Weremonkey

Woke up with a scratchy throat this morning. My eyes itch. Driving to work, the sky had a strange kinda west coast haze between me and the rest of the city.

I turned on the radio. There's a Code Red smog alert today in Atlanta.

Quite appropriately, a friend sent this letter to us. I thought it was good and am sharing it here:

Bad things are about to happen to our Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forests. The U.S. Forest Service's 15 year plan is a rotten betrayal of the Georgia Forest Watch's recommendations - which they previously agreed with. Read about it here:
http://www.gafw.org/spring%202002/spring_2003.htm It's sad and wrong. Less wilderness designations, more ATV trails, more approved logging, zero watershed protections. And no forum for public comment except to write to a committee in Utah by July 3rd. Take a minute and bitch them out. Here's my letter:

Dear Chattahoochee-Oconee Content Analysis Team,

So why the big point to limit public comment? Hmmmm? Up to no good?

I work on the 54th floor of the Suntrust Plaza building in Atlanta every day. On a good day, I can see the North Georgia mountains. On a bad day, I can watch the band of yellow-brown goo spread from the north west and completely encircle the city. It's the old coal burning power plants that the EPA protects. I think to myself; "at least there's the Chattahoochee Oconee National Forest up there, 750,000 acres of trees has to help ".
Unfortunately, the U.S. Forest Service has become infested with timber industry folks. The Forest Service's 15 year plan for the last of Georgia's wild lands has got to be changed. Four million people really need the oxygen. All summer our local health officials advise us, especially children, not to exercise outside. Our kids can't ride bikes in the summer but we need more ATV trails and less wilderness? We shouldn't buy gas until the sun goes down, but more land has been approved for commercial logging. Last summer Atlanta hit water usage numbers projected for 2020 and watershed we drink from has no special protection.

How is our country so hard up for cash that we need to hock our trees, wildlife, water and air? I notice the National Forests Content Analysis Team is sitting in Utah. Utah has 9 million acres of National Forest and less than 3 million people in the state. Nice. Decisions about Georgia's natural resources should be made by people who have to breathe here.