State may permit dive for old logs

By STACY SHELTON
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 03/22/05

A century after loggers stopped using Georgia's rivers to move their product, the state Legislature is considering a bill to let divers extract sinkers: the lost logs that have been resting on river bottoms.

Environmentalists oppose the practice - called deadhead logging - which has been illegal here since 1998. They say removing the 20- to 25-foot longleaf pine and cypress logs will stir up massive amounts of silt, ruining fish habitats and polluting the water.

Deadhead loggers and others who specialize in the rare, old-growth wood that once covered the Southeast say the submerged logs are buried treasure and that careful techniques can protect the environment. Some are willing to pay the proposed annual permit fee of $10,000 to search two river miles. That's equivalent to what developers pay to strip 125 acres of land to build a subdivision or shopping center.

Ryan Lee of Riverwood Flooring in Cairo said the submerged logs are worth it. "It's virgin-growth timber. . . . We'll never see trees like that again."

His South Georgia company pulls logs out of Fl

By the time the longleaf pines were felled by axes and two-man saws, they were 200 to 300 years old. Cypress trees were more than 1,000 years old. The hardness, or density, of the wood protects it under water. The minerals in river water give it a distinct stain that enhances its value.
Dealers say some collectors and high-end builders will pay three to five times more for rare wood, including river wood. Farm-grown hardwoods that might cost $3 a square foot at a Home Depot could cost $15 from a rare wood dealer. The recovered wood generally is turned into flooring and wall paneling.

Willis Everett, who owns Vintage Lumber Co. in Gay, has installed cypress paneling in the Cloister resort at Sea Island, in clubhouses and in some of Atlanta's million-dollar homes.

" When you deal with affluent people it's the uniqueness of the wood they're after because it's something other people don't have," Everett said. "There's a mystique and sort of romancing that goes along with what we sell."

Buried treasure
With easy pickings gone from Florida's rivers, excavation teams using pontoon boats and wenches hope to turn their attention north, across the state line.

Georgia Senate Bill 283 passed the Senate by a 31-1 vote; the House is expected to vote today. The bill would legalize deadhead logging as a pilot project for two years beginning Jan. 1, 2006. Loggers would be able to troll for wood along two major South Georgia rivers, the Altamaha and the Flint. Word of mouth says more logs are buried there than any other river.

To continue deadhead logging past Jan. 1, 2008 - or to expand the practice to more rivers - the Legislature would need to act again or the Board of Natural Resources would need to approve rules to allow it.

Georgia rivers have been holding some of the last uncut longleaf pine and cypress logs since logging's heyday in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Then, Georgia wood was exported up the East Coast and across the Atlantic Ocean, where it was used to build furniture, homes and ships.
Sen. Tommie Williams (R-Lyons), an SB 283 co-sponsor, said there could be "hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of logs" sitting on the river bottoms.

" At the end of the day, everybody will get to enjoy something that used to be common around here," said Williams, who owns a pine straw business.

SB 283 goes against advice given to the Georgia Department of Natural Resources in 2003 by the Submerged Timber Task Force. The 14-member committee - consisting of government scientists, environmentalists and forest industry representatives - recommended against recovery operations, citing uncertain environmental, legal and economic consequences.

The committee said three to five years of scientific studies, costing as much as $1 million, would be needed to "ensure that important biological resources are not significantly impacted" by removing the logs.

The report also questioned whether there were enough submerged logs to expend the effort. A Navy field survey that covered 22 miles of the Altamaha with sonar technology spotted an average of 3.6 logs per mile. From 12 to 463 logs per mile were found in the oxbow lakes, which are formed when the river changes course.

The report determined that this was not enough to risk the state's recreational and commercial fisheries, which could be harmed by disturbing their feeding and mating grounds along riverbanks and river bottoms.

Task force member Ben Brewton, an audio-video and computer consultant who manages a Bryan County farm, encouraged a House Natural Resources subcommittee to be cautious, saying the logs aren't going anywhere.

" I would certainly encourage you to sort out the legal, economic and environmental issues first," he said.

Under SB 283, the DNR would set the rules for deadhead logging, including determining which areas of the rivers should be off-limits to protect endangered species nesting and feeding in critical wildlife areas.

To offset at least some DNR costs, loggers would pay an as yet-to-be-determined fee for each log extracted in addition to the $10,000 annual permit for searching 2-mile river segments.
Lee, with Riverwood Flooring, said extracting sinkers is "a very slow process, and it's very exacting and time consuming."

Many of the logs are buried in silt, he said. Three-person crews either hook a cable to the logs and pull them up, or float them up using a big inner tube. In Florida, they must take care not to stir up the river bottom or regulators can shut them down.

Florida controls work
Lee compared the operation to the children's game of pixie or pick-up sticks, in which players attempt to pull thin sticks from a pile without disturbing it - "except they're 15 feet long and weigh 6,000 pounds."

A Florida river protector said that deadhead logging operations there have not caused significant problems. "If it's done in a controlled way, I think the impacts are minimal," said Apalachicola Riverkeeper Dan Tonsmeire. "They're not tearing up the river."

Jaxon Hice of St. Simons Island, a coastal developer who builds with old-growth wood, opposes the bill, saying the wood still can be found in plenty of old cotton mills and other buildings.

" The rivers are delicate ecosystems that we know very, very little about," Hice said. The submerged logs are "a minor resource that will serve very few people, and the rivers are a major resource that serve practically everyone."

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