|
ChipDis3/26/2001
revised (final)
Dissent to the Majority Position in the
Report of the Joint Subcommittee Studying
The Impact of Satellite Chip Mills on
Virginia's Economy and Environment (HJR 730)
We, the undersigned members of the Joint Subcommittee, respectfully
disagree with the conclusions of the Subcommittee majority that the impact
of satellite chip mills on Virginia's economy and environment is benign
and that therefore forest landowners and the forest products industry
should not be burdened by new constraints to protect the public interest
in a sound economy and a healthy environment.
To the contrary, we have learned from our participation in the Subcommittee's
study that a need exists for greater governmental oversight of forestry
and the forest products industry in Virginia, on behalf of the citizens
of the Commonwealth of present and future generations. While this increased
level of oversight of logging on private lands is needed regardless of
the rate of increase in the number of chip mills in the Commonwealth,
it will become more critical as the number of chip mills in the state
grows and forest removal across the state exceeds forest growth.
Such interventions should be put in place without delay, to protect the
value of private land adjacent to that being logged and to protect the
long-term public trust interests of citizens in clean air and water, biological
diversity, and ecological services (the generation of clean air and water
by healthy forests). The protection of these priceless public values by
agencies of the Commonwealth is mandated in Article XI of the Virginia
Constitution. We offer the following specific conclusions and recommendations:
Conclusions
1. Evidence from neighboring states clearly shows that the presence of
a large number of chip mills encourages extensive forest clear-cutting,
and that these large, contiguous clear-cuts compromise scenic beauty,
wildlife habitat, species-diverse hardwood forests, and water quality
and harm the tourism and outdoor recreation industries. We should not
wait until this rapidly spreading phenomenon becomes even more obvious
in Virginia to take appropriate defensive action here.
2. Recent instances are on record in which the commercial logging of non-industrial
private forestland in Virginia has harmed the long-term productivity of
the site, the value of neighboring properties, the quality of downstream
public waters, the quality of fish and wildlife habitat, and scenic and
recreational values.
3. Careless and destructive logging practices can contribute to regional
economic instability, leaving the land and landscape degraded and unfit
for other economic uses for long periods of time.
4. Due to administration demands for staff reductions, in some cases the
Virginia Department of Forestry has been unable to administer, inspect
and monitor logging operation to detect violations of laws intended to
protect water quality and the environment from harm by logging on private
lands. In some instances such requirements as enforcing notification of
intent to log, monitoring logging operations, stopping operations that
violate water quality laws and related water quality-protection procedures,
requiring adequate repair of the damaged landscape, and seeing to it that
the violators of these laws and regulations be seriously penalized have
not been followed. Today, the penalties do not fit the crimes, and companies
simply consider them a cost of doing business. Case in point: The record
of Independence Lumber Company in Grayson County. Independence paid $16,875
in 1998, the second highest fine ever paid by a logging company in Virginia.
Between the time it paid that fine and December, 2000, VDOF records show
that Independence Lumber had violated the Silvicultural Water Quality
Law at least 13 more times. In one case, sedimentation was so severe that
VDOF invoked its seldom-used "stop work" power. Even under existing
law, fines could be much stiffer; VDOF may fine companies $5,000 a day
for every day they are out of compliance. However, the VDOF leadership
has arbitrarily set fine "limitations" so that no logger can
ever be fined for more than 30 days of violations on any given operation.
There is no statutory basis for this limitation. Thus, Independence was
in violation of the law, actively polluting Virginia's public waters,
for hundreds of days but was charged only for 15 days of being out of
compliance. Bottom line: Logging companies can make more money doing the
damage than preventing it.
5. The staff of the Virginia Department of Forestry is handicapped in
its ability to insist on the use of tree-harvest "Best Management
Practices" (BMPs) to protect public water supplies and other public
trust values because the use of these BMPs on private land in Virginia
is strictly voluntary. They may or may not be implemented according to
the landowner's or the logger's whim, unlike the mandatory water pollution-prevention
rules that apply to other potentially polluting entities such as municipalities
and manufacturing industries.
6. Best Management Practices (BMPs) are minimum standards that loggers
must use if they are to prevent sediment from entering Virginia's streams.
According to the VDOF's latest (November 2000) audit of BMP usage by loggers,
only 20 percent of the Commonwealth's loggers properly applied all BMP
categories on their logging jobs. The Department acknowledged that 10
percent of the harvested tracts had active water quality problems and
that another 27 percent of the inspected sites had potential water quality
problems-both categories being violations of Virginia's 1993 Silvicultural
Water Quality Act. Voluntary BMPs simply are not getting the job done.
