Water Quality and Forestry
New Hampshire's commercial forestry community has long contributed to the state's efforts to protect water quality, and we make every effort to assure that our activities do not unnecessarily contribute to impairments of streams, rivers and lakes. In recent years, efforts on the part of landowners, loggers, foresters and forest industry have significantly increased awareness of steps that be taken to improve water quality during a forestry operation. While this listing is far from comprehensive, efforts in this regard include:
1. Tree Farm: As part of a nationally recognized program, there are over 1,650 Tree Farmers managing almost one million acres of New Hampshire's forestland. As participants in this voluntary program, landowners commit to managing by a set of forestry standards with four goals: forest products, wildlife habitat, recreational opportunities and water quality. Landowners participating in this program develop forest management plans that address these areas. If landowners fail to follow their management plan, they can be (and are) decertified for failure to live up to the program's standards.
2. Professional Loggers Program: The NH Timberland Owners Association, in cooperation with the University of New Hampshire's Thompson School of Applied Sciences and UNH Cooperative Extension, runs a voluntary certification program for the state's professional logging community. The goal of the program is to provide professional development opportunities for timber harvesters, make them safer and more aware of environmental concerns. To become certified through this program, loggers must complete coursework in safe felling, first aid, fundamentals of foresting, and timber harvesting law. A major component of the timber harvesting law class focuses on water quality, and is conducted by instructors from the NH Department of Environmental Services. Through this program, the "on-the-ground" workforce in the forest industry is aware of, and is better able to implement, actions to protect water quality during a timber harvest. To date, over 650 loggers have become certified through the Professional Loggers Program, and another 400 have begun the certification process.
3. Best Management Practices: The State of New Hampshire has in place Best Management Practices for Erosion Control on Timber Harvesting Operations in New Hampshire. These BMPs provide a framework for cooperation between forest industry, landowners and the government to protect the state's water resources. The Best Management Practices provide information for landowners, loggers and foresters on reducing or eliminating sedimentation from truck haul roads, skid trails, and log landings. Further, they explain erosion control devices, steam crossings, and the law as it applies to timber harvesting. The overriding goal of the BMPs is to "keep sediment out of the streams".
4. Landowner Workshops: In cooperation with the Natural Resource Conservation Service, the NH Timberland Owners Association has conducted workshops on Best Management Practices for Timber Harvesting and Forest Road Building for landowners and municipal officials. These workshops, which include significant field components (such as wetland identification, soil characteristics, and road construction), provide an opportunity for learning and collaborative problem solving, and deliver a greater depth of understanding of the issues for all parties.
5. Sustainable Forestry Initiative: As part of a national program sponsored by the American Forest and Paper Association, several of New Hampshire's largest private landowners and forest products manufacturers have made a commitment to practice sustainable forestry on their own land and encourage sustainable forest management on land that they purchase wood from. One of the standards that participants in this program commit to is protecting "water quality in streams, lakes and other water bodies by implementing riparian protection measures based on soil type, terrain, vegetation, and other applicable factors." In New Hampshire, participants in the SFI have established a process for investigating and correcting activities that members of the public believe are inconsistent with the practice of sustainable forestry.
Clearly, New Hampshire's forestry community has made, and continues to make, a commitment to protect water quality. The numerous programs, and the work of thousands of landowners, demonstrate our commitment to maintaining the quality of the state's streams, lakes and rivers.
Unfortunately, the Environmental Protection Agency has recently proposed strict new rules that may undermine these efforts. As part of rules proposed last August, the EPA may reclassify some forestry activities from "non-point source" activities to "point source" pollution activities, placing forestry under an entirely new regulatory regime. The EPA proposal has the potential to treat forestry activities, including those that contribute significantly to wildlife habitat, the same way as factory discharge is treated. Prior to beginning a timber harvest, landowners could be required to receive a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit, a process that may well take over a year. This would also open landowners up to costly nuisance lawsuits by those that oppose timber harvesting.
New Hampshire's private landowners, who have a history of contributing to the state's water quality, are threatened by this bureaucratic, top-down proposal. In a letter to the EPA, the NH Department of Environmental Services stated that "additional federal regulation of these activities would only add an unnecessary regulatory burden to the forest industry without any clear environmental benefit." While it is difficult to understand the benefit of this proposal to New Hampshire, it is easy to grasp the downside.
One of the problems with the EPA proposal is that it is made in isolation without connecting to the larger environmental and economic system. New Hampshire is a rapidly developing state, and forest landowners -- particularly those in the southern tier of the state are constantly under economic pressure to convert forestland to other uses. We permanently lose over 20,000 acres of working land each year to development. Managing forestland for economic return is a marginal business, and requites a long-term commitment on the part of a landowner. Actual imposed costs or landowner expectations of future costs will be capitalized into land values. The subsequent reduction of forest land values relative to other land uses (typically development) will increase the pressure to convert to these other land uses. The EPA's proposal fails to recognize that, given the choice between bureaucratic red tape and development, many landowners may be forced to develop their land. By failing to work with landowners and forest industry, the EPA may well engage the "law of unintended consequences", contributing to the rapid loss of forest land and the many public benefits it provides. In effect, the EPA's proposal to no longer exempt silviculture will ultimately lead to decreased water quality.
This is particularly true of small, non-industrial landowners, upon which this proposed regulation would fall quite heavily. Non-industrial private landowners, many of them who harvest infrequently and have responsibly managed their holdings for generations, own almost 70 percent of New Hampshire's forestland. Many of these landowners, estimated by the USDA. Forest Service's recently released Forest Inventory and Analysis to number 84,000 in New Hampshire alone, do not have the technical expertise necessary to comply with complicated federal requirements. While the impacts of the EPA's TMDL proposal is of enormous concern to our entire industry, it is these landowners that will feel its impacts fastest and hardest.
I urge you to use your influence as Chairman to help the EPA recognize the positive, proactive steps that the forest industry and forest landowners have taken to protect water quality. Instead of pursuing their Washington-based, top-down approach, the EPA would accomplish more by working with citizens and industry to support and expand upon existing activities to protect our water resources. By encouraging collaborative approaches, rather than the confrontational actions proposed by the EPA, the Environment and Public Works Committee can take a leadership role in developing solutions that work.