Virginia Forest Watch posts photos of proposed timber sale areas
June 20, 2005

Several photos of areas proposed for timber sales in the GW-JNF have been posted on the VAFW website.

These photos, taken by VAFW staffer Sherman Bamford, show areas threatened by timber sales in the James River, Lee, and Deerfield Ranger Districts.

These pictures can be viewed by going to the VAFW webpage http://www.virginiaforestwatch.org/monitor.html , then click on the appropriate Ranger District.




DOF Best Management Practices Report
Forestry Department, Virginia Tech

May 19, 2005   "the reports..suggest there is still room for improvement"   Highlights of the water quality law and BMP inspection reports:
• The VDOF conducted more than 5000 water quality/BMP inspections in 2004.
• The Department issued 140 notices for “failure to notify” (form 146) in 2004.
• They issued 523 “water quality protection recommendations” (form143) in 2004.
• The VDOF issued 78 “final orders” (water quality violations that were not corrected
voluntarily) and assessed a total of $433,700.36 in penalties in 2004.
• The November 2004 BMP Audit of 29 randomly selected recent harvest sites found:
    - An “effort to apply BMPs” was evident on all 29 sites (100%).
    - All applicable BMPs were implemented according to VDOF standards as
    described in the BMP Manual on 10% of the sites.
    - Active sedimentation existed at 14% of the sites audited, while the potential for sedimentation existed on an additional 14%.
    - Seeding of landings, stream crossings, roads, and skid trails were deemed
    inadequate at 21 of the 29 sites. This was noted as a special concern.
    - Overall BMP implementation quality for the 29 sites was rated at 2.7, on a scale where 1 = poor, 2 = fair, 3 = good, 4 = excellent.  

"While considerable documented effort is going into minimizing water quality impacts from timber harvesting in Virginia, the reports presented at this meeting suggest there is still room for improvement."  Bob Shaffer  (VT-Forestry Dept)




(Scott County Couple Protects Old Forest)
 By Shannon Brennan Lynchburg News Advance    6/9/05

sbrennan@newsadvance.com
(434) 385-5561

Steve Brooks said being in the forest he owns in southwest Virginia is a spiritual experience, and it’s one he hopes to preserve for future generations.

Brooks and his wife Maxine Kenny have entered an agreement with the 500-Year Forest Foundation, a Lynchburg-based group dedicated to preserving old-growth forests. The foundation helps pay for studies and management plans to preserve such forests.

The group is targeting properties with 100 acres of continuous forest with trees approaching 100 years of age. But that’s a difficult task in Virginia, where most of the land was clear-cut during the first half of the last century.

This is the second forest under contract with the foundation, which was started eight years ago by Ted Harris.

“Steve Brooks and Maxine Kenny make another outstanding team for our second forest,” Harris said.

Brooks is executive director of Virginia Forest Watch, which is leading an effort to improve forest management practices on both private and public forestlands. Kenny has produced many public radio features of forestry issues.

The couple has already placed their 200-acre property in Scott County under a conservation easement with the Virginia Outdoors Foundation.

Their 148-acre forest varies in altitude from 1,800 to 2,800 feet within the Clinch Valley Bioreserve, which has been designated as one of the “Last Great Places on Earth” by The Nature Conservancy.

The Brooks/Kenny forest includes 30 acres of trees ranging from an estimated 100 to 250 years old, along with a younger forest of trees down the mountainside that are 30 to 90 years old.

“It’s a very special place to be,” Brooks said, adding that forests that age are rare on private land.

Some of the oldest trees are chestnut oaks, which are not that large — in the 32- to 40-inch-diameter range — because they grow on a high, dry ridge at the top. Down below, some of the poplars and buckeyes are not as old, but are larger thanks to moister soil, Brooks said.

“The Brooks-Kenny Tract does indeed, exhibit old growth characteristics at the present time,” David Richert of the Natural Heritage Program concluded in his initial report for the 500-Year Foundation.

“Perhaps as much as one fifth of the property (50 acres) may fall into this stand class, an impressive figure, considering the efforts expended by Southwest Virginia’s timber companies in the early 1900s to remove all merchantable timber to feed the growing nation’s demand for forest products.”

