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Seneca Creek and its tributaries boast excellent water quality from the lack of disturbance within the watershed. The proximity of the Seneca Creek Backcountry to Spruce Knob, a highly popular scenic destination and the highest point in West Virginia, makes protection of the natural integrity of the surrounding area essential.

Currently only four percent of the National Wilderness Preservation System lies east of Mississippi where over 60 percent of U.S. population resides. There is a clear need for more Eastern wilderness, and not many opportunities. Some of the best remaining wild land in the east is found in the wild and wonderful Mon National Forest, including the Seneca Creek Backcountry.

The future of the backcountry is now at stake in the ongoing Mon Forest Plan revision process. Only one of the four alternatives being considered by the Forest Service recommends the Seneca Creek Backcountry be designated as wilderness. Furthermore, the management guidelines that have protected the Backcountry since 1986 are being altered, potentially opening up this and other special areas to logging and off road vehicles in the name of "ecosystem restoration."

The Seneca Creek Backcountry is a Forest Service Inventoried Roadless Area. With the reversal of the Roadless Rule, the area has been opened up to possible development. Sierra Club is part of the West Virginia Wilderness Coalition which has developed a Citizen's Wilderness Proposal over the past two years for 15 areas covering 143,000 acres within the 917,000-acre Monongahela National Forest.

The Seneca Creek Backcountry is a highly significant eastern natural treasure, and hopefully, will soon become one of the five largest Wilderness Areas east of the Mississippi River.

For more information about how to help the efforts to protect the Seneca Creek Backcountry as wilderness, contact Mary Wimmer at mwimmer@hsc.wvu.edu.