Recommendations
1. We support the recommendation made to the subcommittee by Professor
Wisdom of Virginia Tech that a comprehensive forest policy be written
and adopted for the Commonwealth of Virginia with the participation of
all stakeholders in the Virginia forest resource.
2. We recognize the hardship the Department of Forestry has faced in ensuring
adequate water quality law enforcement while suffering major cuts in recent
years in its authorized employment level. We join with our colleagues
in the majority in recommending an increase in the number of VDOF foresters
and forest hydrologists employed and assigned to protect the Commonwealth's
water quality from pollution by logging operations.
3. We believe the Virginia Department of Forestry and the citizens of
the Commonwealth would be well served by a review of the performance of
the Department of Forestry by the General Assembly's Joint Legislative
Audit and Review Commission. Such a review would identify the strengths
and weaknesses of the forestry department, including the adequacy of its
staffing level and budget and the quality of its performance in carrying
out its mandated statutory duties including that of protecting the Commonwealth's
water quality from forestry activities. Among other things it should explore
the alternative of having the task of enforcing water quality laws in
logging and wood-manufacturing operations reassigned to the Virginia Department
of Environmental Quality, the Commonwealth's primary and expert water
quality protection and enforcement agency, rather than having enforcement
handled by the same agency that is responsible for the promotion of forestry
and forest products.
4. We note the lack of sufficient forest hydrology expertise on the staffs
of the VDOF, the Forestry Department of Virginia Tech, and the Virginia
Cooperative Extension Service. In addition to supporting the hiring of
more water quality protection specialists by the VDOF, we strongly recommend
that a new forest hydrologist faculty position at Virginia Tech and two
new forest hydrology extension specialist field positions in the Extension
Service be authorized and fully funded by the General Assembly, to provide
the research and logger training needed to take science-based steps to
reduce logging-related water pollution problems in Virginia.
5. We urge passage by the General Assembly of a new law making the use
of widely accepted (minimum) forestry best management practices mandatory,
with "teeth" that include serious fines for failure to implement.
The objective is to assure that sustainable forestry is being practiced
in the Commonwealth. This step already has been taken in several other
states including Kentucky; BMPs have long been used by leading forest
products corporations on their own corporate lands in their own self-interest.
Making BMPs mandatory should result in loggers in Virginia taking them
seriously and in the improvement of water quality below future logging
operations. These mandatory BMPs should include not only explicit practices
to minimize soil erosion and sedimentation during logging and log removal
but also practices to minimize the loss of fish and wildlife habitat and
damage to historic sites. These latter practices should be written with
the advice of the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries and
the Virginia Department of Historic Resources.
6. This new forest practices law also should include landowner protection
provisions that require (a) the notification of not just the VDOF but
of adjacent landowners of intent to log well in advance of such logging
(and not after it is under way) and (b) the active presence of a certified
"master logger" on the logging site whenever logging is going
on, with stiff penalties for the violation of these rules.
7. The preparation of a comprehensive environmental impact statement (EIS)
by the corporation proposing to build it should be required by the Commonwealth
whenever a new chip mill is proposed for construction. This EIS should
include a description of the impact of the mill in terms of the volume
of wood it will require, the envisaged sources of that raw material, and
the environmental impact of that logging.
8. We propose that policy oversight of the Virginia Department of Forestry
be transferred from the Secretary of Commerce and Trade to the Secretary
of Natural Resources, to emphasize the fact that Virginia's forests are
not merely a commodity in the market but a precious legacy that, considering
all forest products, values, and services, is an important component of
the natural resource patrimony of our Commonwealth that must be protected
and managed in a sustainable manner with the interests of all citizens
and future generations in mind.
We conclude by quoting a "Commentary" article from the February
28, 2001, Roanoke Times written by Tim Zink, an editor of Blue Ridge Press
and a former staff member of National Geographic magazine. It is entitled
"Reversing the Southeast's environmental race to the bottom."
"Southeastern state legislators must avoid hiding behind federal
unwillingness to address environmental challenges. Instead, they should
lead decisively, reversing the embarrassing and destructive race to the
bottom. Nothing less that the scenic beauty and quality of life in our
naturally blessed homeland hangs in the balance."Signed:
M. Rupert Cutler
James H. Dillard, II
Shireen Parsons
Mitchell Van Yahres
|
