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Sanford Asks to Keep 7,600 Acres Roadless: Final Decision on Forest Areas Rests With Bush

Posted on: Thursday, 20 April 2006, 06:00 CDT

By Sammy Fretwell, The State, Columbia, S.C.

Apr. 20--Gov. Mark Sanford asked the federal government Wednesday to shield nearly 7,600 acres of South Carolina forests from new roads and commercial logging.

Sanford's petition would protect so-called "roadless areas'' in the Sumter and Francis Marion national forests. Building new roads makes it easier to harvest timber commercially.

Last year, the Bush administration changed federal rules for roadless areas, paving the way for renewed tree harvesting in some of the most ecologically significant sections of national forests. But it gave governors the chance to petition to keep areas roadless. The final decision rests with the Bush administration.

All told, less than 2 percent of South Carolina's more than 600,000 acres of national forests are roadless. Sanford said leaving them roadless and safe from large-scale logging would protect wildlife, water quality and recreation.

"Keeping these areas roadless ... is an important step toward preserving the way we look and feel as a state,'' Sanford said in a news release.

Sanford is the third governor to petition to keep such areas free of new roads, according to the Southern Environmental Law Center. The others are the governors of North Carolina and Virginia.

Bee Cove, at nearly 3,000 acres, is the largest roadless tract in South Carolina, but is the most available for new roads under the Bush rules, the U.S. Forest Service has said. The land, in the mountains of Oconee County, contains old-growth forests and a series of waterfalls that some conservationists say are unparalleled.

More than 6,000 of the nearly 7,600 acres of roadless areas in South Carolina are in the Sumter National Forest of the Upstate. The remaining roadless acreage is in the Francis Marion National Forest near Charleston.

Reach Fretwell at (803) 771-8537.

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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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