Jan. 30, 2009: Send Comments on GW National Forest Plan Revision Help protect and preserve the Natural Wonders and Ecological Integrity of the George Washington National Forest. - a notice from our friends at the Sierra Club.
GWNF Forest Plan Revision Review with
the Forest Service - The Forest Service is
revising its management plan for the George Washington National
Forest. This plan will determine what level of protection local
treasures such as Massanutten, Big Schloss, and Shenandoah
Mountain receive. A strong management plan would recommend
permanent protection of these areas with Wilderness, National
Scenic Area, or National Recreation Area status. A weak
management plan would endanger old growth forests and pristine
watersheds by opening them to logging and natural gas extraction.
Come tell the Forest Service that you want to protect our last
great places in Virginia. Let's show the Forest Service how
important this resource is to Northern Virginians and all
Virginians.
You can view the Forest Service's web site for this review
process at: http://www.fs.fed.us/r8/gwj/forestplan/revision/index.shtml
Date and Time - Thursday evening, March 12th @
6:45 pm - 9:00 pm. The presentation will start at 7:00 pm but
come at 6:45 to view the maps.
Location - NRECA (National Rural Electric
Cooperative Association) Building at 4301 Wilson Blvd, Arlington,
VA 22203. It's near the intersection of Wilson Blvd and Glebe Rd,
one block from the Ballston Metro stop on the Orange Line.
After-hours free parking is available in the building's parking
garage, which is entered on Taylor St.
Directions to the facility can be found at: http://www.nreca.org/ContactUs/directions.htm
The Forest Service has been holding public meetings on a
schedule of roughly 2 meetings a month since July. Earlier
meetings included important discussions on roadless and wild
areas and road and trail access. Upcoming meetings are scheduled
as follows:
FOREST PLAN COMPONENTS (Fitting the workshops and other information together toward a Draft Plan)
Upcoming meetings:
Thursday, February 5,
Time: 6:30-9:00 p.m., The location of the February 5,
2009 public workshop has been changed to W.W. Robinson Elementary
School, 1231 Susan Avenue, Woodstock, VA. This is located next
door to the Middle School.
Please attend these meetings if you can. It is important to
express your ideas to the Forest Service. Comments about the Plan
via letters, emails, phone calls and faxes are critical. The
Forest Service will continue accepting comments for the remainder
of 2008 and possibly beyond. Comments should be sent to the
George Washington-Jefferson National Forests Headquarters in
Roanoke, Virginia. Please contact the Forest Service Mailing
address: Maureen Hyzer, Forest Supervisor, George Washington
National Forest,162 Valleypointe Parkway, Roanoke, VA 24019-3050
Email address: comments-southern-georgewashington-jefferson@fs.fed.us
(Please write "Comment on George Washington Plan
Revision" in the subject line of your post.) Fax
numbers:(540) 265-5145(540) 265-5109
You can keep up to date by checking http://www.virginiaforestwatch.org/revisionplan.html
and http://www.fs.fed.us/r8/gwj/forestplan/revision/index.shtml
Two more public meetings for revising the Forest Plan of the
George Washington National Forest (GWNF) have been set for
October 29 and 30. Details are in the box below, as posted on the
GWNF website. The topic of both meetings will be road and trail
access. Please attend meetings or write to the Forest Service.
Key Points to Raise:
1.) ROADS: There are approx. 1,872 miles of
roads on the George Washington, and as of 2003, the road
maintenance backlog for the combined GW/Jefferson was about
$19.34 million. (USFS, Fiscal Year 2004 Forest Service Budget
Justification (2003)). The maintenance backlog has undoubtedly
gone up since this last report was released, due to continued low
levels of agency funding and continued roadbuilding in the
interim. This costly roads maintenance backlog should be
improved by decommissioning unneeded roads or converting them to
non-motorized trails. Roads that are negatively impacting
watersheds, soils, native plant diversity, and wildlife should be
decommissioned, where appropriate, as well. A reasonably
rapid timetable, with benchmarks, should be implemented in order
to ensure that the Forest Service substantially reduces unneeded
road mileage over the course of the next 10-15 years.
2.) ROADS: In order to protect remote habitat
for wildlife, black bears, wild turkey, and other wildlife, the
Forest Service currently uses so-called road density
requirements as a roads management tool. These road density
requirements also have other benefits, including protecting the
recreation experience, protecting water quality in important
watersheds, and ensuring peace and quiet for surrounding
neighbors. Road density requirements should remain part
of the desired condition for areas now specifically managed for
Bear, Turkey, Grouse, and other wildlife. Indeed, they
should be strengthened and should become binding standards.
