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May 05, 2004
Veneman Continues to Undermine National Forest Protections
Yesterday we joined with Clean Air Council and the Heritage Forest Campaign to mark the three year anniversary of Bush Secretary of Agriculture's Pledge to Vigorously defend the Roadless Areas Rule. This is the "healthy forests" display we had on hand in the Capital Rotunda in Harrisburg. My statement on behalf of the Allegheny Defense Project is included in the extended text (click on the image to zoom in).
Secretary Veneman Defies Common Sense, Scientific Knowledge on Roadless AreasStatement of Jim Kleissler
Forest Watch Director, Allegheny Defense Project
May 4, 2004Bush Administration Secretary of Agriculture Anne Veneman has defied Common Sense and Scientific Knowledge in proclaiming commercial logging as a solution to “healthy forests” on Earth Day in 2004. Secretary Veneman came to the Allegheny National Forest but said nothing about her broken promise to vigorously defend our Pennsylvania roadless areas. Secretary Veneman didn’t visit our roadless areas nor did she allow conservationists to join her on her Earth Day Tour. Instead she continued to provide unfettered access to the timber industry – access to her and apparently our national forest roadless areas.
The Allegheny National Forest is Pennsylvania’s only national forest. While the forest is over 513,000 acres in its entirety only 4.4% of the forest lies in inventoried roadless areas. This pales in comparison to other national forests in the Eastern Region which average more than 12% of their forest lands in inventoried roadless habitat. Yet Allegheny National Forest roadless areas remain unprotected because of Secretary Veneman’s broken promises.
The Allegheny National Forest was established in 1923 by President Coolidge in order to protect its watersheds – roadless areas are vital towards this goal. Minister Creek is recognized as a high quality watershed in part due to its position in an inventoried roadless area. Although Millstone Creek doesn’t have any inventoried roadless areas it does have seven uninventoried roadless areas totaling more than 7,000 acres. It is no coincidence that Millstone Creek has the highest diversity of dragonflies and damselflies of any other creek within the Allegheny National Forest.
Roadless Areas are important for wildlife habitat. Native wildlife species such as the Cerulean Warbler and Northern Goshawk rely on large unbroken tracts of forest in order to maintain viable nesting populations. Amphibians and reptiles often avoid roads because they leave them exposed and susceptible to predators. Roadless areas help protect our forest areas from both native and non-native invasive species that use roads as access ways into forest areas they wouldn’t otherwise thrive there. Roadless areas are full of rich wonders that help bring recreationists back to the Allegheny National forest again and again.
There are more than 4,000 miles of roads in the Allegheny National Forest that have allowed the Forest Service to log 100,000 acres and oil & gas operators to drill more than 3,000 new oil & gas wells over the last eighteen years. The Sackett Oil & Gas Field has a road density comparable to the neighboring city of Warren, Pennsylvania.
A true conservation plan for the Allegheny National Forest requires the restoration of historically impacted areas but it starts with the complete protection of our existing roadless areas. If we do not provide our Pennsylvania roadless areas with immediate protection we cannot and will not have a healthy forest in the future. If Secretary Veneman had taken a true Earth Day Tour through our last unroaded wild areas she would have understood this.
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Posted by jkleissler at May 5, 2004 06:08 PM
Comments
Jim, I think when you talk about the road density of being equal to Warren in certain areas, you are WAY LOW (12 miles of road per square mile?) ...
I think you should look at some aerial photos of some areas in the ANF ... Maps don't tell the story, but actual photos do!
See:
http://www.angelfire.com/pa2/STONEMANGUITARS/roads.html
for an example of a few areas I'm talking about.
How about 50 miles of roads in a square mile?
Stony!
Posted by: Stony at May 6, 2004 08:22 AM
There are several errors listed in your information reguarding the 44 mile ATV trail expansion.
In PA there is a Snowmobile ATV Advisory Counsel. On this 17 member board, there are 2 snowmobile riders, 2 ATV riders, several government agencies, and several serria club hiking/ biking groups. The meeting is held at the DCNR in Harrisburg.
This information about the trail expansion has been open to the public for several years.
A study done before the motorized public was restricted from the national forest stated that the A N F could sustain over 500 miles of motorised trail. The 100 miles of legal trail is so extremely over used that enviromental damage is done.
ATV riders are one of the very few that pay for a trail use permit. We get nothing for free!
The hiking trails remain closed?? Why not get a group together and open them! Hikers get many miles of trail for free with no fees, no work, and then complain when someone else ask for use of PUBLIC land. We all own this property. There are miles of paved hiking / biking trails across PA. that get very little use. Again these trails cost the useres nothing while the paying ATV riders are restricted from this public land. Many of these trails were built or kept open by ATV/ motorcycle riders until they were kicked out by persons wanting to hike the trail with out sharing.
What is needed here is a few people with some common sense and less extremist!
Posted by: Larry Merritt at June 19, 2004 05:12 PM
"Extremist" is such a loaded word! To me, taking land that belongs to everybody and opening it up to commercial extraction and industrial recreation is manifestly unfair, bordering on criminal, behavior. National polls show that around 80 percent of the public opposes this use of their public land. But since land-rape is the behavior favored by corporations and their spokespeople in Congress, the media treat it as the norm against which all other views must be measured.
I have been to state forest meetings where the non-forester consituency disagreed about almost everything else, but you bring up ATVs and suddenly everyone is in agreement: they ruin it for everyone. This is another example where a small but obnoxious community with powerful connections is allowed to run roughshod - sometimes literally - over everyone else. Why does the USFS love ATVs? Because they are one of the few uses compatible with land-rape, thus permitting them to maintain the fig leaf of "multiple use."
Posted by: Dave at June 29, 2004 08:14 PM
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