Trump's goal to open more forests to logging could threaten drinking water for 25 million Americans

Near the Bitterroot Range in Montana, the streams feeding municipal water systems in Missoula and Kalispell don’t pass through any water treatment plant before entering the supply pipeline – the forests upstream do most of the filtering work. That dependence on intact forest cover is exactly what’s at stake in a policy battle that reached a critical juncture in 2025, and whose final outcome will arrive before the end of 2026.

The rule at the center of the dispute is the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, enacted under the Clinton administration in 2001. It prohibited road construction and logging across nearly 60 million acres of designated Inventoried Roadless Areas (IRAs) in national forests – land with no existing road network, kept deliberately undeveloped. Its core protection mechanism was simple: no new roads meant no heavy machinery, no erosion from road-grading, and no industrial-scale timber operations in some of the most ecologically intact terrain in the country. For over two decades, it stood largely intact.

In June 2025, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced the Trump administration’s intention to rescind the rule entirely. The formal repeal process began in August 2025 under the USDA. A final decision is expected before the end of 2026. Two weeks ago, a study published in PLOS Water drew a direct line between that decision and the drinking water supply of 25 million Americans – and the numbers are harder to dismiss than any previous analysis.

What the Roadless Rule Protects, and What Rescinding It Would Mean for Forest Logging and Drinking Water

Julian Olden, a professor in the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences at the University of Washington, led the July 2026 study. His team mapped nearly 110,000 square miles of national forest representing 2,488 officially designated roadless areas, then cross-referenced those areas with a nationwide assessment of river protections to identify which rivers would lose legal cover if the rule disappeared.

The findings are precise. More than 80,000 miles of rivers in the continental U.S. receive some protection from the roadless rule. Of those, nearly 62,000 miles are protected by the roadless rule alone – meaning no other law or designation would step in if the rule were rescinded. That water reaches 25 million people across the country, often traveling hundreds of miles downstream before it reaches a tap.

“The roadless rule supports the drinking water supply for 25 million Americans and offers critical protection of wildlife habitat and recreational assets,” Olden said. “In short, rivers in roadless areas are essential for both people and nature.”

The Science Behind Forest Logging and Drinking Water Quality

According to the U.S. Forest Service, forests provide drinking water to more than 150 million Americans, functioning as natural filtration systems before water ever reaches a treatment plant. Tree canopies slow rainfall before it hits the ground, preventing erosion. Roots anchor soil and pull out nutrients that would otherwise pollute waterways. Soil microbes break down contaminants as water percolates downward toward streams and aquifers.

When road-building and logging disrupt that system, the filtration breaks down. Exposed soil erodes into waterways, sediment loads spike, and water treatment plants face higher costs and greater complexity. As Olden explained: “When watersheds aren’t well protected – for example, when logging and road-building disturb the land – water quality can suffer, sometimes forcing treatment plants to shut down temporarily, issue drinking water warnings, or find alternate water sources, all of which cost money.”

The economic case for keeping forest cover intact follows directly from that science. “Upholding the Roadless Rule and protecting forested areas from road construction and industrial logging make economic sense because they keep drinking water cleaner and cheaper to treat,” Olden told TIME. “Forest cover is well recognized for generating economic benefits by avoiding the large capital costs of water treatment plants needed to ensure clean, safe drinking water for people.”

Some water utilities have already internalized that logic, investing in watershed protection programs as a direct substitute for expanded treatment infrastructure – a pattern American Forests has documented across multiple major U.S. cities.

State-by-State Exposure: Who Is Most at Risk

The 25 million people whose drinking water flows from IRA-influenced watersheds are not evenly distributed. Dependency varies sharply by state, and the geographic spread runs from the mountain West through the Deep South.

Researchers identified Idaho, Utah, Montana, and Wyoming as states where permitting new roads in currently protected forest would most dramatically jeopardize access to cost-effective clean water. But significant populations in eastern states are also exposed: Virginia, West Virginia, and Tennessee each have substantial communities whose water sources are influenced by roadless area watersheds.

Five states carry the largest absolute populations at risk. Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, and North Carolina each have over one million residents whose drinking water is sourced from IRA-influenced watersheds. Colorado’s exposure is particularly high – the researchers found that 58.9% of the state’s population depends on water flowing from roadless watersheds.

