TDEC Hopes For Public Access Opportunities At Chestnut Mountain

The State hopes open up part of White County’s Chestnut Mountain area for public access.

Brock Hill is the Deputy Commissioner for Parks and Conservation for the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation.

Hill said the department looks forward to working with the nature conservancy, which recently took ownership of the nearly 6,000 acres of land through a donation from Bridgestone.

Firestone purchased the land just outside Sparta in the 1970s to use as an investment property and as an employee retreat. Bridgestone officials decided to donate the land, in part, to offset the carbon footprint from its new 30-story office tower in Nashville.

“It’s a gift to the nature conservancy, but it’s truly in essence a gift to the people of Tennessee,” Hill said. “We really appreciate Bridgestone for their benevolence in that regard.”

“We are going to be working with the nature conservancy on trying to provide some access into the property as soon as possible,” Hill said. “The property should close within the next 30-days and then we will start working on that. It won’t be an automatic opening, but we will be phasing it in as we feel like it’s in our best interest and the public’s best interest.

Potential public access opportunities include, hiking trails, primitive campsites, and some limited horse trails.

As the nature conservancy updates a forest management and carbon sequestration plan for the property, Hill said TDEC will be working closely to develop some options for public access.

Hill said there may be certain areas where folks won’t be able to go.

“We don’t want to have the public going into the property where it might not be in their best interest to be there,” Hill said, “There may be some areas where there’s some trees being removed and new trees being planted.”

With the help of TNC, Bridgestone had enrolled the property in Forest Stewardship Council certification, one of the highest standards of forest management for sustainable forest products.

As part of that forest sequestration plan, the conservancy will be allowed to sell some of the trees to logging companies. Tennessee director for the Nature Conservancy terry Cook says land managers will likely replant cleared areas with shortleaf pine, have declined by more than 50 percent in the past 30 years.

Restoring these trees will help re-establish habitat for ground-nesting birds like bobwhite quail and other species.