As part of the forest health issue, inadequate road maintenance has been identified as a significant cause of watershed deterioration. There are 377,810 miles of roads within the National Forest System, including arterial, collector, and local roads. In addition, timber purchasers may build temporary roads to meet their needs for harvesting and removing the timber. The mileage of new roads built in the national forests has declined over the past decade, proportional to the decline in timber sales. More than 2,000 miles of new roads were built annually in the late 1980s, but fewer than 500 miles have been built annually in the past2 fiscal years.
Timber harvesting is the primary purpose for most new roads and reconstruction.
Table 1 . Budget Explanatory Notes Appropriations. Road maintenance allows continued use of roads over time. Although this suggests a maintenance backlog, no backlog has been identified in either the annual Report of the Forest Service or the agency budget requests. The Principal authorities for financing forest road construction and maintenance were enacted in the 1964 National Forest Roads and Trails Act.