A foursome of regional conservation groups have a few problems with the U.S. Forest Service’s restoration plans across 157,625 acres of Georgia’s Conasauga, Blue Ridge and Chattooga River ranger districts in the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forests.
The project dubbed the Foothills Landscape Project is roughly twice the size of Atlanta, and the Southern Environmental Law Center, on behalf of the four conservation groups, has filed a 25-page objection with the forest service regarding its final environmental assessment released in December.
An estimated 244,000 people live in the project area that lies in portions of Dawson, Fannin, Gilmer, Habersham, Lumpkin, Murray, Rabun and White counties in North Georgia.
“Filing an objection is a way for the public to seek additional administrative review of a forest service decision and, since the Foothills Landscape Project will be the largest project in the history of the Chattahoochee National Forest, we believe filing this objection is necessary to ensure this project has a sound foundation as it moves forward,” law center spokesperson Eric Hilt said in an email.
The objection mostly cites procedural issues in decision-making that make it unclear to the public whether there will be more opportunities for public engagement as the ambitious project moves forward, and criticizes the assessment for not providing a more robust quantitative accounting of the impact on climate change. The forest service has already incorporated some changes from previous public input efforts to draw the two sides closer together.