The US Forest Service has written off plans for a land swap that would preserve part of the scenic Blackwater Canyon in Tucker County, agency officials said in a letter released Thursday. Chuck Myers, supervisor of the Monongahela National Forest, confirmed that property appraisals by the Forest Service and Allegheny Wood Products (AWP) "are far apart." In a letter to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-WV, Myers wrote that AWP President John Crites had not responded to a proposal that a third, independent appraiser be hired. "Unless some other, as yet unseen, option occurs, I cannot see how we can go forward with an exchange as proposed," Myers wrote in a letter dated Wednesday. "As of today, I remain no more optimistic than Mr. Crites that we can complete an exchange under the parameters we agreed upon," Myers wrote. "When we met with him on December 22, we left open the possibility of obtaining a third appraisal with the possibility it would move us to a successful proposal. We have not yet heard back from AWP about their interest in doing so." Environmentalists have been trying to save the scenic Tucker County area from logging and condominium development since Crites bought the land in February 1997. Currently, at least 1,600 acres of Crites’ canyon property is targeted for logging, according to records on file with the state Division of Forestry. The area is also marked off into separate lots that state parks officials fear indicate Crites plans to build a residential or vacation development there.

In December 1997, Rockefeller and Gov. Cecil Underwood announced that they had convinced Crites to sign a Memorandum of Understanding, or MOU, to negotiate a swap of 675 acres of his canyon property to the Forest Service for other land within the Monongahela National Forest.

Earlier this week, Crites released a copy of a December 29 letter in which he told Rockefeller and Underwood that the land swap negotiations were dead. Crites said he was offended by a Forest Service appraisal that was "millions of dollars" less than what his company expected to get for its canyon land. Crites also criticized the Forest Service, saying that agency officials had not made the land deal a high priority.

In his Wednesday letter, Myers defended his agency’s actions. "I am disturbed by his portrayal of the Forest Service as being unresponsive and uncommitted to upholding our end of the agreements we’ve made," Myers wrote. "As we have advised your staff on several occasions, the Forest Service has met every due date we agreed to, but we did experience numerous delays throughout the process as we waited for promised information from AWP." Myers wrote that the Forest Service spent "considerable time, effort and money on this proposed exchange. Our forest lands staff worked on this case to the possible detriment of other resource issues," Myers wrote. "Many resource specialists provided the needed time so that we have the environmental impact study completed to the stage of being nearly ready to go to public involvement if we had a viable exchange proposal. "Our Washington and regional offices have made available the necessary funding and have offered their time and advice; and neighboring forests have made available staff as we’ve needed to complete the process to date," he wrote. "All of this represents considerable taxpayer dollars expended in an effort to complete this exchange." Myers also wrote that Crites could have saved money on appraisal costs by agreeing to have a third party, independent appraiser from the start.