To make up for the Oct. 5 workshop that was cancelled by the federal government shutdown, the U.S. Forest Service has scheduled a series of “Need-For-Change” drop-in open houses at six locations.
The events will be from 4-7 p.m. on the following dates.
Please note that on Dec. 3, there are two open houses scheduled.
Marion Open House (Nov. 18):
McDowell Technical Community College
William Harold Smith Building (#19); Room 113
54 College Drive, Marion, NC 28752
Brevard Open House (Nov. 19):
Transylvania County Library
212 South Gaston Street
Brevard, NC 28712
Murphy Open House (Dec. 3): Tri-County Community College,EnloweMulti-Purpose Room
21 Campus Circle; Intersection of US-141 and US-64
Murphy, NC 28906
Mars Hill Open House (Dec. 3):
Appalachian Ranger District Office
632 Manor Road
Mars Hill, NC 28754
RobbinsvilleOpen House (Dec. 5):
Graham County Community Center
196 Knight Street
Robbinsville, NC 28771
Franklin Open House (Dec. 17):
Nantahala Ranger District
90 Sloan Road
Franklin, NC 28734
At the open houses, attendees will have the opportunity to submit written ideas for how the 1987 plan needs to be changed. U.S. Forest Service specialists will be on hand to assist, answer questions and listen to concerns.
Sample “Need-for-Change” statements were shared with the public in September and are available online HERE.
For a paper copy, please call Heather Luczak at 828-257-4817. The sample also explains how you can share ideas via U.S. mail if you are not able to attend an in-person meeting.
Members of the public are invited to drop in at any time between 4 and 7 p.m.
There will be no formal presentations so you don’t need to arrive at 4 p.m., nor do you need to plan on staying for the entire time.
Also, there is no need to attend more than one Open House, as they will all repeat the same format.
Members of the U.S. Forest Service Plan Revision Team will pull together all the ideas submitted into an organized and summarized set of statements about the need for change. All ideas will be tracked, so you will know what happens to your ideas, and the Forest Service will post the results on the Plan Revision website in the next few months.
WNCA is providing the community with the below list of examples of “Needs for Change” in the Nantahala-Pisgah management plan. If you have any questions, please contact our public lands field biologist, Josh Kelly, at Josh@WNCA.org.
The 1987 plan and the 1995 amendment do not have goals for ecological restoration. There is a need to focus the new management plan on ecological restoration. Focusing on ecological restoration will help to meet the needs of local forest products industries and early successional wildlife species with a minimum of impact on other uses.
There are many special biological areas that are unprotected in the current management plan. There is a need to designate additional special biological areas in the new plan.
The current management plan does not consider climate change. There is a need to prepare the forest for climate change by making forest infrastructure more resilient to storms and by ensuring the connectivity of wildlife habitat.
The 1987 plan and the 1995 amendment have not been completely implemented, there is a need to prioritize the new management plan so that it is implementable.
Declining federal budgets are putting pressure on Nantahala-Pisgah National Forest to reduce the infrastructure for recreation. There is a need to work with citizens groups and local governments to ensure that the recreation infrastructure, which is so important to the local economy, is adequate to meet demands while protecting water quality and other resources.
Sierra Club will present a program at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 7 on the topic of Smart Growth in housing and transportation for Asheville and surrounding communities, with a focus on the Interstate-26 Connector, by Julie Mayfield and Bob Wagner, the Western North Carolina Alliance’s co-directors.
The program will be at Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Asheville, 1 Edwin Place, (corner of Charlotte Street and Edwin Place).
For more information, email judymattox@sbcglobal.net or call (828) 683-2176.
Right now we all have an opportunity to put stronger protections from coal ash pollution in place. Until September 20, the EPA is taking public comments on new Coal Plant Water Pollution Standards – an important piece of the puzzle in controlling coal ash pollution. Send your comments now and ask the EPA to stop coal ash pollution to the French Broad, and all rivers nationwide. Meanwhile, Congressional efforts are under way to undermine EPA’s authority to regulate coal ash and prevent the establishment of federal minimum safeguards. Send a message to your Representative today asking that they oppose these efforts and let EPA do its job to regulate this toxic trash. – Read the full post HERE.
In the July 21, 2013 Asheville Citizen-Times, our French Broad Riverkeeper was also interviewed about a consent decree between the state of North Carolina and Duke Energy:
“[The decree] calls for more testing of problems already well-documented and little in the way of stopping the contamination, said Hartwell Carson, French Broad Riverkeeper with the Asheville-based environmental group Western North Carolina Alliance. ‘It’s basically a way to drag this out as long as possible,’ Carson said. ‘This is definitely a deal to study this almost indefinitely, when what we know is there are violations of the Clean Water Act and state groundwater standards.'”