Jeff Smith, program coordinator for the 500-Year Forest Foundation, has visited the forest twice and said, “It feels very primordial.”

Smith said the forest could serve as a core preserve for other forests near it.

The foundation hopes to establish connecting corridors of old forests to retain their biological diversity. Apart from providing wildlife habitat, forests reduce the effects of global warming, allow for groundwater recharge and provide protection for surface sources of drinking water.

The foundation’s first project is a 176-acre forest in Albemarle County owned by Jean and Hal Kolb. They started working with the foundation late last fall, and have established 12 permanent study plots in their forest.

The study has already revealed a lot about the history of the Kolbs’ forest. Tree corings and ring counts document a major fire in 1930. Stands of yellow poplar indicate areas cleared for agriculture in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The couple is also recording bird and other species, and removing non-native invasive plants as they find them.

About 66 percent — or 10 million acres — of Virginia’s 15.8 million acres of forests are owned by private individuals. Federal and state government own 2.1 million acres, while non-forestry corporations hold 2 million acres. Only 1 million acres are owned by the forest industry.

Anyone interested in the 500-Year Forest Foundation can contact Ted Harris at (434) 384-2324 or check www.500yearforestfdn.org.

Message from Dogwood Alliance
 
I wanted to let you know that the new edition of Understories is now available for you to read on our website, http://www.dogwoodalliance.org/about/unders.php
 
This quarter’s newsletter features:
 
“Scientists from Across the South Call on the SFI to Overhaul Its Standards”
Monitoring Your Local Forests
Janisse Ray’s New Book: Pinhook The TN Cave Salamander
 
Thank you for your support, and please pass this along to any friends that may be interested.
  
Scot Quaranda
Communications Director
Dogwood Alliance
http://www.dogwoodalliance.org




Montana Governor Requests Help for Roadless Study

By JENNIFER McKEE
Gazette State Bureau

HELENA - Gov. Brian Schweitzer told the Bush administration Tuesday that
Montana values the more than 6 million acres of roadless federal lands in
the state, but cannot afford to launch the analysis of the lands Bush has
proposed.

Schweitzer said at a press conference the state needs roughly $9 million and
500 of the more than 2,300 Forest Service employees in Montana to get the
job done.

"That would be a good place to start," he said.

Schweitzer also sent a letter to President Bush Tuesday further outlining
his feelings about the administration's plan for federal roadless areas
unveiled in May. That plan would let governors decide what happens to the
roadless areas in their states.

Montana contains just under 6.4 million acres of designated roadless areas,
excluding the state's federal wilderness areas.

Bush's plan gives governors 18 months to submit their ideas to the Forest
Service on how the lands should be managed and whether they should remain in
a semi-wild, roadless state. The plans may also require states to show how
their proposed management plans would maintain wildlife habitat, reduce the
risk of wildfire, ensure that citizens have access to private lands within
the areas and other information, Forest Service information shows.

Governors are not required to submit their ideas.
Decisions about roadless lands for which governors do not submit proposals
rest with local national forests.

Writing and defending such a rule would cost the state money, Schweitzer
said. And Montana doesn't have it.

He estimated that since Montana's roadless areas constitute about a quarter
of the Forest Service land in the state, the state would need about a
quarter of the agency's resources to adequately write a management plan.
That's about $9 million and 500 employees.

Short of that, Schweitzer said, he's going to begin meeting with county
commissioners around the state to see what they think ought to happen with
the roadless lands. He expects to host a final conference in Helena of all
commissioners to finalize their thoughts.

"We'll put something together," he said.

Schweitzer stressed in both his letter and at the press conference that
roadless lands are important to Montana tourism, clean drinking water,
hunting, grazing and hiking, and it doesn't make economic sense to build
roads into them.

He also faulted the president for forcing states to again to assume what
should be a federal responsibility.

"The Forest Service has been trying to resolve this issue for upwards of 30
years with little or no success," Schweitzer's letter to Bush read. "Now
your administration, without the benefit of public hearings, has issued a
final rule that asks the states to shoulder this burden both
administratively and financially."

Undersecretary of Agriculture Mark Rey said that while Schweitzer probably
won't get the 500 Forest Service employees and $9 million he requested,
Schweitzer's hopes of maintaining Montana's roadless areas will very likely
come true.

