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| Winter 2001 Director's Page  Re-thinking Forest Preservation Roadless Area Conservation Tax Incentives for Conservation League of Conservation Voters Report Total Maximum Daily Loads Watershed Update |
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The Chattooga Conservancy’s new office is located at 41 S. Main Street (just around the corner from our old office) in downtown Clayton, Georgia. As always, we welcome visits, so please feel free to stop by and discuss our programs and other timely issues. Also, we are looking for a few items for our new office, and would greatly appreciate donations of: tables, desks, book shelves, file cabinets and chairs. Powerline Controversy In Rabun County The Georgia Transmission Company’s (GTC) decision on a 115 kilovolt transmission line corridor through Rabun County is still pending, due to the diligent work of the Citizens for Rabun’s Heritage. Now, significant pressure has been placed on GTC to heed citizen’s concerns by the introduction of two bills in the Georgia Statehouse. The first is House Bill 655, which would limit GTC’s power of eminent domain, thus greatly hampering the corporation’s ability to steamroll local opposition regarding the taking of private property for unsightly and potentially hazardous power lines. The second bill, House Bill 105, would give all counties served by Electric Membership Cooperatives (EMC) a representative on the EMC’s Board of Directors. This could give citizens due representation in the inner circle of decisions about whether or not to proceed with these oftentimes controversial projects. Citizens for Rabun’s Heritage has also employed an expert electrical engineer to design an alternative to GTC’s transmission line proposal. Donations to help the Citizens for Rabun’s Heritage pay for the engineer’s report would be extremely helpful; please contact our office (706-782-6097) if you are interested in contributing. Chattooga Watershed Restoration Project: “The Jury Is Still Out” The Forest Service’s multi-year, multi-million dollar “Chattooga River Watershed Restoration Project” is entering its second year of funding. We hope to see a significant change in the project’s line item expenditures, to fund actions that clearly improve the Chattooga’s failing water quality. In addition, the Restoration would benefit from increased accountability to citizens through the National Environmental Policy Act’s provisions for public input. For instance, last year some controversial projects that lacked connections to “maintaining and restoring high water quality and aquatic habitats”—the Restoration Project’s overarching goal—were implemented under the condition that the project was “categorically excluded” from Environmental Assessments and public input. This year’s final list of projects is pending, and suggestions such as the restoration of native cane (Arundinaria gigantea), American chestnut and native Brook trout may be included. In addition, we hope that the project’s considerable resources will be effectively applied to the ever-present problem of cleaning up Stekoa Creek, an infamous source of sediment and fecal coliform in the Chattooga’s “section IV.” Jackson Macon Conservation Alliance The Chattooga Conservancy has been working with citizens in the Highlands and Cashiers communities of western NC to help establish the Jackson-Macon Conservation Alliance (JMCA). The JMCA has now secured office space in the Peggy Crosby Community Service Center in Highlands, and has chosen several environmental issues as lead program actions. The JMCA coalesced from a bitter water quality dispute that recently lead to a landmark ruling in NC, where the administrative judge gave priority to measurable units of turbidity instead of the implementation of voluntary Best Management Practices in cases involving erosion control, mitigation and enforcement. The judge’s decision has set the stage for rewriting state sedimentation laws, oversight of which is foremost on the JMCA’s actions. The organization has also endorsed the designation of the Cullasaja River as a state Natural and Scenic River; such a designation could result in greater scrutiny of actions that would impact the river. In addition, the JMCA has endorsed a moratorium on expanding the Cashiers Sewage Treatment Plant (which discharges its effluent into the headwaters of the Chattooga River) until more information is gathered about the plant’s compliance with its National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit, and the ability of the sewage plant’s receiving waters to handle an increase in treated effluent without becoming further impaired. Rabun County’s Scheduled Burns Here on our national forest lands in Rabun County, Georgia we will see the fire program in full swing with “controlled burns” scheduled over the next few years for 3,714 acres. The fires are slated to occur between the months of November and early April (the “dormant” season), with the intent of reducing fuel loadings and fuel buildup as well as increasing wildlife habitat. The areas to be burned are: 1,855 acres at Slick Shoals; 570 acres at Stamp Creek; 195 acres around Finney Creek; and, 1,049 acres at Duck’s Nest Gap. While the Forest Service’s controlled burn program may be appropriate for some areas, we question the need for setting fire to such a vast expanse of land in a region that is largely a temperate rain forest. In addition to unnatural, fire-induced changes in forest composition, especially in stands of young hardwood trees and riparian zones, we have seen the wholesale destruction of several areas in the national forest where the fire got out of control and killed everything that lay in its path. Another concern is that the Duck’s Nest Gap area lies