Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, July 18, 1994 TAG: 9407220067
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By BILL COCHRAN OUTDOOR EDITOR
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
In a few days he would retire, after nearly 39 years of government service, the last 23 as ranger of the Glenwood District of the Jefferson National Forest.
Hedrick, who could be called an authentic Forest Service old-timer, as much for philosophy as for age, was leaving behind something he believed in. A timber sale.
It was a modest sale, about 250,000 board feet, similar to scores of cuts he'd administered during his career. This one, however, had raised the ire of environmentalists, even some who openly say they believe timber harvest is a natural and valuable part of national forest management.
But not here, said Charlie Blankenship, who retired in 1990, as head of the Jefferson's outdoor recreation and land management planning.
``I understand the forest service needs to produce timber,'' said Blankenship, as he looked up from the maps he had spread on the floor of his Roanoke home. ``I don't think every acre of the national forest has to be devoted to timber. This is just a place of exceptional beauty that is recognized as a part of an unique ecosystem.''
Called the Apple Groups Project, the site of the sale is the North Creek-Apple Orchard Falls area of Botetourt County. Trees have been marked along the northern boundary of the Apple Orchard Falls Special Management Area, a 1,825-acre holding that has neo-tropical migratory songbirds as its featured wildlife, rather than the traditional deer, turkey or bear. This is the headwaters of North Creek, a popular trout stream that gathers volume as it flows toward Jennings Creek and Arcadia, passing the North Creek Campground on the way.
The high ground, along the south side of the special management area, holds the heavily traveled Blue Ridge Parkway and the Georgia-to-Maine Appalachian Trail. Hikers frequently drop off the parkway from Sunset Field, or travel up from North Creek to walk to Apple Orchard Falls over a national trail. The more adventurous can follow a loop along Cornelius Creek Trail, a pathway that the forest service says will be elevated to national trail status shortly.
To the east, stretching toward the Thunder Ridge Wilderness Area, are high-country terraces where a cursory examination by archaeologists has identified 26 sites used by American Indians.
``See how flat this area is,'' said Jim Loesel, a Forest Service activist who believes the agency has taken a certain irreverent view of the area. ``This area is absolutely covered with Indian sites.''
The region also is home of the rare Peaks of Otter salamander, believed to occur only in the Glenwood District of the forest. Protectionists haven't been able to elevate this slippery, elusive critter to spotted owl status, but they have highlighted it as still another reason the area is special.
The same rich habitat that spawns streams, grows salamanders and sends trails through woodlands that hold red-eyed vireos and scarlet tanagers, also is splendid for tree growing. Oaks and poplars stand tall and straight, displaying the kind of diameter that will make a logger grin and a log truck groan.
Hedrick marked about seven acres for what he calls a group selection cut. Another 20 acres is earmarked for thinning. It will take less than 100 feet of road building to get the timber out, the ranger said. Deer have been named the featured wildlife species, and future cuts are in the planning.
``The best timber in the district is growing in this drainage,'' said Hedrick.
There is no reason, he said, that it can't be harvested even in a high-use recreation area, if the sales are kept small.
``You aren't doing one at the exclusion of the other,'' he said, a statement supported by the Appalachian Forest Management Group, an organization headquartered in Covington that represents the timber industry.
``It is a good project and should proceed,'' said Daniel Deeds, chairman of the forest management group. ``The proposal properly gave serious consideration to the recreation and visual resources as well as other resources in the area.''
In fact, Deeds said it is the kind of project Forest Service officials could use to educate the public on the importance of timber management.
The timber sale, said Hedrick, will give the local logging industry a boost and will provide for a healthier forest by removing oaks that are vulnerable to the gypsy moth.
``What Joe has done, and really what Joy [Berg, the forest supervisor] has done, is to put on their blinders and not recognize the specialness of that area,'' said Loesel. ``What we are seeing here is a very old-fashioned method of managing the resource, which is to say, `Timber is first and we will mitigate the damage being done to other resources as we carry out this timber sale.'''
A good example of this philosophy, said Loesel, is the fact that a portion of the Apple Orchard trail was moved a few yards to get it away from the timber sale.
That wasn't the case at all, said Hedrick. The trail was relocated to upgrade it, to get it off an eroded logging road and to avoid several stream crossings which can be precarous during periods of high flow.
``They still are managing for deer here,'' said Loesel. ``That is a travesty. Probably they ought to manage for salamanders. They could manage for bear or birds, but to manage this for deer is to manage it for the most common kind of animal. There are lots and lots of places where they already are managing for deer.''
``The sale will add to habitat diversity in the area which will benefit many species of birds and animals,'' Deeds said. ``The timber sale will not affect the visual or recreation resources in the area. The average citizen who might visit this area will not notice that a timber sale has been conducted after the logging is completed.''
The Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation has opposed the timber sale out of concern for the Peaks of Otter salamander, although Hedrick said an examination by the forest service failed to turn up any of the creatures in the sale area.
``No, we aren't 1,000 percent sure there isn't one down there 10 feet in the ground around one of those rocks. But we feel we can make this sale without undue harm to salamanders. As a matter of fact, we are finding the highest salamander populations in a 25-year-old clear cut.''
Sylvia Brugh, of Troutville, is disappointed that mature timber will be cut just outside the boundary of the special management area, after working to get the area established early last year.
''You start getting this close and interfering with this dense tree canopy you are going to lose a lot of these species that you originally wanted to attract to this area,'' she said.
Special management areas don't come with buffer zones, said Berg.
``One of the reasons we made it as big as we did was so we wouldn't have to have buffers around it. It is contained. It is like a wilderness; the boundary is the boundary. You don't have half-wilderness outside of that.''
``On this district and throughout the Jefferson we are cutting something like one-half percent of our suitable lands per year,'' said Hedrick. ``That's pittance. During my period of time in the forest service I have tried to operate under the multiple-use act. That is a little bit of everything on every acre: Timber, wildlife, range, recreation, wilderness and etc.''
Multiple use is people, too, said Blankenship, who points out that the Apple Orchard Falls area has been identified as one of the Roanoke Valley's top 10 attractions on nearby public lands.
``All I have ever asked the forest service to do in my appeals was to examine this thing in the light of its importance to the Roanoke urban area,'' said Blankenship. ``The district pretty well has left out a lot of people in the Roanoke Valley.''
The timber sale is expected to be appealed this week by environmental groups who say they are ready to take their concerns all the way to Washington.
``We like the terrain they have chosen to fight,'' said Loesel, who estimated that the appeal could run as many as 100 pages and have national importance. ``For us, this is an embarrassment of riches.''
Foresters say timbering in Apple Orchard Falls area is good management, others view it as. . .
by CNB