Mark Barrett

mbarrett@citizen-times.com

A Senate committee has adopted a proposal to keep the U.S. Forest Service from taking a step to give land in Western North Carolina's two national forests wilderness protection without the approval of county commissioners in the affected county.

The Senate Agriculture Committee on Tuesday adopted an amendment by Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., to require commissioners' approval of any move by the Forest Service to designate any land on Nantahala or Pisgah national forests as a wilderness study area. The Forest Service generally manages such areas as if they were official wilderness areas until a final decision on their status is made.

"States and counties know best how to manage and conserve their own land – not federal government bureaucrats," Tillis said in a statement. "However, in North Carolina, we have seen the federal government grossly overreach by preventing residents in many counties from utilizing their own land as they see fit. My amendment will help ensure that North Carolina counties ultimately decide whether to designate new land as wilderness, empowering local officials and hardworking taxpayers with a key say in the decision-making process.”

A Sylva-based advocate for wilderness areas said it is difficult to say what legal impact the amendment would have because it appears it would keep the Forest Service from doing something it doesn't do anyway.

"It's hard to know what this even means because of the way it's written," said Brent Martin, southeastern director of The Wilderness Society. He worried that it will disrupt the process of drawing up a new management plan for the forests.

The bill the amendment was attached to would change the way the federal government funds fire fighting efforts in response to a dramatic increase in that expense in recent years and would also change some forest management procedures. President Barack Obama's administration strongly opposed the House version of the bill last year and the Senate version passed out of committee on an 11-9 vote. It is not known whether Obama would veto the newest version of the bill if it reaches his desk.

In 1984, Martin said, Congress passed legislation designating some places on the Nantahala and Pisgah forests as wilderness, a status that prevents logging, road building and most use of machinery. The bill also made some other areas wilderness study areas, including parts of the Craggy Mountains in Buncombe County, the upper Snowbird Creek basin in Graham County and Overflow Creek in Macon County.

Tillis's amendment would require county approval of any designation of a wilderness study area by the Forest Service. That's confusing because only Congress makes that designation, Martin said.

Tillis's office says the amendment would not prevent Congress from approving an area as an official wilderness.

The Forest Service is in the process of writing a new management plan for the Nantahala and Pisgah and has identified several options for wilderness designation, which would ultimately require a vote by Congress. The most expansive one would put nearly 90,000 acres off limits to roads and chainsaws, but commissioners in several WNC counties have opposed more wilderness designation.

Tillis' office provided statements by 10 county commissioners in as many counties expressing concerns about wilderness designation or support for his proposal.

“The citizens of Cherokee County are opposed to any additional USFS lands being designated as wilderness. This prohibits the taxpayers from being able to enjoy the freedom to use the forest lands as we have for generations," said Cal Stiles, a commissioner in the state's westernmost county.

He said Tillis's proposal "to allow the county to be a stakeholder in this process and sit at the table to discuss the USFS plans, I think would be very beneficial for everyone."

Martin said the amendment may disrupt an ongoing collaborative process involving his group and others with various interests to come to an agreement on what should be in the forest plan.

David Reid, the representative of the state Sierra Club on a group working the Forest Service on its plan, called Tillis's action "disappointing."

Forest Service lands are owned by all Americans and Tillis's amendment "would short circuit the collaborative process established by the Forest Service and currently underway" to revise plans for the Nantahala and Pisgah forests, Reid said. "Diverse forest stakeholders have been participating in this process in a good faith effort."

The Forest Service plans to release a draft management plan for the forests next summer and adopt a final one in 2018, Martin said. The plan will address a wide variety of issues about the future of the more than 1 million acres in WNC, he said, not just wilderness designation.

The Buncombe County Board of Commissioners is poised to back wilderness designation for about 3,000 acres in the Craggy Mountains Tuesday. The area lies to the north and northwest of the Blue Ridge Parkway in the Craggy Gardens area and includes land around Douglas Falls.

A proposed resolution on commissioners' agenda says the tract is "one of the largest old-growth forests in the East" and that wilderness designation would protect it and "safeguard traditional local uses of the land."

Same mountains, different views on wilderness