Timber Resource Underutilized In the National Forest

Timber Resource Underutilized In the National Forest

ONE LAST GOODBYE A mother and her calf await the drop of the gavel and separation at the Bill Melvin farm auction in Chelsea on Monday this week. Observers of rural life in Central Vermont have drawn a parallel between the decline of dairy farming in Vermont and a decline in forest-oriented businesses and employment, as forest land is withdrawn from harvesting. (Herald photo / Robert Eddy)

(This is the fifth in a series of articles about proposals to create new wilderness areas in the Green Mt. National Forest.)

By M. D. Drysdale

In 1987, the last time a plan was drawn up for Vermont's sprawling Green Mountain National Forest, a crucial compromise was reached on how much logging to allow.

Much of the Forest would be off limits to timber harvesters, but in the remaining portion, a series of selective cuts would be allowed. Some 15 million board feet could be removed each year–about half as much wood as was regenerating annually in that portion of the forest.

That much harvesting, it was decided, would keep busy the mills and loggers and truckers that flourished on both the east and west sides of the forest, and would provide a valuable resource for home builders, furniture makers, and other users both in and outside of Vermont.

That was the vision. The plan, however, was stillborn. The projected level of harvesting was never achieved, and in recent years, administrative appeals and protests from anti-logging groups slowed timber harvesting on the GMNF even more. Then the discovery of an endangered Indiana bat halted all logging plans for two years.

When the small Overstory Project was approved a few weeks ago, it was the first approval of a logging project in five years.

Meanwhile, a very different vision of the Forest's role was evolving. A coalition of 14 groups, some of them in-state, some national with in-state branches, banded together as the Wliderness Association (WA). The WA put together a proposal to add 78,000 acres of official wilderness areas in the national park, more than doubling the current total. These would be areas in which logging (or any machine or mechanical vehicle) would not be allowed.

That's not all, however. The WA also proposed two National Recreation Areas and three Conservation Areas which would also withdraw substantial acreage from timber harvesting.

Much of the set-aside acreage would be in Hancock, Granville and Rochester, including 15,000 acres of wilderness and 4700 more in a conservation area.

Considering all the areas together, the WA proposal is frankly anti-logging. It would make almost 60% of the GMNF off-limits to cutting, a much higher percentage than in any other eastern national forest.

Plenty of Wood?

In written materials, the WA explains it believes Vermont "is blessed with an abundant supply" of timberland, even without the GMNF. It points out that less than 1% of the wood cut in Vermont comes from the national forest.

"If all logging on the national forest were to stop, private land in Vermont could easily make up the difference, with no significant economic effects to loggers or mills," it says.

However, the 1% statistic doesn't mean much to Bill Sayre, an official of the A. Johnson Co., a 96-year-old wood products business in Bristol. Sayre thinks the timber in the national forest is a key to the vitality of the communities that border the forest.

"It's important to look at it in historical and potential terms," he said this week. "Historically, the land now in the GMNF was the woodbasket for a large number of mills up and down the Champlain Valley on the west and the Connecticut Valley (including the White) on the east. It was just very, very important."

The GMNF's low production of timber, he said is "because of the litigation and appeals that have crippled timber harvesting so that it's the mere shadow of what it was."

Jut 20 years ago, Sayre said, 10 to 12 million board feet were being harvested from a forest of 200,000 acres. Now the GMNF is nearly 400,000 acres and the harvest is miniscule.

"We haven't cut a stick in six years," is how Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie puts it.

"The national forest is a very important resource," agrees Ed Larson. He's the executive director of the 200-member Vermont Forest Products Association, which represents landowners, loggers, truckers, millers, secondary manufacturers, and foresters.

"Some of the best-managed timber in the state is on these lands. The Forest Service has some of the most talented forestry experts that we could ask for, and it's a shame that we can't benefit economically from their expertise."

"I disagree completely with the WA characterization of the resource," echoed the state commissioner of Forests and Parks, Jonathan Wood. "We've spent years tending that so it is full of high-value timber."

Several observers pointed to the high price bid for the recently-approved Overstory cut. The bid was $552,498, almost double the estimate of $316,000. Bidding interest was high, with a half-dozen serious bidders.

"The market confirmed that we have been nurturing and growing some of the best forest land in the state," commented GMNF Supt. Paul Brewster.

Like Dairy Farms

Larson compares the situation of the timber industry to that of Vermont's dairy farmers—declining numbers, and an aging work force in a traditional industry tied to the land.

There's an important difference, though. Whereas the decline of farms is due to lower milk prices in the markets, the forest industry is experiencing good prices. Its decline, Larson said, is tied to the decreasing amount of forestland that can be harvested.

"We size ourselves more to the availability of resources than to the market," he said. "We have very good quality timber, probably the envy of the world in some species.

"They (the forest products businesses) would come right back if the resource were made available."

Again, the Wilderness Association's vision is radically different. The Green Mountain National Forests actually loses $300 an acre when it sells wood, the WA says. The state's sawmills are "antiquated and inefficient," it says, and more harvesting would not create more jobs in the industry.

"Timber-related income represents a relatively minor and declining portion of Vermonters' personal income," the WA states, noting that employment in forest industries declined from 3% to 2.2% in the 30 years from 1969 to 1999.

Most important to Vermont's economy, the WA says is not a "working forest" but a preserved forest which attracts wealthy retirees or businesses that seek a pristine environment. Such businesses, even though they are not attached to the forest resource, are a more likely source of economic stability, the WA argues, and they would be attracted by the presence of wilderness areas.

Larson disputes that point, too. Managing for timber also provides a healthy forest, a place for wildlife and scenic beauty, "almost all of the values that the people supporting wilderness aspire to."

Act of Congress Needed

To be created, new wilderness areas would have to be proposed in legislation filed in Congress by Vermont's delegation of Sens. Jim Jeffords and Patrick Leahy and by Rep. Bernard Sanders. They hope to file such a bill next spring, though Gov. Jim Douglas and the GMNF leadership have asked them to hold off until the Forest Service has a chance to write a new plan.

The delegation, however, says it is not hostile to logging on the national forest. In a letter to both sides of the wilderness controversy a year ago, the delegation wrote of its desire to establish a timber program of which the state could be proud. That letter led to the formation of the "Blueberry Hill Gang," which has met once a month for a years.

Observers say, however, that the Gang has not been successful in forging concessions from wilderness advocates such as Forest Watch to free up other areas of the forest for timber harvests.

Ed Larson, for one, is losing patience. He suspects that the congressional delegation is less than committed to the concept of a working forest.

"The letter sounds great," he said. "But it's time we put our foot down.

"Local (Forest Service) meetings have been about 9-1 against more wilderness. We don't need more wilderness right now. We need more balance."

In Bristol, Bill Sayre says losing thousands of acres of productive timberland would be "a very substantial loss of the resource base.

"It's so needless," he continued, "and so contrary to our tradition in Vermont of a working landscape, a tradition where Vermonters historically have worked the land to grow and harvest natural resources and provide for human needs–and at the same time to protect the environment.

"We have an understanding that people are part of the environment and people can work in it without hurting it."

(Next week—The Herald's series on wilderness concludes.)