-----Original Message-----
From: Bruce Means
Sent: Tuesday, July 02, 2002 5:23 PM
Subject: County improvements of Forest Service roads
Dear SAC members,
A rather strange thing has taken place in regards to the improvements the County wants to make on LL Wallace Road. Last Friday, Jim Ruhl, biologist for the Apalachicola National Forest, called me and said he would be on vacation for two weeks and not to worry, that the Forest Service probably wouldn't make a decision about their road-improvement policy until he returned. Taking the Forest Service on good faith, I thought we had a little time to learn from both the Forest Service and the Leon County Public Works Department about their policies and practices. Both were invited to attend our meeting Wednesday morning.
Attached please find a copy of a letter to me I received late this afternoon from Marsha Kearney, Supervisor of National Forests in Florida. I regret that, before we are able to meet tomorrow morning, the Forest Service has made a decision allowing the County to go ahead with its plans to improve L L Wallace Road. The County is approved to proceed with asphalt paving (OGCM) of the first mile west of Crawfordville Highway and on the remaining 3.1 miles, trucking in clay that is foreign to the Munson Sandhills and mixing it with lignosulfonate. I don't know how to interprete this, whether to feel betrayed by the Forest Service, or chalk it off to some miscommunication.
Anyway, the letter informs me that there are six roads, not just LL Wallace Road, that are slated for improvment. The reason that the public was not knowledgeable about any of these roads, it says in Ms. Kearney's letter, is that the project work was categorically excluded from formal environmental documentation and no public scoping was done. I'm simply flabbergasted that, considering the rare and likely-to-become federally threatened species in the Munson Sandhills (e.g. striped newt)--and the presence along the road of at least a dozen senstive wetlands--the Forest Service considers there are no extraordinary circumstances present there. In fact, because of the presence of active sinkholes along the road, we are talking about potential runoff into the Floridin Aquifer, a subject that has been of great interest to us.
I look forward to an illuminating meeting tomorrow morning. I hope the Forest Service and County Public Works folks have representatives there with whom we can talk.
--Bruce
D. Bruce Means, Ph.D.
President and Executive Director
Coastal Plains Institute and Land Conservancy
1313 Milton Street, Tallahassee, FL 32303
pho: 850-681-6208; fax: 850-681-6123
and
Adjunct Professor
Department of Biological Science
Florida State University
Tallahassee, FL 32306
e-mail: means@bio.fsu.edu
web: www.brucemeans.com