| In November 1973, the Federal District Court of the Northern District of West Virginia curtailed the authority of the U. S. Forest Service (USFS) to sell timber on the Monongahela National Forest (MNF). Local residents protested the use of clearcutting practices on the MNF, and finding the USFS unresponsive to their concerns, sought recourse through the courts. The case of Izaak Walton League v. Butz was filed in the Federal District Court in Elkins, WV, and the November 1973 ruling by Judge Robert E. Maxwell stated that the USFS was in violation of the Organic Act of 1897, which stipulated that only “dead, physiologically mature, and large growth” trees that had been marked individually for cutting could be sold (Weitzman, 1977:1). Judge Maxwell placed a restraining order on timber harvests on the MNF (Berman and Howe, 1992).
In August 1975, the “Maxwell Decision” was upheld by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the restrictions on timber harvesting were applied to the National Forests in the area served by the Fourth Circuit--West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina (Weitzman, 1977; Berman and Howe, 1992). One week after the “Monongahela Decision” had been handed down, the Chief of the USFS ordered that timber sales on the nine National Forests in the four states be stopped. The Monongahela Decision set a precedent that could be cited in other appellate courts, and therefore posed a threat to timbering on the entire National Forest System (Berman and Howe, 1992).
Local vs. National Interests
This national challenge to the basic authority of the USFS began as a conflict between local interests and the USFS staff over how clearcutting practices were being applied in the MNF. Local hunters and residents were concerned with the aesthetic impacts the massive clearcuts had on the land, as well as the effects they had on turkey and squirrel habitat for hunting. As Weitzman (1977:13) observed, “In few states is there the same historical enthusiasm for hunting squirrel and turkey as in West Virginia.” Squirrel and turkey hunters prefer a dense understory, old enough to produce mast (edible seeds) and abundant den trees-- conditions that contradicted the timber management policies favored by the USFS at that time.
When the USFS was unresponsive to these local concerns, the agency was branded “aloof” (DeMeo and Concannon, 1996). In the cultural context of West Virginia, where generations of families are fiercely attached to the land and hunting season is considered a state “religion”, having an “outsider” like the USFS to make drastic changes to “their” land was unacceptable.
According to Weitzman the amount of timber harvesting on the MNF before 1940 was insignificant (1977: 8). Much of the land had been cutover before purchase, so supply was limited. From the period of 1940 to 1969, the national demand for timber products increased. In the MNF, timber was harvested by partial or selection cut, meaning that the older, more valuable sawtimber was cut, while the smaller and younger trees were left behind. The selection cutting method left little logging debris on the ground and appeared to do no site damage (Weitzman, 1977: 9).
Clearcuts Dominate Silvicultural Practices
As demands for sawtimber increased, new techniques for harvesting timber were adopted. In 1940 only nine million board feet of timber were harvested from the MNF (Weitzman, 1977:9). By 1960 this increased to approximately 22 million board feet of hardwoods (Weitzman, 1977: 10). Foresters were aware that selection cutting was not creating the conditions necessary to reproduce the high-value, shade-intolerant hardwoods that were in demand from the Monongahela.
Consequently, new timber management techniques were needed to meet the demands for high quality hardwoods. Even-aged silviculture was adopted to maintain the hardwood characteristics of the MNF. Ultimately, the decision to switch from selection cutting to clearcutting as the primary timber harvest tool provided the impetus for the Monongahela Controversy.
As the demand for sawmill timber increased in the early 1960s, the USFS implemented a new policy that emphasized even-aged management (Berman and Howe, 1992). In practice, this meant that even-aged management became the primary system of forest management on 750,000 out of 850,000 acres on the MNF (Weitzman, 1977:16). Early guidelines were poorly defined, leading to very large clearcuts such as 600 acres in the southern portion of the Forest in the Cranberry Back Country, which was followed by a 400 acre clearcut immediately adjacent to it (Weitzman, 1977: 17-18). An 800 acre tract was cut near Richwood, also in the southern part of the Forest (Berman and Howe, 1992: 142).
The magnitude of the cuttings led those with wildlife interests to question the sincerity of the USFS’s dedication to the multiple-use concept. Foresters retorted by stating that they were responding to demands placed on them to produce timber for housing markets. In justifying their large clearcuts, the MNF staff also stated that the lack of high quality roads in the mountainous MNF terrain forced them to concentrate their cuts in areas which were accessible (Weitzman, 1977; Berman and Howe, 1992).
Hunters and Legislators React
Local sportsmen, displeased with the effects on their hunting grounds, began to seek recourse through the political channels of West Virginia’s legislature. Weitzman (1977:13) noted that, “Several of the state’s political leaders were turkey hunters and felt directly affected by the early clearcuts.” As a result, Weitzman concluded that the USFS had raised the ire of “articulate men who could reach influential State and National legislators and conservation groups.” In 1964, the West Virginia House of Delegates called for a study of timber management practices on the MNF. A panel of experts from West Virginia University’s College of Forestry and the West Virginia Department of Natural Resources was appointed and concluded that even-aged management was a sound silvicultural method (Weitzman, 1977: 22).
