Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 16, 1994 TAG: 9406210088
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By CATHRYN MCCUE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Under the proposal announced Tuesday, the George Washington National Forest and the Jefferson National Forest would be renamed the George Washington and Jefferson National Forest, with top billing going to the nation's first president.
Most people who use the forest to hunt, cut timber or hike wouldn't notice much difference, said Dave Olson, spokesman for the Jefferson National Forest. The 12 ranger districts of the two forests would remain where they are.
The combined Appalachian mountain forest would include 1.8 million acres in Virginia, 125,387 acres in West Virginia and 961 acres in Kentucky. Roanoke County was chosen as headquarters because of its central location and because the Jefferson forest recently moved its headquarters to offices with a long-term lease at the Valleypointe corporate park in Roanoke County. The George Washington forest's headquarters is in Harrisonburg.
The Forest Service would retain a Harrisonburg office, as it has since 1917, reducing the number of employees from 76 to 20 through attrition and relocation. Olson said the staff at the Roanoke headquarters would increase from 76 to 90 people.
"It's an idea whose time has come," said Jim Loesel, a Roanoke County resident who keeps a watchful eye on the bureaucracy of the resource management agency. The Forest Service has been told to reduce costs and the number of employees throughout the country, he said.
"If they don't do something like this, they'll be left with two skeletal staffs," Loesel said.
It's unclear who would head the new forest - perhaps Joy Berg or Wayne Kelly, supervisors of the Jefferson and George Washington forests, respectively, or someone new, Olson said.
"It is a logical move and will get more money to the ground to care for the land and serve the people," Berg said in a news release.
Money saved from joining the forests' administrative staffs is expected to be spent on increasing staff, services and programs at the ranger district level.
The forests submit yearly budgets to Congress, however, which controls agency spending.
The two forests already share a timber sales officer, fisheries biologist, geologist, air quality specialist and logging engineer.
Talk of merging the two forests, which share a boundary in Rockbridge, Botetourt, Alleghany and Craig counties, has cropped up before, Olson said. This time, the newly appointed regional forester in Atlanta, Bob Joslin, who has authority over national forests in 14 Southern states, initiated a formal proposal for approval by the secretary of agriculture.
The merger, once approved, would take place over two or three years.
In 1917, the federal government began buying the land for what became the George Washington Forest. Farther south, beginning in 1913, the government began acquiring land in pieces, eventually forming the Jefferson National Forest in 1936.
by CNB