Environmentalists Say They’Ll Continue Push to Block Logging at Robinson Forest
By Andy Mead, The Lexington Herald-Leader, Ky.
Dec. 11–Environmentalists who want to stop planned research logging in Robinson Forest said they would continue the effort after the University of Kentucky board of trustees met Tuesday but didn’t vote on the issue.
Garrett Graddy, a geography graduate student who has been a leader in trying to stop the logging, said her group hopes to get trustees to tour the Eastern Kentucky forest with a “concerned conservationist.” She also wants to arrange a flyover so the trustees can see the extent of mining that makes the forest’s 10,000-acre core appear to be an island of green.
She said the group was heartened by word Monday that a delay in hiring loggers, coupled with winter weather, means the logging is unlikely to begin until April.
Graddy was one of several people who met with most trustees Monday, asking for a moratorium on the research project when the full board met Tuesday.
Trustee Pamela Robinette May gave the board a two-minute summary of the Monday meeting, which had included the environmentalists’ arguments against logging as well as responses by the university administration.
“I don’t think anybody is treating this lightly, and everybody is very convinced of the rightness of their position,” May said.
The board took no action after her summary.
About 30 students, many holding signs, gathered on the first floor of the Patterson Office Tower at 9:30 a.m., hoping to make an impression on8 trustees as they made their way to the 10 a.m. meeting on the 18th floor.
Only one trustee walked by, and that was just as the first students were arriving. The rest apparently already were on the 18th floor, attending two committee meetings that had started earlier in the morning.
Reach Andy Mead at (859) 231-3319 or 1-800-950-6397, Ext. 3319.
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