The study also documented significant biodiversity implications. Roadless areas function as critical habitat for sensitive aquatic species, including bull trout, which use protected stream corridors for spawning. Hunters and anglers also have material stakes: areas with strong roadless protections consistently overlap with the most productive fish and wildlife habitat in the National Forest System.

The Wildfire Justification – and What the Research Actually Shows

The administration’s primary rationale for rescinding the rule is wildfire prevention. Rollins argued that opening designated roadless areas to road construction and timber harvest would allow land managers to reduce the 28 million acres within IRAs that the USDA considers at high or very high wildfire risk.

Multiple independent studies challenge that framing directly. A 2026 study published in Fire Ecology analyzed a three-decade database of wildfire ignitions across all eight contiguous U.S. Forest Service regions. From 1992 to 2024, wildfire ignition density was highest in lands within 50 meters of a road and lowest in designated wilderness areas and IRAs. The pattern was consistent across every region. Lead author Greg Aplet, a senior forest ecologist at The Wilderness Society, said: “We found the exact same result in every Forest Service region, consistent across the entire National Forest System.”

The mechanism isn’t complicated. According to the Western Fire Chiefs Association, humans are the source of nearly 90% of wildfire ignitions in the U.S. Roads are the primary means by which humans access backcountry forests. Building new roads in currently roadless areas would, by the logic of that data, expand the ignition footprint rather than reduce it.

The Center for Western Priorities has also highlighted that fuel management activities in roadless areas have actually been more numerous on a per-square-kilometer basis than elsewhere in the National Forest System, and that historical fire maps show forests with and without roads have burned at similar rates since 2001. The rule never blocked firefighting, prescribed burns, or vegetation management for wildfire risk reduction – those activities were explicitly permitted throughout.

As Olden put it: “The rule does not block any management action that supports forest health, wildfire mitigation, or recreation. In fact, energy projects, transmission lines, and mining development remain permitted within roadless areas.”

Public Opposition and the Political Timeline

The public comment period for the proposed rescission drew an unusual volume of responses. The USDA received more than 183,000 comments through regulations.gov alone before the 21-day window closed in September 2025, with additional bulk submissions from conservation groups bringing the total to roughly 625,000. An analysis by the Center for Western Priorities found that more than 99% of the comments submitted opposed the rescission – a margin the center’s deputy director Aaron Weiss described as “effectively unanimous.”

That opposition crosses party lines. A 2019 poll by the Pew Charitable Trusts found 75% of Americans supported the roadless rule regardless of political affiliation. Weiss noted that support among rural and non-rural respondents was similarly matched, undercutting the framing of the rule as an urban environmentalist priority imposed on rural communities.

Earlier in 2026, some Republican lawmakers attempted to accelerate the measure through Congress by attaching a roadless rule provision to the Wildfire Prevention Act, which supports prescribed burns and forest thinning near communities. That legislative maneuver did not succeed, leaving the rulemaking process as the administration’s primary avenue.

Read More: Nation’s Biggest Polluters Exempted From Air Quality Rules

What This Means for Your Water Bill

The July 2026 PLOS Water study from the University of Washington and Conservation Science Partners establishes, with more geographic precision than any prior analysis, how directly federal forest policy connects to municipal drinking water quality and cost. Researchers mapped 2,488 roadless areas against downstream river systems and public water supplies. Their finding – that 62,000 miles of river have no legal protection beyond the roadless rule itself – is a specific, verifiable number that any final rulemaking will have to address.

For the 25 million Americans whose tap water flows from these watersheds, the practical consequences of rescission are not speculative. Higher sediment loads require more treatment. More complex treatment means higher operating costs for utilities, which translate into higher water bills for households. In severe cases, as Olden noted, it can force temporary plant shutdowns and the issuance of drinking water warnings.

You can explore how forests across the country supply American natural wonders and clean water as a starting point for understanding what intact public land actually provides to downstream communities.

The administration has not released final regulations as of July 2026, and legal challenges are widely anticipated regardless of outcome. Earthjustice, which has successfully defended the roadless rule in court for decades, has indicated it will litigate again if necessary. What the PLOS Water study has done is shift the evidentiary terrain: any final rule will now face a peer-reviewed, geographically precise accounting of how many Americans depend on these forests for clean water – and what losing that protection will cost at the tap.

AI Disclaimer: This article was created with the assistance of AI tools and reviewed by a human editor.

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