Before changing any road density requirements, the Forest Service
should use peer-reviewed research and local studies to determine
what the adequate or optimal road density levels are for key
species of wildlife. Black bears are one such keystone species. A
thorough landscape-wide analysis of all threats to black bears,
(including the impacts of new road construction, four-lane
highways, residential and other development outside of
national forests) should be part of the research utilized. When
we think of the Appalachians, one of the first things that comes
to mind is the black bear. Black bears were nearly wiped out by
the early 20th century and were brought back from the brink, with
careful efforts, over subsequent decades. Let's not throw away
the gains we've made by creating new roads or opening too many
areas to vehicle traffic on Forest Service lands without a
thoughtful analysis first.
3.) TRAILS: If you have favorite trails
on the George Washington NF, cite examples of non-motorized
trail(s) on the George Washington National Forest that you are
familiar with. We must ensure that key non-motorized
trails are recognized, adequately maintained, and have fully
protected viewsheds and corridors. Some trails that you might
mention include the Appalachian Trail, the Alleghany Trail, the
Tuscarora Trail, the proposed Great Eastern Trail, the North Mtn
Trail (Lee District), the Shenandoah Mountain Trail, the Wild Oak
Trail, the Dowells Draft Trail, Rader Mtn Trail, Slate Springs
Trail, Bother Ridge Trail, Chestnut Ridge Trail, Grooms Ridge
Trail, Sand Spr. Mtn Trail, Timber Ridge Trail, Lookout Mtn
Trail, the Little Stony Trail, the Shaws Ridge Trail, the
Crawford Mountain Trail, the Chimney Hollow Trail, the North Mtn.
Trail (North River District), Walker Mtn. Trail (#488), Paddy
Knob Trail, Bogans Run Trail, Warm Springs Mtn. Trail, Piney
Ridge Trail, Little Mare Mtn Trail, Brushy Ridge Trail, Beards
Mtn Trail, Dry Run Trail, White Rocks Tower Trail, North Mtn
Trail (James River District), Oliver Mtn Trail, Jerrys Run Trail,
Bat Lick Trail, Signal Knob Trail, Massanutten Mtn Trail, Duncan
Hollow Trail, Roaring Run Trail, Mills Cr Trail, Kennedy Ridge
Trail, and Whetstone Ridge Trail. But there are many
others. Please talk about your favorite spots!
Background information about the meetings should be posted soon
at the GWNF website, www.fs.fed.us/r8/gwj/forestplan/revision/meetings.shtml.
Information on previous meetings and the planning process for the
GWNF can also be found there.
Please attend one or both meetings if you can. It is important to
express your ideas to the Forest Service.
Comments about the Plan via letters, emails, phone calls and
faxes are critical. The Forest Service will continue accepting
comments for the remainder of 2008 and possibly beyond. Comments
should be sent to the George Washington-Jefferson National
Forests Headquarters in Roanoke, Virginia. Please contact the
Forest Service:
Mailing address:
Maureen Hyzer, Forest Supervisor
George Washington National Forest
5162 Valleypointe Parkway
Roanoke, VA 24019-3050
Email address:
comments-southern-georgewashington-jefferson@fs.fed.us
(Please write "Comment on George Washington Plan
Revision" in the subject line of your post.)
Fax numbers:
(540) 265-5145
(540) 265-5109
Phone numbers:
(888) 265-0019
(540) 265-5100
The message below is from the George Washington
National Forest website:
http://www.fs.fed.us/r8/gwj/forestplan/revision/index.shtml
Workshops on Road and Trail Access
We have scheduled our two public workshops for October.
These workshops will deal with the issues surrounding
road and trail access on the forest. The workshops will
be held:
Wednesday, October 29 from 7:00 pm until 9:00 pm
Woodstock National Guard Armory
541 Hoover Road
Woodstock, VA 22664
And
Thursday, October 30 from 7:00 pm until 9:00 pm
Rockbridge High School
143 Greenhouse Road
Lexington, Virginia
The purpose of the workshops will be to further our
conversations on road and trail access. The meeting will
start with a short presentation on the issues surrounding
road and trail access and then we will have small group
discussions about the issues.
Background Materials for the October Workshops (Coming
Soon)
|
Two Public Meetings regarding Roadless Areas on the George Washington National Forest have been scheduled for September. More information and Issues to Raise
Issues to raise on George
Washington National Forest Plan Revision - Comments
were due Aug. 8, 2008.
