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Forest Focus Transcript — Episode 14. Travel Analysis
Total Running Time: 9:26
[Steel drum intro music]
Ann Dunsky: Welcome to Forest Focus, a series of programs about the National Forests of California. I’m Ann Dunsky of the Public Affairs Staff and today we’re discussing the next phase of Travel Management, called Travel Analysis, with Deputy Regional Forester Ron Ketter. Thank you for being with us first of all, and Ron, this is a really complicated topic. Can you talk to me about what Travel Analysis is?
Ron Ketter: Well, you know Ann, I think you are right it is a complicated topic. The Forest Service here in California and throughout the United States, we have a very complicated road system, an extensive road system. And as a land stewardship agency, our obligation though is to protect the natural resources as well as cultural resources and providing safe access for a wide variety of forest users that have all different interests in how they use the national forest land. So basically though with Travel Analysis we’ve got an obligation to the public to spend our tax dollars wisely and with our decreased funding that we’re seeing as well as increasing demands from users, it’s a huge challenge for us to balance these operations. And that’s what the Travel Analysis process is allowing us to do is to really take a good look at the system and try to balance the needs and the requirements that we’re looking at.
Ann Dunsky: So what are you going to do exactly?
Ron Ketter: Well the way we’re approaching Travel Analysis, we’re going to use available data about our road system. But we’re also going to contact interested parties, collect information from interested individuals, we’re going to be meeting with Tribal Governments, local and state government agencies as well as our own employees and anyone else that is interested in the road system and how it’s being used and how it’s impacting the national forests. We’ll then collect, review and access all the information that we collect, whether it be ecological factors, social impacts, cultural and economic information related to the road system, and out of this we’re going to produce a Travel Analysis report.
Ann Dunsky: Now I understand that Travel Analysis talks about possible opportunities for changes in roads. Can you talk about what some of these changes might be?
Ron Ketter: Yes I can, but I think you hit a really critical point there. We’re going to be producing a report but we’re actually not going to be making any specific decisions regarding the road system. It’s not part of the National Environmental policy or NEPA process, so we’re not going to be making a NEPA decision. We are just going to be producing a report, but that report will identify and display any possible opportunities for changes in the road system. And we’re going to be focusing on the needs of our road system to meet current as well as future management and administrative objectives for the national forests. So it is intended to complement and add value rather than replace any other planning or decision-making processes regarding how we’re using the national forests.
Ann Dunsky: Okay. So currently where are we with this Travel Analysis?
Ron Ketter: Just recently here in the region we’ve completed what’s called our Subpart B Travel Management process. And Subpart B, it’s the process that was designating a system of routes and it prohibited cross-country travel. Cross-country travel, what we were finding is that it was damaging our natural resources by allowing people to travel off designated routes and it also was resulting in a transportation system of where people were making up their own roads, user-defined routes that were not part of a forest transportation system. So we went through the Subpart B process that designated what the approved transportation system should look like. Since we’ve completed that, we’re now turning our attention to Subpart A by conducting the Travel Analysis on each of the Region’s eighteen national forests.
Ann Dunsky: You know, I’ve always found this very confusing, this Subpart A and Subpart B and I don’t understand why Subpart A is actually following Subpart B.
Ron Ketter: Well that’s a really good question. The Subparts, what it refers to is how the Travel Management rule was written. It had various Subparts. It didn’t necessarily mean that you had to do them sequentially though. Here in our region, this actually pre-dated the Travel Analysis rule. A couple years before the Travel Analysis rule was published in 2005, here in our region we made a commitment to deal with this issue of cross-country travel. And as we were starting that process, the Travel Analysis rule was implemented and so we continued that through Subpart B. And because we were already had made that commitment, and that momentum, we decided to complete Subpart B first. We completed that and so now, since we’re done with that, we’re going back to Subpart A. It doesn’t require that one be done before the other, but because we had set that priority we decided to follow through and complete that first before going to the Subpart A process.
Ann Dunsky: Thank you for explaining that.
Ron Ketter: You bet.
Ann Dunsky: Let’s talk about just why this whole issue is so controversial.
Ron Ketter: Well, roads in the national forest and road use have taken on a fairly high level of controversy. And that’s because we have so many different users that have so many different expectations on the uses of the national forests. And you know, here in California we have 20 million acres of national forest land. And our region has, if not the, at least among the largest road systems of any of the regions in the national forests. And we’ve got people that have different expectations with regard to recreation and access and economic use and things like that. We’ve got a lot of different concerns and those concerns effect what people want to see with the roads. And so as you can imagine, by us really taking a hard look at the roads, their uses, their needs as well as our ability to continue to maintain those effectively, that’s a pretty significant undertaking. And it’s an undertaking that we need to make sure we have public engagement as we’re going forth by producing this Travel Analysis report.
Ann Dunsky: So it’s a report. And how will this report then be used?
Ron Ketter: Well, it’s going to identify opportunities for the future. For example, we might find out that there’s a road that might be more appropriately be converted to a trail. We could identify some roads that should be decommissioned, removed as roads. We might also find some roads that we currently can’t maintain but we may want to close those because we may not want to decommission those because we may need them sometime in the future. We also might find some need to add new roads to the system to meet administrative or other management objectives for the national forests. So all of these things would be identified as part of the Travel Analysis process, but actually implement those would require a full NEPA decision sometime in the future. We’re not making any decisions by doing the Travel Analysis. It’s not a NEPA process. So, in that sense it’s not going to close or add any roads to the system because it is not a decision making process. Instead we’ll identify any issues, risk, benefits or possible opportunities for possible potential changes in the future for a forest road transportation system.
Ann Dunsky: Ok, thank you. So, if I wanted to get more information about this [laughter]—I’m not sure that I do—but if I wanted more information or if I actually wanted to comment, how could I go about doing that?
Ron Ketter: We encourage people that are interested, to come to our website and they’ll find some additional information, ways to get engaged and ways to contact us. So they can visit our regional website. That address is: www.fs.usda.gov/r5. Also, you know at the forest level, if people do want to actually get involved in that, I would encourage them to contact their Forest Supervisor’s office or District Ranger’s office. They can find contact information for that on our website as well. And if you go to our website, again that address: www.fs.usda.gov/r5. In the quick links section they’ll find lists of all the National Forests here in our region.
Ann Dunsky: Is there anything else you want to add?
Ron Ketter: The main thing is, this is our forest road system, it’s ever changing with both current as well as future needs. And we continually face different risks and opportunities and issues that come up. So by working together doing the Travel Analysis we think we can be more successful in providing access to the national forests as well as improving the health of the forest, the watersheds. You know I do want to emphasize one of the things here in California, the national forests are very important as a source of recreation, as a source of abundant water. You know half of the water comes off our National Forests here in California. And recreation, lots of jobs, and all those cultural experiences as well. So it’s very important for us to continue to try to identify ways where we can meet the needs of current and future generations and have sustainable opportunities for everyone to continue to enjoy those efforts. So I appreciate all your questions today Ann.
Ann Dunsky: Thank you. Thank you very much for being with us and for being a guest on this episode of Forest Focus. For those interested in more information and the larger regional perspective on Travel Analysis, please visit our regional website at: www.fs.usda.gov/r5. I’m Ann Dunsky, and thank you very much for listening.