Poor Policy - -

Globe and Case Camp Timber Sales

Blowing Rock Citizens Asking USFS To Delay a Cut And Run in a scenic area of western North Carolina.

        On June 30, 2006, the Forest Service released an environmental assessment of the Globe timber sale involving hundreds of acres of the Pisgah National Forest . The area is used by many residents and tourists for outdoor activities, and it is a view cherished by the locals.
      The Forest Service identifies the Globe Project as eleven miles northwest of Lenoir, while a more apt description puts it about one mile from the town of Blowing Rock, NC.    “This appears to be intentional,” said Lamar Marshall, Executive Director of Wild South. “The Forest Service knows that the people of Blowing Rock don’t want to see their National Forest cut down, poisoned and sold to timber companies. They want the Forest left alone in its natural condition. Hikers and joggers don’t want to be in an area where hundreds of acres have been poisoned with triclopyr.”  Triclopyr is a herbicide used for woody plant control along rights-of-way,  industrial sites, and to prepare forested land for replanting.
           Pertinent facts on the Globe Timber Sale are:
>>231 acres of "two-aged shelterwood cuts" that will remove most of the marketable trees, leave the standing trees for maybe 15 years, then come back and cut the remaining trees as  well These cuts will remove 80% of the basal area or more.  They do not want it called a "clear cut".
>>Build 1.1 miles of logging roads and re-open 1.2 miles of old roads
>>Treat the 231 acres with Garlon 3A herbicide, still calling this "early successional habitat"? Also treat for invasive plants along roads.
>>Clearcut 2 miles along Frankum Road and 2.4 miles of Thunderhole Road in order to “daylight ” them by cutting everything within 15 feet of the road.  Maybe this is to promote the growth of grasses and forbs in the road?
>>Create log landings and skidding paths.  The paths normally go straight up or down steep hills to the logging decks on the ridges or in the valleys.
>>311 acres of old growth timber will be designated.  The thrown bone?
           The environmental assessment requires the Forest Service to notify the public, but this notification was so well concealed that they received only eight comments.   Opponents of the proposal contend that there is plenty of cleared wild turkey and private property surrounding the public land, and that cutting hundreds of acres of National Forest is a poor use of a shared resource and does not protect watersheds.
         Before the Forest Service can make a final decision on a project that involves ground-disturbing activities such as timber sales, road-building, sanitation thinning, herbiciding invasive aliens, or daylighting roadsides, they are required by law to notify the public and allow them to submit written or oral comments expressing their concerns. The agency then must address the public comments.
        Next, the law requires the Forest Service to consider a “range of alternatives” from which they choose a “preferred alternative.” One very important alternative is called the “no action” alternative where nothing is done. The Forest Service has already rejected this alternative for the Globe area on the grounds that it wasn’t compatible with their North Carolina Forest Plan.  How is that?
        “The people of Blowing Rock deserve to have a public hearing with the Forest Service present to answer questions about this issue before they make a final decision,” Marshall said. “Blowing Rock is noted for its incredible views of the places the Forest Service will ruin by cutting the trees down. Tourism and recreation are not compatible with industrial forestry practices. This has to be stopped!”
          What you can do:
Exercise your right to participate in the decision-making process that manages your National Forests.   Contact Joy Malone, District Ranger for the Grandfather District, Pisgah National Forest
         Tell her the citizens of Blowing Rock were not sufficiently notified of the Globe Project.      Tell her that Blowing Rock is ten miles closer to this project than Lenoir, so why was Blowing Rock left out?

         Insist that the Forest Service make a public presentation in Blowing Rock before the August 10th deadline or that they will extend the deadline of the comment period.

          The citizens of Blowing Rock have a right to submit their comments.

Joy Malone
District Ranger, Grandfather District Pisgah National Forest

109 E. Lawing Drive
Nebo, N.C. 28761-9827
PHONE 828-652-2144
email: jmalone@fs.fed.us

The saga continues:

      Blowing Rock's Town Council on Thursday unanimously opposed a controversial U.S. Forest Service plan to log 231 acres nearby and asked the agency to create a special "scenic view" designation for the area to be logged.
      Critics say they didn't learn of the logging plan until a few days before Thursday's deadline.  The Forest Service also agreed to extend a comment period on the plan to Aug. 18 after Sen. Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C., contacted it on behalf of local residents.
       Residents worry the logging would mar scenic views and cause environmental problems.  Located at 3,586 feet, the mountain resort town offers many spectacular views.  Commissioners in Watauga County, which includes Blowing Rock, sent a letter protesting the logging plan on Tuesday. A council resolution cited "serious concerns about the negative ramifications of this project on property values, tourism, recreational income and wildlife."  
       The acreage to be logged would be in 18 parcels over several square miles south and west of Blowing Rock.   The Forest Service says that up to 30 percent of the  tree canopy would be left intact and that edges would be "softened" around cut areas to make them less
noticeable.

