Gazette photo by SHELLEY EADES
Forests in West Virginia are becoming more and more fragmented by
timbering and development. Some people wonder what we are losing when areas
like this one at Kumbrabow State Forest are logged.
By Ken Ward Jr.
STAFF WRITER
LEAD MINE - Charleston businessman Ted Armbrecht enjoyed examining a slice
of wood drilled out of a giant oak tree. Counting the rings, he figured
out it was more than 80 years old.
Morgantown activist Adam Polinksi just wanted to spend some more time outdoors,
hiking and looking at big, old trees.
Moorefield timberman Mark Sturgell hoped to learn more about what makes
environmentalists tick. He thought maybe he could convince them his industry
isn't so bad.
The West Virginia Sierra Club brought people with opposing interests together
a few months ago for a hike in the Tucker County woods near Camp Horseshoe.
Rick Landenberger, a graduate student at the West Virginia University forestry
school, led the group through a pasture, across a creek and up a hill to
the top of a ridge.
"Notice what's happening," Landenberger told them. "There's
bigger and older trees as we get up on top of this ridge and farther away
from the logging grade."
Landenberger, a former U.S. Forest Service employee, pointed out one old
black birch tree.
"See the flakes on the bark?" Landenberger asked. "That's
how you can tell it's old. When trees get old, you can often tell simply
by look at the bark."
Hiking along a narrow trail, Landenberger pointed out the classic characteristics
of old-growth forests.
Old trees grow tall, with long trunks free of low branches. Upper limbs
spread out horizontally from the trunks. Fallen, decomposing logs crisscross
the forest floor. There are gaps in the canopy from trees that have fallen.
There's an abundance of fungi and lichen.
Logs in a stream form pools and rapids that create habitat for fish and
other aquatic life. For the most part, there are no signs of human disturbance.
"These are clues you would use to tell if it's an old-growth forest,"
Landenberger said. "It's very much a putting-the-clues-together kind
of thing. These clues are essential information, and form the basis for
defining old-growth ecosystems."
The people on the outing found they had something in common. They all liked
the forest.
"Everyone I've ever gone into these stands with has had a positive
experience about how different it is and how remarkable it is," Landenberger
said a few months after the trip.
"Many people feel when they go into the forest, they are more relaxed,"
he said.
"Forests are wonderful places to experience different smells, the
sound of wind blowing between big, old tree canopies. It really turns into
something that is almost indescribable in words."
What does all this have to do with the timber industry?
First, West Virginia loggers are cutting twice as much timber as they did
10 years ago, according to state Division of Forestry studies. The increase
in cutting is expected to continue, especially as a new pulp and paper
mill is built in Mason County.
Second, many experts, including some in the logging business, aren't sure
the forests in West Virginia can take the increased timber demand.
The problem isn't that trees won't grow back. Appalachian hardwoods sprout
quickly from seeds. Where they don't, the timber industry does plenty of
planting.
But some fear increased pressure for more wood to feed chipboard factories
and pulp mills could turn the state's forests into little more than tree
farms.
Loggers could move into what little is left of the true old-growth forests
in West Virginia. Instead of thick groves of old trees in a mature forest
with a variety of animals and plants, West Virginia could be left with
fields full of smaller trees grown as crops to feed the new plants, they
fear.
If that happened, where would people go hiking and camping? Would wildlife
or hunting game populations suffer? Do people want to go mountain biking
or whitewater rafting through forests of small pulpwood trees or immense
forests of stately oaks?
State-sponsored studies show tourists spent more than $2.6 billion in West
Virginia in 1995. That's $500,000 more than the $2.1 billion the timber
industry pumps into the state economy every year, according to a West Virginia
University study.
"What is all the relationship between all that cutting and what we
will have as far as old growth forests in the future?" Landenberger
asked.
"That question is not being addressed because of the lack of public
involvement and because of the lack of an open-ended and broad-based planning
process that will address it."
Fragmented forest
The West Virginia Development Office and the state Division of Forestry
encourage more timber cutting.
The West Virginia Development Office tells potential wood products developers
that, "With 12.1 million acres of timberland and 60 billion board
feet of inventory, the forest resources of West Virginia seem endless.
The state sits at the geographic center of the world-renowned Appalachian
Hardwood belt. Climate and soils combine to provide an ideal growing environment
for hardwoods."
