Final funding comes through for land purchase on Brumley Mountain, creating region's first state for
Saturday, Jun 16,
2007 - 02:00 AM
BY Debra McCown
Bristol Herald Courier
ABINGDON – Southwest Virginia will soon have its own state forest.
The final funding
came through Wednesday for the Virginia
Department of Forestry’s purchase of a
4,800-acre tract of land on Brumley
Mountain, where the
region’s first state forest will be created.
The tract includes
the Channels, a unique rock formation of deep crevices atop the mountain.
"The protection
of Brumley Mountain
is part of kind of a larger conservation effort on Clinch
Mountain," said Brad Kreps, director
of the Nature Conservancy’s Clinch
Valley Program.
"It’s one of the
best examples of a bunch of organizations working together and working with
landowners to create a large network of conservation lands that will protect
the beauty of Clinch Mountain and the wildlife resources on Clinch Mountain for
future generations."
Forestry Department
officials plan to purchase the land from the conservancy, which bought it in
2004 to make sure it would be preserved until the state could get the money.
The money has come in
three parts; a $1.2 million grant from the Virginia Land Conservation
Foundation in 2005, a $1.6 million appropriation from the General Assembly
earlier this year and a $1 million grant from the foundation Wednesday.
Regional Forester Ed
Stoots said the department will likely close on the property this fall, and it
will then be open to the public.
"Once it is
state forest property, which is public property, if someone wanted to park at
one of the gates that exist there now and walk in, that’s what they could
do," Stoots said. "It is still private property right now."
He said the Forestry
Department will honor a lease on the property to a law enforcement hunting club
through this coming season. After that, it will be open to anyone with the
proper hunting permits.
Stoots said a
management plan will be created once the purchase is completed and the property
will be "multiple use."
In addition to
hunting, it will support timber harvesting and educational efforts, he said,
adding that he’s open to suggestions for additional uses.
For example, he said,
one group has expressed interest in creating a birding platform on the
mountain; another wants to construct a trail along the ridge.
But, Stoots said, his
department has no funding for such projects, and the money would have to come
from other sources.
The fire tower will
likely be removed and the Channels will remain difficult to access, he said.
