Forests for the People Forests for the People THE StORY OF AMERICa’s EastERN NatIONaL FOREsts CHRISTOpHER JOHNSON DAVId GOVATSKI Washington Covelo London Copyright © 2013 Island Press All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher: Island Press, 2000 M Street NW, Suite 650, Washington, DC 20036 Island Press is a trademark of The Center for Resource Economics. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Johnson, Christopher, 1947 September 13– Forests for the people : the story of America’s eastern national forests / Christopher Johnson, David Govatski. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-1-61091-009-5 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 1-61091-009-5 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978-1-61091-010-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 1-61091-010-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Forest reserves—East (U.S.)— History—20th century. 2. Forest conservation—East (U.S.) I. Govatski, David, 1949– II. Title. SD428.A2E27 2012 333.75’110974—dc23 2012030240 Printed on recycled, acid-free paper Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Keywords: Island Press, Allegheny National Forest, Appalachian, Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, Clarke-McNary Act, conservation, eastern national forests, endangered species, forest, forest fire, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Gifford Pinchot, Green Mountains, Green Mountain National Forest, Hiawatha National Forest, Huron-Manistee National Forests, hydraulic fracturing, Holly Springs National Forest, invasive species, John Weeks, Lake States, Monongahela National Forest, New Deal, Ottawa National Forest, Pisgah, prescribed burn, stream flow, timber, timber famine, U.S. Forest Service, Weeks Act, White Mountains, wilderness, Wilderness Act of 1964, wolf To our wives, Kathi and Barbara; to Chris’s parents, Charles and Jacqueline; and to the forest champions who made the eastern national forests possible and care for the forests today CONTENTS Acknowledgments xi Introduction 1 PART I How the Eastern National Forests Were Saved 9 1 The Disappearing Forests of the White Mountains 11 2 Trees to Build the Lake States 31 3 A Forest Crisis in the Southern Appalachians 51 4 Building a Forest Conservation Movement 71 5 Legislation at Last: The Weeks Act 93 6 Creating the Eastern National Forests 117 PART II Issues Facing the Eastern National Forests Today 141 7 Holly Springs National Forest: A Study in Forest Management Reform 145 8 Florida’s National Forests: A Revolution in Prescribed Burning 167 9 Monongahela National Forest: Wilderness at Heart 187 10 Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness: Preservation versus Multiple Use 207 11 Ottawa and Hiawatha National Forests: The Return of the Wolf 229 12 Allegheny National Forest: The Challenges of Shale Oil Drilling 249 13 Michigan’s National Forests: The Invasion of the Emerald Ash Borer 273 14 National Forests of Vermont and North Carolina: Loving the Forests to Death 293 Conclusion 315 Notes 325 Selected Bibliography 361 About the Authors 379 Index 381 AcKNOWLEDGMENTS In writing Forests for the People, we have benefited from the knowledge and wisdom of dozens of people who are active in the forest conservation movement. They answered questions and guided us to the information and resources that were so critical in writing about America’s eastern national forests. We sincerely appreciate the advice and support that Char Miller provided. For part I, in which we relied primarily on library research, we would like to acknowledge the valuable assistance of two people at the For- est History Society in Durham, North Carolina: Jamie Lewis, the historian, and Cheryl Oakes, the librarian. Also providing valuable sources were the Weeks Memorial Library in Lancaster, New Hampshire; Sarah Jordan and Terry Fifield at the White Mountain National Forest; the Northwestern University Library; the University of Chicago Libraries; the Research Cen- ter at the Minnesota Discovery Center; the Tuck Library at the New Hamp- shire Historical Society; and Rauner Special Collections at the Dartmouth College Library. We also thank Marcia Schmidt Blaine of Plymouth State University for sharing information about some of the key players in the movement to save the White Mountains. On-site research was invaluable to writing part II, and we benefited greatly from the knowledge of people in the U.S. Forest Service, state agen- cies, nongovernmental organizations, and citizen-activists. Larry Cham- bers, a media relations officer for the Forest Service, put us in contact with personnel in various national forests. At Holly Springs National Forest, Joel Gardner, Caren Briscoe, and Buddy Lowery of the U.S. Forest Service provided us with substantial information. In addition, Ann Philippi, Andy Mahler, Joe Glisson, and Ray Vaughan all took the time to recount for us the events that led to reform in timber-harvesting practices in Mississippi. In Florida, Steve Parrish, Mike Herrin, Chuck Hess, David