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Critics Assail Land Sale Proposal: Conservationists Angry With U.S. Forest Service Plan to Sell 300,000 Acres, Including About 4,600 In.C

Posted on: Saturday, 11 February 2006, 12:00 CST

By Joey Holleman, The State, Columbia, S.C.

Feb. 11--Conservation leaders Friday say the U.S. Forest Service's proposal to sell off thousands of acres would be a major step backward in protecting special mountain areas and stopping coastal sprawl.

"The conservation community and the federal government have been working hard to add lands to the national forest in Berkeley County," said Jane Lareau of the S.C. Coastal Conservation League. "There is no scenario that makes sense to sell that land."

The Forest Service on Friday announced a proposal to sell more than 300,000 acres nationwide, including 4,665 acres in South Carolina. The 45 tracts in the state range from 4.4 to 373 acres in Berkeley, Chester, Edgefield, Fairfield, Laurens, McCormick, Oconee, Saluda and Union counties.

The Bush administration wants to sell the land to help pay for a rural schools program previously financed by timber sales.

The Forest Service didn't release a detailed map of the S.C. properties. One of the larger tracts, more than 200 acres of mountain terrain, is northwest of Oconee State Park. A 340-acre tract in Berkeley County straddles S.C. 45 near St. Stephen, said Stephanie Neal Johnson, state spokeswoman for the federal agency.

Conservation leaders have touted the Francis Marion National Forest in Charleston and Berkeley counties, along with neighboring land protected by state agencies, as a hedge against coastal sprawl.

The S.C. Department of Natural Resources will be one of the leaders in the battle to shoot down the proposal. "It's counterproductive to what we've been doing as an agency," said director John Frampton, who will plead with the state delegation to stop the sale.

President Bush's 2007 budget recommends selling the forest parcels to pay for the Secure Rural Schools program. A portion of timber sales from Forest Service lands goes into that program. Last year, the program funneled nearly $3 million to schools in 14 counties in South Carolina.

But timber sales nationwide have dipped in recent years. Rather than cut school funding, the Bush administration wants to make up for that deficit by selling Forest Service land that has been designated as isolated or difficult to manage.

"We support the payments (of timber proceeds) for the schools," said Mark Robertson, state director of The Nature Conservancy. "But this sets a bad precedent as a way to pay for it.

"It makes you wonder, when lands are included in the national forest, are they protected or aren't they."

National forests, especially in the East, aren't one large chunk of land owned by the federal government. Instead it's often dozens of public parcels interspersed with private property.

It's inefficient to manage tracts that aren't connected to or near the core national forest property, Johnson said.

Rather than seeing these parcels as isolated, conservationists aim to buy the land that connects them with the core forest. In the past, the Forest Service often worked with them.

"They used to work their tails off to get property, now the shift is 180 degrees in the other direction," said Buzz Williams, director of the Chattooga Conservancy.

Reach Holleman at (803) 771-8366 or jholleman@thestate.com [mailto:jholleman@thestate.com].

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Copyright (c) 2006, The State, Columbia, S.C.

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Source: The State (Columbia, S.C.)

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