Can we go back to the very beginning and what the roadless rule is and how it came to exist?

Sure.

We can go in the way back machine and talk about the actual very organic act of 1897 that created the original forest reserves.

And there's really two purposes for these reserves in a growing country.

One was creating a sustainable timber supply for communities for construction and homes and towns, and the other one was favorable conditions of water flow for downstream communities.

So forests were all about the timber, but also the water, and that's because we didn't want to have poorly managed hillsides and watersheds that would be heavily eroded and, uh, clog up drinking water supplies or have landslides that would affect irrigation flows and all these things.

So when you think of the forests, we're thinking of both the timber resource as well as the water that comes out of them that we all rely on.

So if this rule is removed, how does that affect then us in Idaho?