An internal report that the Missouri Department of Conservation kept secret for a year contains disturbing predictions about the impact clear-cutting of timber for chip mills could have on Missouri's waterways.

The increased clear-cutting that normally comes with chip mills probably will allow more silt to get into streams and raise the temperature of creeks, damaging water quality and aquatic ecosystems, the draft report says.

The conservation department in the mid-1990s helped lure Missouri's first two high-capacity chip mills, predicting they'd provide markets for previously wasted timber resources such as small, young trees and cull timber other industries consider worthless.

But chip mills also contract with loggers to buy standing timber. And clear-cut areas - some spanning hundreds of acres - are showing up throughout the Ozarks. Public criticism of the mills caused Gov. Mel Carnahan to form an advisory committee to issue recommendations on how to handle the new industry. The committee first convened in November 1998, shortly before the conservation department's report was finished.

The governor's committee studied the issue for a year. And while the conservation department had a hand in organizing and running the panel, members were never told of the department's internal report.

Marvin Brown, former head of the department's forestry division, was co-chairman of the advisory committee. Though he was soft-spoken during public meetings, he often supported the presence of chip mills here.

Brown in August quit the committee and the department to take a job with Willamette Industries, the multinational timber corporation that owns one of Missouri's chip mills.

The conservation department's report, which remains in draft form, comes to light only as the governor's committee is nearly finished developing its recommendations. Though both the Tribune and the Sierra Club were initially denied access to the department's internal report, they were allowed to read it after the Tribune filed a written request under the Freedom of Information Act.

The department's deputy director, John Smith, said in a letter attached to the report that it was tabled and never finished because the department felt the advisory committee's work would take precedence.

The department's report says clear-cuts for chip mills would cause little environmental damage if so-called "best-management practices," or BMPs, were used, but they seldom are. That means most clear-cut harvests will have "a significant likelihood of causing Missouri Clean Water Law violations," the document says.

"Since 85 to 90 percent of the timber fiber harvest … will likely be done on private lands and without the assistance or advice of a professional forester or use of BMPs, concerns for both water quality and the welfare of aquatic communities in and around downstream of the harvest sites are valid, and short-term degradation and losses are likely."

Ken Midkiff, president of the Ozark Chapter of the Sierra Club, said the report "brought up some issues that the forestry department would like to ignore. They wanted to stonewall access to this report because it doesn't present the department views in the best light. Even when they give the standard party line on chip mills, they have to predicate it on the use of BMPs."

Though the department's report says best-management practices are crucial to protect the environment, the advisory committee has shied away from calling for regulations that members feel would infringe on private property rights.

Instead, committee members want to encourage voluntary use of best-management practices. Their preliminary recommendations include a 6 percent severance tax on timber sales that would be returned to landowners who use best-management practices.

Committee member and timber owner Emily Firebaugh said she doesn't like that idea. "I already pay about 50 percent of my timber yield to taxes or fees," she said.
She would prefer to put timber owners in touch with foresters and give them a break on property taxes for harvesting timber in environmentally sound ways.

The public comment period on the advisory committee's report ended Friday.