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Local Forest Service Land Part of School Funding Proposal

Posted on: Wednesday, 15 February 2006, 12:00 CST

By Jacob Luecke, Columbia Daily Tribune, Mo.

Feb. 14--More than 21,000 acres of Mark Twain National Forest could be sold as part of a school funding program pushed by the Bush administration.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service on Friday released a list of properties that could be sold under the plan, apparently including a portion of the 15,000-acre Cedar Creek district in Boone and Callaway counties.

The district is the northernmost swath of the national forest system in Missouri, the majority of which is in southern Missouri.

The Cedar Creek district features the Cedar Creek Trail, a 36-mile hiking, biking and horse-riding trail of moderate difficulty. The trail starts seven miles east of Ashland, off Route Y.

Barbara Nikodym, who works at the Forest Service office near Fulton, said a supervisor told her that 239 acres in the Cedar Creek district might be sold as part of the program.

Nikodym's supervisors were unavailable today for comment. A spokeswoman for the Mark Twain National Forest in Rolla did not return calls this morning.

Dan Jiron, national press officer with the Forest Service, said the sections of the national forest identified for possible sale are isolated and generally small properties that can't fully benefit from Forest Service management.

Some of the Missouri parcels that might be sold are less than 10 acres, while other parcels are more than 200 acres, according to the Forest Service list.

Proceeds from the sale would fund an extension of the federal Secure Rural Schools Act, which is set to expire in December. The act provides funding for schools in communities that are evolving from natural resource-based economies, Jiron said.

The act first passed in 2000. Since then, Congress has appropriated $1.7 billion to fund rural schools, Jiron said.

On Friday, the Forest Service identified 304,000 acres that may be sold. But the government would only need to sell between 175,000 and 200,000 acres to fund the program, Jiron said.

A public comment period beginning late this month will help Congress decide which parcels to sell, he said.

"It's a somewhat deliberative process," Jiron said. "It's not something that will be done very quickly."

The land-sale proposal is already getting a negative reception in some corners.

"I think it's a horrible idea," said Jim Scheff of the St. Louis-based Missouri Forest Alliance.

Scheff said the forest alliance is beginning to mobilize against the potential sale. He said selling the land was shortsighted.

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Copyright (c) 2006, Columbia Daily Tribune, Mo.

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Source: Columbia Daily Tribune

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