April 2008: The Forest Service is now in the midst of revising its 15-year management plan for the George Washington National Forest. On April 11,2008, Jo Beth Brown of the Forest Service announced that the Forest Service "will resume the process of revising the George Washington Forest Plan." The Forest Service expects to start having meetings "early this summer." The agency has not formalized its schedule of public meetings yet. Initial drafts of the plan would give the Forest Service far greater leeway to log, build roads, and develop minerals on public lands (see www.fs.fed.us/r8/gwj/forestplan/revision/plan-home.shtml
). The current scheme also fails to protect special places that
the public would like to see protected, like the Toms Knob area,
the Great North Mountain area, Peters Mountain North special
biological area, and Paddy special biological area.
The 1.1 million acre GWNF covers much of mountainous northwestern
Virginia. It is a place with outstanding hiking trails, fishing
streams, old growth forests, black bear habitat, and more. The
GWNF is a remaining stronghold for southern Appalachian roadless
areas possessing 35% of all such areas on Forest Service
lands.
We expect a series of meetings, perhaps as early as the summer of 2008, covering a variety of topics, including protection of wild areas/roadless areas, rare or unique wildlife, areas suitable for logging or other activities, eligible wild and scenic rivers, trails and recreation, and other topics. You
can learn more about future opportunities to get involved by
going to www.virginiaforestwatch.org
and reviewing Our Land, Our Water, Our Home; a white
paper on our long-term vision for the GWNF (and the accompanying
short brochure, "Forests for the Future"
). The website will also have updates on future meeting dates and
comment opportunities.
The GWNF Plan Revision would be launched under the Bush
administrations 2008 Planning Regulations. On April 10,
2008, the Forest Service made its final decision on nationwide
planning regulations that, like the previous 2005 version,
substantially weaken wildlife protections and opportunities for
meaningful public participation. These regulations are
controversial and, immediately, on the next day, April 11, 2008,
were the subject of a lawsuit by fourteen conservation groups.
According to a recent article in the Environmental News Service,
"Under the Bush administration, the Forest Service attempted
to remove essentially all environmental safeguards for the
national forests with a new rule in 2005. In March 2007, however,
the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California
threw out the 2005 rule based on violations of the National
Environmental Policy Act, Endangered Species Act, and
Administrative Procedure Act. The new Forest Service rule issued
earlier this month in response to the court's 2007 decision is
nearly identical to the 2005 rule, the plaintiffs say. The 2008
rule would eliminate the long-standing requirement to ensure
viable populations of fish and wildlife species. The new rule
decreases public participation in forest planning by allowing the
Forest Service to "categorically exclude" entire forest
plans from public review and environmental analysis
requirements." (http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/apr2008/2008-04-11-092.asp.
See http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20080410/NEWS03/780680823
for an Associated Press article).
In the midst of these changes and shifting schedules, it is
important for all members of the public who care about national
forests to keep focused on two major goals: protection of the
wildlands of the GWNF and the restoration of lands degraded by
past logging, roadbuilding, and extractive development. Let's get
to know our national forests better and speak out for them when
the time comes!
Roanoke Times March 7,
2007 Editorial: Under a new rule on the forests
- Roanoke Times Columnist Elizabeth Strother writes about the
George Washington NF Plan Revision and the new rules that will
guide the process.
A call to protect the
forest - an op-ed encouraging public involvement during the
George Washington NF Plan Revision written by VAFW's Sherman
Bamford. It appeared in the February 25, 2007 Roanoke Times.
Feb. 16, 2007: Conservationists call for ecological restoration on the George Washington National Forest - A broad coalition of conservation and forest-protection groups called on the U.S. Forest Service today to focus on protecting clean water, diverse wildlife habitat, old-growth forests and remote, wild areas, as well as prime recreation spots, in updating the long-range management plan for the 1.1 million-acre George Washington National Forest in western Virginia.
| Read Press Release | "Forests for the Future" - a brochure highlighting the Citizens Vision for the GWNF.
RESOURCES:
Our Land, Our Water, Our Home - a white
paper on our long-term vision for the GWNF
"Forests for the Future" - a brochure highlighting the Citizens Vision for the GWNF.
U.S. Forest Service Home Page http://www.fs.fed.us/r8/gwj/
and GW-JNF Plan Revision webpage http://www.fs.fed.us/r8/gwj/forestplan/revision/index.shtml
Website by a coalition of Virginia groups working on the 10-15
year plan revision for the George Washington - http://www.forestsforthefuture.org