Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 19, 1993 TAG: 9306190225
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
On Friday, the Citizens Task Force on National Forest Management filed its sixth appeal in the past month against the agency. This one criticizes the U.S. Forest Service for contracting with Liberty University to study the effects of logging on a rare salamander found primarily on federal lands.
"We are particularly concerned about the potential that religious views, which are pervasive at Liberty University, could contaminate the scientific objectivity of a biological study," wrote Jim Loesel, the group's secretary, in the appeal.
Ken Landgraf, forest planning officer, said the study is a joint project of the federal agency and the Virginia Natural Heritage Program, with the state contributing money, labor, materials or other resources. Landgraf said the university is working through the state agency, rather than the Forest Service.
The cost of the study was not available.
The 10-year study will look at the effects of clearcutting on the Peaks of Otter salamander, a rare reptile found only on a 45-square-mile patch of land in Bedford and Botetourt counties.
Loesel criticized the Jefferson Forest for launching the study while nationally, the U.S. Forest Service is shifting away from clearcutting and toward more environmentally sensitive timber harvest methods.
However, Landgraf said the study also will look at shelterwood cutting, which leaves several mature trees in a stand to shelter seedlings. Further, the forest will continue to clearcut where it is the best method, he said.
Loesel's group has filed five other administrative appeals since May 27, saying the agency failed to consider the biological impact of logging on water quality, wildlife, scenic views, rare species and other forest resources. The group is seeking a halt to a series of timber sales on 191 acres in Botetourt, Craig, Rockbridge and Bedford counties.
While the appeals attack the minutae of the agency's environmental analyses and documentation, Loesel said his overriding concern is that logging is once again overshadowing other forest uses.
"They've adopted a whole new way of analyzing the way they're doing business," he said.
In 1987, after negotiations with the citizens' group, the Jefferson Forest divided the 708,000-acre forest into chunks, called opportunity areas, averaging 7,000 acres each. Foresters took a comprehensive look at a broad range of uses, such as recreation, timber and wildlife, to determine which would be best to emphasize for a particular piece of land.
As Loesel said, "We filed zero appeals on opportunity-area analyses . . . in five years."
But the process was not detailed enough to fulfill the National Environmental Protection Act, which requires site-specific environmental assessments of individual projects, Landgraf said.
Landgraf said the forest now evaluates management activities in two phases - under the opportunity-area approach and then on a project-by-project basis.
But Loesel said the switch shows the agency is moving away from doing what is best for all forest resources.
On Thursday, Jefferson National Forest Supervisor Joy Berg rejected one of the group's appeals, involving a timber sale on 132 acres of federal land in Botetourt County.
by CNB