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                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, February 18, 1992                   TAG: 9202180357
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

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TIMBER HARVEST AFFECTS TINY AREA OF FOREST

AS A CONSERVATIONIST and frequent user of the national forest, I am interested in the current conflict over logging on the George Washington National Forest, one of Virginia's finest treasures. Should the annual timber harvest be 54 million board feet, or 38 million, or 22 million?

How much logging is that, anyway? Any of those numbers sounds like a lot of cutting. How much of the forest will be affected?

To get some perspective, I asked the Forest Service: "How much logging is 54 million board feet?" I was shocked to find out that this seemingly large amount of cutting would actually occur on less than one-half of 1 percent of the forest's 1 million-plus acres. In other words, 99.5 percent of the forest will be left untouched each year for hunting, recreation, sightseeing, etc.

Perhaps the Forest Service could avoid a lot of the criticism if it would simply explain its plans in terms that everyone can understand! ROBERT M. SHAFFER RINER

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