Legacy Roads and Trails Remediation Program - Public Engagement

Deficient trail bridge on the Green Mountain and Finger Lakes National Forest creating stream sedimentation and barriers to fish passage.
Deficient trail bridge on the Green Mountain and Finger Lakes National Forest creating stream sedimentation and barriers to fish passage.

Deficient trail bridges on the Green Mountain and Finger Lakes National Forests creating stream sedimentation and barriers to fish passage.

The Legacy Roads and Trails Remediation Program supports our mission by restoring, protecting, and maintaining crucial watersheds on our national forests and grasslands. This is accomplished by restoring fish and aquatic organism passage, improving road and trail resiliency, preserving access, and decommissioning unneeded roads as determined by transportation planning. Protecting threatened, endangered, and sensitive species, and community water sources are among the top priorities for projects that improve and maintain access. Emergency operations that rely upon evacuation routes during wildfires, floods or other natural disasters also benefit from this program.

While the most recent funding for the Legacy Roads and Trails Remediation Program has been authorized through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), the Forest Service has been providing stewardship and oversight of these program priorities through prior year Legacy Road and Trail Programs, expansive partnerships, regular annual appropriations, highway bill funding, and other legislation such as the Great American Outdoors Act. The Eastern Region anticipates receiving approximately $3.3 million for remediation projects from BIL in both Fiscal Years (FY) 2025 and 2026. Some projects are accomplished through the work of our employees while many more projects are made possible with partners or contracts.

Projects focus on the following goals/outcomes:

  • Increase work on roads and trails that improve water quality, restore aquatic organism passages, and maintain forest access.
  • Address climate change adaptation by improving road crossings and drainage infrastructure and trail design to withstand new weather patterns.
  • Improve resiliency by relocating roads and trails out of areas prone to flooding considering new foreseeable weather patterns.
  • Partner with public and private sector entities, and work across boundaries with States, Tribes, local communities, private landowners, and other federal agencies to leverage diverse capacities and build broad public and community support for the work at the scale necessary to make a difference.
  • Work with partners to identify risks to critical infrastructure, social, cultural, and economic values, and incorporate indigenous and traditional ecological knowledge to inform shared priorities and project design.

Please use the comment inbox to provide input on tentative projects by June 14, 2024.

The tentative regional list below was developed from priority projects submitted by Forests/Prairie working with their local communities, partners, public, and stakeholders. The submitted projects have been further evaluated on how well they would meet the goals/outcomes of the Legacy Roads and Trails Remediation Program.

Use the buttons below to learn about proposed projects in each location.

Chequamegon-Nicolet Green Mountain & Finger Lakes Monongahela Shawnee

 

Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest (Wisconsin)

Improve Wild Rice Habitat to Support Tribal Food Sovereignty by Replacing Road Stream Crossings on the Wisconsin River

Proposed Fiscal Year: 2025

This project will replace four culverts with a bridge on Forest Road 2205 on the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest.  The Lac Vieux Desert Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians identified this as their top priority for supporting Food Sovereignty.  The project removes a significant barrier to aquatic organism passage, eliminates artificial upstream ponding impacting dam operations and water quality, and supports restoration of traditional wild rice beds in Lac Vieux Desert Lake.

North Branch Pine River Bridge Replacement

Proposed Fiscal Year: 2025/2026

This project takes place in the Menominee River priority watershed, and specially on the North Branch Pine River at Forest Road 2174. Currently, the crossing creates a full fish passage barrier in a brook trout stream. The proposal is to install a bridge with significantly greater span, providing for an inner span equaling stream bankfull width and remove the rock roller dam to restore the natural stream profile and dimensions through the crossing.

