Letters to the Editors - Winter 2004
New York Tax Law Not All Bad
To the Editors:
As a New York forest owner and a beneficiary of New York’s Forest Tax Law for more than 25 years, I must disagree in some important ways with David Colligan’s criticisms of the law (Another View, Autumn 2004).
Contrary to Mr. Colligan, I believe the tax law has indeed encouraged forest stewardship and sound management of woodlands – at least as much as any law can. It probably has not encouraged enough woodland owners to participate, nor has it done anything to encourage local officials to support the program. This is probably its greatest weakness: every acre devoted to 480 or 480-a production is an acre that escapes 80 percent of the local taxes due. While the tax abatement may further the goals of the entire state, it takes money directly out of the hands of local officials, because the state does not reimburse towns for local revenues. (The state of New York does, however, pay taxes on state land that is withdrawn from future management when it becomes part of the Forest Preserve in the Catskills and Adirondacks.)
So we agree: let the state make up the tax differences. Now we diverge.
Mr. Colligan complains that the management plans required are “too labor intensive, require intensive re-inspections, and are inflexible….” Management plans require foresters to walk in the woods; they are by definition labor intensive. Sorry. The law requires that the plan be reviewed and updated every five years – hardly a serious burden or unrealistic demand in my experience. Inflexible? I have made several changes in my plan over the past quarter century, primarily because of market conditions. Every time, I have found the DEC foresters open and – surprise! – flexible.
I agree with Mr. Colligan that the penalties for non-compliance or withdrawal from the program are draconian, but he doesn’t make much of a case for anything better. Stiff penalties may be necessary to prevent the program being used as a cheap way to bank land until a development killing can be made. Yes, the penalties certainly do discourage casual participation. I’m not sure that is bad, because the alternative might be “drop-in, drop-out” woodlots – and that sounds like a government giveaway of the worst kind.
Finally, let me address a couple of Mr. Colligan’s examples of “remedies.” First, copy Alabama’s example and add 50 percent to the severance tax on logs shipped out of state. There goes most of the market for high-quality eastern New York logs, which have few good in-state markets. Talk about discouraging participation! Second, cut the acreage from 50 acres to 25 or even 10 acres. This is only likely to hasten forestland fragmentation – already a serious problem in the fringe areas of the Catskills and Adirondacks. Put another way, the New York countryside is already threatened by suburbanization, so let’s not do anything to encourage it. The purpose of the law is to encourage forest management by reducing taxes. It is NOT simply to reduce taxes for everyone who owns a woodlot.
Right now there is some support for a wholesale revision of the law, partially fueled by those who would like to see tax incentives for recreation and wildlife management as well as forest production. As praiseworthy as those goals may seem at first, they are at heart little more than subsidies for private parks and are most likely to hasten fragmentation of woodlands and further erode the wood products industry in the state.
I expect that those who want to practice good forest management will do so, and those who aren’t interested won’t. So in a sense, the tax law – no matter what it says – won’t make much difference. But if our public policy is to reward and encourage those who genuinely do manage their woodlands responsibly, it is important to restrict the benefits to those it is intended for – and let the rest complain, on their own dime.
John Sullivan, Chestertown, New York
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Toeing the Bottom Line
To the Editors:
I am writing in reference to the piece by Hersey and Kittredge in the Autumn 2004 Knots & Bolts, “What Does Forestry Cost?”, looking at how consulting foresters charge for their work and services. This topic seems to be one of the latest areas that the self-appointed guardians of the northern woodlands have focused on. The guardians’ work of informing the non-industrial landowners is of very great value to the owners, so they don’t get ripped off. But now they are getting too close to my pocketbook!
As consulting foresters, in the truest sense of professional foresters, we have to subscribe to a code of ethics that deals with this issue. The guardians would have you believe that the consulting foresters will overmark a sale to line their own pockets to increase the commission percentage.
If this accusation is true, then why not question the hourly rate foresters about padding their time cards?
We professional foresters are trying to make a living in the work we love. If you take away the means to make a living, the best and most-qualified people will have to find another job. This will leave the guardians of the work, who will have more to write and expound about knowing that they are secure in their income and pay from your tax dollars and tuition fees.
Income from timber sales is most often supplemental income for the non-industrial private forest owner, whereas commission on these sales is the consultant’s main means of income. Let us not let the greed factor creep into forest management any more than it already is. All parties in this business deal have to be happy.
Jonathan Raymond, Cambridge, New York
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Alternatives to Wind Power
To the Editors:
Thanks for the clear and concise discussion of wind power. I can still see in my mind’s eye the shock of coming down from Yosemite, crossing the food basket of America, and then wind turbines like trees were in rows as far as I could see. Articles in the papers were about the terrible sight of an atomic plant on the coast. That could not be compared with thousands of wind turbines along the ridges east of the Bay. All that and it only generates a very small portion of the electric power produced by the nuclear plant.
People talk about the hazards of atomic power, but it is all in their imaginations. There was only one accident in America: Three Mile Island. That proved the plants could operate and not be a problem. As reported, the workers did everything wrong, and very little happened. We are afraid of what we do not know about. There would be more danger from accidents on the highway as people try to get out of the area. Life is very complicated today; we are forced to make choices, and I hope we find the intelligence to make the right scientific ones in the future.
Oscar Stone, Marlboro, Vermont
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Alternatives to Wind Power
To the Editors:
Your excellent article on the push for more windpower in the Northern Forest and beyond captured elegantly the difficult horns of this dilemma (“The Questions Are Blowing in the Wind”). It is a difficult choice between central values for residents of the region, including a sense of place and the lasting character of rural communities, and significant environmental considerations associated with power generation for an environmentally conscious population.
