Great News for Us WV'ians

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hollowdweller

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Sep 22, 2003
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I am so proud Rahall is my congressman and I can cast a vote for him!!!


In August 2006, Rep. Nick Rahall hiked through the Greenbrier County woods, scrambling over fallen logs and rock outcroppings.
Rahall joined members of the West Virginia Wilderness Coalition to scout out new areas of the Monongahela National Forest to protect.

The West Virginia Democrat wanted to see firsthand some of the spots being considered for designation as wilderness areas. This particular hike took him through Big Draft, a 5,200-acre oak and hickory forest just five miles from White Sulphur Springs.

“It was a reaffirming experience, in that it underscored to me just how fortunate we are to still have such primeval settings like this in our state, and how, in the blink of an eye, they could disappear,” Rahall recalled last week.

If Rahall has his way, that won’t happen to Big Draft, or to six other areas that he proposes to give wilderness designations.

Rahall plans to introduce his “Wild Monongahela Act” on Wednesday. He’s billing the legislation as “A National Legacy for West Virginia’s Special Places.” Reps. Alan Mollohan, D-W.Va., and Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., are expected to be co-sponsors. Sens. Robert C. Byrd and Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., are also expected to support the plan.

The areas would become the first new wilderness areas in West Virginia in nearly 25 years.

“This is a battle over the heart and soul of West Virginia,” said Rahall, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, which controls public lands legislation.
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This is going to make a lot more fun places that can't be stripped or cut!~

“Our southern mountains have been yielding their coal for generations and our northern ridgelines are being targeted by the merchants of wind power,” Rahall said. “More development is coming and, in most cases, it is welcomed.

“But as West Virginians, we are intimately connected to our land,” he said. “We know that we will be judged by future generations on our stewardship of this land that is West Virginia.

“And so I believe it is of paramount importance that we, once again, set aside some of God’s handiwork in our forests by preserving these federal lands in their pristine state,” Rahall said.

Rahall’s plan calls for expansion of three existing wilderness areas, Cranberry, Dolly Sods, and Dry Fork. It would also create four new wilderness areas: Big Draft, Cheat Mountain, Roaring Plains West and Spice Run.

By adding 47,000 acres to the Monongahela National Forest’s 78,000 acres of wilderness, the plan would increase the forest’s wilderness acreage by 60 percent.:thumbup:

The plan includes three additional areas covering nearly 20,000 more acres of wilderness than was proposed by the U.S. Forest Service in a plan issued in September 2006.
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http://wvwild.org/1_20_08_Gazette_WildMonAct.htm
 
Roaring Plains

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Very Interesting - My Best camping trips have been to Monongahela / Cranberry :thumbup:

Thanks for posting the info.
 
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