Allegheny Forest Salvage Logging Called Illegal

LUDLOW, Pennsylvania, May 13, 2004 (ENS) - U.S. Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth toured logging projects in the Allegheny National Forest Monday that conservationists contend are illegal, but he did not resolve their concerns.

Despite controversy over a previous tour with Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, the USDA Forest Service offered no invitation to conservationists but did give in to their requests and allow the concerned citizens on the Bosworth tour. Veneman used an Earth Day visit to support commercial logging in the Allegheny, a position that does not sit well with local conservationists.

They are particularly concerned about plans for a 6,000 acre salvage logging operation that federal officials are seeking to exclude from detailed public involvement and environmental analysis. The trees were blown down by a storm last July, and logging companies and the federal government wish to salvage the wood.

The citizen groups say downed trees are natural and healthy for the forest environment. They presented their case to Bosworth while he toured the area at issue.

Ryan Talbott, Forest Watch coordinator for the Allegheny Defense Project, said, "Today we presented Chief Bosworth with incontrovertible scientific evidence that trees downed by last summer's storm are a benefit to the Allegheny National Forest while ongoing preferential management for black cherry over other native species, including this new 6,000 acre salvage logging project, is creating documented forest health problems.”

The conservation groups offered Bosworth numerous research papers documenting how extensive salvage logging creates unhealthy forests while forest trees downed by last summer’s storm are essential to maintaining a healthy Allegheny National Forest.

"Windstorm events are a vital part of a healthy Allegheny National Forest as they provide downed woody debris otherwise missing throughout much of the forest," said Rachel Martin, an ecologist with the Allegheny Defense Project.

"Dead and downed trees provide important habitat for birds, salamanders, and small mammals, and are a vital source of nutrients for tree seedlings. Ecologically, dead and downed wood is as important to a healthy forest as live trees," Martin said.

Salvage logging is an economic, not an ecological concept, the conservationists say, to make their point that these trees should be left where they are - on the ground.

Part of the problem, the conservationists say, is a designation for salvage logging known as categorial exclusion. Twenty projects covering 1,000 acres in the Allegheny National Forest are proposed for this designation.

The categorical exclusion allows the Forest Service to hold shorter public comment periods, limit comment opportunities to a single timeframe, and to sidestep the normally required environmental assessments of the impacts that logging projects will have.

In this case, the conservationists say, the law explicitly prohibits the Forest Service from breaking up the salvage logging response to a July 2003 windstorm into numerous projects to avoid the more detailed environmental analysis normally required.

“Chief Bosworth and Secretary Veneman have now both toured a series of salvage logging projects proposed for the Allegheny National Forest without addressing the fact that these projects are illegal,” explained Jim Bensman from Heartwood, a national forest conservation organization that has successfully challenged the use of categorical exclusions such as those being promoted to push logging in the Allegheny.

"The Forest Service is trying to break down timber sales into several small projects instead of doing the detailed analysis that is normally required for a logging project of this size," Benseman said.

See the terms of one of the smaller projects, a 42 acre tract known as the Thad Shanty Project Area, by clicking here. Public comments are due by May 21.