Cooper Creek Watershed Comment Period on Timbering

The Forest Service is soliciting comments on the Cooper Creek Watershed Project, which will involve a great deal of cutting of old growth timber.

Here’s the link to the page where you can comment.

https://cara.ecosystem-management.org/Public//CommentInput?Project=44385

The comment period is open until February 4, 2016.

There is a link at the top of the page to material that describes the project from the Forest Service’s point of view. You can also go to the “Reading Room” and read what others have said by way of comment.

Unfortunately. there’s a rather wide gap between what the Forest Service and the Sierra Club and the Georgia Forest Watch organization are saying about the project. If you skim through this link, paying special attention to pages 10-11 and page 15, which claim that the project targets the oldest growth, you’ll get the idea. You’ll also note that a lot of the justification is based on management for the cerulean warbler, which the Forest Watch people say has never been seem in the area.

http://www.sierraclub.org/sites/www.sierraclub.org/files/sce/georgia-chapter/Issues/Wildlands/Cooper_Creek_GFW_Response_6.6.14_3_.pdf

Here’s a link to the Sierra Club page from which that link is taken.

http://www.sierraclub.org/georgia/coopercreek

I’m not an expert on this issue, but it seems to me that Georgia Forest Watch has issued a thoughtful, detailed critique of the project. Until I see the Forest Service answer it in a detailed and convincing manner, you can count me opposed.

 

 

 

 

 

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