Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 31, 1990 TAG: 9005310199
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The group, the Citizens Task Force on National Forest Management, has threatened to challenge every timber sale proposed by the Forest Service and to take the agency to court if necessary.
However, Deputy Regional Forester Marv Meier of Atlanta said he believes the citizens' group may have misunderstood the interim plans for the Harrisonburg-based forest.
Guidelines issued by Regional Forester John Alcock for the interim management of the George Washington over the next two years "are unacceptable," James Loesel of Roanoke, secretary of the task force, wrote Alcock this week.
Attempts by the Forest Service to develop a 10-year management plan for the forest have been fraught with controversy. A 1986 plan prepared by the forest's staff at Harrisonburg was appealed by conservationists and the timber industry and last September, Forest Service Chief F. Dale Robertson ordered it scrapped and a new one written.
One of the interim guidelines raising the concern of the citizens' group involves the amount of timber the Forest Service wants to clear cut. The task force would like to see a greater share of timber cut by other methods considered less environmentally severe, such as selective cutting.
In his letter to Alcock, Loesel noted that in 1988 Robertson had ordered the amount of clear cutting be reduced in the George Washington and other methods of harvesting trees be increased. The interim guidelines fail to do that with only 800 acres set aside yearly for alternative cutting methods compared with 2,500 acres proposed yearly for clear cuts, Loesel said.
Among the task force's other objections were:
That the replanting of hardwood timberlands with pine has been allowed to continue.
That Alcock continues to support timber harvesting along forest streams in the George Washington even though much tougher standards apply on other Southern forests.
That the interim guidelines for the forest ignore a controversy over timber sales that cost more to administer than the money they generate.
Loesel said if the guidelines are allowed to stand as is, the task force will be forced to appeal proposed timber sales or, if necessary, take the Forest Service to court.
Meier, however, said he believed Loesel may have misunderstood some of the guidelines. For instance, he said they would allow up to 4,000 acres of timber to be cut by alternative methods during the two years the 1986 management plan is being revised.
However, Meier said a maximum of 1,000 acres per year cut by methods other than clear cutting would be a more feasible figure.
Loesel also has misunderstood Alcock's position on the guidelines for pine conversion and for cutting timber near forest streams, Meier said.
Meier agreed the interim guidelines do not address the issue of below-cost timber sales, an issue being debated in Congress.
by CNB