Stewardship Without Access: Why Deferred Maintenance Is Silently Shrinking Public Lands

For more than a century, the United States Forest Service has carried one of the greatest responsibilities ever entrusted to a public agency. More than 193 million acres of National Forests belong to the American people. Those lands were never intended to be preserved as museum pieces, nor were they intended to be consumed for today’s benefit alone. They were entrusted to the Forest Service under a simple but profound principle established by the agency’s first Chief, Gifford Pinchot: stewardship.

Stewardship was never simply about trees. It was never simply about wildlife. It was never simply about recreation. Stewardship was the continuous responsibility to care for the forests, watersheds, roads, trails, campgrounds, bridges, and public resources that allow generations of Americans to benefit from the lands they collectively own. Healthy forests, healthy watersheds, responsible use of natural resources, thriving wildlife habitat, recreation, and public access were not competing priorities. They were different expressions of the same obligation.

That is why one question has continued to trouble me throughout the past two years. If stewardship is the foundation of the Forest Service, why are so many of the public assets entrusted to that stewardship steadily disappearing through deferred maintenance?

I did not arrive at that question as a forester, a policy analyst, or a career government employee. I arrived there as someone trying to solve a practical problem.

The Brent Oliver 541 Foundation exists to create meaningful access to life and the outdoors for people with disabilities, older Americans, veterans, and others whose physical limitations too often determine where they can go and what they can experience. That belief is deeply personal.

More than three decades ago, a catastrophic motorcycle crash left me with an incomplete C3 through C5 spinal cord injury, a permanent airway, chronic pain, and physical limitations that medicine once believed would define the rest of my life. Instead, those limitations changed the direction of my life. In 2018, I learned that what remained of my spinal cord was continuing to deteriorate. Rather than slow down, I founded the Brent Oliver 541 Foundation to show people what remains possible and to fight for meaningful access to the public lands that belong to all of us.

That journey eventually led our Foundation to Jubilee Lake in Oregon’s Umatilla National Forest. An existing hard-surface trail, specifically designed to provide meaningful access for people with disabilities and mobility limitations, had gradually deteriorated after years of deferred maintenance. What once might have required relatively modest repairs had grown into a situation where nearly the entire mile-long trail needed major evaluation and repair.

We believed we were simply looking at a trail.

Instead, we discovered a much deeper question about stewardship.

As we worked alongside Forest Service personnel, engineers, contractors, volunteers, local businesses, elected officials, and community partners, one question kept returning: How does an important public asset, built to serve thousands of people every year, reach this condition?

That question became impossible to ignore because Jubilee Lake is not an isolated case. Across the Pacific Northwest, we’ve seen the same pattern repeated at recreation sites: roads, campgrounds, trails, docks, restrooms, and other public facilities all showing years of accumulated neglect. Small maintenance needs postponed year after year eventually become major problems. Deferred maintenance becomes normal. Public access quietly shrinks.

The Forest Service now reports a deferred maintenance backlog approaching $10.8 billion. That is not just a budget number. It is visible proof that something has gone wrong with how we define and practice stewardship.

When Gifford Pinchot created the Forest Service, his vision of stewardship was broad and practical. It already included strong environmental practices, healthy forests, clean watersheds, and wildlife habitat. Those were not separate from stewardship—they were part of it. In 1992, Forest Service Chief F. Dale Robertson announced a major shift in management philosophy, moving the agency toward ecosystem management.

While the intention behind that shift may have been sound, over the following thirty-plus years, this narrowed focus caused the agency to gradually step away from the full responsibility of stewardship that Pinchot originally defined. The practical work of maintaining roads, trails, campgrounds, recreation sites, and accessible facilities became secondary. The results speak for themselves: a massive and growing maintenance backlog, exploding wildfire costs, and public infrastructure that no longer delivers the access Americans deserve.

For people with disabilities, these failures hit hardest. A minor root heave or drainage issue that a hiker might step over can completely stop someone in a wheelchair. A facility that looks acceptable on paper can become unusable in reality. That is not meaningful access. That is the quiet loss of access through neglect.

This is no longer just a maintenance issue. When deferred maintenance affects facilities designed for people with disabilities, stewardship becomes a civil rights issue as well. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and the Architectural Barriers Act established clear responsibilities that cannot be met through one-time construction alone. They require ongoing stewardship.

Jubilee Lake is far more than one trail in one national forest. It has become a case study that forces us to ask a much larger question: Have we remained true to the original meaning of stewardship, or have we allowed it to be redefined into something that no longer includes caring for the basic infrastructure the public actually uses?

The fact that Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz personally directed his staff to work with us on this project tells me that senior leadership understands the seriousness of this issue. We are not working against the Forest Service. We are working with them because we believe the agency can and must do better.

Stewardship is not another program competing for funding. Stewardship is the fundamental responsibility that should guide every decision the Forest Service makes. If we truly believe these lands belong to the American people, then we must maintain both the land itself and the public’s ability to experience it.

That is the standard Gifford Pinchot set when he founded the Forest Service. That is the standard we should be measured by today.

About the Brent Oliver 541 Foundation

The Brent Oliver 541 Foundation is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to creating meaningful access to life and the outdoors for people with disabilities, older Americans, veterans, and others with mobility limitations. If this mission resonates with you, we invite you to become a partner, volunteer, advocate, or donor. Together, we can help restore meaningful access to America's public lands for future generations.

Website:www.brentoliver541.org

Social Media: @BrentOliver541