Logging plan for state forests part of Kasich agenda

Ohio Gov. John Kasich plans to log our state parks. In this forestry region, he has initially targeted four parks: Lake Hope, Forked Run, Tar Hollow and Scioto Trail. Logging is planned for some two-thirds of the land area of Lake Hope State Park, as well as about half of Forked Run. This is according to the state's own plans for the parks.

The hillside overlooking the entryway to Tar Hollow is going to be logged; it's a done deal. I was told it would not be visible from the road, but looking at the map, it was clear that it will be a clearly visible eyesore.

Lake Hope State Park is popular with Athens-area residents. This wild jewel set amidst Ohio's second-largest state forest features recreational resources that include an extensive mountain-biking trail system. The planned cutting zones there (Zones C and D) are in the mountain-bike trail areas. The trails could be made un-ridable with Kasich's plans.

The state's plan establishes four zones, which may be applied variously to the parks. Zone A denotes the heavy use areas, which are presumably off-limits except for salvage and safety logging. Zone B is their "viewshed" designation, areas that are immediately visible from the Zone A areas and from roadways. Their definition of viewshed areas presupposes that the citizenry are all uncorrected myopics, since this zone does not extend very far at all. This zone, too, would be presumably mostly off-limits to logging except for safety and salvage, with the added proviso that the park manager has the option to select trees from this area.

Zones C and D are the real targeted areas. Zone C is "late succession," apparently meaning that these areas are intended to be mixed-age, closed-canopy forest stands (no old-growth areas for our parks)  – except that selective logging will "open up" the canopy by creating holes in it. This is actually how an old-growth forest functions, although it makes these openings without human help, and with trees of much greater average age. Do the forests really need our help creating openings? Zone D is "early succession," meaning that the plan is to make a mess of these areas (see next paragraph). This zone allows for both selective cutting and clearcutting of areas up to 2.5 acres.

Here's one big problem with the plan for cutting: the plans give lip service to invasive exotic plants, but completely fails to note that any logging, without remediation for exotics, creates, essentially, a nursery for these invasive plants. Create an artificial hole in the forest, and it is quickly populated with Asian stilt grass, bush honeysuckles, Japanese honeysuckle, multiflora rose, privet, and a whole host of other noxious weeds that obliterate all the native herbaceous and shrub growth. The only way to prevent this is to remove all invasives from at least a quarter-mile radius around the cut, and then to monitor the cut. The plan says nothing about this.

The plan gives a nod to best management practices for forestry, but ONLY in context of preventing erosion on logging roads. There is no mention of other BMPs that are critical, such as protecting riparian corridors, ensuring that quality seed trees are left (which selective cutting implies will not be done), leaving some standing snags for wildlife, and so forth. Even a 2.5-acre clearcut has the potential to completely extirpate many native herbaceous species that can not accommodate a sunny, drier, warmer situation, and many of these species may take more than a century to repopulate such an area.

But more to the point, why should any logging be allowed in state parks? In 1949, when the Ohio Department of Natural Resources was established, a category of state parks was established to differentiate these areas from state forests. Parks were carved out of most state forests of the time. Such parks include Hocking Hills, Forked Run, Tar Hollow, Scioto Trail, and Shawnee. The parks were set aside for several key reasons, not the least of which was that the parks would not be used for resource extraction. Parks were supposed to showcase our state's natural heritage, not to have government consume their resources for monetary gain.

Now, a claim often made by politicians like Kasich is that of the precedence set by our forefathers – but only when it's convenient. Precedence in matters like the wise setting-aside of state parks is meaningless to him and his cohort. Our heritage is irrelevant to them. All they see are the dollar signs. Kasich and cronies combine tax cuts for the rich with resource extraction from our parks to make up part of the lost revenue. The inescapable logic is that resource extraction from our parks is giving the rich more money. How twisted is that?

Today, a little logging in a few state parks. Tomorrow, all the state parks will be subject to logging and drilling. Then, eventually, our state parks.

After all, this governor already decided for himself that a very modest win was somehow magically an overwhelming mandate to perpetrate his agenda on the Ohio public. He is not one of us; he is one of them, and what this all boils down to is this: Kasich plans to exploit every Ohio resource to which he has access for the benefit of the rich and privileged.

Editor's note: John Knouse of Glouster works with mapping, land management, trail development and sustainability issues.