"I think it's highly likely that we and the state will hammer out something
that is mutually agreeable," Rey said.

Rey said other states have also asked for federal help in writing their
proposals for roadless areas.
However, he said the Bush administration's plan never envisioned governors
preparing exhaustive and expensive management plans.

"Obviously, if the governor wants to produce something that detailed, we
certainly wouldn't say no," Rey said. "It's not our intent nor is it
specified in our regulations that governors have to do that."

He also said the administration's rule came in response to a Western
Governors Association's resolution that requested more input on the fate of
roadless areas.

"If we're passing any bucks here, they're bucks the governors have been
asking for," Rey said.

Nonetheless, Rey said states will have to spend money on the proposals. The
Forest Service pegs state costs from $10,000 to $25,000.

Rey said that while there's no money in the 2005 budget to help states pay
for the plans, the 2006 federal budget currently under construction might
contain money for governors.

Representatives for several outdoors groups said that while they applaud the
governor's stance on preserving roadless areas, they hope more than just
county commissioners will get to weigh in on the plan.

"I hope that over the next four months that he listens to all Montanans,"
said John Gatchell, conservation director for the Montana Wilderness
Association.

- The Billings Gazette




Forest Service Changes Fee Programs  

Dear Friends,

Early this week the Forest Service is announcing nationwide changes to their recreation fee programs, apparently to make them consistent with the new fee law, HR 3283, which we know as the Recreation Access Tax, or the RAT. 
Two problems stand out - firstly, the Forest Service is not actually bringing its fee program into line with HR 3283 and secondly, they are creating a new fee category that is a totally fictitious interpretation of the law - that is High Impact Recreation Areas. 

Thank you once again for all you have done to protest public lands recreation fees.  It's thanks to the continued pressure from around the country that the Forest Service is even pretending to change their fee programs this week.  We will need to keep up the calls and faxes to our legislators in DC to make the Forest Service toe the line and eventually to repeal the RAT.

Below is the text of a press release that went out on Monday 6.13.05, describing the fee program changes.

Yours, Alasdair Coyne, Keep Sespe Wild

------------------------------------------

In a move greeted with cautious optimism by forest fee opponents around the nation, the US Forest Service is announcing plans early this week to roll back parts of the Adventure Pass recreation fee program, whereby parked cars in the four Southern California National Forests have been required to display a pass.  Changes to Los Padres Forest fee sites may be viewed, when posted Monday or Tuesday, online at  www.fs.fed.us/r5/lospadres

The Forest Service is attempting to bring the former Recreation Fee Demo Program, enacted in 1996, into compliance with new fee legislation (HR 3283) passed as an appropriations bill rider in December 2004.  HR 3283 allows recreation fees at sites with six amenities present - a toilet, picnic tables, designated parking, an interpretive sign, a trash can and security services.

"Fee opponents have some reason to celebrate.  Their efforts have led to a number of backcountry trailheads being dropped from the fee program," states Alasdair Coyne, Conservation Director of Keep Sespe Wild, a Ventura County based watershed group.  "The Forest Service is also creating fee categories, such as fees at High Impact Recreation Areas, a designation with no basis in the new law and which meets none of the law's requirements for fee sites," he continues.  Further, "the Forest Service's statement that 95% of Los Padres Forest will now be fee free, presents no change from before.  The Adventure Pass has only been required up until now along roads in the forest."

Forest fee opponents are pressing Congress for public hearings on the Forest Service's implementation of the new fee legislation.  They are also calling for the repeal of HR 3283, legislation they note is full of inconsistencies and contradictions, as well as substantial criminal penalties, including jail time.
The state legislatures of Alaska, Colorado, Montana and Oregon have recently passed resolutions opposing HR 3283.  (Alaska's has only passed the lower chamber to date.)

For your information, here are links to the text of HR 3283, the Forest Service's new Fee Guidelines and an analysis of them produced by the Western Slope No Fee Coalition.

The full text of the bill can be viewed at:  www.sespewild.org/HR3283.html
Fee Guidelines:  www.sespewild.org/fsfeeguidelines.html
Analysis: www.sespewild.org/fsfeeguidelinesanalysis.html