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Draft Your Public Comment

This tool helps you turn your own experience and concerns about the Blue Mountains Forest Plan Revision into a clear public comment.

Step 1: Choose a drafting option:

  • Quick Draft: Asks two short questions and creates a shorter comment.

  • Guided Draft: Provides detailed questions for each topic you select.

Step 2: Choose how you want your comment to sound.

Step 3: Choose only the topics you want included. Quick Draft uses every topic selected.

Step 4: Answer the questions in your own words. You do not need to answer every question.

Step 5: Generate and carefully review your draft. If it does not reflect what you meant, revise your answers and generate it again.

Step 6: Copy your draft into the Forest Service’s official CARA comment form, make any final changes, and submit it.

This tool does not submit your comment for you. You remain in control of the final comment.

What do you want to comment on?
What access issue are you commenting on?
Use road numbers, drainage names, hunting units, trail names, allotments, watersheds, or common local names if you know them. If you do not know exact names, describe the area as best you can.

What do you use motorized access for?
Explain time, fuel, cost, safety, lost use, lost family access, lost work opportunity, or other practical effects.

For example: currently open road, existing route people have used for years, county road, MVUM route, old road, grazing/mining/fire access, or uncertain.

What should the Forest Service do before adopting the plan?

Wildlife / Elk Security / Habitat Access Concerns

Use this section if your concern is that wildlife, elk security, wolves, habitat, seasonal disturbance, or similar resource protections may be used to justify motorized access restrictions without clear maps, standards, measurements, or public explanation.

What wildlife or habitat access issue are you concerned about?
Explain what the DEIS should show about how wildlife, elk security, wolves, habitat, riparian protection, or seasonal disturbance direction could affect motorized access, family use, hunting, camping, firewood, grazing, road work, emergency access, older or disabled users, and local communities.

Explain what you want changed, added, disclosed, mapped, or analyzed before wildlife, elk security, wolves, habitat, riparian protection, or seasonal disturbance direction is used to limit motorized access or guide future Travel Management.

Recommended Wilderness / Roadless Area Concerns

Use this section if your concern is that recommended wilderness, roadless area direction, or similar designations could reduce long-term motorized access, limit future road or route use, or change how people can reach and use forest areas.

What wilderness or roadless issue are you concerned about?
Explain how recommended wilderness, roadless area direction, or similar designations could affect motorized access, hunting, camping, firewood, gathering, grazing, road work, fire response, older or disabled users, family access, or local communities.

Explain what you want changed, removed, mapped, disclosed, or analyzed before recommended wilderness, roadless area direction, or similar designations are adopted in a way that could affect motorized access or future Travel Management.

If you know a specific recommended wilderness or roadless area, describe any existing roads, routes, grazing, timber, mining, material sources, firewood use, fences, water developments, old roadbeds, landings, fire lines, road work, camping, hunting, gathering, or other signs of long-standing human use or access.

Maps / Data / Crosswalks / Process Transparency Concerns

Use this section if your concern is that the DEIS does not provide enough maps, route baselines, overlays, crosswalks, data, or plain explanations for the public to understand how the plan affects access, roads, routes, management areas, ROS settings, or future Travel Management.

What map, data, or transparency issue are you concerned about?
Explain what maps, route baselines, overlays, crosswalks, tables, data, assumptions, methods, or plain-language explanations the Forest Service should provide so the public can understand how the plan affects access, roads, routes, management areas, ROS settings, or future Travel Management.

Explain what you want the Forest Service to provide, disclose, map, compare, clarify, or correct before adopting the final plan. Focus on what the public needs in order to understand access effects and submit meaningful comments.

Process / BIC / Public Involvement Concerns

Use this section if your concern is about public involvement, comment opportunity, the role of the Blues Intergovernmental Council (BIC), process transparency, missing or late materials, meeting statements, or whether access and Travel Management issues were separated from plan-level analysis.

What process or public involvement issue are you concerned about?
Describe the process concern in your own words. This could include BIC influence, missing or late materials, meeting statements, public participation limits, comment coding, separation of access from the plan analysis, or confusion about who shaped the DEIS.

Describe what led you to this concern. For example, a public meeting statement, a document, meeting minutes, missing reference material, public participation limits, or something in the DEIS that made the process unclear or unfair to the public.

Working Lands, Grazing, Timber, Minerals, and Road Work

Use this section if your concern is about grazing or ranch work, timber supply or active forest management, roads needed for working uses, mining or material sources, local contractors and jobs, or whether uses described in the plan will actually be usable on the ground.

What working-land or active-management issues concern you?
Describe what you have experienced or what you believe the plan could mean for actual grazing, ranch work, timber work, road maintenance, mining or material access, contractors, jobs, or community use. Explain whether the activity would remain workable on the ground, not just described as available on paper.

State what the Forest Service must put into the final plan. Examples include maintaining usable grazing opportunity and the access needed to use it; providing timber and active-management direction that can be delivered on the ground; maintaining roads needed for working uses and fire response; protecting mining and material access; and supporting local ranches, mills, contractors, jobs, and rural communities.

Household Use / Rural Community / Economic Effects

Use this section if your concern is about how the plan affects household forest use, firewood, hunting, gathering, family traditions, travel costs, supplemental income, small businesses, or rural communities. Describe the effects you believe county-wide statistics or recreation-focused analysis may overlook.

Which household or community effects concern you?
Describe what the forest provides, how you rely on it, and what would change for you or your community. Include specific places, uses, added travel, costs, lost opportunities, safety concerns, or family effects that you have personally experienced or expect.

