Save these trees: Swallow Falls and a bridge too far

Joan Maloof, founder of the Old Growth Forest Network, has joined the fight to keep the state of Maryland from allowing Garrett County to cut potentially 300 trees (and possibly more) in public lands at Swallow Falls State Park to build a new bridge across the Youghioghgeny River. Says Joan:  “We don’t have enough staff to protect every threatened forest but this one in Swallow Falls is especially important to us because it has the oldest hemlock trees in Maryland, as far as we know, and it’s a forest that’s already in the Old Growth Forest Network. We were assured that the forest was protected from cutting and now to see it, threatened with cutting for a bridge replacement that could be done another way, is disappointing so we are doing all we can to protect that ancient forest. “

As I explain in my Sunday column: The need for the new bridge is dubious. But the forest’s citizen advocates say that, if a new one is built, it should be constructed on the same alignment of the present bridge, sparing trees and land that is, by Maryland law, the most protected in the state. To see this happen in the state’s “wild and scenic” lands is shocking.

From my column: “Parts of the area are within the Youghiogheny Scenic and Wild River Corridor. That means just about everything out there is supposed to be left alone. To allow the county to build a new bridge, the state had to grant an exception, and that’s what DNR Secretary Josh Kurtz did.”

That decision by Kurtz, made in August 2023, is now being challenged in court, and a legal defense fund is being set up.

If you want to protest this plan — and suggest that the state and county find a better way to replace the present bridge — here’s where you write:

SwallowFallsBridge.dnr@maryland.gov or write to the Department of Natural Resources, Secretary Josh Kurtz, Tawes State Office Building, 580 Taylor Ave., Annapolis, MD 21401.

Contact Gov. Wes Moore via this link or by mail: 100 State Circle, Annapolis, Maryland 21401-1925​.

You can find more information on the Facebook page Keep The Wild Yough Wild.

More photos at this Facebook page: Dan Rodricks