Danny Wright doesn't like the plan to sell off National Forest acreage in NC, but he says Governor Easley's math needs some polishing.
Danny is fact-checking this sentence in Easley's letter to the Feds: "You are proposing to sell 9,828 acres in North Carolina, or nearly 9 percent of our total National Forest acreage."
He provides this link, which shows 1,252,322 acres of National Forest in North Carolina, of which the acreage for sale would be less than one percent.
Any of you legacy media types wanna chase down this discrepancy?
Doug already did: http://blog.news-record.com/staff/offtherecord/archives/2006/03/the_governors_m.html
Posted by: Lex | Mar 15, 2006 at 12:29 PM
Without crediting Danny.
Posted by: Roch101 | Mar 15, 2006 at 12:40 PM
Doug has been around in N.C. even longer than I have, and *I* knew the numbers were off as soon as I saw the story, too. So while it's possible that he saw what Danny posted, it's equally possible that he caught thte mistake on his own.
Unless, of course, you have info you haven't yet shared.
Posted by: Lex | Mar 15, 2006 at 01:28 PM
Danny made his observations last night and Doug this morning. There are probably a number of places to find information about national forests in North Carolina. That Doug provided the same link as Danny to a file at the UNC-Asheville website is certainly a coincidence. I probably read to much into it.
Posted by: Roch101 | Mar 15, 2006 at 03:44 PM
Thanks for the accusation, Roch.
Having lived in Western North Carolina, I knew that 9 percent of the National Forest land in NC would be a lot more than 10,000 acres. I googled "national forest north carolina" and the sites provided came up on top.
I give credit to Danny Wright for having sharp eyes, and he obviously got on this before I did. I was not aware of Easley's statement until this morning.
Posted by: Doug Clark | Mar 15, 2006 at 04:55 PM