[at-l] Help Tennessee Land Acquisition

[kahley7@ptd.net (kahley)]

At 09:32 AM 6/23/01 -0400, Bob Cummings wrote:
>ATC is seeking a $4-million appropriation for the USDA Forest Service 
>(USFS) in the budget now before
>Congress to acquire 2,230 acres that border the Appalachian Trail in the 
>Cherokee National Forest
>(CNF) in Tennessee near the North Carolina line.
>
>Secondly, contact your own
>senators with the same request. Postal- and electronic-contact information 
>for all Members of
>Congress is available at http://www.congress.org.

A snail mail letter would also be helpful IF you do it NOW!

for hints and addies:
http://www.nsbu.org/howto1.htm

If you don't know who your Representative or Senator is
http://congress.org/congressorg/dbq/officials/
Just enter your zipcode

to find your congressman's website
http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.html

to speak with your congresscritter's office
(202) 224-3121 and ask for your congressman/woman's office

ask "May I speak to the aid who handles environmental issues?"
or budget issues?  Get their names and include them in your letter writing.

For phone numbers and addresses for senators.
http://www.senate.gov/contacting/index.cfm

Check your phone book for the numbers and addresses of their local offices.
If you can't find them, call your newspaper....they know

ATC is seeking a $4-million appropriation for the USDA Forest Service 
(USFS) in the budget now before
Congress to acquire 2,230 acres that border the Appalachian Trail in the 
Cherokee National Forest
(CNF) in Tennessee near the North Carolina line.
Part of the 10,000-acre Rocky Fork tract, this
tract includes 1.2 miles of the Trail's footpath, with another two miles of 
the Trail close by. The
entire Rocky Fork property has been long sought by the Forest Service for 
inclusion in the Cherokee
Forest, because it is one of the last large undeveloped tracts of wild, 
forested mountain land left
in the southern Appalachians. It lies along the upper end of the Rocky Fork 
drainage in Greene and
Unicoi counties, about 30 miles southwest of Johnson City, Tenn.
The property contains scenic
high-elevation heath and grass balds, watershed lands, and remnant stands 
of old-growth forest, with
much of the land being above 4,000 feet. Because of this tract's size, it 
was not among the
high-priority lands included in the Appalachian Trail land-acquisition 
program, which began in 1968
and received its final round of funding in 1998. Although the USFS would 
like to acquire the entire
property, the agency now seeks to acquire only 2,230 acres, including the 
portions closest to the
Appalachian Trail.
If all of the $4 million came from the remaining A.T. appropriations, it would
liquidate nearly all of the agency's A.T. funds with another 40 tracts 
still to be purchased. So,
the agency is seeking a special line-item appropriation for fiscal-year 
2002 to buy this part of the
property.
You Can Help protect this significant addition to the
Appalachian Trail buffer by contacting U.S. Representative William Jenkins 
and Senators Fred
Thompson and Bill Frist of Tennessee and ask that they request the $4 
million for the Rocky Fork
tract be included in the FY 2002 appropriations bill through the Senate 
Appropriations subcommittee
on interior and related agencies. Send electronic mail to Rep. Jenkins 
through his website,
http://house.gov/jenkins; send electronic mail to Sen. Frist at 
senator_frist@frist.senate.gov and
to Sen. Thompson at senator_thompson@thompson.senate.gov.