If you agree that a never-ending sampling plan with no cleanup is not the solution to toxic coal ash polluting the French Broad River, then email lisa.palmer@ncdenr.gov by Aug. 14.
You can also send written comments to the N.C. DENR Division of Water Quality, attention of Lisa Palmer, 1617 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-1617.
When Robbie Cox was a boy, the outdoors was his friend.
He spent countless hours tromping through the forest and honing his imagination in the woods, and along the banks of the Greenbrier River that flowed near his home in southeastern West Virginia.
His love of the natural world was formed there – but it was galvanized by his years as a graduate student in Pittsburgh, America’s “Steel City.” It’s also known for the Pittsburgh Coal Seam, the thickest and most extensive coal bed in the Appalachian Basin.
He learned a lot about coal, the coal industry and the people who relied on coal for a living. What he learned was startling.
“I saw that through the coal industry, through strip mining, we’re not only destroying the environment, but actually destroying our health as we do it,” Cox said.
Cox soon became associated with the Sierra Club, on a backpacking trip in his home state. Eventually, his passion for environmental causes led him to lead the Sierra Club as its president three times and to serve on its board of directors for 20 years.
Cox, who is now Professor Emeritus at UNC Chapel Hill, works in the principal research areas of environmental communication, climate change communication, and strategic studies of social movements. He’s well aware that environmentalism, as a cause and a profession, carries with it stereotypes of elitism and a disconnect from poor and working-class community concerns.
He’s fought against that his whole career.
“For about 20 years, I was working with the very nascent environmental justice movement in the South,” he said. “As a result, I’ve seen how connections can be made and how partnerships can be formed. It works best when environmentalists understand how issues on the ground affect people where they live, and then link larger issues to local causes. We know that environmental racism – such as in Cancer Alley in Louisiana – disproportionately impacts poorer communities.”
Cox knows these coalitions aren’t always easy, and that they require working outside the comfort zones of our own cultures and class systems.
“When we work with others, and with groups like the Western North Carolina Alliance, our voice is magnified,” he said.
“Together we have much more influence and power than we have as individuals.”
1/23/13 Update – Course is FULL and Registration has Closed! Thank you!
Register for WNCA’s new course!Global Warming: Changing Course is a six-session discussion course book exploring the history and science of global warming, personal values and habits as they relate to climate change, and personal actions to curb the effects of global warming. The course will also cover, Powering a Bright Future, exploring issues related to energy use, and what we can do to take action as individuals and communities interested in promoting energy sustainability. Energy allows mobility, growth, adaptability and development, yet energy can also be a complex and confusing topic, especially when you start to consider all of its related issues: access, security, production, and environmental impacts. This course contains solution-based curriculum encouraging discourse on energy production and extraction, peak oil, fossil fuel subsidies, energy efficiency, equity, energy policy and environmental impacts. Authors include Lester Brown, Richard Heinberg, Amory Lovins and others. Global Warming Changing Course and Powering a Bright Future are one of 11 course books offered by the Northwest Earth Institute (NWEI).
Books will be handed out at the first meeting, but pre-registration is required. To register please call course leader, Rachel Moore, at 828-258-8737 or email rachel@wnca.org by Jan. 18 See below or the GWCC flyer and description and the PBF flyer and description for more information on course content!
Course Outline:
Jan. 24: Introductions and “Off Course”
Course books will be handed out and discussion leaders will be assigned for each class.
Communities around the world are experiencing the effects of global warming. This session explores personal responses to climate change and why society has been slow to respond.
Jan. 31: “Collision Course”
To better understand the complexities of global warming, this session breaks down the history and science of global climate change and identifies our participation in this ecological crisis.
Feb. 7: “Changing Course”
Although global warming is a daunting issue, there are accessible and significant actions we can all take. This session explores new strategies for addressing climate change and considers personal action to mitigate the effects of global warming.
Feb. 14: “Setting a New Course”
What will it take to create a sustainable future? Explore our individual and collective power to shape an effective response to climate change, enabling future generations to meet their needs.
Feb. 21: Powering a Bright Future “The Big Picture: Shedding Light on Energy”
Session One establishes a basic understanding of energy sources and end uses, and explores issues of energy use, extraction, equity, access, policy, and connections to climate change.
Feb. 28: Powering a Bright Future “How to Plug In”
Session Two considers what changes need to be made in order to create a sustainable energy future. Personal actions will be explored in relation to energy use. Readings examine energy efficiency ideas and low carbon food tips.
1/23/13 Update – Course is FULL and Registration has Closed! Thank you!
To make up for the Oct. 5 workshop that was cancelled by the federal government shutdown, the U.S. Forest Service has scheduled a series of “Need-For-Change” drop-in open houses at six locations.
