Heartwood had a victory!!! The Ramsey Branch Project in the Shawnee NF was withdrawn! From the original comments submitted of behalf of Heartwood and Friends of Bell Smith Springs: The scoping notice is far too vague to allow the public to make an informed comment as required by law. There is no mention of the stand basal area, stem density, nor age of the existing pines; nor any mention of the basal area to which you propose to “thin.” The term “thinning” is not specific enough to describe your proposed action. If you plan on including that information in an Environmental Analysis (EA), then a draft EA must be released far enough in advance of the Draft Decision Notice (DN) and inevitable Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) to allow the public to reasonably comment on the EA. District Ranger Tim Polman withdrew his draft decision notice on this project. A small but important victory!
Posted on: Fri, 08 Aug 2014 20:55:14 +0000