Georgia Pacific Cuts into Heart of Hematite - Citizens Arrested for Blockading Road

by Sherman Bamford and Jason Halbert

A recent blockade in Virginia's George Washington National Forest halted log trucks for over 12 hours. On July 21, 1997, a group of activists stopped the cutting of the Hematite timber sale. Two men, aided by supporters from Appalachia and beyond, laid down at a narrow point in Forest Service Road 277. Each activist secured an arm in a 30-inch steel pipe cemented and buried in the road.

The protest followed the denial of a lawsuit brought against the Forest Service charging that the two sales on Peters Mountain near Hematite, Virginia. violated the spirit and intent of federal environmental law.

In 1994, the Virginia Natural Heritage Program began a cooperative study with the US Forest Service on Peters Mountain. The Natural Heritage Program announced the discovery of a 3,600-acre old-growth tract, "one of the largest known occurrences of Appalachian oak forest in old-growth condition in Virginia and perhaps all of the central Appalachians."

A large portion of the tract contains representative trees 200 to 300 plus years old. According to the Heritage Program, the field-verified age of dominant trees was often much older than Forest Service data show, sometimes by 100 years or more. By contrast the Forest Service claimed there was no old growth in the sale at all.

Activists from the Shenandoah Ecosystems Defense Group (SEDG), Preserve Appalachian Wilderness (PAW) and Virginians for Wilderness had drawn attention to Hematite and its old-growth characteristics for months before the cutting began. Only after the judge's ruling did activists decide that civil disobedience was in order. Representatives from several groups including Katuah Earth First!, Heartwood, Central Appalachian Biodiversity Project and the Native Forest Network were all involved in the road blockade.

"While this may be old hat for the Pacific Northwest, this is the first ever road blockade, or any civil disobedience for that matter, in defense of forests in Virginia," stated Christina Wulf of SEDG. "We did not want these forests to fall without a fight, without witness to their importance."

Hematite, named for the reddish iron ore found in the area, is in Alleghany County, Virginia, near the northern end of 45-mile-long Peters Mountain. Creeks plunge off the mountain in three directions, forming the wild trout streams of Snake Run, Crow Run and Cast Steel Creek. On the opposite face from this timber sale is the federally endangered boreal relict Northeast bulrush. Across the mountain there are beautiful cove hardwood forests, hemlock forests, huge ravines lined with old-growth chestnut oaks, red oaks, tulip trees and black gums, and some drier forests. Climb to the top and you reach scree slopes and gnarled ridge-top forests of the kind rarely encountered in the East.

Hematite is more than old-growth forests. The wild trout streams offer anglers a challenge, and an uncompleted section of the Allegheny Trail will ascend the mountain near Hematite. This long-distance hiking trail will, when completed, run thorough Virginia and West Virginia to the Pennsylvania line. These are the real assets of Hematite. But these resources pale in the minds of foresters bent on logging, even if that means losing places like Hematite forever.

Georgia-Pacific purchased this sale (3.1 million board feet for $346,000) and will bid on the other half, containing more old-growth, later this year. Georgia-Pacific's net income for 1996 was $156 million and in 1995 its profits hit an all-time record of $1.02 billion. Georgia-Pacific also owns over 100,000 acres of forest land in Virginia and over six million acres in the US and Canada.

Clearly Georgia-Pacific is not dependent on public lands for its record profits. Only 5 percent of its overall raw wood comes from public land. Still Georgia-Pacific demands this taxpayer subsidy and has contributed over $150,000 to Congress since 1990. This is where the loggers and the environmentalists agree; "the rich get richer while the poor stay poor."

Logger David Charles complained that only huge corporations can afford to bid on sales of this size and amount. Still the wedge of jobs versus the environment could not be removed that day in the road. After 12 painful hours, Tray Biasiolli and Jason Halbert detached themselves from the buried devices, proclaiming a successful action. The men were promptly arrested and taken to the Roanoke City Jail where they spent the night.

The two forest activists were later found guilty on one of three federal misdemeanor charges in relation to their July 21 road blockade at the Hematite. They had faced maximum penalties of 18 months in jail and $15,000 in fines but each received a fifty dollar fine and were set free. "I think the Judge was sympathetic to our cause," said Mr. Biasiolli. "We had to do this. Civil disobedience was the only means left to stop the destruction of this priceless piece of our natural heritage," he continued.

Clearly the Forest Service is engaged in a public relations campaign to halt any public sentiment against logging. Although over 400 acres of the area has been logged over the past 20 years, the Forest Service decided to log 187 additional acres in this priceless area. Eighty-five percent of the trees in the selected stands are being removed. But what is most dangerous about the sale is the 2.8 miles of permanent roads, skid roads and temporary roads. This network will guarantee future timber sales in the heart of the old-growth area. The Forest Service has already begun studying a land swap with yet another multinational, Westvaco Corp., that would trade away some old growth just beyond this sale.

Despite the outpouring of outrage and overwhelming public sentiment to spare this area, the Forest Service rolls on. As Jason Halbert stated, "This battle is not over, as the appeal of the District Court's decision in Krichbaum vs USFS has been filed in the 4th Circuit Court in Richmond. We will appeal all the way to the Supreme Court if we have to. And with new legislation in Congress, like the National Forest Restoration and Protection Act, the end of subsidized, socialized logging on public land for private profit is near."

For more info contact the Shenandoah Ecosystems Defense Group, POB 1891, Charlottesville, VA 22903-0591; (804) 971-1553; email: jhalbert@igc.org; or Preserve Appalachian Wilderness SW Virginia, PO Box 13192, Roanoke, VA 24031; (540) 982-0492.