts on water quality, aquatic habitat, and terrestrial habitat.
Closing unneeded roads also reduces maintenance costs and better enables the Forest to focus resources on roads that are needed. The agency currently faces a road-maintenance backlog of $5.1 billion (U.S. Forest Service 2008A) and is poised to see that amount grow as many of the roads on the national forests near the end of their engineered lifespans. This backlog means Northwest residents can’t reach their favorite hiking, hunting and fishing areas because there is so little money to repair even popular roads. For instance, main access routes to Mount St. Helens were blocked after severe flooding knocked out several roads, and no funds for repair were in sight for years. The backlog also means increasingly severe impacts to fish and wildlife species, and as climate change throws more severe and frequent storms and floods our way, it means exponentially more money will be needed to repair roads that will fail in the next round of storms. Conversely, an investment in the road system now means good family wage jobs, the protection of community drinking water supplies, restoration of habitat for fish and wildlife, and a reduced future taxpayer burden .
Since 2006, The Task Force has been working with the Clackamas Stewardship Partners collaborative group to restore the Clackamas River Basin. Over the last year, our Deputy Director, Lisa Moscinski has been coordinating road restoration committee meetings, workshops, and field tours to facilitate Clackamas Stewardship Partner’s engagement in the Mount Hood National Forest’s road restoration planning. Last year, with the help of the Clackamas Stewardship Partners, the Clackamas River Ranger District planned for the removal of 117 miles of road in the Upper Clackamas watershed. The Task Force will continue and improve engagement in the planning process to remove over 200 miles of roads in the Collawash watershed. The Collawash is the most geologically unstable watershed on the Mount Hood National Forest and is regionally important as a core area of late seral (old growth) biodiversity.
