A coalition of Tennessee conservation groups has filed a federal lawsuit alleging the U.S. Forest Service’s approval of a logging project in Polk County is endangering a sparkling trout stream.
Tumbling Creek flows through hemlocks and beech trees on the southeastern corner of the Cherokee National Forest’s Ocoee District. It provides anglers a cold-water trout stream and families a quiet setting near Copperhill for camping, wading and picnicking.
The Forest Service wants to allow a timber sale on lands not far from the banks of Tumbling Creek as part of restoration efforts to replace non-characteristic trees logged from the land with trees characteristic to the area. The project area is about 3,700 acres, and timbering is proposed on more than 500 acres of it.
Federal officials told the Times Free Press in September that timber sales are offered as part of the agency’s restoration efforts to return an area to “a more natural state” by restoring the ecosystem with appropriate vegetation, officials said. Forest Service officials contend that Tumbling Creek doesn’t face an impact from the planned timbering project.
But Tumbling Creek, indeed, faces impacts from logging and associated soil compaction on a steep, concave slope that would be susceptible to erosion of topsoil if logging was permitted, according to conservationist Davis Mounger, co-founder of Tennessee Heartwood, and Southern Environmental Law Center staff attorney Sam Evans. Evans leads the center’s National Forests and Parks program.
From the Times Free Press: https://www.timesfreepress.com/news/local/story/2018/mar/26/conservatigroups-file-federal-lawsuit-over-lo/466825/