Tellico Trail Obliteration

[Trollhole]

So what about this? How crappy is this that instead of sending the 1 to 5 millions dollars to remove the trails they would have spent the 2 million to fix them.

https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportu...&id=9364c749e2ab0a4dcc714116a4645feb&_cview=1

That really pisses me off. Best yet they are using the recovery money (our money) to do it. So instead of fixing something for the people we are going to spend your money and take it away from you.

 

[Trollhole]

Not only that but they are going to spend 460k of our money to be able to tell us years from now whether they screwed us or not. It's pretty obvious they have no clue if they made the right decision on closing Tellico.

"A total of $460,000 was funded for aquatic resource monitoring in the Upper Tellico OHV area in Cherokee County. This project involves implementing a resource monitoring plan to evaluate the effects of Forest Service management actions on aquatic habitat and associated water quality and quantity within the Tellico watershed. This work will include field data collection and physical measurements of stream channels, including changes in fish populations. Monitoring will evaluate the success or failure of management decisions and guide future actions in the Upper Tellico River watershed. Multiple partners are involved, including the Tennessee Valley Authority, the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, who will assist with trout population monitoring and the North Carolina Division of Water Quality, which will conduct aquatic macroinvertebrate monitoring. These efforts are part of the larger effort to monitor conditions in the Upper Tellico River watershed and restore the health of the landscape."


"Monitoring will evaluate the success or failure of management decisions and guide future actions in the Upper Tellico River watershed. "

Future actions? What future actions. If they remove the trails do you think they are going to come back and say "My bad, we will build them back for you."? Yeah right. Any future actions are not going to involve us.

 

[Trollhole]

http://www.cs.unca.edu/nfsnc/press/usda_annouces_nfsnc_arra_projects.pdf

“The Recovery Act projects we’re announcing today are central to creating jobs and building a better, stronger economy in the future,” said Secretary Vilsack in his announcement. “These projects exemplify President Obama’s commitment to sustainability, reducing our environmental footprint, and increasing energy efficiency, which will benefit the 178 million people who visit the National Forests each year, while generating additional tourism and stimulating local economies.”

How can they build a stronger economy when all they do is take recreation away?

"Trail Projects The largest ARRA project funded within the National Forests in North Carolina was awarded to trail and trail-bridge projects with a total of $4,925,000. The goal is to improve public safety and repair resource damage at multiple sites in Carteret, Cherokee, Macon, Madison, Mitchell, Montgomery, Swain, Transylvania and Yancey Counties. Work to be accomplished includes rehabilitating and replacing trail bridges and maintenance of forest hiking, biking, equestrian and off highway vehicle trails. This maintenance work will improve visitor safety and access to the forest and reduce erosion by restoring drainage and stabilizing trails."

This so called maitenance of OHV trails is the removal of the Tellico OHV trails. Pretty easy to improve visitor safety when no one will be on trails.

 

[Southeast Overland]

I'm with ya on this one Troll. There is some fuzzy math going on.

 

[Trollhole]

I'm still pissed.