Blue Ridge Country - November/December 2013 - 12

M N.C. Protects 1,700 Parkway Acres
cathryn mccue

Also, Tennessee moves closer To 20,000 Acres becoming
officiAl wilderness AreAs.

Dr. Ken Bridle, Piedmont
Land Conservancy
Stewardship director, stands
on newly protected land in
North Carolina.

1 2 3 4 5

north carolina

Tennessee

virginia

west virginia

west virginia

With the purchase in
July of an easement on
550 acres in Surry
County, the Piedmont
Land Conservancy caps
a years-long effort to
protect some 1,700
acres around the Blue
Ridge Parkway from
future development.
The latest acquisition is
on Fisher Peak, which
contains headwaters
that ultimately supply
drinking water for
Winston-Salem. Half of
the $1.3 million came
from private donations,
the remaining half from
the N.C. Clean Water
Management Trust
Fund.
piedmontland.org

U.S. Sens. Lamar
Alexander and Bob
Corker have re-introduced their bill to designate 20,000 acres of
the Cherokee National
Forest as wilderness –
the highest form of
public land preservation. The bill would
expand five existing
wilderness areas and
create the new Upper
Bald River Wilderness
Area. All the acreage
was recommended for
wilderness by the U.S.
Forest Service. The bill
passed a Senate committee last year and
continues to have
broad support.
tnwild.org

A federal court in July
found that A&G Coal
Co. failed to tell state
regulators that its surface mining operation
in Wise County might
result in toxic selenium
in the mine’s wastewater discharge into a
nearby stream.
Environmental groups
filed a lawsuit when
they found selenium in
streams at nearly three
times the state water
quality standard. The
court ordered A&G to
get a permit for the
pollutant and begin
daily monitoring.
appvoices.
org/2013/07/23/
ag_selenium/

The Nature Conservancy
has finished planting
34,000 red spruce saplings on public land in
Randolph County as
part of an initiative to
restore spruce forests to
the high country of
West Virginia. The effort
is aimed at providing
critical habitat for species in the face of climate change, including
warblers, bats, native
brook trout, and the
Northern flying squirrel.
The conservancy estimates that of the
500,000 acres of spruce
forest that once covered
the state’s mountains,
less than 10 percent
remains. nature.org/
centralappalachians

A federal court in July
let stand the U.S.
Environmental
Protection Agency’s veto
of a controversial permit
for a mountaintop
removal coal mine when
it denied the coal company’s request for
appeal. The expanded
Spruce Mine operation
in Logan County, W.Va.
would have been one of
the largest mountaintop
mines in the state.
Environmental groups
lauded the court’s decision as a significant step
in their fight to end the
mining practice in
Appalachia.
earthjustice.org/
news/press-releases

12 | BlueRidgeCountry.com

Virginia Weiler

mountain
report

http://www.appvoices.org/2013/07/23/ag_selenium http://www.earthjustice.org/news/press-releases http://www.earthjustice.org/news/press-releases http://www.piedmontland.org http://www.tnwild.org http://www.nature.org/centralappalachians http://www.nature.org/centralappalachians http://BlueRidgeCountry.com

Blue Ridge Country - November/December 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Blue Ridge Country - November/December 2013