Riley Creek AOP

Proposed Fiscal Year: 2025

The existing twin pipe arch culvert has significantly deteriorated with failure imminent on this high use ATV/Snowmobile Trail. The crossing is also frequently plugged by active beaver activity, impacting fish passage during higher flow periods and when plugged with beaver debris. The project will replace the undersized culverts with a bankfull width spanning trail bridge to increase aquatic organism passage and eliminate the risk of further beaver plugging, providing a flood resilient and safe crossing into the future.

Green Mountain & Finger Lakes National Forests (Vermont & New York)

Trail Bridge Replacements

Proposed Fiscal Year: 2025/2026

This project will replace several structurally deficient bridges that are essential for maintaining public safety, reducing stream sedimentation, and preventing closures to public access in Vermont. Additionally, the bridges being replaced will improve fish passage by removing stream barriers narrowing the stream channels. Trail bridge replacements will ensure connectivity to state-wide snowmobile trail networks as well as equestrian, hiking, and mountain bike trails.

Trail Resiliency and Improvements

Proposed Fiscal Year: 2026

Project includes completing trail improvements on multiple miles of high-use trails prioritized with partner involvement to: improve resiliency; reduce resource damage; reduce deferred maintenance; and improve public access and safety. Trails include two iconic locations, the Appalachian National Scenic Trail and Long National Recreation Trail, and fourteen Eastern Region Priority locations including multiple state-wide snowmobile, ski, and mountain bike trails, as well as horse and ATV trails. Project activities will repair and/or replace: culverts, turnpike, drainage structures, trail tread, and puncheon.

Monongahela National Forest (West Virginia)

Cherry River Aquatic Organism Passage Improvements

Proposed Fiscal Year: 2026

This Aquatic Organism Passage project in a native brook trout stream, Spencer Run, will replace a perched culvert and reestablish passage.

Elklick Run Aquatic Organism Passage Improvements

Proposed Fiscal Year: 2025/2026

This project in the Elklick Run watershed proposes replacing multiple road stream crossings to compliment work completed by the State of West Virginia to reconnect all aquatic habitat, including for native brook trout, and increase infrastructure resiliency.

Lower Williams River Aquatic Organism Passage Improvements

Proposed Fiscal Year: 2025

This project replaces the undersized culvert that has a perched outlet and functions as an aquatic organism passage barrier in Jonathan Run, which is a native trout stream.

Monongahela National Forest Aquatic Organism Passage Culvert Replacements - Phase 2

Proposed Fiscal Year: 2025/2026

This project proposes to replace multiple Aquatic Organism Passages in native brook and trout streams that currently pose passage barriers. Replacement with appropriately sized and designed crossings will also increase climate resiliency. Locations include the Outlet East Fork Greenbrier River watershed, West Fork Greenbrier River watershed, East Fork Greenbrier River, Mullenax Run watershed, and on the Crooked Fork River.

Upper Elk Road to Trail Conversion (FR 845 & 846)

Proposed Fiscal Year: 2025

This project, part of the Upper Elk Ecological Restoration project, will convert approximately a half of a mile of forest road 845 and half of a mile of forest road 846 to a new trail to maintain existing recreational opportunities in the area and rehabilitate site conditions to address concerns for soil and water resources.

Shawnee National Forest (Illinois)

Kinkaid Lake Trail Remediation - Phase 2

Proposed Fiscal Year: 2025

The primary purpose of Kincaid Lake is to provide potable drinking water to surrounding communities with a secondary purpose for recreation.  Of major concern for this lake is the amount of and rate of sediment entering the lake.  The trail system within the watershed has fallen into disrepair in places, suffered wind events, and accumulated a persistent trail maintenance backlog.  Since the mid-1990's, through partnership efforts and various sources of funding, several miles of shoreline have been protected and thousands of feet of gullies have been stabilized in the watershed.  This project would be the second phase of funding that would continue addressing deferred maintenance and would reestablish the trail system to sustainable locations in certain sections, making the entire trail system more resilient and the soils more stable.

Tell us what you think

Please use the comment inbox to provide input on tentative projects by June 14, 2024.