Wilderness Watch
Join Forces to Resist
Chattooga Boating
ForestWatch enters federal
court fray in Greenville, S.C.
Other conservation groups have similar boating reservations
August 30, 2011
Georgia ForestWatch and Wilderness Watch have filed joint public comments urging the U.S. Forest Service to uphold the “zoning” that has prohibited boating on the 21 miles of the Wild and Scenic Upper Chattooga River in Georgia and the Carolinas.
“Green Creek” access point present as a very shallow
and rocky road
"This zoning has worked well to preserve the solitude and wilderness characteristics of a pristine river corridor for more than 35 years," said Wayne Jenkins, executive director. "We see no reason to open it up for the sake of a few kayakers who already have rights to plenty of whitewater in this region."
George Nickas, executive director of Wilderness Watch, said it was important to help protect the Ellicott Rock Wilderness in all three affected states. "We do not believe that adding yet another use to an already pressured wild area is an appropriate solution."
The Forest Service has proposed opening 16.5 miles of these headwaters for three months of the year in the latest incarnation of a multimillion-dollar, six-year environmental analysis of the situation. The Agency’s plan would permit boating by unlimited numbers of boaters at all flow levels from Green Creek to Lick Log Creek, an area that bisects the sensitive Chattooga Cliffs area, Ellicott Rock Wilderness and Rock Gorge backcountry.
ForestWatch and Wilderness Watch contend in their response that the Agency’s boating plans were not well thought out and likely violated tenets of both the federal Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, the Wilderness Act, and various aspects of the National Environmental Policy Act, all geared to preserving the river’s values, its opportunity for solitude in particular. Go here for the full text of the ForestWatch response.
At the same time, both groups applauded the Forest Service proposals to restore riverbanks and limit group sizes and encounters in a corridor that, in many places, is already being “loved to death” by increasingly intense public visitation.
proposals would have boaters launching into the
Upper Chattooga from this small rock.
Other conservation groups also have filed similar comment letters, expressing serious reservation about the Forest Service boating plans. That list includes the Georgia and South Carolina Chapters of the Sierra Club; Friends of Georgia; the Highlands (N.C.) Biological Station, an inter-institutional research field station of the University of North Carolina, and its affiliated Highlands Biological Foundation; and the Jackson-Macon Conservation Alliance, which covers the Chattooga headwaters in Highlands and Cashiers, N.C. The Forest Service says all comments received on this issue will be made public here.
Simultaneously, Georgia ForestWatch has filed a motion in U.S. District Court in Greenville, S.C. to intervene in a court suit brought by boating lobby groups to try to circumvent the Forest Service environmental analysis process and immediately open the 21 miles of affected headwaters. Copy of filing
proposal from the Forest Service would encourage
use of this property for access on Whiteside Cove
Road, which has no public parking.
Georgia ForestWatch believes it important to try to give non-boaters a say in this important court proceeding, Although the U.S. District Court judge is permitting the case to go to trial, lawyers for the federal government have now asked the court to stay the case until the administrative review, and any possible appeals, are finally decided.
ForestWatch and Wilderness Watch contend that it makes more sense to preserve the Upper Chattooga for the hikers, hunters, anglers, birders, picnickers, botanists and nature photographers who currently enjoy the solitude of one of the last quiet places in the Southern Appalachians. "The boater lobby hopes to reverse the agency’s authority to manage or zone the very resources they are charged with," said Jenkins. "There is not enough river for everyone to do everything, everywhere and still have a Wild and Scenic River," he concluded.
Both private kayakers and commercial boaters already have virtually unfettered access to the lower 35 miles of the wild and scenic river, as well as other challenging whitewater waterways in the region.
The administrative comments were filed on behalf of Georgia ForestWatch and Wilderness Watch on a pro-bono basis by Susan Richardson of the Atlanta law firm, Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP. Alex Bullock of the Kilpatrick firm filed the court papers in Greenville.
