Sierra Club California/Nevada Wilderness Team

12/19/2025

11/25/2025

https://www.facebook.com/reel/2078812099523786?mibextid=wwXIfr

11/22/2025

Our nation's waters have been dealt a MASSIVE blow. This week, the EPA proposed a Polluted Water Rule, which would drastically eliminate streams and wetlands protected under the Clean Water Act. By the EPA's own estimates, the proposed rule cuts protections for 80% of wetlands and 5 million miles of streams. This rule hands corporate polluters a license to damage and degrade our country's streams and headwaters.

Major rivers and lakes cannot be effectively protected from pollution if the small streams that flow into them are unprotected. Tens of millions of acres of wetlands lost protections. Wetlands protect our communities during floods, provide safe drinking water, improve our water quality, and provide wildlife habitat. This move ignores science and puts safe drinking water at risk for millions of people.

There is a huge disconnect between the administration and the vast majority of people across the country who value clean, safe water and have no interest in more pollution in their water. A 45-day comment period opened today that will close January 5, 2026. Please help us demonstrate that we DEMAND clean water protection!

https://act.sierraclub.org/actions/National?actionId=AR0594070&id=701Po00000gF50nIAC&utm_medium=web&utm_source=Bitly&utm_campaign=ourwildamerica&utm_content=waterrulebitly

The photo is of a waterfall in the Owens River Headwaters Wilderness.

11/20/2025

new industrial mining expansion is threatening Castle Mountain, in the heart of the Mojave National Monument region.

The proposed Castle Mountain Mine Phase II project would expand an open-pit gold mine. The site, located in San Bernardino County about 60 miles south of Las Vegas, sits amid the Castle Mountains and Avi Kwa Ame national monuments, and the Mojave National Preserve. These cherished places are habitat for desert tortoise, bighorn sheep, and countless bird species -- and are treasured public recreation areas beloved for their access to solitude, dark skies, and sweeping desert vistas.

A new industrial mining proposal, called the Castle Mountain Mine Phase II Expansion project, is threatening some of our most iconic desert landscapes.

10/02/2025

Construction updates for the Greenlink West Transmission Project from the Basin and Range Watch peeps.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DPOrqWHEaRG/?hl=en&img_index=1

09/15/2025

Powerful piece by Redwood Chapter Director Alicia Bales on protecting our forests in Mendocino County and beyond! Deadline Sept. 19 on Roadless Rule!

The Trump administration plans to repeal the 2001 Roadless Rule, which has preserved forests, habitat and clean drinking water from industrialization for 24 years.

09/12/2025

Even more reasons to keep the roadless rule in effect...

Vital for America’s Drinking Water: The US National Forests are the headwaters of our great rivers and the largest source of municipal water supply in the nation, serving over 60 million people in 3,400 communities in 33 states. Roads are a major cause of water pollution. Because it protects these headwaters, the 2001 Roadless Rule is vital for maintaining clean drinking water for communities across the country. Major U.S. cities including Los Angeles, Portland, Denver, and Atlanta receive a significant portion of their water supply from national forests.

Taxpayers on the Hook: Building more roads in national forests would be a drain on taxpayers. Even with the Roadless Rule in place, the Forest Service already has a 380,000-mile road system – twice as long as the nation’s highway system – crisscrossing national forests. This forest road infrastructure is already so big that the Forest Service can’t afford to properly maintain it, triggering a maintenance backlog that has ballooned to billions in needed repairs. Taxpayers have subsidized this already unwieldy road network and would be stuck footing the bill for any new roads built in backcountry forest areas following this rollback.

09/10/2025

09/10/2025

Studies on the link between roads and fire frequency...

https://www.pacificbio.org/publications/wildfire_studies/Roads_And_Wildfires_2007.pdf

https://www.wilderness.org/sites/default/files/media/file/Summary%20NFS%20roads%20fire%20paper%20-%202025.pdf

09/10/2025

More reasons to comment on the roadless rule roleback proposal...

Rollback Paves the Way for Logging: The real reason a rollback of the Roadless Rule is being proposed is to re-open these forests to logging and other industrial development. This proposal follows on the heels of other administrative actions that have called for a dramatic increase in logging and oil and gas drilling on federal lands. An increase in these industrial activities would worsen climate change, destroy recreation areas, put the lands at greater risk of wildfire, destroy wildlife habitat, and threaten drinking water sources. Logging most often targets bigger, older trees, which are natural carbon sinks that store carbon dioxide and provide shade for cooler temperatures – yet all of these benefits are lost if trees are removed. Further, logging and logging roads can have devastating impacts to drinking water quality and fish habitat. The cost will fall to communities, who will face threats to their supply of clean water and will need to clean up polluted water before sending it to households and local economies – and will suffer from the damage to commercial and recreational fisheries.

Vital for America’s Drinking Water: The US National Forests are the headwaters of our great rivers and the largest source of municipal water supply in the nation, serving over 60 million people in 3,400 communities in 33 states. Roads are a major cause of water pollution. Because it protects these headwaters, the 2001 Roadless Rule is vital for maintaining clean drinking water for communities across the country. Major U.S. cities including Los Angeles, Portland, Denver, and Atlanta receive a significant portion of their water supply from national forests.

09/09/2025

The proposed rollback of the 2001 Roadless Rule jeopardizes nearly 45 million acres of undeveloped backcountry forestland managed by the U.S. Forest Service, comprising around a third of the territory in our national forest system. These forests have only remained intact because of the Forest Service's nearly 25-year-old commitment not to build roads in these areas for harmful activities like major logging operations or oil-and-gas drilling.

Recreation Spots at Risk: Since 2001, protected roadless areas have offered abundant outdoor recreation opportunities such as hunting, fishing, camping or other activities. Every year, millions of people take advantage of the free (or extremely affordable) access to these public lands. According to maps from Outdoor Alliance’s GIS Lab, roadless areas protect 11,337 climbing routes and boulder problems, more than 1,000 whitewater paddling runs, 43,826 miles of trail, and 20,298 mountain biking trails. Large sections of the Continental Divide, Pacific Crest, and Appalachian National Trails traverse protected roadless areas.

More Roads Means More Wildfires: Although proponents of rolling back the Roadless Rule have suggested that this is somehow being done in response to wildfire, the reality is that this “solution” will only lead to more wildfires. New research from The Wilderness Society, now in peer review, shows that from 1992-2024, wildfires were four times as likely to start in areas with roads than in roadless forest tracts. Another study showed that more than 90 percent of all wildfires nationwide occurred within half a mile of a road.

Vital Habitat for Imperiled Species: The lands in question include lower-elevation forests, wetlands, canyons and other undeveloped lands that are critical to our nation's ecological health. Because they are not fragmented by roads, these Roadless Areas provide habitat for many imperiled species such as California condors, grizzly bears and wolves in the Yellowstone area, native salmon and trout in the Pacific Northwest, migratory songbirds in the Appalachian hardwoods and more. They also sustain wild salmon, especially in Alaska where they are the lifeblood for both the fishing industry and traditional subsistence practices of Indigenous communities.