February 5, 2001

For Immediate Release
Contact: Rachel Martin, (814) 223-4996

Landmark Hearing Draws Large Crowd

One hundred citizens pack into Sheffield, PA, Fire Hall to Voice Concerns about Massive Logging Project

Sheffield, PA - Fifty citizens from around the region provided oral and written testimony Saturday afternoon in the first public hearing for a timber sale in the past seven years on the Allegheny National Forest.

The public hearing, moderated by University of Pittsburgh at Bradford professor Dr. Steve Robar, was organized to hear testimony regarding the East Side Timber Sale, an 8,600-acre logging project planned for Pennsylvania's Allegheny National Forest.

The U.S. Forest Service, who planned the East Side Timber Sale, was notably absent but one hundred people traveled from a broad geographic area to be involved.

"It was an incredible showing," explained Jim Kleissler, Forest Watch Director with the Allegheny Defense Project. The citizens group based in Clarion, Pennsylvania organized the public hearing along with the Sierra Club and Communities for Sustainable Forestry. "More than 2,000 people commented in one way or another on the East Side Timber Sale and over 180 requested a public hearing."

The Forest Service responded unfavorably to the first 69 requests for a public hearing in their Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) claiming that "No specific requests for public meetings were received."

"People were really baffled by the Forest Service's failure to attend a public hearing about their own logging project," said Ryan Talbott, a resident of Marienville, PA, nearby the national forest. "The Forest Service's slogan is supposed to be 'Caring for the land, Serving the People' but look at what they are doing - clearcutting the land and ignoring the people."

Citizens came from all over representing a large variety of conservation organizations. College students from Buffalo, New York, Sierra Club activists from Philadelphia, PA, Audubon members from Erie, Pennsylvania, a school teacher from near Columbus, Ohio, graduate students from Penn State University, and a representative of a Christian organization in Titusville, PA, were all in attendance.

The message was overwhelmingly in opposition to the massive East Side Timber Sale. Although they were invited, pro-logging interests boycotted the event claiming that they were concerned that more public involvement would delay the logging project.

** Video tapes of the hearing are available upon request.

Testimony Given at the East Side Timber Sale Public Hearing

February 3, 2001
Sheffield, Pennsylvania

"It's not just some extreme environmental groups that are concerned about protecting the forests. Many Christians that are on the wrong side of the issue need to go back to their Bible and see what it says. Genesis 2:15 says "You were created to guard and protect the Earth." - David Prather, Titusville, PA

"I am not proud to be standing here today doing the U.S. Forest Service's job, which is to hold a public hearing to provide concerned citizens an opportunity to comment on the largest timber sale in the eastern United States." - Bill Belitskus, Communities for Sustainable Forestry, Kane, PA

"Logging on the national forests has made it a lot more difficult to do logging on private property sustainably." - Frank McMahon, college student, Indiana University of Pennsylvania

"The Forest Service needs to conduct a new thorough analysis of the effects associated with the application of the active ingredients of Roundup, Accord and Oust." - Vicki Smedley, President, Pennsylvania Environmental Network (PEN)

"I think you will all agree with me that losing the forests would be a tragedy." - Jaymes Thompson, 8 years old, Buffalo, New York

"As a teacher and an artist, I use materials whose origin is in the forest. Nonetheless, I question the current push to harvest thousands of acres of our national forest in the name of 'forest health'." - Tom Bachelder, schoolteacher, Shiloh, Ohio

"You are changing our natural biota into a very unnatural crop which could be highly susceptible to climate change or any type of disease that would devastate what we have left of the Allegheny National Forest" - Richard Whiteford, Northeast organizer, Sierra Club

"I'd like to remind the Forest Service that they're accountable to us, because this is public land. The public does not support this project. The public wants an end to commercial logging. That's why this project is not accountable to the public." - Kristen Ruether, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

##