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BLUE RIDGE ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE LEAGUE
PO Box 88 ~
Glendale Springs, North Carolina 28629 ~ Phone
(336) 982-2691 ~ Fax (336) 982-2954 ~ Email:
BREDL@skybest.com
PRESS
RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: DECEMBER 2, 1996 CONTACTS:
Rodney Sutton (704) 649-2484
Lou Zeller (910) 982-2691
BLUFF MOUNTAIN CAMPAIGN
CROSSES THE LINE
Today the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense
League (BREDL) and the Madison Environmental
Alliance (MEA) filed comments with the US Forest
Service on the Cherokee National Forest Plan
urging re-zoning of Bluff Mountain for no timber
cutting and no road building. The central message
of the comments underscores the theme of Madison
county citizens' campaign to save Bluff
Mountain: "Make an exception for this
exceptional place."
"Not only do we have to keep an eye over our
shoulder, we have to look across the Tennessee
line to protect a mountain which is undeniably
the jewel in the crown of Madison
County," said Rodney Sutton, president
of MEA, which has appealed the Forest Service's
proposed Bluff Mountain timber sale in the Pisgah
National Forest.
Lou Zeller, BREDL community organizer and a
20-year resident of Madison County, North
Carolina, pointed out in his comments,
"The state line divides the mountain
politically, but the Bluff is an ecological unit;
it cannot be cut in half." Zeller
reported that the citizens of Madison and Cocke
counties are working together to convince the
federal government to re-zone Bluff Mountain,
protecting it for local people who enjoy trout
fishing, hunting and camping and for the
thousands who hike the Appalachian Trail.
On November 20, the regional office of the US
Forest Service in Atlanta upheld the decision to
proceed with road building and timber cutting on
the North Carolina side of the mountain; however,
the decision echoed citizens' groups' concerns
that the federal agency had not been forthright
in reporting road construction costs, had glaring
omissions in the archeological assessments, and
had underestimated the adverse effects on streams
and wildlife of sedimentation pollution.
Zeller predicted, "Once the taxpayers
and the general public learn that the proposed
timber sale will lose money and destroy the
ecology of the mountain, they will demand that
the federal government do the right thing and
keep Bluff Mountain just the way it is."
-end-
Madison Environmental Alliance
is a chapter of the Blue Ridge Environmental
Defense League
Bluff
Mountain Campaign
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