within the Sarah’s Creek Roadless Area, where bulldozed fire lines could become conduits for motorized access into the area—the very thing that roadless areas are to be free of. 2001 Budget: Fire Takes Center Stage In October 2000, President Clinton signed an appropriations bill for the Department of Interior and the USDA Forest Service. Besides providing operating funds for land management agencies, the bill underwrites a new Land Conservation, Preservation, and Infrastructure Improvement Program that will provide $1.6 billion next year (and up to $12 billion by 2006) for federal and state land acquisition, land and wildlife conservation, and overdue maintenance on federal lands, historic preservation, urban parks, and payments (to counties) in lieu of taxes (PILT). The bill also grants an additional $1.6 billion in emergency funds to address wildfire damage, to support fire planning and firefighting activities, and to reduce the amounts of hazardous fuels in the forest. This line item merits scrutiny, as the misuse of monies under the inflated fire program has been documented around the country. Public Law number 106-39, called the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self Determination Act of 2000, was signed into law in October 2000 and has begun to be implemented. Under the current law, counties with large portions of national forests (such as Rabun County, GA) are entitled to monies from the federal government for schools and roads based on the old 25% payment system (which was based on revenue from timber harvest activities in that county), or they can receive monies based on an average of the highest three payments from 1986 to 1999. This latter accounting system will guarantee counties steady payments regardless of timber sale activities, so many counties may opt for this method. However, the bill requires counties who receive over $100,000 from timber revenues to commit 15-20% to “restoration” projects. The bill is vague about what counts as forest “restoration” and lacks specific environmental safeguards, which could potentially allow commercial logging projects to count as forest “restoration.” The counties receiving those large amounts will have to create local advisory committees which can decide what kinds of national forest projects they will authorize; however, such committees could potentially undermine the public’s involvement as provided for under the National Environmental Policy Act. We need to keep a close eye on and try to participate in the local advisory committees, to guide how the funds will be spent. Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act The Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act (SBREFA) could play an important role in the fate of the US Forest Service’s roadless area conservation rule (please see pp. 5-6). The SBREFA (commonly pronounced “sub-ree-fa”) was enacted in 1996 as part of the Republican-initiated Contract with America Act. The purpose of this law was to lessen the burden of federal regulations on the small business sector. The Congressional review section of the SBREFA applies to all federal rules, regardless of their impact on small businesses. Few people are familiar with the SBREFA’s review procedures, because they have never been used to revoke a rule. The review process potentially applies to any federal administrative rule. If the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) determines that the rule will have more than a $100 million annual impact, it is classified as a “major rule” and cannot go into effect until 60 days after the agency submits a report on a final rule to Congress. In addition, the agency adopting a major rule must provide the OMB a cost-benefit analysis of the rule. The legislative vehicle for a SBREFA review is called a joint resolution of disapproval, which declares that a particular rule “shall have no force or effect.” Any member of Congress can introduce a SBREFA resolution of disapproval. If this occurs, then the second portion of this act goes into affect, which offers Congress an avenue to expedite consideration of the disapproval by short-cutting normal Senate procedures. If both the House and Senate pass the resolution of disapproval, it then goes to the President to sign or veto. Once signed by the President, the rule is nullified. Once nullified, the agency that submitted the rule cannot come back and adopt another rule that is “substantially the same.” The current administration and Congress are now employing SBREFA in an attempt to stop many of the Rules and Regulations that were completed in the last days of the Clinton Administration, the most prominent of which is the US Forest Service’s Roadless Area Conservation Rule. Nation’s Timber Supply from the National Forest Is Miniscule Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck cited his agency’s environmental study on the new Roadless Rule to claim that economic impacts will be limited even in the vast expanse of public lands in the West. “We presently supply less than 4 percent of the nation’s timber from all our national forest lands combined,” Dombeck told an audience packed with representatives of national environmental groups. “ Of that modest 4 percent, only a tiny fraction—6 percent—will be affected by roadless-area conservation. That’s one-quarter of 1 percent.” Dombeck added that national forests produce less than 0.4 percent of the nation’s oil and gas, with only a small portion thereof coming from roadless areas covered by the rule. “This is a conscious choice made with an eye toward the future,” the Chief said. “As we witness the march of urbanization and the development of wild places, we can take comfort in the knowledge that we have at least given some of our remaining undeveloped land…lasting protection.” |