What is going on at LBL? I don’t know and I don’t really know if anyone does for sure. It seems future funding for LBL is unclear and uncertain. Getting information out of LBL was alway a challenge when it was controlled by TVA, but the U.S. Forest Service is a quagmire that just sucks all the time you have to give to such a pursuit. I have covered Land Between the Lakes as a professional reporter since 1981 and before that I practically lived there as my grandparents, great-grandparents and various other aunts and uncles lived in the Fort Henry community of the Stewart County, Tennessee portion of Land Between the Lakes. My intent is to stir the pot a little bit by asking some questions and waiting out the response time and see if we can get some attention and focus back to where it belongs — making sure ‘The Promise’ the government made to the former landowners that LBL would be maintained and operated i’n perpetuity ‘ is kept.
David,
Is the logging, or deforestation, of LBL’s natural scenic hardwood forests continuing apace, a savage raping of our carbon-absorbing greenland that started in the 1980s? This would continue the mentality of forests as a “crop” resource that the Forest Service has long held. I do not know personally, having been away, but I suppose they’ve put little effort into natural “park” attractions to attract and educate tourists, such as staffed scientific outposts, the planetarium, living museums, or other installations?
All that would be a proper legacy, and was undertaken by TVA. Such an infrastructure existed, barely, when the Forest Service bought or took over LBL. I hope they’ve at least maintained those activities.