This article was written for and published in the Cherokee Scout’s “The Far Blue Mountains” column on Wednesday, September 16, 2009. Tom Bennett, writer of “The Far Blue Mountains” is also the writer of the “WATR Column”.
By Tom Bennett
Murphy, N.C. — The U.S. Forest Service is refereeing a heavyweight bout between two groups. They are the nation’s off-highway vehicle enthusiasts and its brook-trout anglers. The issue is control of a piece of the Nantahala National Forest here in far north Cherokee County.
Beginning in 1994, a USFS management plan permitted off-highway vehicle trails in a high and environmentally sensitive area at the headwaters of the Upper Tellico River.
An off-highway vehicle is “any motor vehicle capable of cross-country travel over land, water, snow, ice, marsh or swampland,” according to the Code of Federal Regulations. An estimated average usage of 2,400 of them a month was occurring at Upper Tellico, according to Southern Environmental Law Center.
Marisue Hilliard became USFS’ Forest Supervisor for North Carolina in 2005. She’s a 29-year veteran of the Service; mother of three; former western regional director in Denver; onetime litigation specialist in the Atlanta office; and University of Georgia Forestry graduate.
Hilliard once led an assessment of Southern Appalachian wildlife and forest health “foundational to the revision of USFS land management plans,” according to a press release.
Eighteen months ago, from her office in Asheville and citing her authority in that same Code of Federal Regulations, Hilliard issued Order 12-02-07. It closed the Upper Tellico OHV Area each winter from January to March, the wettest months, and shut down completely four of 12 trails until a long-term plan is done.
“The Forest Service is in violation of its own standards and North Carolina water-quality standards,” Hilliard said. “Visible sediment from the ORV trails is reaching the Tellico River and its tributaries in hundreds of locations.”
Since then an environmental assessment has established USFS’ preference for total closure. No wonder OHV groups have posted the “Rescue Tellico” web site. It declares the trails to be “under siege.”
Meanwhile, the fishermen and women are just as determined to win the day. The Trout Unlimited web site details how severe erosion caused by OHVs threatens “the most significant intact population of native southern Appalachian brook trout in western North Carolina.”
COURT IS WHERE big environmental disputes go. In May 2008, the Southern Four Wheel Drive Club, United Four Wheel Drive Associations and Blue Ribbon Coalition sued USFS and Hilliard in U.S. District Court of Western North Carolina.
Joining in support of USFS and Hilliard were Trout Unlimited; Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility; and Wild South. Southern Environmental Law Center intervened, led by Attorney Austin D.J. Gerken of Asheville.
The lawsuit went nowhere. In October 2008, both sides voluntarily agreed to end it. “Now come all parties in this action to stipulate to dismissal without prejudice and with all parties paying their own costs and attorneys fees to this date,” the court wrote.
It doesn’t work to sue over a temporary closure. Among the Forest Service’s exhibits was a Northern District of Georgia 2006 ruling throwing out a Chattooga River case. It had been brought against USFS by a whitewater group. “Plaintiffs must be content to allow the process they have started to play out,” the Georgia court said.
Tom Bennett of the Martins Creek community near Murphy, N.C., was a retired newsman, Hiwassee River Watershed Coalition member/volunteer/donor and recipient of the 2015 Holman Water Quality Stewardship Award. Tom died on December 28, 2020.