Congressman discusses timber sales at Pea Ridge military park
Posted on Thursday, December 22, 2005
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/bcdr/News/29212/
PEA RIDGE — Congressman Stevan Pearce, R-N. M., told witnesses at a congressional field hearing at the Pea Ridge National Military Park on Monday to change their mindset and consider timber sales on national park lands.
At the end of the three-hour hearing, Pearce, the House Subcommittee Chairman on National Parks, instructed Pea Ridge Park Superintendent John Scott and Jim Crouch, a retired U.S. Forest Service manager, to develop a proposal for the National Parks Service which uses professional loggers to clear trees from the park. Once the proposal is submitted and approved, Scott can advertise for bids to clear the battleground.
Crouch suggested loggers would clear the timber in return for being able to sell the wood. With current Park Service methods, which include clearing and placing in brush piles to be burned, Ernest Quintana, director of the Midwest region of the National Park Service, estimated a cost of $6,000 per acre to clear the park under today’s guidelines. To date, 16 acres of cultural landscape has been restored in the Pea Ridge park.
Quintana’s suggestion involved selling timber and retaining the funds to further park restoration. Today, any proceeds from timber sales must go into the general treasury. Pearce said that since timber sales are so foreign to NPS personnel, using professional loggers might be the way to proceed.
The decision by the Pea Ridge Park to restore and maintain the landscape to the historic 1862 time period originated from the 1964 Master Plan of the park.
Quintana told Pearce that thinning at Pea Ridge began in earnest three years ago, but there have been no timber sales. The NPS estimates there were between 20 to 40 large oak and hickory trees per acre in the 1860s. Today there are approximately 200 to 300 trees per acre in most areas. Also, more than 1,000 acres are so heavily forested in Eastern Red Cedar that no other tree or plant can grow.
Pearce said that, at $6,000 per acre, Pea Ridge would need $6 million for restoration.
Witnesses from the National Parks Conservation Association and the Civil War Preservation Trust supported the concept of restoring historic battlefields to their original conditions. Don Castleberry, with the NPCA, said that allowing park superintendents to sell timber posed a potential for inappropriate use of funds. Pearce said he did not believe that potential existed. He said NPS personnel are trained as good stewards of the land.
More than 130 units of the National Park Service are represented by National Battlefields, Military Parks and Historical Parks. These units are designated by Congress with the intention of preserving the area as it appeared at its historic moment in our nation’s history.
After hearing everyone’s testimony, Pearce gave the group a short lesson in government budget considerations, then launched into a question and answer period, eliciting information on the most economical avenue to clear the parks. "As Chairman of the Subcommittee on National Parks, one of my top priorities involves finding innovative ways to preserve our natural treasures, promote public enjoyment, and develop new sources of revenue that can help improve our national parks," Rep. Pearce said. "Especially during tight budgetary times, protecting our resources will require us to think with creativity, sensitivity, and objectivity regarding the management of our national parks."