ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, August 3, 1996 TAG: 9608050018
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ROBERT FREIS STAFF WRITER
Planning is under way for the most extensive timber-cutting operation the U.S. Forest Service has conducted in Montgomery County in recent years.
Compared with tree harvesting in other areas of the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests, the local project site's scale is small. But it will affect about 400 acres of forest in a relatively remote area along Poverty Creek, near the Giles County line northwest of Blacksburg.
Forest Service planners say the timbering is needed to remove trees damaged by winter ice storms in 1994 and earlier this year. They also say the visual impact of the cut will be minimal.
So far, as plans for the cut have passed through the first level of public notification and comment, the project has generated little attention and no controversy.
As presently designed, the timber cut would involve extensively cutting 60 to 70 acres of forest and thinning trees from an additional 300 acres.
It will conform to a policy the Blacksburg Ranger District has followed for about the last decade to avoid clear-cutting, said Ed Leonard, a Forest Service planner.
The project's impact on wildlife and recreational users of the area with be minimal, District Ranger David Collins said.
No timbering will be conducted within a mile of Pandapas Pond, a popular recreation area also located in the Poverty Creek valley, Leonard said. Additionally, the operation won't be visible from Pandapas Pond or from scenic viewpoints along U.S. 460, he said.
The area scheduled to be timbered is a 90-year-old forest of mixed hard and softwood trees. When ice storms broke limbs and blew down trees in the area, the damage was extensive enough to endanger the forest's health and ability to regenerate, according the Forest Service.
A wide range of timbering methods have been proposed by the Forest Service for the Poverty Creek project. They range from from harvesting all but a few designated trees in two-acre sections, to thinning selected trees deemed to have little value for commercial users or wildlife.
There are no sections of timber classified as old growth in the project area, Leonard said. A number of game and nongame animal species live in the area, but the proposed cut will not have a significant impact on wildlife habitat, said Jesse Overcash, a Forest Service wildlife biologist.
Although not developed for recreation, the Poverty Creek area does see a significant amount of use by mountain bikers and seasonal hunters and fishermen. Collins said the logging operators will probably use a Forest Service road that runs through the project area, but that the interference with recreational users will be small.
Bids will be opened to large-scale commercial logging operations in the harvest zone of the site. Most of the thinning work will be offered to smaller commercial operators who sell firewood.
Leonard said plans are not to open the site for individuals to cut firewood for their own domestic use, a practice the Forest Service allows in other designated areas.
However, because most of the district's firewood users come from the Blacksburg area, the project's site should help satisfy local demands, he said.
For now, the Poverty Creek timber project is only a proposal winding its way up a series of bureaucratic steps. The preliminary announcement of the project was issued in May and generated only one response in a public comment period that expired July 1.
A professional association of commercial loggers said the timbering methods proposed by the Forest Service would not be cost-effective. The group also recommended clear-cutting timber in 40-acre sections to enhance brushy habitat for migratory songbirds.
Another 30-day opportunity for public comment will occur later this year, after the Forest Service issues an environmental assessment of the project.
Barring delays or substantial revisions to the plan, Collins estimated that logging could begin at the site by next spring.
LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: map - showing location of project. color STAFFby CNB