More on Roads and Economics
Roads threaten freshwater ecosystems in many ways and in nearly every corner of the North American landscape. Investment in the repair and removal of the worst roads makes great economic sense. Over the next decade, such a program would save taxpayers millions in today's dollars in reduced maintenance costs alone for federal and state forest roads.
Why Road Repair and Removal Make Economic Sense:
Roads threaten freshwater ecosystems in many ways and in nearly
every corner of the North American landscape. Investment in the repair
and removal of the worst roads makes great economic sense. Over the
next decade, such a program would save taxpayers millions in today's
dollars in reduced maintenance costs alone for federal and state forest
roads. This is to say nothing of the vast and permanent environmental
benefit to water quality, fisheries, and wildlife.
A selective program of road removal, accompanied by remediation of
roads that remain in place, would promote ecological and economic
values, provide good jobs for heavy equipment operators and other
forest workers, and can be pursued without compromising national forest
access. The longer we wait to fix this problem, the more economic and ecological damage roads will cause.
Read our oped with the Wilderness Society on this subject.
Watch a news story about new green jobs working to restore rivers by removing roads.
Watershed restoration plan for the Biscuit Burn Area: A plan that would protect the area's natural resources and boost the local economy.
PRC worked with Pacific Watershed Associates (PWA), a consulting firm in Arcata, California, to produce a detailed post-fire restoration plan for the Biscuit Burn Area in Southern Oregon. This plan provided specific steps that could have been taken after the Biscuit Fire to protect the landscape. These steps, had they been implemented, would have created roughly 400 jobs. Current post-fire management practices, though proposed as economic and ecological necessities, are actually a waste of taxpayer dollars and are ecologically unsound, often causing more, added damage to the landscape than the fire itself. We developed the Biscuit Restoration Plan to demonstrate the ecological and economic benefits of such work, and to serve as a pilot project that could be applied across the West. Read more about this plan.
