Not cut and dried
Georgia's timber policies give leeway to loggers

By S. Heather Duncan, Telegraph Staff Writer
Macon Telegraph
February 15, 2004

A single hollow cypress tree leans high into the wind, Spanish moss tossed behind it like wild gray hair. In the muddy water at its feet are the footprints of other cypress: flat-topped circles where concentric lines trace each life story, as individual as a fingerprint.

The lives are gone. The stumps remain.

Andy Hester of Ivy surveys the land his family hunted for 30 years in Wilkinson County. "It will take 100 years to grow that the way it was, and they destroyed it in two weeks of work," he said. "It makes me sick."

The area, off Sandy Creek Road and bordering the Oconee River, is part of a 500-acre tract purchased last year by five Dublin hunters. Their contract left timber rights to Thompson Hardwoods of Hazelhurst. Large portions were clear-cut, meaning that almost all the trees were removed or knocked down.

New owners Mike Evans and Greg Milks understood the land was to be clear-cut and had seen many clear-cuts before. But they thought the state required loggers to leave untouched tree buffers, 20 to 100 feet wide, around streams, rivers and wetlands.

They were wrong.

In Georgia, it's perfectly legal to clear-cut wetlands and stream bottoms. It's a fact little known to the public, but it's typical of what goes on across the South, the timber industry's new frontier.

Although logging practices like these are illegal in the industry's traditional stronghold, the Pacific Northwest, few Southern states prohibit what happened in Wilkinson County.

The South is the only U.S. region where no states have comprehensive forest management laws. Some experts say looser regulation and greater private timber ownership is driving the timber industry's shift to the South.

Georgia has more acres of commercial timber than any other state, 70 percent held by private landowners. With a $19.5 billion impact statewide, timber is Georgia's largest agricultural crop, according to the Georgia Forestry Commission.

But some forest landowners and conservationists say those profits are at the expense of the environment.

Without careful planning, forestry activities like road building and clear-cutting cause erosion that degrades soil and water quality. Streams can become contaminated by oil or herbicides, harming plants and animals.

"If the timber companies aren't stopped now, it's going to turn into long-term damage to the river," said Milks. "We bought this (land) kind of like some people buy lakefront property on Lake Sinclair, so we could bring our kids up in the outdoors. ... But there's nothing left. They cut all the wetlands."

However, legislators and industry-watchers say direct regulation of the Georgia timber industry is unlikely.

It could increase costs for forest products companies. The state would have to fund new enforcement during a budget crunch. And Georgia has traditionally been reluctant to interfere with private property rights.

Rick Fletcher, director of the national Sustainable Forestry Partnership and an Oregon State University professor, acknowledged the industry is struggling to compete with other countries with fewer environmental laws and worker protections.

"Face it, if an industry is facing bankruptcy, they cut corners. And who's going to raise the red flag on them?" Fletcher said. "If you're going to have an act that has no teeth to it, everybody blows it off."

Bob Izlar, director of the University of Georgia's Center for Forest Business, said more regulation is unnecessary because timber companies support the voluntary system of forestry "best management practices," BMPs, they helped create along with conservationists and scientists.

Steve Johnson, president and CEO of Thompson Hardwoods, said his company has a natural incentive to be good stewards. "God put trees on earth for the good of mankind," said Johnson, whose company is 47 years old. "If we don't use it responsibly and wisely to ensure forests for future generations, then I'm working myself out of a job."

Monitoring logging
Logging sites are monitored by the Georgia Forestry Commission, a division of the state Department of Natural Resources that also fights forest fires and helps companies market and develop timber products.

The commission inspects logging sites in response to complaints - an average of 68 a year, according to commission documents.

Timber buyers are informed of any problems and asked to correct them.

"With stuff that doesn't carry the force of law, you just have to appeal to their good sense," said Rick Hatten, state chief of forest management.

On the "rare occasions" when a timber buyer fails to correct conditions causing stream pollution, the forestry commission may refer the problem to the state Environmental Protection Division or the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Hatten said. According to commission records, seven logging sites in the past two years have been referred to regulators, including referrals to police for non-environmental crimes like timber theft.

"We report it to the EPD generally when it shows an abuse and the person's just not making any effort to control themselves," Hatten said.

Water-quality violations can carry fines as high as $50,000 a day for a first offense or $125,000 a day for a second offense.

Frank Green, water quality coordinator for the forestry commission, said it usually gives companies three chances before turning them in to regulators, even if they make no effort to cooperate.

Last year the commission started offering exams of logging "best management practices." Companies or landowners can request these inspections before or after logging. Beforehand, the commission helps plan logging roads and stream buffers; afterward, the exams check whether harvest methods were good. Green said companies usually fix any problems found by the commission.

The commission also conducts BMP exams randomly, especially in watersheds where streams contain too much sediment. Middle Georgia has 28 such watersheds. Landowner permission is required.

In the first year, 541 BMP exams were conducted, Green said. On a 100-point scale, two logging sites received zeros. Thirty scored below a 60, and 286 received a perfect score, Green said.

Hatten said Gov. Sonny Perdue's proposed 2005 budget would cut a quarter of the commission's 43 foresters, who conduct the exams.

"If we don't get funded, we'll have to do away with it," Green said. "And it's just too important to do away with."

Other states
Georgia is the nation's third-largest producer of roundwood saw logs, following Washington and Oregon. Between 1991 and 1996, Southern region saw log production increased by 11 percent while Pacific Northwest production decreased 37 percent, according to the Department of Agriculture. Chad Oliver, executive director of Yale University's Global Institute of Sustainable Forestry, said the Southeast's lack of regulation has attracted forest products companies.

