USFS: ‘Partners make progress in restoring Grandfather Ranger District’
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[Photo: Lisa Jennings, program coordinator of the Grandfather Restoration Project, assists in conducting a prescribed burn on the Grandfather Ranger District. (photo courtesy Adam Warwick, The Nature Conservancy)]
WNCA submits comments on EPA’s ‘Clean Power Plan’
November 25, 2014
Re: Docket ID: EPA-HQ-OAR-2013-0602
Dear Administrator McCarthy:
On behalf of the members and board of the Western North Carolina Alliance (WNCA), I [Co-Director Julie Mayfield], submit these comments on the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan Proposed Rule (CPP).
We fully support the CPP as a commonsense plan to address coal-fired power plants, the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.
These rules are urgently needed to protect the planet as a whole and specifically the ecosystems,
communities and local economies of Western North Carolina.
Click here to download and read the full letter.
We are ‘MountainTrue’!
We are MountainTrue!
Merger documents approved by members
At the joint annual gathering on Nov. 20 of Environmental and Conservation Organization, Jackson-Macon Conservation Alliance, members took the final votes to make our merger as MountainTrue legally effective.
The documents approved were the following:
– The Merger Resolution, which states the approval of the boards and memberships to merge. This will also contain the list of board members for the merged organization once that list is approved at the annual gathering.
– The Plan of Merger, which states that the separate existence of each organization will cease as of Dec. 31, at 11:59 p.m. The surviving corporation will be WNCA’s corporate form.
– Restated Articles of Incorporation that will become effective immediately after the merger and change the name of the surviving corporation.
– The Bylaws of the newly merged organization.
All of these documents will be filed with the North Carolina Secretary of State’s office after the annual gathering, along with required cover forms for the Plan of Merger and the Restated Articles of Incorporation.
If you have any questions about the documents or the merger, please contact WNCA Co-Director Julie Mayfield at Julie@WNCA.org.
U.S.F.S. proposes opening most of Pisgah-Nantahala National Forest to logging
12/13/2014: “WNC’s National Forests at crossroads” — Editorial by Public Lands Field Biologist Josh Kelly in the Asheville Citizen-Times. (May require login).
Press Release from the Southern Environmental Law Center
For Release: Nov. 12, 2014
Contact: Kathleen Sullivan, SELC, 919-945-7106 or ksullivan@selcnc.org
Forest Service proposes massive logging program in an area bigger than the Great Smoky Mountains National Park
CHAPEL HILL, N.C.—In what conservation groups flag as a dramatic shift, the U.S. Forest Service is proposing industrial-scale logging in the vast majority of the Pisgah-Nantahala National Forest in western North Carolina – about 700,000 acres, or an area bigger than the Great Smoky Mountain National Park – instead of protecting popular backcountry recreation destinations and conserving the Blue Ridge landscapes treasured by residents and tourists from across the United States.
“Under the law and for everyone who enjoys America’s forests, the Forest Service’s first priority should be fixing the mistakes of the past – restoring the parts of the forest already damaged by prior logging,” said DJ Gerken, senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center. “But the misguided logging plan proposed by the agency will repeat those old mistakes, causing more damage and putting the healthiest forests we have left on the chopping block. The people who use and love these forests won’t stand for cutting them down.”
The Forest’s new proposal would inevitably increase logging over the levels of recent years, though the precise amount has not been disclosed. “This increase would come from ramping up logging all over the forest, including backcountry areas like the South Mills River area, home to the popular Black Mountain Trail,” said Hugh Irwin, conservation planner for The Wilderness Society. According to Forest Service documents, such areas would be managed for “timber production,” which it interprets as “the purposeful growing and harvesting of crops of trees to be cut into logs.”
This industrial-style logging would also require cutting new roads for trucks and equipment into sensitive, unspoiled backcountry areas. “Not only is that destructive and disruptive, it’s also fiscally irresponsible,” added Irwin. “The agency shouldn’t be expanding its road system when it can’t even afford to maintain the roads it already has.” Agency reports confirm that the Forest has less than 13 percent of the funds needed to maintain its existing roads, leading to safety and water quality problems. Several popular roads remain closed due to unrepaired washouts.
“This proposal is absolutely the wrong direction for the forest,” said Ben Prater, director of conservation for Wild South. “Times have changed, and our mountain economy doesn’t depend just on logging anymore. We should be capitalizing on our wonderful Blue Ridge forests, not cutting them down. Treating practically the entire Pisgah-Nantahala as a ‘crop’ is simply irresponsible.”
