A federal proposal that would strip protections from 28,500 acres of Central Wasatch forest drew overwhelming public opposition, with 99.1% of more than 370,000 comments urging the Forest Service to keep the Roadless Rule.

The Center for Western Priorities, a conservation advocacy group, published the analysis after the comment period closed Tuesday, Oct. 6. Of 370,238 comments posted to the federal docket, just 0.5% supported rescinding the rule and 0.3% were neutral or off-topic.

The stakes are local.

The 2001 Roadless Rule bars most road construction and commercial logging on more than 44 million acres of national forest. In the Central Wasatch, it shields roughly 28,500 acres across Big Cottonwood, Little Cottonwood, Mill Creek and Parleys Canyons from road development and timber harvest, according to the Central Wasatch Commission.

The Trump administration published its proposed rescission on Aug. 20. USDA Secretary Brook Rollins said in a statement that the rescission would bring consistency and sustainability to forest management, calling the existing rule overly restrictive.

The Forest Service's draft environmental impact statement found that wildfire ignitions are about four times as common on other national forest lands as they are in inventoried roadless areas, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts. The draft statement also acknowledged that road building within forests can lead to more human-caused fires.

Dale Bosworth, who served as Forest Service chief from 2001 to 2007, called the rule "a landmark accomplishment" in comments first reported by the Deseret News. He said inventoried roadless areas protect headwaters, save taxpayers money and provide backcountry recreation opportunities.

"As we say, 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it,'" Bosworth said.

The comment analysis also reviewed about 296,000 additional signatures and comments submitted as attachments. When those were included, opposition rose to roughly 99.99%. Separately, the Sierra Club submitted 1 million signatures opposing the rollback, the Deseret News reported.

This is the second round of overwhelming opposition. In September 2025, more than 99% of approximately 183,000 comments opposed the repeal, according to the Center for Western Priorities. Lilly Bock-Brownstein of the Center for Western Priorities said the administration "will be blatantly ignoring the wishes of the American people" if it moves forward.

For Cottonwood Canyon users, the repeal would remove a key layer of protection. Jack Stauss, executive director of Save Our Canyons, told The Salt Lake Tribune on Oct. 2 that eliminating the rule "just creates ambiguity in the protection of our lands in perpetuity." At least half of Utah's 16 ski areas, including Brighton and Solitude in Big Cottonwood Canyon, are adjacent to or overlap with inventoried roadless areas, according to the Tribune's analysis.