Toms Knob Area Threatened by Logging; Sierra Club
Files Appeal
Sherman Bamford
If you enjoy hiking in Virginia's Barbours Creek
Wilderness, be forewarned: There is a big, noisy timber sale planned next door.
Naturally, the Sierra Club is alarmed about the logging and has filed an
official"appeal" with the Forest Service in an effort to halt the project.
The appeal was filed in conjunction with Virginia Forest Watch.
The Toms Branch timber sale, in the James River Ranger
District of the George Washington National Forest, is a 248 acre timber sale
partially in a 3400 acre unprotected roadless area. The roadless area was
first identified under the Forest Service's RARE II roadless area evaluation in the late
1970s as part of a larger area, but is vulnerable to logging today.
The Forest Service is aiming directly for the bulls eye of
this roadless area. The logging would consist of a long swathe of
multiple cuts running across the center of this important roadless tract.
Most of the sale would be cut via helicopters.
The Forest Service is planning to build an exorbitant number of large helicopter landings
as part of the project. The Forest Service had initially told the public that
"With the use of a helicopter yarding system, very little soil disturbance is
expected to occur, when compared to conventional logging systems."
But, according to the agency's own figures, soil damage from helicopter logging could very
well be greater than that from conventional ground-based logging due to the large size of
the landings.
Helicopter logging would also allow loggers to access
remote areas and steep slopes that probably shouldn't be logged in the first place.
Elsewhere in Virginia, in the Clinch Ranger District in southwest Virginia, landslides and
flooding devastated the Stony Creek watershed below High Knob. Before the slides
occurred, the watershed was heavily impacted by steep-slope helicopter logging and other
conventional steep-slope logging.
In addition, significant older forests would be
cut down as part of this project. For example, outside of the RARE II
area, the Forest Service is proposing skidder-based logging in the fourth oldest stand
remaining in the project area.
As part of our appeal, we also objected to the
misleading nature of the document approving the sale. For example, the Forest
Service wrongly claimed that a host of forest species benefit from logging,
including the rock skullcap, a rare plant that is primarily threatened by a loss of
forest canopy; the cerulean warbler, a species typically found in extensive forests
with large, tall trees; and the worm-eating warbler, a species mainly found on
heavily wooded steep slopes, according to the latest available information.
Please write to the Forest Supervisor, George
Washington and Jefferson National Forests, 5162 Valleypointe Parkway, Roanoke, Virginia
24019 and tell him/her that you are opposed to the Toms Branch timber sale and
other logging in roadless areas, including RARE II roadless areas.*
*Two other projects are currently planned
in other RARE II roadless areas (the Cold Springs project in the Elliott Knob RARE II area
and the Paddy timber sale, in the Big Schloss RARE II area). |
