Once again Mother Nature reminded the U.S. Forest Service of the errors of its ways when October’s storms washed out major segments of the Mountain Loop Highway and White Chuck River Road. These roads are prone to debris torrents that come raging down the normally calm streams that feed the Sauk and White Chuck Rivers.
Plans for paving the MLH have been in the works since 1960. Those of us who have been around for a while remember in 1990 when the USFS had the MLH designated as a scenic byway and then used that designation to justify its widening, paving and relocation into pristine old growth forest. Fortunately, the public outcry at the environmental impact statement scoping hearings was so great that the USFS backed down and did not pave the remaining stretch of the MLH. Had the MLH been paved, surely hundreds of cubic yards of oil-base asphalt pavement would have washed into the Sauk in addition to the thousands of cubic yards of roadway fill, damaging downstream fish spawning beds.
Why should the MLH remain closed? Besides habitat fragmentation and impacts to endangered species such as grizzly bear, marbled murrelets, spotted owls and bull trout, there is the economic issue. The USFS has estimated that it will take $10 million to repair the storm damage. There is no guarantee that another $10 million won’t be required again in another 10 years as the mountains are literally moving under the road in places. While the $10 million road repair estimate is likely low, if the USFS spent about $100,000 on trail restoration, storm damage in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest could be repaired by the Fourth of July. The economic benefits of reopening the MLH are simply not justified by its economic and environmental costs.
Alderwood Manor
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