My name is Tom Thomson. I'm a Tree Farmer from New Hampshire and chairman of the policy committee for the American Tree Farm System.
I'm grateful for the opportunity to be here today. Our properties, the Thomson Family Tree Farm, cover 2,600 acres of working, sustainable forests. They're managed by my family -- including Sheila, my wife of 33 years, and my 22-year-old-son Stacey, whom I am honored to represent here today.
But I also want to speak today on behalf of 66,000 other family forestland owners who are members of the American Tree Farm System founded in 1941 and now the nation's largest and oldest forest certification program for small, private landowners. Together, we Tree Farmers own nearly 25 million acres of diverse and growing forests.
That a lot of trees. But it's only a fraction of the 405 million acres of forests owned by 9.9 million individual citizens and families in the United States. It's those individuals and families not industry and not government who are the true "majority owners" of America's forests.
And it's those individuals and families and the forests they have tended who stand at risk because of EPA's ill-considered policies on TMDL and their decision to regulate forestry activities as a point source of pollution.
Sitting right behind me today are four other Certified Tree Farmers from around the country Anitra Webster from Virginia, Wilson Rivers of Florida, Bill Lawhon from Ohio, and Greg Daley of New Jersey.
They are joining me today because Tree Farmers all over this nation are opposed to EPA's proposed rule. I know many of you have seen a list of 200 or so people who are opposed to S. 2041 and S. 2139 legislation that would prevent EPA from designating forestry as a point source. They call it a "special interest loophole."
They're wrong. The attached list contains the names of over 3,000 Certified Tree Farmers people who own perhaps 80 or 100 acres of forest, who have invested and cared for the land. All of them took the time to contact EPA and urge Carol Browner to withdraw the rule. The Tree Farm leadership from almost every forested state in the nation has written their Congressional delegation. In some ways, our interest is special; we believe in good stewardship and then work to do something about it. And we believe Congress was right all along: forestry simply shouldn't be considered a point source of pollution.
Three months ago, most of us didn't know exactly what a TMDL was. But each of us knew quite a bit about water quality and forestry.
Every Certified Tree Farmer all 66,000 of us has made a written pledge to grow the wood our nation needs while protecting water quality, soil and wildlife habitat. Each of us has pledged to meet or exceed state best management practices. Many of us provide recreation opportunities for our neighbors a place to hike, watch the leaves change colors, fish or hunt. And our Tree Farms are inspected every five years by professional foresters to assure we meet the high standards of the American Tree Farm System.
I'm proud to say that Certified Tree Farms are among the most beautiful, best managed forests in the United States.
And we are enthusiastic about preaching what we practice. Many of us work with our state agencies and with our state Tree Farm Committees to help educate other landowners about the importance of following BMPs and practicing the best kind of sustainable forestry.
With this kind of aggressive, private and voluntary stewardship, it is no surprise that water quality issues related to forestry are small and getting smaller.
Compliance rates now approach 90 percent in many of the states where BMPs are in place. Total river and stream miles impaired due to silviculture declined 20 percent between 1994 and 1996. The number of miles deemed to have "major impairment" from silviculture fell 83 percent. In 1996, EPA dropped silviculture from its list of 7 leading sources of river and stream impairment. That same year, silviculture contributed only 7 per cent of total stream impairment.
We are proud of this record, and anxious to work with our state agencies the people who know our land and water best to do an even better job in the future.
But, from where we stand, EPA's proposal to designate forestry activities as a point source of pollution will make it harder, not easier to do that job. We see this as a clear case where "trying to fix it will break it."
Let me explain.
Owning and managing forestland is risky business. It is definitely not for the faint-hearted. Two years ago on January 8, a massive ice storm stunned four northeast states, and caused hundreds of millions of dollars of damage to forests. Two months before that storm, our own Tree Farm was recognized as the Outstanding Northeastern Tree Farm for 1997. Three days after the storm, 900 acres of prime forestland were devastated. Our legacy to our son Stacey lay on the ground, broken under the weight of tons of ice.
Today we are working tirelessly to repair the land. It will take a whole generation to restore our forests.
Every other Tree Farmer faces the same kind of challenge perhaps from fire, or insects, or drought and disease. But most of us are willing to make the best of it, or at least try.
What do we need to succeed?
First, the flexibility to conduct our timber operations when the time is right and that time may be when we need money to pay for surgery or college tuition or retirement. Or it may be when market conditions are just right and we can get the kind of return we want on our investment. Or it may be, as it is for us, when we're racing against the clock to retrieve some value from our ice-damaged timber before it's lost to insects and rot.
Second, we need the opportunity to work with the state forestry agencies that know us and the land best. Landowners have worked with these agencies to establish BMPs. We work with these agencies to assure that compliance is where it should be. Where it isn't, we've worked to find ways to improve it and I know we will continue to do so in the future. EPA already reviews and approves BMP programs. Why not continue down this road that's already taken us so far.
The alternative EPA proposes is plain and simple -- a Federal regulatory program that reaches far beyond "bad actors" to virtually every forest landowner, including the millions of people like me whose forest practices improve the environment, not hurt it.
What happens if we're faced with this radical departure in law and policy? Requiring us to get a permit will likely cost us money, even if it's simply to qualify under a general permit. It will almost certainly take time. And, if my friends are right about the inevitability of citizen suits gumming up the whole process, that time might stretch out to forever.
In other words, practicing sound sustainable forestry won't get easier; it will get harder. Especially today, when urban sprawl is sending the value of forestland into the stratosphere and developers call week after week with offers to buy up your Tree Farm, then pave it.
So far we've just said no. But others may not be able to especially if they're faced with more red tape, higher costs and a Federal permitting system that could lead, ultimately, to lawsuits from faraway places trying to stop the one timber harvest they might plan every decade.
I know that EPA officials claim they will only use permitting in extreme cases where damage to water quality is severe and state programs are not effective. But lawyers who have studied the issue claim that case law will make it very difficult for EPA ultimately to prevent the designation of all forestry operations as subject to point source discharge permits, once they have started down the road they propose.
Under these circumstances, many landowners might do what Thomas Dowd a Certified Tree Farmer from Massachusetts wrote on January 8 in a letter to his state's Congressional delegation: "Should the EPA, through increasing regulation, make Tree Farming uneconomical, the unintended consequence would be that I would most likely sell my 200 acres of forest for a housing subdivision."
This is no idle threat. In my own home state of New Hampshire, more and more forestland is falling under developers' bulldozers every year. In 1983, 87 percent of New Hampshire was covered by forests. In 1993, that number had dropped to 83 percent. By 2020, even the most optimistic survey by the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests has that number falling to 80 percent.
That's a lot of trees, about twice as much forest cover as we had 100 years ago. But, best case, it still means we'll lose about 150,000 acres of forest in the next 20 years just in my little state most of it developed, replaced by homes, shopping centers and parking lots.
No one would argue that this is good for water quality or the environment. It's not.
So what about Thomas Dowd, and me and countless other landowners who simply aren't inclined to sell? EPA and Congress can make it easier for us to say no much easier by getting rid of red tape, not adding to it. Don't impose a Federal permitting system.
You can make it easier for us to do even more for water quality by directing a larger share of Section 319 funds to forest landowners for improvement projects. Right now, only 2 percent of those funds are devoted to forestry. Help us expand our heritage of voluntary, private stewardship. Make it possible for EPA to invest public resources in the kind of citizen initiatives that have already worked for decades.
Over the past 60 years, our American Tree Farm System and the 66,000 landowners who've pledged to meet its standards, have made enormous strides in conserving our forests and water. It is a record we should celebrate, not regulate and we invite you to join us.