Proposed Chestnut Ridge Wilderness Area:  Allegheny National Forest, PA   Carl Harting
  Oct 11, 2005 18:39 PDT 
Ed,

I think we should plan a measuring trip to the proposed Chestnut Ridge
Wilderness Area in the northern section of the Allegheny National Forest
next Spring. I've read that there's been good Chestnut regeneration in
that area, so maybe we'll find some tall ones. Hopefully we can get
some information about which part of the area contains the best trees,
because it's big (about 5000 acres).

Carl
Proposed Chestnut Ridge Wilderness Area:  Allegheny National Forest, PA   Dale J. Luthringer
  Oct 24, 2005 18:14 PDT 

Ed, Carl,

You may want to contact:

Kirk Johnson - Exec Dir Friends of the Allegheny Wilderness

http://www.pawild.org  

He's been busy putting a plan together presenting it to the state to get
further protection of this area. I believe he should be able to point
you in the right direction... better than just point and shoot at least.

Dale
Proposed Chestnut Ridge Wilderness Area:  Allegheny National Forest, PA   Kirk Johnson
  Oct 25, 2005 06:40 PDT 

Ed, Carl, Dale,

The highest concentration of chestnut trees I've found there are located on
top of & around the ridge line from about 041 56' 32.6" N (approximately
opposite the entry driveway to the Tracy Ridge campground), to the north as
the ridge curves around in a NW direction. It's possible that there may be
more at other points further south that I've missed in my own excursions to
the area.

Also, I've been told by Allegheny National Forest personnel that there are
some chestnut trees to the west of the proposed Chestnut Ridge Wilderness
Area in the proposed Tracy Ridge Wilderness Area. Probably along the ridge
line above Coffey Run. Don't know that there's as many there as there are in
the Chestnut Ridge area though.

(Information about our wilderness proposal can be found online at
http://www.pawild.org. Click on the "Citizens' Proposal" link. Links to maps
of each proposed area are at the bottom of that page.)

Hope this helps!

Kirk Johnson
Proposed Chestnut Ridge Wilderness Area:  Allegheny National Forest, PA   Carl Harting
  Oct 26, 2005 18:45 PDT 

Kirk,

If you don't mind, would you be able to post a quick update on the
progress being made towards the designation of the various areas you are
working on as "wilderness areas"?

Carl
Proposed Chestnut Ridge Wilderness Area:  Allegheny National Forest, PA   Kirk Johnson
  Oct 27, 2005 12:21 PDT 

Carl,

The U.S. Forest Service is currently revising their long-term management
plan for the Allegheny National Forest -- commonly referred to as the
"Forest Plan." As part of that revision process, they are required to
evaluate the ANF for it's wilderness potential. Currently, they are
considering only three areas for recommendation as wilderness: Chestnut
Ridge (~5,000 acres), Minister Valley (~9,000 acres), and Tracy Ridge
(~9,000 acres).

We would like the Forest Service to fully evaluate all eight of our proposed
wilderness areas ( http://www.pawild.org/exec_summary.html). I'll also post
a recent editorial from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette specific to this issue
we are having with the agency.

The Forest Service will release their Draft Environmental Impact Statement
for Forest Plan revision early next year, probably January or February. It
is important that they hear from the public now that all potential ANF
wilderness must be considered in at least one Alternative of the DEIS.

After the DEIS is released, there will be a 90-day public comment period.
Later in '06, likely sometime in the fall, the Forest Service will publish
their Final EIS for Forest Plan revision. We are hoping that they will
recommend to Congress that a significant amount of new ANF wilderness be
designated as part of that FEIS.

The Forest Service can make recommendations to Congress, but it requires an
act of Congress, under the guidelines of the 1964 Wilderness Act, to
formally designate wilderness.

If anyone would like to write to the Forest Service in support of our
proposal, it would be very helpful. Please direct your correspondence to:

Mr. William Connelly, Forest Planner
Forest Plan Revision
Allegheny National Forest
P.O. Box 36
Warren, PA   16365

Please ask Mr. Connelly to be sure that all eight of our proposed areas be
considered for wilderness recommendation as part of the Draft Environmental
Impact Statement for Forest Plan revision. Further information is available
on our website at: http://www.pawild.org

Further information about America's National Wilderness Preservation System
is available at: http://www.wilderness.net

Thanks for asking Carl!

Kirk


--
Kirk Johnson, Executive Director
Friends of Allegheny Wilderness
220 Center Street
Warren, PA   16365
(814) 723-0620
PPG: Forest folly / Arbitrary lines hurt Pennsylvania preservation    Kirk Johnson
   Oct 27, 2005 12:35 PDT 
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05271/578746.stm

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Editorial: Forest folly / Arbitrary lines hurt Pennsylvania preservation

Sometimes, it doesn't take a bulldozer to make wilderness vanish.
Bureaucrats can do it with the stroke of a pen, as in the case of Allegheny
National Forest.

Ever since Congress passed the 1964 National Wilderness Preservation System
Act, federal wilderness designation has preserved land from logging,
construction and road-building while leaving it open to recreational uses
like hunting, fishing, hiking, camping and horseback riding.

About 9,000 acres of wilderness areas exist in the ANF, and thousands more
are eligible for wilderness evaluation during this round of forest
management planning, now in its final stages and headed to Congress for
approval in 2006.

Friends of the Allegheny Wilderness is pushing for more designated
wilderness areas within the ANF and has created a list of roadless tracts
for consideration based on a Forest Service inventory and a federal
evaluation of roadless areas. But in 1997 the Forest Service Eastern Region
ordered that a half-mile-wide buffer dividing roadless areas from roads,
power lines and other unnatural features be deducted from their official
acreage -- and that if what remained was under 2,500 acres, the area would
not be up for wilderness evaluation.

The effect of this space-shaving is dramatic. One area, the Allegheny Front,
dropped from 7,000 acres to 1,500; the Clarion River Tract shrank from 6,000
to 958, and the Cornplanter Tract was lopped from 3,000 acres to 197, due to
the added loss of a half-mile on either side of an overgrown and unusable
abandoned road that cuts through it.

Friends of the Allegheny Wilderness has been lobbying the Forest Service to
rescind the 1997 directive, so far unsuccessfully. In the meantime, of
roadless areas that had been eligible for wilderness evaluation, the three
named have been ruled out by the Forest Service, three others are still
eligible and three new ones have been proposed by the Friends. The
conservation group will also lobby Congress, which isn't required to accept
Forest Service recommendations, to consider the ineligible areas.

The Forest Service's 1997 regional criteria apply only to Eastern forests,
such as Allegheny National and Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia;
the Wilderness Act sets no minimum acreage for designation. Nationwide, many
federally designated areas are under 2,500 acres, the arbitrary line drawn
by the directive.

The United States boasts huge wilderness areas, but only two-tenths of 1
percent are in the heavily developed Northeast. The Friends of the Allegheny
Wilderness are right to challenge arbitrary rules that leave valuable lands
vulnerable. Our region needs to protect what little is left among the
superhighways and sprawl.


--
Friends of Allegheny Wilderness
220 Center Street
Warren, PA   16365