I have primarily been a spectator to the issue of logging in the Waynesville watershed because I am not a town of Waynesville resident and because with a toddler at home, another on the way and a fledgling business to run I have not had the time to attend any of the town meetings regarding the subject. However, Waynesville is my town – when people ask me where I’m from I always say Waynesville. When I go downtown, I go to Waynesville.

Recently there has been a lot of ink devoted to the subject in the local newspapers, including this one. In fact, it was our editor’s op-ed in the August 10 edition of the Smoky Mountain News that precipitated this column. At the beginning of his column Scott McLeod states, “There’s another side to this debate [logging the watershed] that has also been interesting to study. It concerns how this issue is being argued. The war of words often gives one side the edge before a debate even begins. These days, politics is all about how one frames an argument, so whomever is more successful at co-opting the right words often gains the upper hand.”

I totally agree with that statement. I think most of us when we are trying to be persuasive try to frame our debate in the most convincing terms we can think of. And I think McLeod does just that in his op-ed piece. He tells us at the beginning of his column that he is OK with logging in the watershed and that, “... others feel very strongly that it just shouldn’t happen – never, not in any case. I respect that position, I just disagree with it.” Then he tries to frame his argument in the most persuasive way he can.

I find some of his language a bit misleading. He writes, “Because many hard-core tree huggers believe every tree should be saved no matter what the cost, many who support environmental initiatives will have a hard time admitting that they could support the kind of plan that would be imposed on this watershed.”

Well, I don’t know of a single environmentalist that wouldn’t cut a tree to build his home or cut a tree that was an imminent threat to his home or begrudge anyone else who did likewise. But more importantly, I know of several environmental organizations that support and promote sustainable forestry. Two local ones are the Western North Carolina Alliance (WNCA) and the Dogwood Alliance. Of course, both of these groups believe private property is the place for sustainable forestry but they do work with the Forest Service to try and insure that timber harvests on public property are done in the most sustainable and least environmentally damaging manner possible.

The next paragraph is a bit troubling to me also:

“But here’s the truth: I’ve known Carlson [Paul Carlson, executive director of the Land Trust for the Little Tennessee and one of the architects of the Waynesville watershed easement] for years, and he is an environmentalist. He has worked to put many conservation easements on thousands of acres in Western North Carolina, and many of those easements created forever wild habitats. When that is a viable option, he’s excited to do just that.”

I guess, since it’s the truth we can’t question any part of that paragraph. I do, in fact, agree with the first two sentences. I too know Paul Carlson and he is an environmentalist. But the last sentence intimates that a forever-wild easement on the Waynesville watershed is not a viable option. I can’t for the life of me see why it wouldn’t be, and I haven’t talked to anyone of that opinion.

In fact, when I talked to Dr. Peter Bates (associate professor of natural resources management at Western Carolina University and another of the shapers of the Waynesville watershed easement) recently, he said that he had found nothing to date that would suggest the watershed was in any kind of imminent danger.

And finally, McLeod seems to endorse the conservative argument that when it comes to forests, only silviculture (logging) is science when he writes, “If I had my druthers I would rather have the wild forest any day, but that’s just a personal feeling based more on nostalgia than science.” But there is a lot of science that points to the social, scientific and environmental value of contiguous, undisturbed forests and/or old-growth forests.

On to the watershed – some concerns

Everyone seems to agree on the primary function of the watershed – to provide high-quality drinking water for the town of Waynesville. Well the watershed is ranked WS1 by the state – the highest quality rating the state gives. No amount of logging is going to improve the water quality.

There has been a lot of talk about creating and/or maintaining a healthy forest. This is where different philosophies often collide. How do we define a healthy forest? Some on the timbering end of the spectrum would define a forest that produces the greatest amount of high-quality lumber as the healthiest forest. Those on the ecological end of the spectrum might define the healthiest forest as the one with the most diverse, complicated and interconnected environmental processes.

The Strategic Forest Management Plan for the watershed lists as one of its recommendations: “Improve stand condition by removing poorly formed or damaged trees.” The endangered red-cockaded woodpecker was nearly extirpated when foresters learned how to control red heart disease. Red heart is a fungus that attacks southern pines. It softens the heartwood. Red-cockadeds nest almost exclusively in trees infected with red heart disease.

