When it comes to preserving Sylva’s Fisher Creek watershed, the problem seems to be a matter of permanence.

On one hand, the town board is hemmed in by a 1992 resolution that forbids the 1,100-acre property from being sold and prohibits the extraction of natural resources, thereby discouraging financial gain by any method other than obtaining a grant to put the land in a conservation easement.

On the other hand, when considering a conservation easement, board members worry about the effect their vote may have on a future town board’s ability to manage the watershed. An easement, according to how it’s worded, could result in the town giving up its logging rights. Logging, while potentially lucrative, often tends to be environmentally unpopular.

It’s one of those situations that Western Carolina University Geosciences and Natural Resources Management Associate Professor Peter Bates described as a “quandary” when discussing conservation and forest management options with town board members earlier this month.

The problem with retaining logging rights, however, is that the agency the town has applied to for money has not approved any grants to local governments that retained those rights.

Getting a handle on the land

Sylva leaders asked Bates in May to conduct a timber inventory of the Fisher Creek watershed. Along with students from Western’s Natural Resources Management major, Bates studied the watershed, finding that a majority of its trees fall into the oak/hickory forest type, which includes maple, birch, and cherry trees. While oak has fallen largely out of favor in the lumber market, maple is fetching a high price.

“It’s hot as a pistol,” said Jack Swanner, general manager of the Sylva-based T&S Hardwoods.

According to Bates’ report, the watershed contains a significant volume of high-quality timber; however, harvesting options are limited by the watershed’s topography. For example, the watershed’s peak contains the third-highest concentration of top-grade lumber out of the eight stands that are in the 1,100-acre tract. But the peak — with its 5,800-foot elevation, steep slopes and rock outcrops — severely limits logging. Other timber stands at lower elevations, which make up a majority of the watershed, are more suitable for harvesting.

While Bates’ report reveals that the watershed’s timber is potentially lucrative, he is careful to state that the report is just that — a report, not an opinion.

“We didn’t take a stand on what Waynesville should do with their watershed. We will not take a stand on what Sylva should do with their watershed,” said Bates, who helped develop a management plan for the Waynesville watershed that did leave open the option of logging.

Control issues

The Fisher Creek watershed is no longer used as Sylva’s water source. The land, located on the outskirts of town off Skyland Drive, was purchased in 1912. The watershed was decommissioned in 1992 when the town, along with other municipalities and county government, formed the Tuckasegee Water and Sewer Authority. TWSA built a new water intake, treatment and transmission facility in Cullowhee to serve the town and central Jackson County, thereby negating the need for the Fisher Creek watershed.

In conjunction with the creation of TWSA, the town passed a six-part resolution calling on “all future boards to uphold and enforce this policy both in its letter and in its spirit.” The resolution states that the property will be held in the public domain; conversion to private residential, business or commercial leasehold interests will not be permitted; leaseholders may only engage in activities including, but not limited to, outdoor recreation, educational functions, hydrological, biological, aquatic or botanical activities, research/demonstration and the construction of temporary or permanent facilities to support these activities. Resource extraction is prohibited. And the board may appoint a commission to assist in the watershed’s management.

Appointment of such a commission came about with the concurrent creation of the Pinnacle Park Foundation. Under the direction of Sylva-attorney Jay Coward, the foundation was established to uphold the 1992 resolution and ensure that future town leaders preserve the watershed. Foundation projects have focused on developing a system of hiking trails that run all the way from Fisher Creek to Waterrock Knob.

The foundation leases the watershed from the town for $10 a year — less than the town would make placing the land in a conservation easement, logging or no logging.

Since 1996 the Clean Water Management Trust Fund — the organization to which the town has decided to apply for a grant to fund a conservation easement — has awarded 699 grants for a total for $535 million. These grants have in turn leveraged more than $810 million in private and other public funds, according to CWMTF statistics. Of those 699 grants awarded, 335 have been made to local governments for water management. More than $308 million has been granted to local governments, state agencies and land trusts specifically to acquire conservation easements and waterway protections. The CWMTF recently offered Bryson City $1.5 million for the development rights to its watershed.

The Pinnacle Park Foundation’s lease is for 25 years, ending in 2020. According to the lease agreement, the town may “take whatever action that it deems in the best interest of the Town of Sylva in order to protect its ownership interest” in the property, including termination of the lease. Termination may be desirable if the foundation’s goals no longer coincide with those of the town.

As the foundation’s director, Coward has spoken out against logging the watershed in letters to local newspapers. In a recent article published in the Sylva Herald, Coward said that logging not only wasn’t advisable from an environmental standpoint but also did not make financial sense.

“There’s not a million dollars worth of timber up there,” Coward, who could not be reached for comment for this story, was quoted as saying.

“When you have an open canopy (after trees are cut), what grows fastest and thickest is poplar, and sometimes pine,” Coward told the Sylva Herald. “If you check the lumber market for those trees, you get rock-bottom prices.”

However, Swanner, with T&S Hardwoods, said that poplar, like maple, has taken off in popularity, largely due to design trends that have moved away from heavy, dark woods and into lighter finishes. While poplar may be cheaper than other woods, it’s also selling better.

Keeping control

During discussions with Bates and other conservation management officials Sept. 1, town board member Maurice Moody cautioned that board members were interested in getting more out of Fisher Creek than just something pretty to look at. In 1998, town leaders rejected a conservation easement agreement with the Conservation Trust of North Carolina that would have mandated the watershed remain in its natural state, with hiking the only allowed use.

