McHENRY -- Hiking along the Youghiogheny River can transport you to a time when George Washington scouted a rugged wilderness here. The rush of water over rocks is the only sound as the river courses through a seemingly pristine valley. A great blue heron swoops past.

Then you spy a picnic table and chair on the far shore. Above the river's burbling comes the whine of chain saws, the crack and whoosh of toppling trees.

Farther along, on the steep western slope, the trunks of big oaks lie atop each other like jackstraws. Freshly cut stumps go down to the water's edge.

The Youghiogheny (pronounced YOCK-uh-GAIN-ee) in Garrett County is Maryland's only wild and scenic river, supposedly protected by state law. But riverfront property owners, whose roots often go back generations, jealously guard their rights to earn a traditional living from the land -- and that includes logging.

With wood prices near record levels, timber harvests have increased this year along "the Yock," as it is commonly called. Maryland's Department of Natural Resources, which regulates land use along a 21-mile stretch of the river, has issued permits to cut trees on privately owned land covering more than a mile of riverfront.

The logging has renewed the debate over the state's stewardship of the river, which lures thousands of fishermen and whitewater enthusiasts every year. Boating outfitters, fishing guides and some local residents complain that the tree-cutting is incompatible with the Yock's status.

"If they log down to the river it's really going to destroy the wild and scenic quality," said Roger Zbel, owner of Precision Rafting, an outfitter in Friendsville. "It's a real crying shame on the state of Maryland to let that happen," added Zbel, 42, who helped pioneer the region's whitewater industry two decades ago.

But some landowners counter that the selective logging permitted by the state, removing the largest trees, does no harm.

"I'm in the timber business," said Donald F. Frazee, 62, also of Friendsville. His family has owned and logged the 300-acre tract now being cut for five or six generations. "If you had a vegetable garden and someone came along and said you can't pick the beans you'd be kind of unhappy."

DNR Ranger Paul Durham, who oversees the Yock corridor, says the logging debate is typical of the balancing act the state must perform among the various groups wanting to use the river or the land along it.

"Juggling all those interests is a daunting task," he said.

Ever since the legislature enacted a scenic and wild river law 30 years ago, tension has existed in conservative Garrett County over the state's efforts to protect the Youghiogheny, a river steeped in history. Washington and others eyed it as a potential water route to the West, and its valley slopes were heavily logged and mined until the early 1900s.

"It's hard to describe how people feel about their land here," explained Donald Sebold, chairman of the locally appointed board that advises the state on management of the Youghiogheny.

"If you want to get people stirred up, try messing with their land," added Sebold, who was born a couple of miles from his 35-acre riverfront tract and works at the Westvaco paper mill in neighboring Allegany County.

The state's wild river regulations restrict building along the water and limit logging and mining. The rules bar clear-cutting and say that on logging operations, the DNR must "ensure that natural vegetation on or near the shoreline remains undisturbed so as to screen the logged area from the river and its contiguous shore."

Frazee and another riverfront property owner, Phil Frantz, received permits this year allowing them to harvest timber on their land, including some down to the water's edge.

The permits require a waterfront buffer of at least 50 feet, depending on the slope. But under the permits, the landowners are allowed to cut trees within the buffer, as long as they leave a prescribed number behind.

Frazee is cutting trees in a stretch of river north of Hoyes Run that the state is promoting as a prime trout-fishing haven. But he said he is removing only the largest, most mature trees, letting younger ones branch out and fill in the gaps.

"It shouldn't be noticeable this time next year," he said. He also noted that the felled trees would be lifted out by helicopter, to minimize erosion on the steep banks.

Frantz, who applied to log south of Friendsville near a portion of the river frequented by whitewater rafters and kayakers, did not return several telephone calls last week. According to his application, he plans to truck the timber away using an old logging railroad bed along the river.

While at least some tree-cutting is allowed along privately owned stream corridors, the DNR ignored the written recommendations of its own fisheries and endangered species biologists, who had argued for barring tree removal within 100 feet of the water's edge.

Kenneth Pavol, DNR's regional fisheries manager, said he was upset to see that Frazee had cut trees on the riverbank whose branches shaded the water. That kind of logging endangers the Youghiogheny's fish, he contends.

Once so polluted that no fish could live in it, the river now sustains trout and smallmouth bass. But water temperatures in the summertime are barely tolerable for trout, Pavol said, and the trees help shield the shallow water from the blazing sun.

"This cut was what I feared it was going to be," Pavol said. Cutting down trees on steep slopes also can lead to soil erosion in a river that is still too silty for trout to reproduce naturally. DNR stocks the river with hatchery-reared brown and rainbow trout.

Ed Thompson, DNR's regional endangered species biologist, was angered after seeing the logging occurring on the Frazee tract.

"Has anybody looked up the word 'wild' in the dictionary?" he asked.

The river valley harbors at least 11 species of animals and 15 species of plants that are considered rare in Maryland or, in some cases, nationwide. The two riverfront tracts given logging permits have rock outcroppings likely to shelter endangered green salamanders. At Thompson's River urging, the permits require the landowners to leave a buffer of trees around those sites.

Earlier this year, the DNR proposed changing the wild river regulations to ban logging or vegetation removal within 100 feet of the river. But a majority of the local advisory board objected, so the state has dropped the proposal.

Instead of regulating landowners, suggested Sebold, the advisory board chairman, the state should be more concerned about the impact of its promotion of the river as a recreational attraction.

"If you're not very careful, you've destroyed or damaged what you advertised as a wild and scenic river," he said.

Durham said state foresters are checking on the Frazee timber cut as a result of complaints. If it violates the permit, the landowner could be fined.

Logging is a common source of income for landowners in forested Garrett County. But some area residents, such as Donald C. Hershfeld, contend the only sure way to protect the river from harmful timber cuts is for the state to buy the remainder of the private land in the corridor.

"It just seems incompatible to have 'wild and scenic' and 'logging' in the same sentence," said Hershfeld, a former federal biologist who earlier this year opened a fishing retreat on Hoyes Run a short walk from the river.

Maryland owns 3,434 acres of the 4,731 acres in the Yock's wild and scenic corridor, and officials are seeking to buy more -- but only from willing sellers. "It's one of our highest priorities for acquisition in Western Maryland," said John Surrick, a DNR spokesman.

Buying the remaining riverfront could be costly.

On the last parcel acquired, the state paid more than $3,500 an acre for a 200-acre parcel south of Friendsville. Until that deal, Yock corridor land typically sold for about $1,500 an acre.

Frazee said he would be glad to sell his land or swap it for comparable state forest land elsewhere in Garrett County. "You buy it off of me, and I won't fuss."

But other landowners, some still irked over state limitations on the use of their land, said they would not willingly sell.

"I think the state has already bought enough of it through regulations and everything to control what happens," said Brison "Rusty" Thomas, 58, a dairy farmer whose 79-year-old mother owns a house on the river near Sang Run.

Thomas said some landowners are abusing the river by cutting too many trees on steep slopes.

He faults the state for not cracking down: "They just got to have somebody that's got backbone to look at what's going on."

Pub Date: 11/22/98