The Rape of Rabun Bald
Forest Service okays massive timber cuts in wilderness area
BY BUZZ WILLIAMS
On Nov. 3, Forest Supervisor of the Chattahoochee National Forest,
George Martin, signed the papers to implement the controversial Tuckaluge
Project.
The project, as currently designed, would extract more than eight
million board feet of timber from the previously inventoried Rabun Bald
Roadless Area in the Chattooga River watershed, and develop more than nine
miles of road in the Tuckaluge Creek drainage.
The decision dismisses an overwhelming public outcry against the
project, ignores contemporary scientific opinion, disqualifies the
proposed 14,000-acre Rabun Bald area from the current roadless area
inventory, and demonstrates U.S. Forest Service inflexibility by failing
to consider any alternative to the project's present design.
Martin's decision ignores scientific guidance and misuses the research
produced by the Forest Service's three-year Chattooga River Basin
Ecosystem Management Demonstration Project, which was funded by $ 1.5
million in taxpayer money.
The consequences of implementing the Tuckaluge Project include the
loss of scarce, critical habitats for the Rabun Bald area's unique plants
and animals, and sedimentation of the Tuckaluge Creek drainage, whose
pristine waters are documented as native brook trout habitat. This
sedimentation would be the result of the project's road-development.
New road building on public lands in the Chattooga watershed directly
contradicts the recommendation of the Forest Service's $60,000 study,
which states, "A significant reduction in the density of open graveled and
unsurfaced roads would have a greater influence on water quality in the
Chattooga watershed than any other single recommendation.."
Paul Carlson, lead researcher for the Forest Service Demonstration
Project's study on old growth forest, said, "The high ridges of the Rabun
Bald area contain one of the greatest concentrations of old growth forest
remaining in the entire Chattooga watershed."
Regarding the loss of critical habitats, former Forest Service
researcher, Dr. Robert Zahner, professor emeritus of forestry at Clemson
University (and endorsed by former President Jimmy Carter to serve on a
biodiversity "committee of scientists") said, "The construction of more
roads in, and the fragmentation of one of the largest areas of relatively
mature forest remaining in the Chattooga watershed is unacceptable to me.
The disturbance resulting from the removal of over eight million board
feet of timber, no matter how carefully accomplished, in my opinion will
effectively destroy the integrity of the area."
Forest Supervisor Martin has ignored an overwhelming display of public
opposition to the Tuckaluge Project. A month-long vigil atop Rabun Bald
protesting the proposed project drew the support of more than 300
citizens. Some 150 people attended a public meeting with Forest Service
officials, representing a very broad cross-section of citizens who clearly
expressed strong opinions to either stop the project altogether or create
an alternative design that would be smaller and less destructive.
In addition, a solid majority of written public responses recorded in
the Forest Service's project file oppose the Tuckaluge project.
If implemented, the road building activity associated with the
Tuckaluge Project would disqualify the previously inventoried Rabun Bald
Roadless Greats outstanding 14,000-acre block of undisturbed forest from
inclusion in the Forest Service's current roadless area inventory.
Once inventoried, management direction for these critical areas can be
decided in the full public forum of the upcoming Forest Plan revision
process but only if their existence is recognized and tallied up in the
inventory process now underway.
Unfortunately, Martin has preempted this inventory process with his
decision on the proposed Tuckaluge Project. He has demonstrated total
inflexibility by not considering or offering any alternative compromise
proposal, such as the one carefully designed by Dr. Zahner and the
Chattooga River Watershed Coalition.
This alternative would allow a smaller, more environmentally sensitive
timber sale to go forward, while maintaining the ecological integrity of
the Rabun Bald area and the Tuckaluge Creek basin.
The forest supervisor's decision to implement the Tuckaluge Project in
spite of overwhelming public opposition, scientific guidance to the
contrary, the incomplete inventory process, and without considering or
offering any alternative proposal constitutes extreme inflexibility by
Forest Service officials. Martin and the agency he represents are
unwilling to work constructively with the public to conserve the vital
natural resources that the Forest Service holds in trust for the American
people.
Buzz Williams is executive director of the Chattooga River
Watershed Coalition.
