To the editor:
My husband and I purchased our house on Reservoir Road in North Adams in 2018 because we were looking for a peaceful forested property surrounded by the same. We thought we had found it because the public places surrounding us, like the Notch Forest and Reservoir, Bellows Pipe Trailhead and the entrance to the Greylock Mountain Park, were right here. We thought nobody would ever want to disturb such a well-known trailhead and pristine forest.
Then, to our dismay and horror, we read an article in iBerkshires last week about the forestry plans for the area. See those plans here.
The most dismaying part of the plan is that on the priority chart for Notch Forest recreation, improving the area for hunting, fishing, hiking, and skiing and preserving scenic beauty are all rated LOW in priority. Yet all of these things are exactly what currently attracts people to this area!
Why do you want to take a currently popular recreation and scenic area and destroy it for short-term logging income? The Notch Forest/Bellows Pipe Trail is directly parallel and less than a half mile from the Appalachian Trail! Do you want hikers hearing noise from cutting and hauling? It is also a much-used entrance to the Bellows Pipe Trail leading to the Mount Greylock Reservation. People from all over the world hike this area of the trail. Do you want to greet visitors to this currently pristine area with muddy, logged-out areas; a closed trail; and gashes in the forest and trail due to logging trucks and skidders? Why would you waste such a precious recreational resource? Additionally, having a “demonstration forest” there would only open the area to logging for decades to come!
In spite of the rhetoric offered to the public by the Mohawk Trail representatives and others, there are more opposing opinions to the forestry plan, and NONE of these were presented to the public. In fact, it is clear this plan has been carefully kept under covers. The two “forest walks” offered by Mass Audubon were deceptively labeled and would NOT attract the same crowd as a walk labeled “Future Logging Plan Walk,” because that is what it was. But people who would reject this plan were not properly informed of it!
The Save the Notch Forest Coalition has a petition with 175 signers—and growing!—(list attached) who are against this plan. These are local people, non-locals, and visitors who love this area. Sign the petition here.
We have also discussed the plan with local landscape architect Walt Cudnohufsky who was present on the last Forest Walk. He sees NO sense in the plan prepared by forester Gary Gouldrup and wrote a detailed commentary with opposing opinions. See Cudnohufsky’s commentary here.
Lori Bradley
North Adams
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