Environmental groups go to court over Cherokee National Forest

CHATTANOOGA (WDEF) The Southern Environmental Law Center has filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Forest Service over the Cherokee National Forest.

The suit alleges that the Forest Service is illegally endangering the soil, forest and waters around Tumbling Creek.

The creek is a cold-water trout stream in Polk County that flows into the Ocoee River.

The suit claims that the Forest Service has ignored disastrous effects of timber sales in the area and now has decided to allow heavy commercial logging along the creek.

Conservation groups have fought the decision for four years, but they say they’ve been ignored.

“Dismissing legitimate citizen concerns is the most egregious aspect about this risky, ill-advised logging project,” said Sam Evans, staff attorney and Leader of the Southern Environmental Law Center’s National Forests and Parks Program. “The public came forward and said, ‘we don’t want to see these kinds of erosion problems on our lands ever again,’ but the agency simply refuses to learn from its mistakes. They are sweeping literal dirt under the rug.”

The group says that the Forest Service is proposing selling 534 acres of timber for commercial logging near the Creek, exposing steep slopes and erosive soils.

They fear the soil loss will keep trees from growing back, which is what happened just a dozen miles west of the creek. 

“It’s not that we just disagree with the Cherokee National Forest leadership about this project; it’s that they refuse to consider any science or data that might require them to do things differently,” said Davis Mounger, Cofounder of Tennessee Heartwood. “This pattern of dodging our concerns has damaged the forest time after time, and they have left us with no other options.”