A Forestry Division report issued in August said, "West Virginia's
woodlands now support more timber than they have since the 1920s."
The volume of trees in the forest grew from 67.1 billion board feet in
1987 to 70 billion board feet in 1995, the Forestry Division said. Commercial-sized
tree growth exceeded removals by 421 million board feet a year, the division
said.
Despite this progress, West Virginia forests are still recovering from
the clearcutting that left them scarred and bare at the turn of the century.
"Most of today's Appalachian forest is an archipelago of second-growth
woodlots in an ocean of pasture," biologist George Constantz wrote
in his book, "Hollows, Peepers, and Highlanders: An Appalachian Mountain
Ecology."
"Logging, farming, road cutting, and other human activities have fragmented
the forest.
"This habitat fragmentation lowers the odds that native populations
will survive and therefore decreases the diversity of indigenous species,"
he wrote. "Throughout the world, habitat fragmentation is one of the
most serious causes of the present extinction crisis."
Mary Byrd Davis in her book, "Old Growth in the East: A Survey,"
identifies only 11 documented stands of old-growth forest in West Virginia.
Only five of these are larger than 50 acres. They include a 100-acre stand
in Ritchie County and the 133-acre stand of virgin hemlock at Cathedral
State Park in Preston County.
Timbering certainly isn't the only human activity, or inactivity, that
has destroyed or continues to destroy old forests:
Much of the early deforestation in West Virginia occurred when farmers
cleared their land. Forests are cleared today for strip mines or to make
way for housing developments, shopping malls and parking lots.
Haphazard land use planning in most of West Virginia and the lack of any
type of zoning reduces the chance that old-growth forests will be protected.
Acid rain from power plants that line the Ohio River is believed to make
trees weaker and more likely to die from insects or disease. So-called
exotic species like the gypsy moth are eating West Virginia's forests.
Timbering threat
But timbering is still a big threat. Three new chipboard plants already
operating and the proposed Mason County pulp mill would require the equivalent
of 50,000 acres of forest every year.
Almost all the timberland in West Virginia is owned by private individuals
and corporations. There is little, if any, overall long-term planning for
how forests will be treated. The state has no mechanism for deciding what
trees located where should and shouldn't be cut down. Private individuals
or companies can make decisions on how to use their own land with little
regard for how that land fits into the larger landscape of statewide forest
resources.
Logging that is not done properly can ruin streams. Water runoff picks
up soil and packs streams with sediment. Fish and other aquatic life can
be killed. Banks can be left bare and open to erosion.
Even if logging is done properly, it can fragment forests and lead to loss
of wildlife and biodiversity.
Timber industry officials argue the new plants and mills in West Virginia
can be supplied by treetops and branches that are currently left in the
woods.
David A. Perry, a forestry professor at Oregon State University, cautioned
against this method of feeding big timber plants.
"Nutrient concentration of tree trunks is quite low, while that of
small branches and foliage is relatively high," Perry wrote. "Whole-tree
harvest, in which crowns as well as trunks are removed in the interest
of efficiency and "complete utilization," removes far more nutrients
than simply harvesting the trunks.
"Recent studies of various areas in the eastern United States have
shown particularly high calcium losses in whole-tree harvest," Perry
wrote. "Removing old, unmerchantable logs ... eliminates what in some
forest ecosystems is an important source of future soil organic matter."
And in West Virginia, many people worry that logging of smaller and smaller
trees to feed chipboard mills and pulp and paper mills could cause further
damage to forest ecosystems.
Steve Hollenhorst, a professor who teaches recreation management and land-use
policy at the WVU forestry school, is among those who fear these developments.
"If we remove sawlogs from our forests at an unsustainable rate, and
if we overbuild the side of the industry that uses the low-value resource
left behind after logging (i.e. the oriented strand board mills and pulp
mills), the outcome is clear," Hollenhorst wrote in an article for
the Gazette.
"The amount of sawtimber cut and used for high-value products will
eventually decrease. With the decreasing harvest of sawlogs, the OSB and
pulp mills will in turn be forced to meet their needs with small trees
(not waste material) cut from ever younger and younger stands," Hollenhorst
wrote.
"This is the scenario that has played out in eastern Kentucky, where
much of the forest never matures past 20 to 40 years. This is the scenario
that we all need to work together to avoid in West Virginia."