Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 12, 1993 TAG: 9305120135
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Staff and wire report
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The appeal challenges the plan's intentions to continue below-cost timber sales and increase road building on the George Washington.
David Carr of the law center characterized the plan, which was released in March, as "a return to business as usual." There had been hope, Carr said, that the plan "would mark a fresh focus on the forest's biological and recreational resources."
Conservationists have said the plan is a step in the right direction but does not go far enough.
Jim Loesel of Roanoke, who represents the Citizens Task Force on National Forests, said the Forest Service claims that more logging and road building is good for wildlife and biological diversity, but "you don't have to dig very deep to realize that this is not true."
"The forest's wildlife is already under stress. There is overpopulation of white-tailed deer, the streams are becoming acidic, and exotic pests and diseases are spreading rapidly," he said.
The George Washington's plan for more road building and clear-cutting will hurt the wildlife habitat, damage streams and change the character of wild, remote areas, Loesel said.
Besides hurting the forest, the George Washington plan is an economic disaster, said Lee Bowen of the Sierra Club. The Forest Service admits that the below-cost timber sales on the forest will cost taxpayers $7 million over the next decade, he said.
Organizations that have joined to appeal the plan in addition to the task force and Sierra Club are: the Wilderness Society, Virginia Wilderness Committee, National Audubon Society, Northern Shenandoah Valley Audubon Society, Virginians for Wilderness, Preserve Appalachian Wilderness and the Cowpasture Preservation Association.
Their goal, Carr said, "is to have the plan overturned so that a new plan with solid economic principles and true ecosystem management goals and standards can be developed and adopted."
Last month, the Forest Service announced that the George Washington, based in Harrisonburg, and the Jefferson National Forest, headquartered in Roanoke, were among 62 forests nationwide in which below-cost sales would be eliminated.
Forest Service chief Dale Robertson told a congressional panel that the agency intends to save about $46 million next year by canceling plans for about 400 million board-feet worth of the below-cost sales.
At that time, Terry Smith, a spokesman for the George Washington, said the forest's 10-year management plan "is not business as usual."
"There is more emphasis on wildlife, fisheries and recreation. The plan is based on biological concerns, when a year ago the focus was very much on timber," he said.
The George Washington is the first national forest to come out with the long-range plan since Robertson's ecosystem-management decree came out in June.
And Peg Boland of the Forest Service's planning office in Washington said it's the first to come before the Clinton administration, which wants to eliminate clear-cutting and unprofitable timber sales.
Robertson killed the George Washington management plan in 1989 after a series of protests. He said the public played too small a role in preparing the plan.
During the past two years, the national forest held 13 public hearings and many conferences to discuss alternative management plans. Forest officials received and answered 4,300 written comments from individuals, agencies and organizations.
The 1 million-acre forest stretches from Front Royal to the James River in Rockbridge County.
by CNB