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About five million people each year drive the forest roads between the Canadian border and Mount Rainier. But tough decisions are ahead because there’s not enough money to maintain them all.

The Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest includes about 2,500 miles of roads, some linking popular destinations such as the Big Four Ice Caves and the Pacific Crest Trail. Forest manager Jennifer Eberlien has to decide which roads she should fight to keep open and which should close.

“Not final decisions, but kind of making a road map, no pun intended, a road plan for how we look at investing future dollars in our roads system,” said Eberlien.

There’s enough money to maintain just one-quarter of the the forest roads and the Forest Service is using what it considers a “science-driven” approach, developed by Portland State University and the Forest Service’s Pacific Northwest Research Station, to make decisions on closures.

“It’s not just based on the budget, or money,” said Eberlien. “It’s businesses, it’s tourism industries, it’s our tribal partners and government, it’s our county governments – so it’s everybody.”

The 2005 Travel Management Rule calls for each national forest to identify a road system by 2015. The first public meeting on the roads plan is Saturday morning at REI in Seattle. Eight meetings are scheduled June through October in Seattle, Sedro Wooley, Issaquah, Bellingham, Darrington, Enumclaw, Monroe and Everett.

Eberlien said there are unique challenges to maintaining roads in the 1.7 million acres of the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. “We have more flood events and more frequent flood events so it tends to wash out our roads at a more rapid rate,” Eberlien explained. “We’re one of the most highly visited national forests in the whole system across the country so, a lot of love that’s out there for the landscape, coupled with the environmental issues.”

Eberlien will make recommendations but a thorough environmental analysis must be done before a final forest roads plan is adopted.