September 13, 2020 - 6:21 AM
MENDON, Vt. - A new $6 million forest supervisor’s headquarters building for the Green Mountain and Finger Lakes National Forests is slated to be built on National Forest land in Mendon next spring.
Site preparation is expected to start this month, said the office of U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy.
“I always felt bad the supervisor was away from the forest, in fact quite a few miles from the forest,” Leahy, a Democrat, told the Rutland Herald this week. “So I wanted to get a federally owned one, a supervisor’s office that visitors could go to on the National Forest itself.”
The headquarters has been housed in leased office space in Rutland for many years.
Leahy, vice chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations and a member of the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, said he secured $6 million to build the office off Route 4.
The new location has more scenic views and the chance for trails and outdoor exhibits and other interpretive experiences, Leahy's office said. There will be longterm cost savings from having an energy-efficient, federally-owned building, he said.
"We see this as a wonderful opportunity to use existing U.S. Forest Service land and resources to provide additional access to the Green Mountain National Forest while enhancing the quality of our work environment and visitor’s experiences” John Sinclair, forest supervisor for the Green Mountain and Finger Lakes National Forests, said in a written statement.
The Green Mountain National Forest is made up of more than 400,000 acres in southwestern and central Vermont.
News from © The Associated Press, 2020