But Izlar, the director of the Center for Forest Business at the University of Georgia, says regulation has nothing to do with it. In addition to a good growing season and flatter land, he said, the biggest advantage is working with private landowners.

But for timber companies, private ownership generally means reduced regulation. In the Pacific Northwest, where more logging occurs in federal parks and national forests, timber regulations are far more stringent. For example, California requires a public hearing before every timber harvest.

Oregon has regulated logging since 1971 because "there are public aspects to our private lands," said Rick Fletcher with the Sustainable Forestry Partnership. "Water is a public asset."

Companies must notify Oregon's Department of Forestry before harvesting, and the department negotiates with them to set buffers and stream crossings.

When companies don't comply, state foresters fine them or shut down their logging sites, Fletcher said.

In almost the entire South, states not only fail to directly regulate forestry, they exempt logging roads from erosion and sedimentation laws that apply to county roads.

Although all Southern states use the BMP system, some have additional powers. Virginia's forestry commission can issue a stop-work order if a logger keeps polluting waterways. Tennessee tightens regulations on loggers with bad track records.

Improving the system
Some say Georgia could learn from these approaches.

Altamaha Riverkeeper James Holland said some of the BMPs should be mandatory. For example, he'd like the state to ban logging in streamside zones.

Tim Beach, who was dissatisfied with the way logging was done a few years ago on his Wilcox County property, agrees BMPs should be mandatory. The Cummings resident said, "There's really no teeth in it. ... You're left to them being good samaritans for the land, and my experience is: They aren't into that if there's no profit in it for them."

Oliver said new regulation could cause short-term environmental damage if changes aren't slow: Landowners might scramble to cut as much timber as possible before more stringent rules are added.

Increased regulation could encourage small-forest owners to sell to developers, which also isn't good for the environment, Izlar said.

Others say improvements are possible through more subtle changes to the system.

The most important step is requiring companies to notify state foresters before logging, said Doug Murray with Tennessee Forest Watch and Will McDowell with Environmental Defense in North Carolina. Foresters could monitor sensitive sites or offer help designing buffers and stream crossings.

Green said the ability to issue stop-work orders in extreme cases might help the commission.

With growing state emphasis on cleaning up streams so full of dirt that fish are scarce, Green said some of these changes may come soon in polluted watersheds.

But Hatten said that what Georgia needs most is simply more foresters to check more logging sites. Instead, the state may lay off a quarter of its foresters. Izlar and Oliver advocate incentives instead of additional regulation.

For example, in Virginia landowners can earn tax breaks for keeping stream buffers uncut. Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia offer cost-sharing programs for stream-zone protection.

Training also can prevent problems. The Georgia Forestry Commission offers a Master Timber Harvester certification to foresters who take classes on using BMPs.

Thompson Hardwoods and Weyerhaeuser are among the companies that require all their foresters to complete the course.

At these classes, Green distributes a list of all the complaints filed about loggers during the year. He shares this list with the American Forest & Paper Association's Sustainable Forestry Initiative. Companies that participate in the initiative agree not to buy wood from loggers who ignore BMPs.

Green said peer pressure from competitors and customers makes most companies comply.

"That seems to get the loggers' attention far quicker than waiting for a government process like EPD enforcement," Green said.

Steve McWilliams, president of the Georgia Forestry Association industry trade group, said members disagree about whether the state should mandate BMPs, but the association is inclined to leave the system alone.

The timber industry took the opposite approach in Oregon by pushing for regulation, Fletcher said. That occurred partly because companies that cut corners were gaining a competitive advantage over their more conscientious rivals.

"This would never have happened without the industry," Fletcher said. "They saw it was good business. The South is changing, with a lot of people immigrating and retiring. I think in the next two decades you're going to see a lot of changing (in forest regulation) in places like Georgia."

'You won't see that again'
The debate about how to manage private forest land likely will grow louder as Georgia's suburban population continues to push the boundaries of traditionally rural areas. But even in isolated Wilkinson County, some rural residents don't understand what logging regulations allow.

Andy Hester, who can point to the place on the Wilkinson land where he killed his first deer at age 8, said, "I don't see how they can cut those trees in those sloughs where ducks have roosted their whole lives." He speculated that the sloughs will dry up without the shade of trees, and ducks will change their migration patterns.

"Once the sloughs are gone, you won't never see that again, none of us," Hester said. "(Mike Evans') children will never be able to experience what I did here as a little boy."

About a quarter of Evans' property remains to be cut by Thompson Hardwoods. There, a cypress tree that measures 27 feet around stands among knobbly red cypress "knees" emerging from black water. Landowners Evans and Greg Milks would like to see Thompson Hardwoods leave it, and the rest of the bottom land, uncut.

Although more logging is planned, "we have a company policy about ancient cypress trees. We could whack them down, but we don't," said Steve Burton, Thompson Hardwoods procurement manager. "If it's 27 feet around, it's safe. ... It's got a kind of value you can't put money on."

He said the company usually leaves more wood in river bottoms than BMPs recommend, pointing to persimmons and hollow trees left for animal food and shelter.

Milks and Evans plan to replant more hardwood. But even without their help, new shoots will grow from the cypress and oak stumps. The trees will regenerate, but potential changes to the murky water are less clear.

"People say it's just a few acres, but if it happens everywhere, what's left?" asked Ivy resident Keith Evans, who visited the land with Hester. "I always thought wetlands were safe, but I guess I was wrong."