Rob Wipfler - Director Kingswood
Laketarletoncoalition.org
Zack Porter,
Standing Trees, zporter@standingtrees.org
In 2000 a coalition of people including elected officials, volunteers and environmental organizations rallied to save an especially unique area in the Moosilauke region that was threatened by development and logging. Lake Tarleton is the largest lake in the White Mountain National Forest today and one of the few that has never had problems with invasive species.
Today the area is once again under threat, this time from the very agency that was charged with caring for it when $7.5 million in public and private funds secured its preservation. This is not the first time that the forest service has been charged with acting like a man with an ax whose only solution to a problem is to cut. Furthermore, it is not at all clear that the forest service would have been chosen to manage the property had the organizations and citizens who rallied to save the lake and its surroundings known that it would thoughtlessly place this gem in the box of rocks that is the lowest level of protection offered within the White Mountain National Forest.
With fewer than two weeks before final submissions are due proponents of a plan to give greater “Scenic” protection to the Lake Tarleton Watershed area are making a final push buoyed by an Earthday Executive Order from President Biden encouraging the development of Old Growth Forests that on the face of it runs contrary to the actions of the White Mountain National Forest administration.
I spoke with Zack Porter of St. Johnsbury-based Standing Trees organization as well as Rob Wipfler, Co-director of Kingswood Camp for Boys on Lake Tarleton who is also the Director of a newly formed Lake Tarleton Coalition.
