More of Sumter National Forest will be off-limits to logging and the upper reaches of the Chattooga River will remain off-limits to paddlers if the long-range forest plan released Friday is approved.

The Sumter National Forest covers 362,000 acres stretched over 11 counties in the Piedmont. This is the first complete revision of the plan since 1985. Four public meetings on the draft are scheduled in April.

The U.S. Forest Service plan is designed "to help us maintain a healthy, resilient forest and provide clean water, clean air, abundant wildlife, beautiful landscapes, and high-quality recreation," said forest supervisor Jerome Thomas.

The forest service compiled the plan after meeting with forest user groups and staging public meetings. Some of those who spoke at the meetings won't be satisfied with the plan.

The Sierra Club, for instance, blasted the plan even before it was released because the Forest Service refused to consider banning commercial logging in the forest.

"The Forest Service currently allows logging and clear cutting on over 72 percent of South Carolina's National Forests," said Dell Isham, director of the Sierra Club in South Carolina. "We're asking (forestry officials) to reconsider the notion that timber companies have more rights in our national forests than the South Carolinians residents who use our forests for fishing, camping and hiking."

Some kayakers also pleaded at earlier meetings for the Forest Service to allow canoes and kayaks on the Chattooga River above the S.C. 28 bridge. They have been banned from that section in part to give hikers and anglers precedent. The plan retains the ban on paddling above S.C. 28.

Some of the changes from the 1985 plan include:

• The amount of timber allowed to be taken from Forest Service land each year will drop from 100 million board feet to 79 million board feet. Building a three-bedroom house requires about 15,000 board feet.

• The acres considered to be part of the riparian, or wetlands, corridor, and thus off-limits to logging, will increase from about 13,000 acres to 67,000 acres.

• The amount of land potentially allowed to reach old-growth status, meaning it won't be timbered, will increase from 17,500 acres to 85,500 acres.

• No new roads are planned in the forest.

The last round of public comments on the plan will be considered by the Forest Service before the plan is adopted by the end of the year.