Letters to the editor

ONF threatened Dear editor:

If you like the idea of your community’s backyard having only one species of tree, clear-cutting, and watching fire and multiple toxic herbicides leave a scorched-earth look, then things are going your way — stop reading.

But if, on the other hand, you cherish your Ouachita National Forest (ONF), you will want to read on, because something sinister is looming.

A substantial portion of the ONF is being converted from a bio-diversified natural forest, to monoculture pine plantations; a process that includes such activities as widespread burning, massive logging and the pervasive use of the woody-stemmed herbicides triclopyr (early growing season), imazapyr (late summer/ fall), and glyphosate (late summer/fall). It is unthinkable to consider the percentage of flora and fauna that has already been wiped out, and more that will soon die.

In a 50-mile 1/2 NE to the SW radius of Hot

Springs National Park (HOSP), Arkansas U.S. Forest Service conversion activities, those on the drawing board and those being implemented, are expected to affect over 100,000 acres or at least 15.5 square miles (https://www.fs.usda.gov/projects/ouachita/landmanagement/projects).

In this same 50-mile radius, there are at least 11 separate U.S. Forest Service timber sale prospectuses for 2017. The timber sales are in the Jessieville, Mount Ida, Perryville and Oden areas. All of the prospectuses refer to part of the logging as “… first thinning in pine plantations.” The sale areas total 8,422 acres or a little over 13 square miles (https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/ouachita/home/?cid=fsm9_039819). Janis K. Percefull Hot Springs