The Pisgah-Nantahala National Forest has become a tourism and recreation destination, and revenue generated by visitors is a major driver of the western North Carolina economy. The National Forests of North Carolina are the third most visited national forest in the country. Industrial logging not only damages scenery and natural features, which are the key draw for half of those visits, but also requires popular areas to be closed to the public for months at a time while trees are being cut. “They’re our public lands,” says Prater. “Where is the balance?”
Josh Kelly, public lands biologist for the Western North Carolina Alliance, calls the proposal a “missed opportunity.” According to Kelly, “the Forest Service could sell more timber, meet game wildlife goals for hunters, and fulfill its ecological responsibilities by focusing its limited budget on restoring degraded areas with existing road access. We have a historic opportunity to care for this forest like it deserves – a real win-win solution – but if the Plan is mired in conflict, none of that work will get done.”
Public participation is important to the planning process underway, in which the U.S. Forest Service will decide how to manage the Pisgah and National Forests for the next 15 years.
TAKE ACTION TO STOP THIS PROPOSAL BY CLICKING HERE NOW!
The public can also comment by email at NCplanrevision@fs.fed.us.
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The Southern Environmental Law Center is a regional nonprofit using the power of the law to protect the health and environment of the Southeast (Virginia, Tennessee, North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama). Founded in 1986, SELC’s team of more than 60 legal and policy experts represent more than 100 partner groups on issues of climate change and energy, air and water quality, forests, the coast and wetlands, transportation, and land use.
www.SouthernEnvironment.org
Officials: EPA’s Coal Ash and Water Toxics Rules Must Ensure Public Safety
Washington, D.C.— State representatives from the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators this week submitted a sign-on letter calling on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) to swiftly finalize strong coal ash and toxic water pollution standards for coal-burning power plants. The letter comes just eight weeks before the agency’s December 19deadline to finalize a rule on coal ash standards.
Delivered to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, the letter signed by 155 state representatives notes that dangerous waste from burning leaches into drinking water and pollutes the air of communities near toxic dump sites because there are no federal safeguards for disposal. The letter also notes that EPA itself has determined that coal-fired power plants are responsible for at least 50 to 60 percent of the toxic water pollutants discharged into U.S. waters. Yet, at present, four out of five coal plants in the U.S. have no limits on the amount of toxics they are allowed to dump into our water. Many of these toxic pollutants pose serious health and environmental damage even in very low concentrations, which is why, the signatories argue, strong standards are essential to protect our communities, drinking water, and wildlife.
“We urge the EPA to protect our waterways from toxic coal pollution by adopting strong, federally enforceable safeguards for coal ash disposal and reuse under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and for water pollution discharges from coal plants under the Clean Water Act quickly,” stated the letter. “Without strong federal standards to safeguard our waterways, coal-burning power plants will keep sending toxic sludge into rivers and streams, which provide recreation, habitat to fish and wildlife, and drinking water sources.”
“Right now, the EPA has the opportunity to meet its responsibility to the American people and put into place actual, strong measures that will prevent coal ash disasters that have been plaguing American communities for far too long,” said Dalal Aboulhosn, Senior Washington Representative with the Sierra Club.
Signatories include many distinguished elected officials across the country, including several from North Carolina who have dealt with the lack of federal safeguards firsthand when a burst stormwater pipe underneath an unlined coal ash pit dumped 140,000 tons of coal ash and toxic wastewater into the Dan River earlier this year.
“Our experience in the Southeast, including the Dan River disaster, has shown that communities cannot count on state agencies and state law alone to protect their clean water nationwide. Our communities and our rivers need strong national safeguards to protect them from coal ash pollution and coal ash catastrophes,” said Frank Holleman, Senior Attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center.
“Representatives are asking for strong regulations because they know these rules will protect the health and economic wellbeing of their constituents,” said Lisa Evans, senior administrative counsel at Earthjustice. “Coal ash pollution places a heavy burden on local communities across the nation, but help is on the way.”
“EPA needs to end the “free pass to pollute” that power plants have gotten for the past thirty years. Power plants have gotten special treatment that allows them to dump billions of pounds of toxic chemicals into our nation’s waters, including rivers and streams that are sources of drinking water. This special treatment has come at a huge cost to our nation’s waters and to our health,” said Jennifer Peters, Clean Water’s National Water Campaigns Coordinator.
To read the full letter, please click here.