As springtime nears, a human clan called the Hellbenders (which takes its name after the aggressive, never-afraid-to-bite salamander Cryptobranchus alleganiensus) are preparing for the resistance to the continued rise of the global corporate empire. To find the Hellbender resistance look to the place where the central Appalachians meet the northern forests and where the Great Lakes of Turtle Island approach the wildlands of the mid-Atlantic coast. This is where wild elk roam with coyote, fisher, black bear and the Indiana bat. And it's where the majestic eastern hemlock braces the skyline with American beech, northern red oak, black birch, white pine and black cherry. These wild forests are in the process of recovering from corporate rape of 100 years ago.
On the Allegheny National Forest in Pennsylvania, this threat has taken form as a salvage logging plan called Mortality II. Luckily, the project was stopped when a band of Hellbenders organized and brought their plea to the courts. We succeeded in stopping the destruction of 5,000 acres of land... until now.
Mortality II is back with a vengeance. The US Forest Service has reintroduced the Mortality II mega-project as the East Side Project. It's called the East Side Project because it will thoroughly destroy nearly the entire eastern portion of the Allegheny National Forest.
It calls for cutting of 10,000 acres of forest in a 90,000-acre area (one-fifth the entire Allegheny National Forest). At least 4,000 acres (nearly seven square miles) of cutting will be clearcuts and another 5,000 acres will be even-aged thinning cuts (i.e. pre-clearcut "weeding"). Logging plans include clearcutting areas previously protected in order to "grow old- growth forests!" The Forest Service is simply undesignating these areas as protected and then clearcutting them. But that's not all. Plans include logging in a 600 acre roadless area (that is big for the Allegheny).
The East Side Project also calls for the use of RoundUp (Monsanto) and Oust (DuPont) as part of an effort to transform our wild eastern hemlock, white pine and American beech forest into a tree farm for black cherry cash crop. The East Side Project will use these herbicides on over 4,000 acres of forest.
Even though the Forest Service boasts that the Allegheny is already 95 percent accessible by roads, the East Side Project calls for re-construction on 65 miles of roads and 35 miles of brand new ones.
Hellbender activists have already set out for the woods in an effort to shift paradigms towards road ripping instead of road construction. We've begun to document "ghost" roads and road problems. This is a key time to push for obliteration of wasteful and destructive old roads.
Right now things are heated in the Allegheny. Soon we will be receiving word on a lawsuit filed to protect the Minister Creek and South Branch Willow Creek areas of the forest. If we get a bad decision, logging will continue at Minister Creek (50 percent cut already) and begin at South Branch Willow Creek.
The East Side Project's public comment period is now open. We need to storm the Forest Service with letters, postcards, phone calls, faxes, e-mails and other creative protest! Send letters of protest to John Palmer, Forest Supervisor, Allegheny National Forest, POB 847, Warren, PA 16365; (814) 723-5150; anf@penn.com.
Contact the Allegheny Defense Project to get our action alerts and updates on the East Side/Mortality II mega-thievery and other on goings. Join us for our Allegheny Working Campout on May 7-9. Get in touch with us to help coordinate the establishment of a basecamp to coordinate both forest monitoring and creative demonstrating. Contact the Allegheny Defense Project at POB 245, Clarion, PA 16214; (814) 226-4918; adp@envirolink.org.