Kentucky Heartwood
Wild places sustain and define us; we, in turn, must protect them.
By Jim Scheff, Director, Kentucky Heartwood
Our fight over the Greenwood project came to an underwhelming and, for the most part, disappointing conclusion at the end of October, 2017. Kentucky Heartwood worked for more than three years to see the project turn from a typical timber harvest toward a science-based plan that would support the restoration of relict, fire-adapted open forest communities as well as the recovery of large areas of old-growth. In July 2017, the Forest Service issued their Draft Decision Notice and Finding of No Significant Impact – a preliminary approval of the project. Kentucky Heartwood then filed a detailed, 32 page predecisional objection (a formal administrative objection) detailing a wide range of issues, concerns, and failures in the Forest Service’s analysis. In October, we had a formal meeting with Forest Service officials to seek resolution to the concerns raised in our objection. The meeting was scheduled for two hours but stretched to four hours as we delved deep in to the issues. The meeting was somewhat constructive. In the end, the Forest Service did agree to some small changes, and made overtures toward more careful planning in the future. While the Forest Service did not agree to go back and actually survey the project area for rare species and communities, they stated that they planned to receive increased training from the Kentucky State Nature Preserves Commission (KSNPC) on how to identify rare communities, would look for rare communities during project implementation, and adjust management accordingly. They also committed to consulting with KSNPC and Kentucky Heartwood in taking a closer look at management opportunities in the 751 Roadsides/Curt Pond Ridge area – a hotspot for Cumberland barrens remnants that are in desperate need of careful, active management, as well as possible remnant barrens sites in the Blue John area. Another point of resolution that was addressed was the Forest Service’s prior unwillingness to provide clear targets for native versus non-native plantings in 75 wildlife openings covering 222 acres. The Forest Service has now formally clarified that they will manage for 35% in cool season grasses and grains, 20% in native pollinator mixes, and 45% in native grasses. While we would rather see all of the area managed for native vegetation, this is a clear improvement over the current condition and the vague statements made throughout the analysis. With regard to the proposed broadcast spraying of herbicides in wildlife openings, the Forest Service has agreed to apply herbicides only after vegetation has been cut down or is otherwise out of flowering in order to avoid impacts to native pollinators and birds, and to spray no more than 33% of the total acreage in a given year. Again, this is not what we wanted, but it is a meaningful improvement. These changes are in addition to those that came about between the original 2014 scoping document and publication of the Environmental Assessment in early 2017. Those changes included reducing the amount of logging by about 600 acres (including eliminating logging that was planned at the trailhead to the Three Forks of Beaver Creek overlook) and the elimination of 26 miles of bulldozed firelines. What is most disappointing, however, is that the Forest Service misrepresented forest conditions in many areas in order to promote logging. Several sites covering hundreds of acres that are now largely open-canopied as a result of the 1999-2002 southern pine beetle outbreak, and which have good floristic indicators of barrens or woodland type communities, will not be managed with fire or otherwise. Meanwhile, intact, closed-canopy hardwood forests will be cut to “restore” open-canopied and pine forests, with 139 log landings cleared and compacted to facilitate the removal of timber on over 2,000 acres. Over the coming years we will closely monitor implementation of the project. Some species and forest communities will likely benefit – particularly if the proposed fire management is implemented carefully for appropriate, site-specific ecological responses. However, there will certainly be negative impacts, disruptions, and trade-offs for years to come. To learn more about the ecology of the Greenwood area and our efforts to affect change on this project, please see our Summer 2016 and Summer 2017 newsletters, as well as our comments and predecisional objection, all of which are available on our website here. This article was published in the Winter 2018 edition of our Newsletter. Here is a link to our Newsletter archives.
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Among the proposed management actions are:
The Forest Service modified the proposal since originally proposed, with about 500 acres less of concerning timber harvests, 1/3 less prescribed fire, and half as many miles of machine-constructed fire lines. Still, this is a very large project that will have significant, long-term impacts. Because of the complex nature and large scope of this project, we’re going to dig deep into the issues here to help you understand what is being proposed by the Forest Service, why restoration efforts can be important, and the problems and shortcomings of the Forest Service’s proposal. |
rb_midstoryremoval.pdf | |
File Size: | 192 kb |
File Type: |
To read the full Forest Service proposal, click here.
To read Kentucky Heartwood's comments, download the following file:

scoping_comments_hwa_forestwide.pdf | |
File Size: | 100 kb |
File Type: |
Kentucky Heartwood Appeals Forest Plan Decision to Sixth Circuit
Claims faulty analysis ignored public sentiment, over-emphasizes commercial logging on Daniel Boone National Forest
(Lexington), KY - Kentucky Heartwood recently filed a Notice of Appeal to the 6th Circuit challenging the April 27, 2009 decision of federal judge Karl Forester. Forester ruled against Kentucky Heartwood and Heartwood in a lawsuit charging that the U.S. Forest Service had violated the law in implementing its revised forest management plan and the Morehead Ice Storm Recovery Project.
The forest advocacy organizations initially brought the suit to federal court on the grounds that public input was ignored; effects of herbicides were not analyzed; and the endangered Indiana Bat was not adequately protected. The appeal to Circuit Court charges that District Judge Forester failed to address the issues raised in the original complaint.
