All Hammond citizens have some stake in this debate, as the preserve lies within the city limits, and local funds will be used to pay for whatever action the town decides to take. However, several groups in town have taken special interest in the issue.
- Hammond citizens who live near the preserve. About three hundred of the town’s 15,000 citizens live in houses within a quarter mile of Towering Pines. Some of these residents have lots contiguous with the preserve’s boundary. Whatever decision is made regarding the preserve’s future will affect them in a variety of ways—a new park would create more automobile traffic, leaving the preserve untouched would slightly increase the fire hazard, and so forth.
- Local firefighters and rescue workers. The town’s ten firefighters and the volunteer Search and Rescue Team wrote a collective letter to the Courier a month or so after the tornado. They argued that the preserve poses a serious threat to the community’s safety. “If the fallen trees of the preserve catch fire, the town will experience a disaster far more serious and devastating than the tornado of June, 2001,” they wrote.
- Members of the local chapter of the National Wilderness Federation. Since the tornado, the members of the NWF have argued that the town has an obligation to leave the preserve alone. “The destruction feels like a tragedy to everyone in Hammond,” they wrote in a flyer they distributed throughout town. “But it is not a tragedy in nature. Rather, it is a natural occurrence. The storm was just another link in the chain of events that have been shaping and changing this forest for centuries.” Many members of the NWF feel that Towering Pines will remain an important site for research and education, despite the tornado’s effects. They note that scientists and students will learn a great deal from the natural decay of the fallen trees, just as they learned a great deal from the forest when it was still standing.
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