Forest Service dealing with Trail of Tears damage fallout

Trail of Tears documents released by the U.S. Forest Service implicate a former district ranger as the one who authorized the work leading to a million dollars in damage to the historic site. The documents entitled, a "Narrative of Events" surrounding the damage and another entitled a "Timeline of Events to Date," put the blame on the Tellico district ranger who was in charge in 2014 when a portion of the Trail of Tears was ripped up by a bulldozer. While those documents do not name the individual, a ranking Forest Service official told The Advocate & Democrat in Sweetwater that the district ranger responsible for authorizing the work was Katherine Foster, 63, a veteran employee with the department. Foster, who had close to 40 years employment with the Forest Service, retired in February of 2015, a year after trenches, or "tank traps" were cut into the Trail of Tears and two nearby streams were altered. She was reportedly promoted to a supervisory position and placed in charge of "strategic planning" before retiring in Madisonville...more