Crook County supports end of roadless rule
SUNDANCE — Crook County strongly supports the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s plan to throw out the roadless rule, according to a comment letter that the commissioners will consider approving at next week’s meeting.
The county’s comments criticize the one-size-fits-all approach of the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule and calls for the USDA and U.S. Forest Service to restore the power to create land use plans to local forest managers.
Secretary Brooke L. Rollins announced last week that USDA intends to rescind the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule.
According to a notice in the Federal Register, the goal is to “Return decision-making for road construction, road reconstruction and timber harvesting...to local officials, in conjunction with Forest-level land management planning.”
Crook County contains two designated roadless areas: the Upper Sand Creek drainage, which includes the Sand Creek recreation area, and Inyan Kara Mountain.
In its proposed letter to Rollins, the commission states that Crook County “fully supports” the rescission of the roadless rule – with a few caveats, including a plea for USDA and USFS to include the county in its decision-making.
Overall support
“The county supports the USFS’s reconsideration of its current and misguided nationally driven planning strategy and urges the agency to instead empower local forests with greater authority to modify and update their management plans,” the letter states.
The letter notes that Crook County’s economic viability is “highly dependent” on federally managed lands for everything from timber production to tourism, which means the rule reconsideration will have “a signifi- cant impact.”
It states that Crook County believes land management decisions for Wyoming’s national forests are “best made as close to ‘on- the-ground’ as possible” and in coordination with state and local governments.
Roadless areas
USFS land equates to approximately 9% of the total in Crook County at just over 200,000 acres.
Of that total, an estimated 13,000 acres are identified as Inventoried Roadless Areas.
The Sand Creek Inventoried Roadless Area is around 12,389 acres in size and is being managed as IRA where road construction or reconstruction is allowed. It was given the IRA designation primarily because of the “old growth” of Ponderosa pine.
According to the comment letter, the designation has resulted in decades of no active forest management that precipitated the spread of the mountain pine beetle, which killed a significant portion of the old growth pine and left infected trees that present a wildfire hazard.
Roadless designations, states the letter, can attract travelers and recreationists, which leads to a need to develop parking areas, fencing, clear signage, restrooms and trails. With the threat of continued mountain pine beetle kill and fire danger from non-management, “This creates a challenge for firefighters and emergency response professionals to protect private inholdings and the general public.”
The county contends in its comments that the IRA designation does not improve the quality of the visitor experience to Sand Creek in terms of “solitude, primitiveness and unconfined recreation” and is not suitable as a standalone wilderness designation.
The Inyan Kara Mountain IRA is a standalone area of 1309 acres, currently managed as an IRA where road construction or reconstruction is not allowed.
According to the comment letter, it is completely surrounded by private lands, and the USFS has easement with certain landowners for access; however, when Crook County Road & Bridge was recently working in the area, surrounding landowners were not interested in extending the Schlup county road; it therefore ends half a mile before the USFS boundary.
Crook County Fire, the letter states, has been challenged by lightning fires there in recent years due to the difficulty of obtaining access across private lands.
Overall Impacts
The letter also lists overall impacts felt by the county since the RACR was established in 2001, including a decline in timber sale volumes and revenues; reduced financial payments; missed opportunities to mitigate fire risks, such as through salvage logging; impeded fence maintenance for grazing allotments; and the loss of several forest products companies.
“The implementation of RACR has had notable impacts, particularly in Wyoming, where several mills ceased operations follow- ing the rule’s enactment,” states the letter. “In fact, Crook County is home to one the last remaining functioning sawmills in the state and rescinding the rule will only help the future of those mills remain active - if it’s not too late.”
Conversely, the commissioners write, rescinding the RACR could open avenues for proactive landscape management aimed at addressing issues such as insect infestations, watershed health and habitat preservation.
Criticizing the implementation of the RACR back in 2001, the letter notes that it was done by superimposing “roughly drawn maps” that were developed in the 1970s “without taking a hard look at the impacts it would have on existing forest plan direction.”
A “conscious decision” was made that the rule would apply to all lands within an IRA boundary despite “knowing that thousands of acres within IRA boundaries already had existing roads and areas with active forest management."
USFS also failed to engage state and local governments when it developed the RACR, the letter reads.
“Following two decades of implementing the RACR, it is evident that empowering forest managers with greater authority and flexibility is essential for effectively collaborating with all stakeholders, including state and lo- cal governments,” the letter states. “Such collaboration is vital to addressing current challenges and leveraging opportunities within our forest ecosystems.”
The county supports the rescission because it believes forest managers must possess the authority to make informed decisions, the letter states. These decisions should account for the diversity of the different forests, counties and states.
Local Input
The letter also requests that USFS "meaningfully engage” with the county as a cooperating agency, citing the county’s long history of supporting USFS in developing land plans and providing special expertise on socioeconomic issues.
“Public lands and the resources on them influence the custom and culture of the county,” the letter reads. “The relationship between the county and the federal agencies is key to ensuring resources are managed successfully and the county’s custom and culture of using public lands for multiple uses remains intact.”
At this time, the letter states, the USFS is “once again attempting to approach the RACR alone." Even though the intent here is to rescind the rule, the county asks that USFS recognizes that it is “our forests and communities that will bear the brunt of uncertainty in planning, projects and litigation that will ultimately result from any modification of the RACR.”
In addition, the commission asked that the USFS consider the Crook County Natural Resource Management Plan, a document that county commissioners around Wyoming are charged with maintaining to preserve the custom and culture in matters relating to federal land planning. The letter indicates a long list of points within this document that would be relevant to the decision about rescinding the RACR.
The commissioners are scheduled to consider approving this letter on October 7 at 8:30 a.m.
This story was published on Oct. 2, 2025.