Forest Service disregards federal law to avoid regulating oil and gas drilling
May 22, 2008
Contact: Ryan Talbott: (814) 221-1408
Forest Service disregards federal law to avoid regulating oil and gas drilling
Conservation group claims oil and gas drilling in the Allegheny National Forest must be subject to environmental analysis and public comment
Read Moremessage to Rick Clawson and Indiana bat scientists
Recently, we received documents from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as the result of a Freedom of Information Act request. In those documents was an email from Rick Clawson, former head of the Indiana Bat recovery team, to a number of Indiana bat "experts." In the email, which we will have a link to soon in this message, Clawson tells the others that he is happy that our petition to have some non-hibernaculum habitat designated as "critical" for the Indiana bat was denied. I was so upset by it, that I wrote this message to all of those on the email. This is not an "official" statement from Heartwood, but I believe that it represents our collective disgust at this kind of anti-environmental attitude by people in powerful positions such as Clawson. He and those in agreement with him have become the problem and not the answer.
Mark Donham
Read MoreADP calls on Forest Service to withdraw logging decisions
May 16, 2008
Contact: Ryan Talbott – (814) 221-1408
Allegheny Defense Project calls on Forest Service to withdraw logging decisions
Conservation group claims Forest Service timber sales violate forest management plan
Read MoreEconomic Analysis of the Wayne National Forest Plan
A new study commissioned by Heartwood reveals that the U.S. Forest Service’s 15-year management plan for Ohio’s only national forest, the Wayne (located in southeast Ohio) costs taxpayers millions in actual dollars and in lost ecosystem services and provides little if any public benefits. The Plan does not maximize net public benefits as required by law.
The 200-page study by GreenFire Consulting Group, LLC, (available with summary and recommendations at
http://heartwood.org/Wayne_Economic_Analysis/ ) states that the WNF, “managed for its highest values––water filtration and flow regulation, air purification, tourism, biodiversity and carbon sequestration––could become a great natural asset to the State of Ohio and to the nation.” Yet an assessment of costs and benefits of Plan activities leads study authors Christine Glaser, PhD, and Karyn Moskowitz, MBA, to conclude, “The sum of extractive and destructive activities proposed in the 2006 Forest Plan will lessen the attractiveness of the forest and will negatively impact tourism. They will also diminish the capacity of the WNF to deliver ‘ecosystem services,’” which “have a much higher value to society than the timber that is taken out.” The authors give important recommendations that apply to all the national forests in our region.