State what the final plan must protect, maintain, restore, or change. For example, identify the access, household uses, local opportunities, or community needs that must remain available on the ground.

1990 Baseline, Purpose and Need, and Alternative Comparisons

Use this section if your concern is about how the DEIS describes the need for a new plan, which baseline it uses, or how it compares the alternatives with the 1990 forest plans and current conditions. This section can help you explain when an alternative is described as an increase or improvement without clearly showing how it compares with the plans being replaced.

What baseline or comparison issue concerns you?
Explain what comparison seems incomplete or misleading to you. Describe what the DEIS says, which earlier plan or current condition should be shown beside it, and why that difference matters for understanding the alternatives.

State what must be shown before the plan is finalized. For example, request forest-by-forest tables comparing the 1990 plans, current conditions, Alternative 2, and Alternative 3 for access, timber, grazing, or other uses that matter to you.

Monitoring, Accountability, and Corrective Action

Use this section if your concern is about how the Forest Service will measure whether plan promises are actually delivered on the ground. This includes missing baselines, measurable thresholds, reporting schedules, public results, and required action when access, timber, grazing, habitat, or other plan outcomes are not being achieved.

What monitoring or accountability issue concerns you?
Describe what matters to you and what the public should be able to verify over time. This could include usable motorized access, restored access, timber actually delivered, grazing actually used, completed road work, fire response, habitat results, or another plan outcome.

State what must happen. For example, require a starting baseline, measurable thresholds, a reporting schedule, public forest-by-forest results, and specific corrective action when promised outcomes are not achieved.

Old Growth, Large Trees, and the 21-Inch Rule

Use this section if your concern is about how Alternative 2 changes the 21-inch rule or Eastside Screens, what standards would replace it, how old, large, and legacy trees are defined, how much discretion the final plan would allow, or how these changes connect with timber and vegetation-management goals.

What old-growth or large-tree issue concerns you?
Explain the problem in your own words. Describe what seems unclear, what management work must remain possible, what protection or flexibility is needed, or what connection between large-tree direction and timber or forest-health goals the DEIS has not adequately explained.

State the result you want. For example, require clear definitions and decision criteria, maintain the ability to complete needed forest-health and safety work, show how the direction affects timber outputs, compare Alternatives 2 and 3, or require measurable monitoring and corrective action.

Wildfire, Fuels, Forest Health, and Fire Response

Use this section if your concern is about wildfire risk, hazardous fuels, forest health, the pace and scale of active management, roads and access needed for fire response, local and county responders, or whether treatments described in the plan will actually be completed on the ground.

What wildfire, fuels, or fire-response issue concerns you?
Describe the places, roads, communities, resources, or response needs that matter to you. Explain how fuel conditions, delayed treatments, limited road access, or an inadequate fire response could affect your family, property, work, community, or ability to use the forest.

State the result you want. For example, require treatment levels that are actually delivered, maintain roads and motorized access needed for response, protect access to water and material sites, coordinate with local responders, and measure results with public reporting and corrective action.

Wild and Scenic Rivers, River Corridors, and Interim Protections

Use this section if your concern is about an eligible, suitable, recommended, or designated Wild and Scenic River segment; river classifications or outstandingly remarkable values; interim protections; private property or inholdings; or how river-corridor direction could affect roads, motorized access, grazing, minerals, timber and fuels work, fire response, or other local uses.

What Wild and Scenic River or river-corridor issue concerns you?
Name the river, segment, drainage, road, crossing, allotment, property area, or local place if you know it. Explain what use or access matters there and how river-corridor direction or interim protections could affect it.

State the result you want. For example, require segment-by-segment maps and tables, identify classifications and interim protections, show affected roads and uses, protect existing access and working uses, disclose private-property or inholding effects, and compare each alternative separately.

Mining, Materials, and Access Rights

Use this section if your concern is about access to mining claims or operations, community pits, gravel or material sources, county or historic routes, private property or inholdings, easements, permitted access, valid existing rights, or the difference between public and administrative access.

What mining, materials, or access-rights issue are you commenting on?
Describe the road, route, claim, operation, community pit, material source, inholding, easement, county road, or general area if you know it. Explain what access or material use matters and what would be affected if it became unavailable or harder to use.

State the result you want. For example, protect usable access, identify route and rights status before treating roads as discretionary, distinguish public, administrative, permitted, private, county, and mining access, map community pits and material sources, and disclose overlapping plan restrictions.

Quick Draft

Answer these two short questions. The tool will use your selected topics and your own words to build your draft.

For example: My family hunts, gathers firewood, camps, works, or relies on road access in these forests. Include place names if you know them.

For example: Protect existing motorized access, restore access already lost, or correct parts of the plan that affect my family or community.

This is where local examples matter most. Explain who you are, what you use, where you use it, and what the DEIS does not explain.

Your draft will appear here after you click Generate Draft Comment.

Final Step Before Submitting Your Comment

  1. Click Copy Draft above.

  2. Click Open CARA Comment Form below.

  3. In CARA, scroll down to the Comment box and click or tap inside it.

  4. On a computer, right-click and choose Paste. On a phone, press and hold inside the Comment box, then tap Paste.

  5. If Paste does not appear on your phone, return to this page. Press and hold on your generated draft, tap Select All, then tap Copy. Return to CARA and paste it. You should not have to retype your comment.

  6. Fill in your name and contact information at the top. This is required to preserve your standing.

  7. Review your comment, scroll to the bottom, and click Submit.

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