Dorman, and Mike Drayton of the U.S. Forest Service shared their extensive information about prescribed burning. In West Virginia, Mary Wimmer, Beth Little, xi AcKNOWLEdgMENTS and Mike Costello readily shared their experiences in protecting wilder- ness in the Monongahela National Forest. In Minnesota, Kate Surbaugh provided us with numerous contacts on the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, including Bill Hansen and Bruce Kerfoot. Chel Anderson of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources guided us through the ecology of the area, and Paul Dancic and Kevin Proescholdt afforded us with additional insight into the protection of the Boundary Waters. In our research on wolf recovery in Michigan, Tom Weise, Pat Hallfrisch, and Jess Edberg all shared their experiences. In researching oil shale drilling in the Allegheny National Forest, we ben- efited enormously from the assistance and knowledge of Cathy Pedler and William Belitskus of the Allegheny Defense Project, and Vincent Lunetta of Pennsylvania State University helped us focus on the most salient issues regarding hydraulic fracturing. Therese Poland of the U.S. Forest Service in Michigan shared her extensive knowledge of the emerald ash borer and pointed us toward critical sources. And, in bringing our story to comple- tion in Vermont and North Carolina, we would like to thank Jamey Fidel of the Vermont Forest Roundtable, David Brynn of Vermont Family Forests, and Brent Martin of the Wilderness Society. We also availed ourselves of the expertise of several professionals. Carmine Fantasia helped us locate several of the photographs and other images, designer Chris Clark created the graphs, and cartographer Chris Robinson drew the maps. For reviewing and commenting on parts of the manuscript, we want to thank Jamey Fidel, Joel Gardner, Mike Her- rin, Jamie Lewis, Cathy Pedler, and Mary Wimmer for their insightful suggestions. Finally, we owe a huge debt of gratitude to Barbara Dean, Erin John- son, and the staff of Island Press for their unstinting support and numer- ous supportive suggestions that helped guide us through the writing of this book. xii Introduction On August 9, 1902, two camp counselors in their early twenties led eight young men from Camp Moosilauke, New Hampshire, on an ambitious backpacking expedition into the White Mountains, which lay to the east. The two counselors were Knowlton Durham, of Columbia University, and Benton MacKaye, a young forester from Massachusetts who, nearly twenty years later, would brainstorm the idea for the Appalachian Trail. Their journey would take them through the Lost River valley and into the Pemigewasset basin, through Crawford Notch, up Mount Washington and the other Presidentials, and then back to Camp Moosilauke. They tramped east and, on August 12, entered the vast basin of the Pemigewasset River, cradled between Franconia Notch and Crawford Notch. A logging train carried them for four miles along the East Branch of the Pemigewasset. When the train reached its terminus, they hopped off and continued on foot, following an abandoned railroad track. Slowly they climbed to a ridge that rewarded them with spectacular views. To the north, the mountains rose and fell toward Crawford Notch. To the south lay the Sandwich Range, which in 1902 was still a remote section of the White Mountains. The views were wondrous, but Mac­ Kaye and Durham also spotted ugly patches of land that lumber opera- tors had cleared completely of trees. MacKaye was appalled at how thor- oughly the sides of the mountains had been stripped. “The beauty of this C. Johnson and D. Govatski, Forests for the People: The Story of America’s Eastern 1 National Forests, DOI 10.5822/978-1-61091-215-0_0, © 2013 Island Press FORESTS FOR THE PEOPLE region,” he later wrote, “the wildest of the White Mountains, was in great part destroyed, the slashes of the lumbermen branding the mountains like unsightly scars on a beautiful face.”1 The sight left him heartsick. Flash forward to the late 1980s and the pine forests of Louisiana, Texas, Florida, the Carolinas, and Mississippi, the habitat of the endangered red- cockaded woodpecker. More than 75 percent of existing populations of the bird inhabited these piney woods, and wildlife biologists had identified more than two thousand colonies, which consisted of a mating pair and one or two other birds. The population of the woodpecker had been declining dramatically in recent years, and wildlife advocates criticized U.S. Forest Service man- agement practices, claiming that the agency allowed timber harvesters to clear-cut, or cut every tree in a stand, reducing the birds’ habitat and fur- ther endangering the existing populations. John W. Thompson, a former manager of Johns Manville’s industrial forests who had become a dedi- cated bird-watcher after his retirement, argued for increased protection of the woodpecker’s habitat. The U.S. Forest Service listened and, by the early 1990s, modified its management of the forests in an effort to protect the woodpecker.