Legislators oppose forest sale

More than 20,000 acres of Mark Twain National Forest may be put up for sale despite objections from most of Missouri's congressional delegation. The sale is proposed in the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service's 2008 budget to pay for shortfalls in funding rural school districts.

Thursday, seven of Missouri's representatives and its two senators signed a letter to Forest Service chief Abigail Kimbell asking her to reconsider the sale. The letter complains of a "top-down approach" that incorporated "little to no public input."

Rep. Sam Graves, R-Kansas City, and Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Springfield, did not sign the letter.

"I will continue to fight against proposals that sell off timeless resources for short-term gain," said Sen. Kit Bond in a separate statement.

The Mark Twain National Forest was established in 1939 by presidential proclamation. Its 1.5 million acres range across southern Missouri from Francois County to Cassville, Mo. The forests were planted in part to restore Missouri's game resources. The tracts of land purchased were nicknamed "the land nobody wanted" because they were largely barren and overgrazed at the time.

Today, Mark Twain's acreage is 11 percent of all forested land in the state. The first oaks from the 1939 planting have begun to die from old age in recent years.

About a year ago the Forest Service submitted a legislative proposal giving it the authority to sell 300,000 acres of national forest across the country to raise more than $800 million for rural school districts.

The sale was eliminated from the fiscal year 2007 budget by Congress after widespread dissatisfaction. Missouri officials felt particularly slighted because the proposal allotted less money to the state's rural schools than other states selling smaller acreage.

That problem has partially been rectified. Under the latest proposal released in February, at least half of all proceeds from the sale must stay in the state.

But opponents are still not impressed.

"Unfortunately bad ideas never really go away. They just kind of lie dormant for a while. With this particular one, I'm not sure why it continues to come up," said Dave Murphy, executive director of the Conservation Federation of Missouri.

Murphy said he does not object to the sale of national forestland. What he objects to is a sale he sees as shortsighted and mandated by federal bureaucrats instead of local forest supervisors.

"It seems at best short term as a solution. It doesn't make much sense to sell pieces of property to achieve what could only be of benefit for one fiscal year," he said.

Charlotte Wiggins, public affairs director for Mark Twain National Forest, said her office identified the tracts of land to be sold based on specific qualifications.

"These are pieces of property not connected to existing parcels," she said. "They're pieces that don't contribute to our overall plan of restoring Missouri's forests and because we can't get to them, they're too expensive for us to try to manage," she said.

In Southeast Missouri, the plan calls for the sale of numerous tracts of land, including:

• Bollinger County, one tract, 122.52 acres.
• Madison County, 11 tracts, 649.02 acres.
• St Francois County, one tract, 40.25 acres.
• Ste. Genevieve County, four tracts, 243.52 acres.
• Wayne County, 10 tracts, 598.45 acres.

Wiggins said that during the proposal's public comment period, which ended in May, Missouri forest offices received a combined average of 20 calls per hour.

She said even though the proposal is far from being approved by Congress, it's even further from resulting in the sale of any of Missouri's forest.

"There's a process. They will put the first pieces up for sale offering them to nongovernment agencies and environmental groups, then they'll sell the pieces with no controversy attached to them," she said, adding "If they raise $880 million, then they'll stop the auction right there. It's anybody's guess if they ever make it to Missouri."

tgreaney@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 245