Yesterday we met in Asheville NC with the Forest service and Trout Unlimited to discuss the future of Tellico. From our side we had Jay Bird, Pres. SFWDA, Gunner Byrd SFWDA, Greg Mumm Blue Ribbon Coalition, Rob and I. The Presidents of the NC and TN chapters and two lawyers from SELC represented TU. The Forest supervisor and her staff presented the initial data from the Trail condition survey for the first 18 miles of trail closest to the river and their immediate plans.
Their surveys showed what we expected, the trails need work, 7 years of the FS not doing routine maintenance has taken it toll on the trails. I was initially impressed with the funding; they have put together $670,000 for the project. This money is from the NC FS budget and from the regional budget. Then we went into the details and after they fund the surveys, the design work and the short and long range planning there will be about $100,000 left for actual trail work. This will not begin to cover the work the engineers are planning, so they will be asking us (SFWDA) to do a lot in the next year or so.
They are still working on the short term NEPA to determine if they should implement a winter closure and temporary closure of trails lower 2, 7 and 9. The results of this are expected 1 December. The cost of this study is $90,000.
Three bridges on trail 8 were determined to be unsafe. Trail 8 is currently closed from the bottom of trail 9 to trail 10 (the loading crane). They estimate the replacement of these bridges will cost $100,000 to $350,000 (funding has not been requested). Before they can complete the decision on bridge repair they must decide is trail 8 needs to be moved away from the river (TU has requested this be done) . I believe it will be at least 2 years before these bridges will be replaced unless they decide to let SFWDA install culverts. I have requested that they change the closure order to move the lower end to the first bridge so there will still be access to the camping area in the pines.
The design work for the bridge at Fain’s Ford is 80% complete, estimated cost of the bridge is $350,000 to $520,000. It will be a 40-ton bridge just like the one at Rough Water (trail 5). The FS engineer insists that these bridges must be designed to handle logging trucks as some day they may log the area. This funding has not yet been requested.
TU and their lawyers insist that they only want clean water and good habitat for the brook trout and do not want to close the area but many of us believe that closing the area is their ultimate goal. These lawyers recently filed suit against the National Park service to close access to the beach areas of Cape Hatteras to motorized vehicles.
We will wait until December to make a decision on GSMTR, with half of trail 8 closed, if they close trails lower 2, 7 and 9 we may want to relocate.
Their surveys showed what we expected, the trails need work, 7 years of the FS not doing routine maintenance has taken it toll on the trails. I was initially impressed with the funding; they have put together $670,000 for the project. This money is from the NC FS budget and from the regional budget. Then we went into the details and after they fund the surveys, the design work and the short and long range planning there will be about $100,000 left for actual trail work. This will not begin to cover the work the engineers are planning, so they will be asking us (SFWDA) to do a lot in the next year or so.
They are still working on the short term NEPA to determine if they should implement a winter closure and temporary closure of trails lower 2, 7 and 9. The results of this are expected 1 December. The cost of this study is $90,000.
Three bridges on trail 8 were determined to be unsafe. Trail 8 is currently closed from the bottom of trail 9 to trail 10 (the loading crane). They estimate the replacement of these bridges will cost $100,000 to $350,000 (funding has not been requested). Before they can complete the decision on bridge repair they must decide is trail 8 needs to be moved away from the river (TU has requested this be done) . I believe it will be at least 2 years before these bridges will be replaced unless they decide to let SFWDA install culverts. I have requested that they change the closure order to move the lower end to the first bridge so there will still be access to the camping area in the pines.
The design work for the bridge at Fain’s Ford is 80% complete, estimated cost of the bridge is $350,000 to $520,000. It will be a 40-ton bridge just like the one at Rough Water (trail 5). The FS engineer insists that these bridges must be designed to handle logging trucks as some day they may log the area. This funding has not yet been requested.
TU and their lawyers insist that they only want clean water and good habitat for the brook trout and do not want to close the area but many of us believe that closing the area is their ultimate goal. These lawyers recently filed suit against the National Park service to close access to the beach areas of Cape Hatteras to motorized vehicles.
We will wait until December to make a decision on GSMTR, with half of trail 8 closed, if they close trails lower 2, 7 and 9 we may want to relocate.
