ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, November 23, 1996 TAG: 9611250013
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
A Staunton man has sued the U.S. Forest Service, claiming that the agency broke federal law, misled the public and failed to comply with its own plans when it agreed to sell 200-to 300-year-old trees from the George Washington National Forest in Alleghany County.
Steven Krichbaum, an independent house painter, filed the suit without the help of a lawyer. He's asking the U.S. District Court in Roanoke to declare the the timber sale illegal and to enjoin the agency from going forward with it.
The sale, which the government awarded to Georgia-Pacific Corp., covers 189 acres on Peters Mountain near the small community of Hematite just south of the West Virginia border. The sale is divided into eight separate plots of between 15 to 30 acres each.
Virginia's Division of Natural Heritage has estimated that the "old-growth" forest makes up 10 acres of the total sale.
By coincidence, the state agency studied the timber-sale area in 1994. Core drillings of some trees showed that they dated back to the 17th and 18th centuries with one tree specifically found to be 289 years old, said Leslie True, the division's inventory manager.
The state agency studied 3,600 acres in the general vicinity of the timber sale and found a mixture old trees and younger ones. Before the sale was approved her agency told the Forest Service that including the estimated 10 acres of old-growth forest in the sale would not have a significant impact on the area as a whole, True said.
The George Washington management plan shows the forest contains 87,900 acres of old-growth oak forest similar to that in the Hematite area. Of that old growth forest, 59,600 acres are classified as unsuitable for logging in the plan.
Unlike the practice of clear-cutting, the logging of the Hematite site would be conducted using a technique in which some specified trees are left standing, Forest Service spokesman Dave Olson said. Krichbaum, however, alleges the practice still causes severe damage to the forest.
He said if he had known the old trees were a part of the sale, he would have "made a bigger stink about it" during a public comment period before the sale was approved.
In his suit, filed Wednesday, Krichbaum, alleges that the agency misled the public about its intentions to allow the cutting of older trees until after a decision was made. The agency, he said, also failed to:
*Tell the public how the sale would affect wildlife and two native trout streams.
*Prepare an environmental study or consider alternatives to timber cutting.
*Follow its own management plan for the George Washington, which bans timber cutting on old-growth forest.
Krichbaum filed the lawsuit after his appeal to the Forest Service's regional forester in Atlanta fizzled. In addition to the Forest Service, he names both Bill Damon, supervisor of the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests, and Regional Forester Robert Joslin as defendants in the suit.
Because of the pending lawsuit, the Forest Service could not directly address Krichbaum's complaints, agency spokesman Olson said. Appeals to the agency of timber sales are fairly common but lawsuits are not, he said.
Krichbaum said he has enjoyed the forest since he was a child and the logging will harm his ability to use the area in its undisturbed state for such things as hiking, learning and spiritual sustenance. An acknowledged opponent of any timber cutting on the national forests, Krichbaum has twice before sued the agency over planned timber sales.
Over 99 percent of the ancient forest in the Eastern United States are gone, Krichbaum said. "How precious and sensitive does a place have to be for these guys to treat it with the respect it deserves and leave it alone?" he asked.
"Once it's gone," he said, "it can never be put back."
LENGTH: Medium: 75 linesby CNB