In its 2003 revision of the Forest Plan, the Forest Service contemplated several management scenarios for the 700,000-acre Daniel Boone National Forest in Southeastern Kentucky. Unprecedented public input during the planning process resulted in 1,109 letters and 2,658 petition signatures submitted for the Forest Service to consider on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) alone. Ninety-four percent of the individuals who submitted comments on the DEIS urged the federal agency to stop commercial logging on Kentucky's only national forest. The Forest Service considered 6 alternatives in detail; none of them represented a no-logging option.
During the course of the nine-year forest plan revision process, two citizens’ alternatives for managing the forest without commercial logging were submitted to the agency, which ignored them both. Despite the fact that places like Big South Fork and Great Smoky Mountains National Park are successfully managed without the use of commercial logging, the Forest Service attempted to characterize a no-logging option as non-management of the forest and deemed it unworkable without any analysis. Judge Forester accepted their argument without addressing the National Forest Management Act regulations that require the range of alternatives to respond to significant public concerns.
"The Daniel Boone National Forest and the people of Kentucky deserve a management plan rooted in a healthy, functioning forest ecosystem – not a patchwork of logging roads and subsidized commercial harvests. But the Forest Service says this is unworkable, without even taking a serious look at how to do it,” stated Kentucky Heartwood Director, Jim Scheff.
The 2003 Plan approves the use of herbicides across the forest. Kentucky Heartwood and Heartwood pointed out that the plan analysis failed to address the forest-wide impacts of herbicide use. The Forest Service claimed that analysis need only take place when a particular project is approved. The judge agreed with the agency without addressing the fact that at the project level the Forest Service continues to fail to consider the cumulative impacts of forest-wide herbicide use.
Chris Schimmoeller, boardmember of Kentucky Heartwood, stated, "At a time when the devastating effects of long-term, cumulative herbicide exposure are becoming well known, we are extremely disappointed that Judge Forester was fooled by the Forest Service’s shell game."
For more information:
Jim Scheff, Kentucky Heartwood Director
(859) 893-0262
quercusstellata@gmail.com
Jim Bensman
Heartwood Forest Watch Director
(618) 463-0714
jbensman1@charter.net
Chris Schimmoeller
Kentucky Heartwood Council Member
(502) 226-5751, ext. 3
###
Reposted from http://www.kentucky.com/181/story/762526.html
By Andy Mead - amead@herald-leader.com
CLIFTY WILDERNESS — The federal stimulus package is at work in some of Kentucky's most rugged back country.
It's hard, sometimes dangerous work. But in Menifee County, where one of every five is out of work, a temporary job making $15.50 an hour clearing ice-storm debris from trails is a blessing.
Darrell Hess, who with his general contractor partner Leonard Brown hired the other three men in the crew, gives the rundown.
There is Bill Peck, who usually works in construction, then got a factory job, then got laid off. There is Walter Centers, who worked off and on for Hess for years, then left for a regular job a year ago — and was laid off. There is Dave Holdorff, who owns a welding business, but hasn't had enough work lately to keep the shop lights on.
Hess and Brown do all sorts of work: some logging, excavating, building fences, a little farming.
But, with the economy like it is, all those things had been slow.
"I'll be honest with you," Hess said. "I was glad to hear about this because I didn't know where my next job was going to come from."
The men were working Wednesday on Osborne Bend Trail, known to local horse riders at Powderhouse Trail, in the Clifty Wilderness. The 13,000-acre wilderness is part of the Red River Gorge in the Daniel Boone National Forest.
The Daniel Boone was one of the first national forests to get some of the $1.15 billion in stimulus money being funneled through the Forest Service. The Boone forest's portion was $550,000. The Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area in Western Kentucky, where damage from the January ice storm was more severe, got $3 million.
The Daniel Boone hired Swift & Staley, a Western Kentucky contractor that already had been approved to do work in Land Between the Lakes, and that company hired local subcontractors in Eastern Kentucky.
Five crews totaling two dozen people are clearing trails and roads in the gorge and other parts of Daniel Boone's Cumberland Ranger District.
Two crews with a total of eight people are clearing damage from a February wind storm from the Redbird Crest Trail in the Boone's Redbird Ranger District.
Most of the crews are using chain saws or whatever power equipment they need.
But because of rules governing a nationally designated wilderness, no motorized vehicles or tools may be used to clear trails that cross the Clifty.
You might hear them work before you see them, but you would have to listen carefully for the whinnying of a horse or the soft rasping of a cross-cut saw.
The men pack their tools, their lunch and themselves on four horses and a mule. They use cross-cut and bow saws and axes to clear trees and limbs that had been blocking trails since late January.
The work can be back-breaking — sawing through a thick red oak trunk quickly teaches why a 6-foot cross-cut saw is also called a "misery whip." But the men are all from Menifee County. Although they all needed the work, Hess said, more than just money is involved.
All the men had grown up running up and down the steep hills that now are the Clifty. They all ride horses on the trails, even when they aren't coming in to work.
And there's the larger economic picture. Hess's father runs a horse camp, and already people are calling from distant places, trying to make summer plans and wondering if the trails will be open.
"This part of the forest holds a great interest for tourists and for our local merchants and our community because a lot of people come to visit this area," he said. "This is an important project to a lot of people."
Standing on a ridge in the thick forest on Wednesday, when an overcast sky was keeping the men cool and the horses frisky, Hess also noted the advantage of working in a place where most people come to get away from it all.
"It's the most beautiful office I ever set in," he said.
Reach Andy Mead at (859) 231-3319 or 1-800-950-6397, ext. 3319.
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