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Swan Song |
Last Revised: March 08, 2007
The following is a letter dated June 2003 from Joe DeLoach to TEHCC members and the Appalachian Trail community. There is much to consider in Joe's words, especially with regard to the increasing regulation of those who maintain the A.T.
"Since 1994, I have been the Chair of the Tennessee Eastman Hiking Club’s
A.T. Committee. Our A.T. Committee is the group within our Club that has responsibility
for maintaining the Appalachian Trail, and as such we work with the Forest Service and the
Appalachian Trail Conference in our Trail management partnership. As A.T. Committee
Chair, I have tried to be the main contact for our Club on Appalachian Trail issues,
hopefully making it simpler for our agency partners to work with TEHC. This letter
is to notify you that I will be stepping down at the end of 1998. After five years,
it’s good for our Club to have new leadership. Steve Perri will assume the role
of TEHC A.T. Committee Chair. Steve has been an active member and Trail maintainer
for a number of years and I know he’ll do a fine job.
It has been a privilege to work with each of you. I have admired your dedication and
professionalism in what seems to me to be difficult jobs. Your actions have shown
that you are genuinely concerned with protecting the Appalachian Trail. Even though we
don’t always agree, we’ve been able to work together and keep communicating. I
hope that I’ve been able to help foster a good working relationship between you and
TEHC. Together we’ve had many significant accomplishments in the last five years. The
Forest Service, in particular Tom Speakes, has done a great job with land acquisition for
the Trail. We very much appreciate the help you’ve provided with special projects,
tools, and materials just to name a few things. I can think of projects like the Hack Line
rehabilitation that the Forest Service recently did, the shelter repair work where you
provided much of the needed materials, the relocations we’ve put in with Konnarock,
the ongoing open areas management, and the Trail rehab projects you’ve supported as
evidence that our partnership is working.
I believe our Trail section is in much better shape than it was ten years ago as a result of all our efforts. However, I’m concerned about the next ten years and beyond. My biggest concern is the tendency to regulate, be overly concerned with liability, and add additional burdens to volunteers that, sadly, seems to be increasing both with the Forest Service and with ATC. For example – five years ago chainsaw certification and use of proper protective equipment was required to be included in the Volunteers in the Forest insurance program. The proper training and equipment is certainly wise for volunteers to have and use, though many of us have our own insurance that covers Trail maintaining activities. But now, the certification and protective equipment are required for all volunteers, along with First Aid/CPR training. We have Wilderness regulations and policies, such as chainsaw use and bridge reconstruction, that I highly doubt the framers of the Wilderness Act and subsequent Wilderness-designating acts intended when they passed these acts. The sensible maintenance window once allowed in the Green Mountain National Forest has not only been rejected here but eliminated there. Not allowing chainsaw use after a hurricane, without even looking at the damage??? Too many decisions have to go "up the line" which at best slows down the work and often this results in decisions being made by those not as familiar with the situations and issues. The Forest Service in particular badly needs empowerment! Liability? The 4th Edition of the guidebook for our Trail section, published in 1973, had 4 pages devoted to precautions; the 11th and most recent edition has 16 such pages. We seem to be greatly concerned with things like hantavirus, Eric Rudolph, and blowdowns that should cause you to send money to ATC (as well as many other more substantive and important issues). But there doesn’t seem to be enough concern that having so much bureaucracy and so many regulations will make volunteers, who are only doing this work because they enjoy it, less willing and able to accomplish their tasks. Our partnership works best when your organizations are enabling and empowering, not controlling and dictating, to the volunteers. I recognize that guidelines are often needed, and that we don’t always see all the issues that you face. But, I am very concerned that between the decreasing amount of free time that people have and are willing to give to Trail work and this increasingly regulatory environment that the volunteer Trail maintainer will become a rarity and that what work gets done on the A.T. will be done by paid employees. I suspect you don’t want to see this, and you can help make sure that it doesn’t happen by always considering what effects the actions you are planning will have on helping volunteers do the job they want to do.
In summary, I’ve enjoyed working with you the last five years. I’ll continue to be an active maintainer and member of TEHC, so I hope to see and work with many of you. Please begin directing all of your correspondence with TEHC to Steve Perri who is our new A.T. Committee Chair. Best wishes to all of you."