An environmental analysis of the project is online at
www.cs.unca.edu/nfsnc/nepa/grandfather/globe_ea.pdf 

The North Shore Road Boondoggle

The Park Service has prepared a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) to construct a "North Shore Road" on the north side of Fontana Lake in western North Carolina. The project will build 34 miles of hiway through a part of the Great Smokey Mountains National Park that is the largest unbroken tract of mountain forest in the eastern United States. The Park Service acknowledges that it would have major adverse and long-term environmental impacts, yet powerful interests bulldoze on.

While the DEIS does not identify a preferred alternative, it indicates that the environmentally preferred alternative is a monetary settlement to the local county without building the road. The road is to compensate Swain County, NC, for the loss of a county road in 1943 when TVA built Fontana Dam.

While the National Park Service's Draft Environmental Impact Statement for this proposed road clearly shows what we stand to lose, the answer to the question of who stands to gain from it remains a secret. Certainly it is not people who have been reassured that they will have free transportation to old cemetaries whenever they want.

Swain County, nearby towns, and the State of North Carolina have all gone on record that they do not want the road built, and prefer a payment of $52 million to the county. This is a fraction of the estimated $ 590 million taxpayers would pay, and $14 million per year in maintenance costs, not to mention the environmental costs. To access some cemetaries? Come on!!!!

The National Park Service has publicly acknowledged that the highway would serve no transportation need, and would jeopardize the agency s mission to protect the biological and cultural resources of the Park. Yet they truck on!

The road would involve three massive suspension bridges, each one roughly the length of the Brooklyn Bridge. It will cut through rugged finger ridges of unstable pyritic rock, making a giant, self-enlarging scar on the land. When this rock is exposed, it produces sulfuric acid and heavy metals that will leach into the 141 streams and watercourses of one of the South's richest coldwater fisheries.

The monetary settlement is by far the most reasonable alternative for the taxpayer, the county, and the Park.  Long-term impacts to the environment are far too great to put aside and allow a single congreeman to push his egotistical interests ahead of everything else.

For more, visit:

Southern Appalachian Forest Coalition

Linking to our Allies in NC:

Southern Appalachian Forest Coalition

www.safc.org

Southern Appalachian Biodiversity Project

www.sabp.org

Appalachian Voices

www.appvoices.org

Dogwood Alliance

www.dogwoodalliance.org

Southwings

http://www.southwings.org 

Environmental Defense
2500 Blue Ridge Road Suite 330
Raleigh, NC 27607
919-881-2601
members@environmentaldefense.org
www.environmentaldefense.org

North Carolina Sierra Club

PO Box 6541

Raleigh, NC   27628

North Carolina Sierra Club

North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association

PO Box 6465

Raleigh, NC    27628

North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association

North Carolina Public Interest Research Group

405B West Franklin Street

Chapel Hill, NC    27516

North Carolina Public Interest Research Group

Conservation Trust of North Carolina

1028 Washington Street

Raleigh, NC     27605

Conservation Trust of North Carolina

Western North Carolina Alliance
29 North Market Street Suite 610
Asheville, NC 28801
828-258-8737 fax 828-258-9141
Western North Carolina Alliance

North Carolina Clean Water Management Trust Fund
1651 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-1651
919-733-6375 fax 919-733-6374
www.cwmtf.net

Conservation Council of North Carolina

PO Box 12671

Raleigh, NC   27605

The Conservation Council

Land Trust for Central North Carolina

PO Box 4284

Salisbury, NC   28145

The LandTrust for Central North Carolina

North Carolina Nature Conservancy

4705 University Drive, Suite 290

Durham, NC   27707

North Carolina Nature Conservancy

North Carolina Land Trust
3896-B Park Avenue
Wilmington, NC 28403
910-790-4524 fax 910-790-0392
info@coastallandtrust.org
www.coastallandtrust.org

Clean Water for North Carolina
29 Page Avenue
Asheville, NC 28801
828-251-1291
hope@cwfnc.org or Linda@cwfnc.org

The Canary Coalition
P. O. Box 653
Dillsboro, NC 28725
1-866-4CANARY (toll free) 828-586-4620
www.canarycoalition.org

Eco-USA

http://www.eco-usa.net/orgs/nc.shtml