White Mountains logging plan hits roadblock

WASHINGTON -- A plan to allow logging in an off-roads portion of the White Mountain National Forest is being blocked by national environmental groups that fear it could set a bad precedent, even though local conservation organizations had approved the plan.

The objections of two leading national environmental groups have forced the National Forest Service to reconsider its approval of logging in so-called "roadless areas" of the forest, frustrating local logging companies that thought they had a deal.

"The new forest plan was embraced by all people at the table, and now after the fact, there are some people out there with their own agendas," said John Caveney , vice president in charge of woodlands for Cersosimo Lumber Co., which has been taking lumber out of the White Mountain forest for more than 25 years. "This is going to be a big problem for us. It really spooks people."

Conservation groups in New Hampshire said they have been unsuccessful recently in trying to persuade the Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society to drop challenges against the National Forest's plans to allow harvesting of timber in areas that have few or no roads.

"Their feeling is if they give an inch in New Hampshire, they will have to give a mile somewhere else," said Will Abbott , vice president for policy and land management at the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests , a 106-year-old organization that both preserves land and promotes environmentally sensitive logging.

The White Mountain National Forest, established 96 years ago, is the largest protected forest in New England; its 800,000-acre expanse is within a day's drive for 70 million people. It has long had a hybrid purpose, allowing loggers to harvest ash, white pine, sugar maple, and beech trees on land that covers nearly half the territory, while skiers, hikers, and bikers enjoyed its wilderness tracts over the other half.

The current battle over its use is rooted in the politically charged debate on roadless areas in national forests. The territories cover 56 million acres nationally; 97 percent of the land is in 12 Western states, including Alaska. While New Hampshire is second only to Virginia in acres of roadless area east of the Mississippi, its tracts comprise about 400,000 acres, just 6 percent of Idaho's roadless land.

A decision is expected soon from the US Forest Service on one appeal by the two national environmental groups and the Vermont-based Forest Watch organization, perhaps as early as next week . But observers said if the environmentalists lose, they will probably appeal to federal court, beginning what could be years of legal wrangling.

In the last two years, courts around the country have upheld a rule enacted during the last weeks of the Clinton administration, which made roadless areas off-limits for logging. In 2005, hoping to open more land in the West for mining and natural gas development, the Bush administration gave governors the power to make their own decisions on projects in national forests in their states, but courts struck down that initiative.

In response, the Bush administration is trying an alternative route, permitting governors to ask the federal government for an administrative judgment on whether certain development projects can proceed in roadless areas. Two states, Idaho and Colorado, have asked for that permission.

While the focus has been mainly on land in the West, some environmentalists say that the New Hampshire challenges put a needed spotlight on areas in the East that also should be preserved.

"We should be trying to do even more to keep what we have east of the Mississippi as well," said Robert C. Vandermark , director of National Environmental Trust's heritage forests campaign, which is not involved in the challenges to the White Mountain timber plans. "Those forests are a national treasure."

But Tom Wagner , forest supervisor of the White Mountain National Forest, believes that the tract in New Hampshire and western Maine already had enough protection -- the Land Resource and Management Plan for the forest.

The plan, which took eight years to put together, was completed in 2005. No groups objected, a rarity for such plans around the nation. The new plan allows the removal of up to 24 million board feet of wood annually, about a 30 percent reduction from the previous standard.

The challenges came only last year when National Forest officials granted permission to logging companies to begin harvesting timber in roadless areas. Because of the appeals, the amount of logging slowed greatly; about 10 million board feet of wood were harvested last year.

"My concern is that we worked together with lots of groups over a number of years, and many tradeoffs were made," Wagner said. "We were able to put 35,000 additional acres back into traditional wilderness area with this agreement."

He said that unlike wilderness areas in the West, those tracts in the White Mountains had been logged in the past. "In the White Mountains, these are small areas, in the fringes of places where loggers have worked in the last half-century," he said.

Rene Voss, who helped write the appeal against logging in roadless areas for the Sierra Club, said his organization decided to challenge the deal after the Forest Service gave the go-ahead to timber companies.

"The Forest Service has plenty of other places to log outside the roadless areas," Voss said. "They are the ones generating the controversy."

One plan approved by the National Forest Service would clear-cut an area near the resort town of Jackson, N.H. Voss said it would be visible from the summit of Mount Washington and the Appalachian Trail. "They are planning on building roads and many miles of skid trails within the watershed of the only designated wild and scenic river in New Hampshire," he said.

But other environmental groups, including the Appalachian Mountain Club, said they do not object to the logging plans.

"The Forest Service clearly intended a harvesting regime in what are designated as roadless areas," said Abbott . "Our position is the appropriate time to challenge that policy was when there was a public commentary period during the management plan, and nobody did."

In a meeting in Washington in April, Abbott and the Forest Service's Wagner met with senior officials at the Wilderness Society to talk about the issue. "It's not our preference to be contesting sister conservation organizations," Abbott said.

Asked about a chance for a compromise, Abbott said, "Very little, which might be a polite way of saying none."

Michael A. Francis , director of the Wilderness Society's national forest program, who also attended the meeting, did not disagree.

"It's rather difficult," he said. "The roadless area conservation rule is a national rule for all national forests. If you start making these exceptions here and there, pretty soon you don't have a national rule anymore."

John Donnelly can be reached at donnelly@globe.com.