Seeing the forests for the trees

CHARLOTTESVILLE — After eight years of holding their ground, environmental groups now see a chance to advance proposals that could have a lasting effect on thousands of acres of Virginia national forests.

“People are knocking on the door, trying to get the administration’s attention and Congress’ attention,” said David Hannah, conservation director of Wild Virginia.

The Charlottesville-based group focuses on conservation-related issues in the George Washington National Forest.

Hannah said the changing of the guard in Washington signals a better chance for key efforts in Virginia’s George Washington and Jefferson national forests by Wild Virginia and allies, including:

* Expanding Virginia acreage designated as Wilderness or National Scenic Areas, and

* Permanently barring commercial logging and new road building on thousands of acres of national forest by making a 2001 rule that governs forest roadless areas a law.

At the same time, a landmark revision of the George Washington National Forest management plan is nearly finished, adding another element to a rolling boil of issues for a state that has more national forest than almost any other east of the Mississippi River.

Ridge and Valley Act

Already, legislation is moving through Congress that would designate 54,000 acres in the Jefferson National Forest as new or expanded wilderness or national scenic areas. Most of that land is in Southwest Virginia.

The Virginia Ridge and Valley Act is part of a larger bill that dates back to 2004 and includes dozens of other state-specific proposals, but just now appears poised to clear both chambers of Congress and collect the signature of President Barack Obama.

In previous years, the proposed Virginia act stalled along with similar bills. Last year, however, lawmakers rolled more than 100 proposals into what’s known as an omnibus bill, attracting support from enough members of Congress that most believe it won’t get hung up again.

The Senate already passed the bill and the House of Representatives is expected to consider it this month.

Land designated as wilderness can be used for hiking, camping, hunting, fishing and other traditional purposes. But the designation also bars mechanized equipment and vehicles, including chain saws and mountain bikes.

Creating this set of new Jefferson Forest wilderness areas has widespread, but not unanimous, support among local, state and federal elected officials, as well as strong backing from environmental and recreational groups in Southwest Virginia.

But the idea of pushing through even more areas as wilderness in the George Washington National Forest — a process that depends in part on the structure of the revised management plan — continues to divide people.

Forest management

On a cold early February night, some 100 people crowded into an elementary school gymnasium in Woodstock to hear the U.S. Forest Service outline its latest thinking on a management plan for the 1.1 million-acre George Washington National Forest.

The plan update is the first in 15 years. (Jefferson National Forest operates under a separate plan, updated in 2004.) It addresses wilderness areas, old growth forests, logging, roads, wind energy, prescribed burning and more.

That meeting and others held before it were the place to try to nudge the Forest Service toward stronger protections or, conversely, less regulation.

In Woodstock, those gathered in the gym got the clearest signals yet about the new plan, expected in draft form this spring.

“We haven’t had any fistfights yet,” forest planner Ken Landgraf joked as he opened the meeting up for public comments.

The Forest Service recommendation to identify four new or expanded wilderness areas in the new plan drew comments from both sides — each somewhat critical for different reasons.

For Lynn Cameron of Mt. Crawford, the four areas are good news, but she and others said the Forest Service isn’t going nearly far enough with its recommendation.

Some 37 areas were originally considered as possible wilderness, a designation that Congress would need to approve, as it is poised to do for the areas in Southwest Virginia.

“I’m disappointed you didn’t recommend more,” said Cameron, who had hopes for the Beech Lick Knob area in Rockingham County, which didn’t make the preliminary cut despite being identified earlier as a strong candidate.

Others said Virginia already has enough wilderness territory. (The last wilderness created before the Ridge and Valley Act was in 2000, when Congress designated two areas in Nelson County — Three Ridges and The Priest.)

Dusty Rhodes, who owns property in Dayton and Somerset, questioned if new wilderness areas might restrict access to private property over roads that cut through national forest property. Landgraf said he couldn’t imagine any such restriction, but Rhodes wasn’t convinced.

“It bothers me a lot that it’s kind of a back-door approach to eminent domain,” he said during an interview. “What is the purpose of a wilderness? What’s wrong with the George Washington National Forest now?”

At its Feb. 5 meeting, the Forest Service said it would likely recommend designating more than 20,000 acres of forestland as wilderness:

* An addition to the existing Ramsey’s Draft Wilderness, located in northwest Augusta County.

* An addition to the St. Mary’s Wilderness in Augusta County.

* An addition to the Rich Hole Wilderness in Alleghany County.

* Creation of a new Little River Wilderness, mostly located in northwest Augusta.

“It’s not like we aren’t considering any more, but these are the four that kind of rose to the top of the 37,” Landgraf said in a telephone interview.

Even if those four areas end up as final recommendations from the Forest Service to Congress, political hurdles exist on the local level. The boards of supervisors in Augusta, Alleghany and Rockingham counties have passed resolutions against designating any new wilderness in their counties.

The management plan includes myriad other closely watched items that deal with stream buffers, water quality and new or expanded protections for areas deemed “special biological areas.”

The revised management plan, based on the new details from Woodstock, would increase acreage of those areas from 70,000 to 112,000. Those areas are managed individually to protect rare plant or animal communities.

Roadless rules

The revised forest plan also projects keeping management rules in place for thousands of acres of roadless areas that would mostly prohibit road building and restrict — but not bar — logging.

Back in Washington, environmental groups have high hopes for congressional action that would set the course nationwide on the roadless issue and all but rule out logging in those areas.

President Bill Clinton in 2001 backed a new Roadless Area Conservation Rule that barred any new roads or commercial timber cutting on national forest property that the U.S. Forest Service had already included in its official inventory of roadless areas. (Exceptions were made for fire prevention and other safety issues.)

Virginia includes about 400,000 acres of inventoried roadless areas, as well as thousands of additional acres that environmental groups have urged the Forest Service to assess for a place in the official inventory. The state’s roadless territory is the largest east of the Mississippi River.

Bush put the rule on hold, and in 2005 axed it in favor of a system that would have states individually file petitions to make roadless areas off-limits. Virginia was among states filing such a petition.

What followed was a series of legal challenges, rulings, injunctions and ongoing debate that remains tangled.

“It was in limbo the entire time in the Bush administration,” said David Carr, public lands director for the Charlottesville-based Southern Environmental Law Center.

SELC, Wild Virginia and other groups hope the new Congress and Obama will improve the chance that the original 2001 roadless rule can be made permanent through legislation.

“In the last eight years you had an executive who wouldn’t sign the bill,” Carr said.

Still, groups ranging from timber companies to some hunting and off-road vehicle groups suggest that forest management is tilting toward strategies that favor only preservation interests.

In written comments submitted to the Forest Service, logging company owner Judd Smith of Covington urged the service to allow more timber harvest and a better balance of rules for different forest users.

“The sale of more timber will provide for better wildlife habitat, better deer, turkey and grouse hunting, more jobs and a healthy forest for the future generations,” Smith wrote. “No more preservation set asides.”

McGregor McCance is Managing Editor of the Daily Progress in Charlottesville.

Roadless acreage

Inventoried national forest roadless areas by state:

SOURCE: U.S. FOREST SERVICE