Cumberland Trail State Park (TN)
Defending public lands, natural resources from the ravages of rock-removal
Photo: Cumberland Trail State Park
SELC is taking legal action to stop large-scale rock removal from state parks and other public and private lands on the Cumberland Plateau, one of the most biologically diverse landscapes in the world.
The Cumberland Trail State Park hugs the eastern flank of Tennessee’s Cumberland Plateau, one of the most biologically diverse landscapes in the world. The park forms a corridor around sections of a 300-mile scenic trail stretching from Signal Mountain, near Chattanooga, north to the Virginia/Kentucky border.
These public lands are part of a broad effort by multiple conservation and tourism groups, private entities, and the state of Tennessee to protect the natural resources and enhance the recreational appeal of this outstanding region. But about 450,000 acres of public and private land on the plateau – including the park and trail – are at risk of large-scale rock excavation due to property deeds from years ago.
©SELC
The Cumberland Trail stretches along the Cumberland Plateau, and is one segment of Great Eastern Trail.
In 2006, a company came in to the Deep Creek Gorge area of the Cumberland Trail State Park, near Chattanooga, with bulldozers and front-end loaders and began gouging out sandstone rock for commercial sale. Some 50-100 yards of the trail were buried in rubble and dirt, and broken rock and uprooted trees were left exposed, ruining the natural setting of the trail and destroying or severely damaging wildlife habitat and water resources.
SELC has joined forces with 14 local, state and national groups to put an end to this destruction, and to ensure it doesn’t happen on more public or private lands in Tennessee.
Although the state owns the surface of the park land, a private company holds the mineral rights. This separation, or “severance” of ownership of surface land and mineral rights is not uncommon on the plateau, where coal companies that originally owned much of the land frequently sold the surface rights, often to timber companies, and kept a “mineral reservation.”
The state sued to stop the rock removal operation, but lost in Hamilton County Chancery Court, and is now appealing the decision to the state Court of Appeals. In April, SELC partnered with a Nashville-based attorney to submit an amicus brief on behalf of the conservation groups in support. We argue that, unless included in the deed reservation, rock should not be considered a mineral, because excavating it destroys the surface and deprives the surface owner of their property.
