Land Between the Lakes is the largest contiguous block of public land between the Appalachians and the Rockies. It's value as a biological reserve is incomparable and irreplaceable in an area devastated by pulpwood production and intensive agriculture. LBL is currently managed by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and LBL's future is threatened by uncertain funding for TVA's non-power programs. Your support is desperately needed to secure its protection in perpetuity.
LBL's 170,000 acres contains more than 151,000 acres of contiguous hardwood and mixed hardwood-pine forest situated on a 40 mile long peninsula surrounded by Barkley Reservoir to the East, and Kentucky Reservoir to the West. The habitat it provides is essential to numerous species of migratory neoptropicals, including the Wood Thrush, Cerulean Warbler and Bell's Vireo. These birds require intact interior forest habitat in order to survive. LBL is also a foraging area for several species of bats and may well provide cave sites for the endangered gray bat and fall swarming habitat for the endangered Indiana bat.
LBL is home to numerous ecological rarities, including a good sized stand of native shortleaf pine (true Red Cockaded Woodpecker habitat), and an area of Mountain Laurel left over from the last ice age. LBL also contains more than 40,000 acres of U.S. Man and the Biosphere "biodiversity reserves" in some 30 core areas.
The forests surrounding LBL are already overharvested (1989 Forest Inventory Analysis) to feed two large pulp mills (Westvaco in KY and Inland Container in TN). They also supply numerous whole log loading facilities on the Tennessee River. To make matters worse, new chip mills are being planned or permitted to the south, north and west.
LBL is our last and best chance to protect a significant contiguous area of mature native forest for neotropical migratory songbirds and other species that require large areas of interior forest habitat. Unlike the National Forests in the area, LBL contains no inholdings and only 4% is in pine plantations.
Legislation has been introduced (#3689 in the House, #1896 in the Senate) which would turn over LBL to the Forest Service as a National Recreation Area with some limited involvement on the part of the US Fish and Wildlife Service. There is no provision to stop commercial development; in fact, some folks may interpret language that encourages it. Commercial logging is permitted and also encouraged through a provision that allows proceeds from the resource sales to be kept by the agency for the operation of LBL. There is even a provision that may exclude them from some compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
We oppose transfer of this land to the Forest Service on the grounds that they would likely prioritize timber production at the expense of all other forest values, including bird and wildlife habitat, clean water, and recreation.
In respect for the families whose land was taken to make LBL (and who have ardently fought commercial development), please request that the area's cemetaries remain in the control of the families, not the federal government.
Please help protect this extraordinary resource from commercial development and logging. Write, fax or call your representatives and senators today. Ask them to: 1) Support a moratorium on all commercial activities until LBL's future can be secured. 2) See that LBL is given a statutory mission that reflects TVA's original promise of no development to congress and the people of the area. And 3) Oppose giving LBL to the Forest Service. Call the Capitol Switchboard toll-free, 1-800-522-6721.
The songbirds thank you for your time and energy. For more information, contact Jim Atchison, atch@apex.net with the Concept Zero Task Force, P.O. Box 56, Eddyville, Ky. 42038, or David Nickell dlnick1@pop.uky.edu with Concept Zero, or Scott Banbury of Memphis Audubon, 901-726-1473, sbanbury@earthlink.net
Scott Silver, Executive Director,
Wild Wilderness
248 NW Wilmington Avenue, Bend OR 97701
Phone (541) 385-5261 E-mail: ssilver@wildwilderness.org