Utilitarian foresters might tell you that a tree that has reached senescence – quit thriving and begun dying – is past its prime. But ecologists and biologists will tell you that standing dead snags are wildlife oasises and that decomposing logs provide homes and food for a myriad of different organisms as well as building nutrient-rich soil.

Foresters are well aware of these different views of forest health. According to Bates in the SMN, “When you get into the nitty gritty of what is a healthy forest, there are all sorts of value judgments.” Who will be making these judgment calls when it comes to the Waynesville watershed?

The plan also states “all practical steps will be taken to preclude the use or spread of invasive, exotic species.” But this is a bit of a conundrum because the creation of and/or improvement of roads for logging plus the clearings created by logging are just the kinds of places where exotic plants get a toehold.

One article in the SMN mentioned sudden oak death. There is no silviculture treatment that can preclude sudden oak death, just as there was no way to stop the chestnut blight or elm disease. In fact, there is a school of thought that points out that foresters may have quickened the demise of the chestnut through their unbridled efforts to cut every healthy chestnut before they succumbed to the blight. If there were any resistant strains out there, they were destroyed alongside the susceptible trees.

The strategic plan doesn’t offer a panacea, rather it states, “The forest management objectives for this property can best be achieved through the promotion of vigorous, naturally occurring forest communities throughout the watershed. These communities most often contain healthy individuals of species that are best adapted to conditions within the watershed and are best able to resist and recover from damaging agents or events.”

That is sound science, but is timbering the only way to achieve such conditions? An article in Environmental Review states, “Recent results from research on old-growth forests in eastern Canada suggest that as tree populations age they tend to increase in genetic diversity and reproductive fitness, suggesting that old-growth forests may serve as natural reservoirs of genetic diversity and reproductive fitness for the constituent tree species.” There’s that paradigm split again – human vs. nature.

Good trees vs. bad trees

Alderwoman Libba Feichter was quoted in the SMN: “The better trees like walnuts and hickories and oak trees, they grow much slower. If you don’t manage and take care of those slower growing trees, you end up with a forest that is not as diverse .... I want to make sure we protect those trees that are valuable to the forest that provide food and shelter for the forest critters.”

The book American Wildlife & Plants: A Guide to Wildlife Food Habits ranks plants according to the forest critters that feed on them. Oaks are at the top of the list for WNC, but there are seven trees that come in ahead of hickories, including dogwood and birch, and black walnut is the last tree on the list. It’s another of those subjective values – what makes one tree species better than another?

The politics

There is an old axiom that says whenever a politician says “It’s not about the money” – it’s about the money. Throughout the conservation easement and the Strategic Management Plan there are numerous references that suggest the town of Waynesville could see a profit from logging the watershed. Mayor Henry Foy was quoted in the SMN; “It would be a great thing for the town each year to make some money from the timber harvest.” While everyone says it’s not about the money, the subject is certainly a recurring one.

Alderman Gavin Brown and alderwoman Feichter have stated that if Waynesville residents opposed their views on the watershed they would have recourse in the 2007 election. I see a couple of problems with that.

The final plan is scheduled to be finished by April 2007, before the November election. I’m sure a new board could rescind any plan but it might require jumping through some political hoops. There may also be many Waynesville voters who support most of the work done by Brown and Feichter but disagree with them on this one item. While I am not one to support referendums every time a sticky subject comes up, who better to decide the fate of the Waynesville watershed than Waynesville voters?

Druthers

In his op-ed McLeod talked about his druthers. Here are mine. I believe the Model Forest program talked about in reference to the watershed is a wonderful and much needed idea. I personally would rather see such a program on private lands.

I would very much like to see an environmental education component to the Waynesville watershed plan — but one that researches and documents the emergence of 8,000 acres of contiguous old-growth forest.

Official disclaimer

Should the town of Waynesville decide to implement a management plan on its watershed I can think of no one I would rather see implement such a plan than the partners Waynesville is currently negotiating with.

(Don Hendershot can be reached at ddihen@earthlink.net)