In 1967, a second resolution calling for an investigation of timbering practices on the MNF was made by the WV House of Delegates and the WV Senate. With this second investigation, a panel of state legislators soundly condemned clearcutting practices. During the interim between 1964 and 1967, several large clearcut sales were made in close proximity to each other, once again raising concern among local residents. Weitzman notes that “By this time, the clearcuts were too large, too concentrated and too visible.” It wasn’t until February 1970 that the West Virginia legislature took action and formed the Forest Management Practices Commission which was to conduct a study of clearcutting practices on the National Forest lands (Berman and Howe, 1992).
In August 1970, the Commission released its Report on Management Practices on the National Forest Lands in West Virginia in which 15 recommendations were made to the USFS (Weitzman, 1977: 24). Among those adopted by the MNF were guidelines that limited clearcuts to 25 acres, provisions for more interdisciplinary input into timber sales decisions, more public involvement, and an agreement that even-aged management would not be the primary system of forest management (Weitzman, 1977 and Howe, 1992). Then Forest Service Chief Ed Cliff ordered an in-house review of even-aged management on the MNF, and the findings from that study concurred with the recommendations from the Forest Management Practices Commission.
However, USFS managers on the MNF did not alter their emphasis on the even-aged system as its primary system of management (Weitzman, 1977). Opponents saw that areas were still being clearcut with little emphasis being placed on selective cutting practices. Finding the USFS unresponsive to their concerns, local residents began to put pressure on their Congressional delegation, bringing national attention to the issue of clearcutting on the MNF. Under the strong urgings of Senator Jennings Randolph of West Virginia, Congressional hearings were held in 1971 by Senator Frank Church, chair of the Subcommittee on Public Lands (Berman and Howe, 1992). In addition to West Virginia, timber management practices in National Forests in Alaska, Montana, and Wyoming were brought to the attention of the Congress (Weitzman 1977).
The Clearcutting Issue Expands Nationally
As the clearcutting controversy on the Monongahela transformed from a statewide to a national issue, the players who were involved also changed. Prior to the national hearings, local hunters had tried to resolve the issue of clearcutting at the state level. However, when the USFS was unresponsive, the concerned local citizens moved onto West Virginia’s Congressional delegation and attracted the attention of national interest groups. Local conservationists Lawrence W. Deitz; Parsons, WV Mayor Forrest Armentrout; the West Virginia Izaak Walton League; The West Virginia Highlands Conservancy; the Natural Resources Defense Council; and the Sierra Club all joined together to fight clearcutting on the MNF (Berman and Howe 1992: 148). The national interest groups, Natural Resources Defense Council and Sierra Club, felt they had found an excellent test case to challenge the authority of the USFS under its 1897 Organic Act (Weitzman, 1977).
In 1972, the attorneys of the West Virginia Division of the Izaak Walton League took the lead in collecting information on timber selection procedures, definitions and other timber management activities on the Monongahela National Forest. In 1973, a temporary restraining order prohibiting timber sales using clearcut management techniques was issued by Judge Maxwell in the District Court in Elkins, WV. By 1975, the appellate court decision in the Fourth Circuit had stopped timber sales in four states. The only solution, the appellate court suggested, was a legislative one (Weitzman, 1977, Berman and Howe, 1992).
Conclusion
The court decision on the Monongahela National Forest and similar challenges in other regions effectively stopped clearcutting on the National Forests. In response, many interest groups and members of Congress sought new legislation that would provide authority for the Forest Service to manage our forests in an economically, biologically, and socially acceptable manner. These efforts occurred at the peak of the modern environmental movement. Thus while most groups recognized the need of the Forest Service to harvest and manage timber, there also was strong recognition of the need for environmental protections, appropriate public processes, and limits on agency discretion.
In October 1976 the National Forest Management Act (NFMA) was passed as a direct result of the controversy that had developed on the MNF over clearcutting. With its more localized focus, the NFMA repealed the limitations on forest harvesting that had been imposed by Judge Maxwell’s and the Fourth Circuit’s interpretation of the Organic Act. NFMA set specific limits on the application and size of clearcuts and made forest plans the basis for regulating future harvesting practices. The legislation placed an emphasis on interdisciplinary management of forest resources, as well as including public input as part of the decision-making process. Implementation of the National Forest Management Act has been contentious since, but surely allowed greater public involvement and more concern with biodiversity and less focus on clearcutting.
References Cited
Berman, Gillian and Barbara J. Howe. 1992. The Monongahela National Forest 1915-1990. Monongahela National Forest: United States Forest Service.
DeMeo, Tom and Julie Concannon. 1996. On the Mon: Image and Substance in West Virginia’s National Forest. Inner Voice. Vol. 8, Issue 1, January/February.
Weitzman, Sidney. 1977. Lessons from the Monongahela Experience. USDA, Forest Service, December.
Toddi Steelman, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor with the Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources, North Carolina State University
Posted 24 September 2007
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