However, your piece and much of the other coverage on this issue seems to have underplayed two important elements of this debate. The first is the likely economic impacts on the “brand” of places like Vermont that are in the crosshairs of the wind power industry. The importance of the Vermont brand, a mixture of rural simplicity and beauty with a sense of being unplugged from mainstream America, radiates across economic sectors ranging from leaf-peeping tourists to Long Trail Ale and Green Mountain Gringo Salsa.
Will the tourists keep piling onto buses to stand beneath wind turbines spinning over the foliage? Will the aura of Vermont that powers sales of its products in more hectic places be lost with constant visual reminders of human infrastructure on our mountains? These are difficult questions that must be studied carefully and factored into any cost-benefit analysis.
The other question that went unanswered by your piece is what other trade-offs might be possible. Could Vermont or any other state targeted for wind save a comparable amount of energy through more aggressive promotion of conservation? Many utilities gave up on wildly successful programs that helped subsidize compact fluorescent bulbs and other small improvements that lead to huge energy savings. Could better public transportation also provide significant emissions relief?
The sad truth is that the big decisions that will drive issues like climate change are being made in American boomtowns across the Sun Belt and in distant places like China, where far larger populations are using energy like there is no tomorrow, with no signs of letting up. I have significant reservations about a symbolic gesture from the Northern Forest and surrounding rural regions sacrificing their beauty and growing new economies for an amount of green power that will be almost meaningless in the larger scheme of things.
At a minimum, the targeted states should be given choices about how best to reduce their energy demands to lessen emissions. I suspect that most people here in Vermont and the surrounding states would be willing to take some pretty big hits to save mountain views like the glimpse of the pristine Worcester Range that makes me smile every day while powering the tourism economy of my hometown.
Jad Daley, Stowe, Vermont
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A Logging Success Story
To the Editors:
Your story about native lumber hit home, since we just completed a logging job that produced some lumber for the local market.
With the speed of modern machinery and experienced loggers, several thousand board feet of timber can be harvested in just one day. Any landowner who owns a woodlot should give serious consideration to the various possibilities connected with harvesting. Consequently, we put a lot of time into planning our logging job, and it paid off.
We determined it was time to harvest our forest for several reasons: we noticed signs of overcrowding, and the wood market was favorable and timing compatible with our forest management plan. Therefore, I contacted our forester, and we took several walks through our woods evaluating the cost and effect of harvest versus the various profits. He and I were as concerned about the condition of our forest after the harvest as we were about the quantity and value of wood harvested. We discussed how much to harvest, what special areas, or trees, we wanted protected, and special wildlife areas. Lastly, we looked for, and noted, endangered plants and places.
Because of diversity of habitat, our forest has a mixed bag of wildlife, and we have learned a quality tree harvest usually enhances the wildlife habitat. So we also decided to leave at least a couple of snag trees per acre for dens or raptors.
We next had a meeting with the loggers that our forester recommended to do the harvest. This was to determine if they were comfortable with our plan of harvesting. It appeared all parties were in agreement, and a log harvesting contract was signed.
On our most successful harvests, the logger, forester, and landowner are a partnership. Although we sign a contract, which the forester provides to protect both the loggers and the landowners and determine shares of income for the various species of timber, we found it advantageous to verbally communicate with the loggers and the forester on a regular basis to determine where the skid roads would go, how many water bars should go in each sloping skid road, and to show where the potentially wet areas were and where the traditional places were where streams were bridged and roads crossed. We also discussed changes and opportunities in marketing.
The logging is now finished, and the skid roads are seeded with a conservation mixture. We are pleased with the harvest, knowing some of the wood went to local mills and manufacturers, some pine was cut by a band saw for personal use, and at least 12 cords were designated for our firewood. The disturbance is over, and the abundance of tracks indicates the wildlife is investigating the change. When I saw this, I was reminded of the advertisement that says “to us, it is a forest; to them, it is home.” It is comforting to realize we made money, had some fun, our forest will be healthier, several people in Vermont will have profited from a sustainable harvest, and we still have a lovely forest to enjoy.
Harry Chandler, Peacham, Vermont
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Enough!
To the Editors:
In an Autumn 2004 letter headed “Population Precipitates Forest Woes,” Michael Maines hits the target in identifying one of the root causes of many of the problems society faces with respect to our natural environment. It is unfortunate indeed that we as a nation have no population policy that includes both family planning and immigration aspects. Equally unfortunate is the present administration’s policy on aid in family planning to developing countries. But population is only part of the villain in precipitating “forest woes.”
The huge “environmental footprint” of us Americans is also at fault. This, for the individual, has been defined as: the average amount of productive land and shallow oceans appropriated for food, water, housing, energy, transportation, commerce, and waste management. For an American, it can occur outside our borders, as it does, into Saudi Arabia for oil, into Honduras for bananas, for example. That footprint is roughly 25 acres for the average American, compared with roughly 2.5 acres for the developing world. The four billion people of the developing world may never (or even wish to) attain our level of profligacy, but if they, and the rest of the world did so, it would take four more planet Earths to meet present U.S. levels of consumption.
E. O. Wilson has put it well: “Science and technology have led us into the present bottleneck of overconsumption and environmental deterioration, a bottleneck we must pass through, and come out the other end as the population begins to subside, with as much dignity and as high a quality of life, and with as much of the rest of life accompanying us as possible.”
An excellent inspirational and supportive vehicle to aid in reducing one’s ecological footprint is the local reading and discussion group process in Voluntary Simplicity fostered by the Vermont Earth Institute. Another support group, with the motto “More fun, less stuff,” is the Center for a New American Dream, whose newsletter is entitled “Enough!”.
Larry Hamilton, Charlotte, Vermont
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