The U.S. Forest Service has just announced a proposal aimed at legally opening part of the Wild and Scenic Upper Chattooga River to boating.

The agency proposes to permit limited boating on the Headwaters stretch of the Chattooga from its confluence with Norton Mill Creek in North Carolina (where the River meets the County Line Road Trail) to Burrell’s Ford Bridge, on the Georgia-South Carolina border.

This 7-mile stretch bisects the Ellicott Rock Wilderness. Under the Forest Service’s preferred alternative, boating would be allowed from December 1 to March 1 and only when the River’s “mean daily flow level” reached 2.5 feet at the gauge on U.S. 76. As the Forest Service sees it, such a plan would permit boating on average about 6 days per year. The proposal would permit a maximum of four boater groups per day with a maximum of six boats per group. Forest Service spokesmen say such a plan would minimize conflict between boaters and fishermen. Simultaneously, the Forest Service would close all roadside parking within 0.25 miles of Burrell’s Ford Bridge.

Georgia ForestWatch staff, district leaders and volunteers, have asserted that prohibiting boats from this part of the river for the past 30-plus years was a good decision. Over the next few weeks we will closely analyze the proposal and submit detailed comment with the help of our legal team by the deadline, August 1, 2008.

We may need your help soon, so be prepared to respond to an Action Alert in the near future which will give you further guidance on how to comment.

More Info:

For more information, visit the Forest Service website at: http://www.fs.fed.us/r8/fms/forest/projects/ChattoogaDraftEA.shtml