The Forest Service’s Reorganization Plan Could Leave Your Community Behind
U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) plan to consolidate Forest Service offices into distant hubs threatens local expertise, winter recreation, and public input.
On August 1, 2025, Secretary Rollins announced a reorganization plan for the Department of Agriculture and initiated a public comment period, which is open until September 30, 2025.
What is happening?
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is moving forward with a massive reorganization that will close essential Forest Service and research offices and shift decision-making power to regional hubs. This would eliminate hundreds of local jobs, diminish climate and wildfire research capacity, interrupt critical partnerships with universities and nonprofits, and push agency leadership hundreds or even thousands of miles from the forests and communities it serves.
Currently, the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) has nine regional offices, the National Resource Conservation Services (NRCS) has twelve regional offices, and five stand-alone Research Stations. The USDA would like to significantly consolidate these offices into just five centralized “hub cities”:
- Fort Collins, Colorado
- Salt Lake City, Utah
- Indianapolis, Indiana
- Kansas City, Missouri
- Raleigh, North Carolina
The USDA’s restructuring plan would eliminate all USFS regional offices, downsize NRCS regional offices into just five “hub cities,” and consolidate all stand-alone Research Stations into a single location. This will directly impact how we work with agencies on winter recreation planning and snow data. Of particular concern are the proposed closures of:
- Northern Region (R1) – Missoula, MT
- Rocky Mountain Region (R2) – Golden, CO
- Intermountain Region (R4) – Ogden, UT
- Pacific Southwest Region (R5) – Vallejo, CA
- Pacific Northwest Region (R6) – Portland, OR
- Alaska Region (R10) will maintain a reduced state office – Juneau, AK
These regions collectively cover vast swaths of the wild snowscapes we work and play on. The consolidation into distant hubs like Fort Collins, Salt Lake City, Raleigh, Kansas City, and Indianapolis means losing local expertise, relationships, and timely coordination that are essential for the sustainable management of our favorite backcountry areas. For example, 62% of National Forest System lands are located in the western United States, yet only two of the five proposed hubs are located in the West.
The reorganization plan at the USDA could close down nice regional office operated by the Forest Service.
Why This Matters
For decades, Winter Wildlands Alliance and local partners have relied on boots-on-the-ground experts like researchers, field staff, and forest managers, who understand how snow, wintering wildlife, and trail use intersect on our local forests. District offices will often coordinate with regional offices to improve monitoring, reporting, and planning.
Moving authority outwards erodes that expertise and risks sidelining winter recreation values in decision-making, especially when compounded with threats like weakened NEPA and the potential rollback of Roadless Area protections.
- Reduced snow and water monitoring: The NRCS snow survey program depends on a network of Snow Telementary (SNOTEL) snowpack and climate monitoring sensors across remote mountain areas. Sensitive equipment located in a harsh environment requires regular maintenance. Moving the snow survey program and management to a centralized and distant hub will diminish maintenance and delay repairs to SNOTEL equipment and diminish snowpack and future water supply forecasting capacity.
- Reduced winter recreation support: the Forest Service will have even less capacity than it already has to manage dispersed winter recreation, to coordinate winter recreation permits, volunteer partnerships and grooming programs, and to implement winter travel planning.
- Less local public input, more confusion: Closing regional offices moves decision-making and public input from local areas, limiting rural communities’ ability to meet with staff, give input, collaborate with and influence recreation and resource decisions. Regional offices currently standardize policies across a region so that the public doesn’t have to contend with shifting rules from one forest to the next. Fracturing this would cause confusion and weaken efficient on-the-ground partnerships.
Take Action Now
This USDA reorganization plan is a deliberately hasty process with very little room for public comment. It’s clear the Agency would prefer not to have to consider the public interest. That said, they will receive public comments through September 30, 2025, and legally, they are supposed to take it into consideration. To submit a comment, fill out our action alert below. Your comment will be submitted directly reorganization@usda.gov. If you have a few minutes, please edit your comment directly to make it more personal and more likely to be considered.
Our most treasured backcountry ski zones deserve leaders and experts who are connected to the community, not distant bureaucracies. Let’s keep winter wild, local, and accessible.
