The Shadow
WARM SPRINGS — The U.S. Forest Service has unveiled its Revised Land and Resource Management Plan for the George Washington National Forest and how it will manage its 174,000 acres of land in Bath County.
The Final Forest Plan was released Nov. 18, and forest service personnel shared the details of the plan with the Bath County Board of Supervisors during a Tues-day afternoon town hall meeting.
The plan balances multiple uses, provides for recreation, wildlife and water control while setting oil and gas availability on nearly 1.1 million acres of national forest in Virginia and West Virginia. It was last updated in 1993.
“It’s very timely,” said Pat Sheridan, the Warm Springs District Ranger for the George Washington Nat-ional Forest. “It’s like a gigantic county action plan. It tells us what we do, where we do it — some of the guidance and priorities that the ranger districts have.”
The plan works to fulfill the Forest Service’s mission of managing the national forest for multiple uses and reflects input from individuals, organizations and communities, representing div-erse interests and uses, who have worked together over six years. It reflects thousands of comments from the public, including local communities.
In Bath County, a local stakeholders group offered management suggestions to the Forest Service.
“It gives us broad direction for managing all the resources of the forest. It’s intended for the next 10-15 years,” explained Ken Landgraf, a member of the management staff out of the Forest Service’s supervisors office in Roanoke that deals with planning, forest ecology and timber vegetation. “It establishes a monitoring program to tell us we’re moving toward that long-range goal that’s established in the forest plan.”
Changes in Bath County include:
•Expanding the Little Alleghany Remote Backcountry area by about 3,000 acres.
•Adding a Remote Backcountry area on Warm Springs Mountain north of Rt. 39 and on Mill Mountain.
•Adding Special Biological Areas at Hidden Valley, Blowing Springs and Beard’s Mountain.
•Recommends additions to the Rough Mountain Wilderness (an additional 1,000 aces) and the Rich Hole Wilderness (an additional 4,600 acres). Congressional designation would be required for either of these areas to become wilderness.
•Wind development proposals could be considered on Walker Mountain and some of Alleghany Mountain, but not on Little Mountain, Shenandoah Mountain, most of Warm Springs Mountain and most of Mill Mountain. Proposals on Back Creek Mountain are doubtful.
Additionally, any pipeline approval on National Forest lands would require a special use permit, Landgraf explained. Each request would be handled on an individual basis.
He added that no additional land will be made available for oil and gas leasing at this time.
Landgraf said the plan identified 292 species in the forest that are either declining, rare or not very abundant. Fifteen of those species require a mature, older age canopy of forest through their entire life cycle.
“We were able to put together a forest plan we think did a really good job of emphasizing that we are able to maintain healthy forests, healthy watersheds, the biological diversity and the recreational diversity that we have on the forest that we all enjoy so much,” Landgraf said.
Forest service officials will discuss the plan with the Alleghany County Board of Supervisors in January. Approximately 50 percent of both Bath County and Alleghany County are contained in the national forest.
To review the complete plan, visit the forest website at www.fs.fed.us/r8/gwj.