This time, Moody said water rights must be preserved — a generally accepted practice — and timber rights not haphazardly written off. Generally speaking, selling timber brings in more money than selling timber harvesting rights. The same goes for development rights.

In Bryson City, town aldermen initially were hesitant to accept the CWMTF’s $1.5 million offer for their watershed development rights. The land, while never officially appraised, was estimated to be worth $3.5 million if sold outright. It was a private $500,000 contribution that helped sway town officials to conserve the land.

If the Pinnacle Park Foundation’s goals are not in alignment with the town’s — say for example the Foundation opposes logging, while the town looks to it for revenue generation — the town has the option of reconstructing the Foundation board. The town appoints five members of the Foundation board. If the town made five appointments that shared its ideals, and those five members elected two additional board members, as called for by the Foundation’s bylaws, such restructuring could position the required two-thirds majority vote needed to terminate the Foundation’s lease with the town.

Termination also may occur if the Foundation is not holding up its end of the bargain. The Foundation has not been meeting regularly — or more appropriately not meeting at all, according to members — though how that failure legally affects the Foundation’s ability to fulfill its mission is unknown. Additionally, Bates cited maintenance issues on the watershed’s old logging roads in his report, saying they were in bad condition.

“In many areas the roads are badly rutted and the stream crossings are poorly maintained,” the report states. “It appears that the roads erode significantly during heavy rains, often depositing sediment directly into streams.”

Whether it is the Foundation’s responsibility to maintain these roads or the town’s is unclear.

Your wish is granted

The town of Sylva’s decision to apply for a Clean Water Management Trust Fund grant is, at this point, nothing more that an expressed interest in some form of conservation. If a grant were awarded, the town is not required to accept it.

The process most likely will take a year, said Tom Massie, a Sylva resident and the CWMTF’s western representative. The town’s application will go out in December, be reviewed by the Trust Fund’s 21-member citizen board of directors in February or March, with a decision reached in May. It will take until July or August 2006 — after the General Assembly allocates the Trust’s budget — for monies to actually be awarded.

The Trust received the largest allocation to date this year, making this a prime time for conservation, said Paul Carlson, executive director of the Land Trust for the Little Tennessee, a Franklin-based organization that has worked on conservation projects throughout the region.

“There’s a window of opportunity now that may not exist in one to two years,” Carlson told town board members during Sept. 1 discussions.

Following a grant award, there is a six-month negotiation period in which grant recipients hammer out the details of the easement with the Trust. However, the key to being awarded a grant in the first place is for town board members to know what they want before they ask for it, Massie said.

“What I like to see and the trustees like to see is a complete application,” he said. “The more complete information we have, the less confusing it is to the staff.”

Property appraisals help, Massie said — something that the board is in the process of getting. The appraisals are broken down for total property values, development, timber and water rights values. Each right that the town wishes to preserve is deducted from the Trust’s total proposed grant amount.

In return for the Trust’s grant, the town is required to make a 50 percent match. That match may be made in kind. For example, if the watershed was valued at $2 million and the Trust agreed to put up $1 million, the town would donate the $1 million residual in property.

Will Trust Fund policy change?

However, the sticking point may be Sylva’s desire to retain logging rights. The CWMTF doesn’t believe that logging and clean water practices coincide, Massie said.

“We really haven’t funded an acquisition where they reserved timber rights,” he said. “We haven’t done that anywhere.”

The point of the Trust Fund is protecting surface waters. When a grant is awarded, 40 percent of those funds must be spent on water-related issues, such as preventing sedimentation or stormwater management. Stormwater management has been a hot topic in local government, having come down as an unfunded mandate. Sylva has already applied to the CWMTF for assistance in implementing its stormwater management program.

However, Carlson said that logging and clean water concepts can coexist, citing the Quabbin Reservoir in Massachusetts as an example. The forests surrounding the Quabbin Reservoir are managed by the Metropolitan District Commission of Massachusetts, the largest landowner in the watershed. The commission’s primary management objective is water quality, not timber production, as the commission’s aim was to bring lands under one unified timber management plan. The reservoir research is being done to investigate the effects of localized natural and deliberate disturbances on stream discharges and water quality and current watershed management practices, which include active timber harvesting conducted to improve the resistance and resilience of the forest cover.

“We’ve got to have places like that for people to learn in, to believe in,” Carlson said.

Forest management plans must be adaptable, both to adjust to an ever-changing ecology and to landowners’ goals. Management plans should establish “book ends” or objectives, rather than specific directives, Carlson said.

“There has to be an updated plan for each new management phase,” he said.

For example, the Fisher Creek watershed timber inventory report states that a town the size of Sylva may not wish to actively manage its forest.

“Choosing the best management strategy can only be done in the context of clearly defined, long-term objectives for the property,” the report states.

“We do promote and support the careful management of forests in Western North Carolina provided that management meets three criteria of sustainability which include: (1) ecological sustainability, (2) economic sustainability, and (3) social sustainability.”

Gut reactions

Social sustainability is a concern with any watershed project. While the public largely supported efforts for a conservation easement for Waynesville’s 7,000-acre watershed, debate has arisen over whether logging should be a part of the watershed’s management plan.

When the town acquired the final privately owned tracts in its watershed in the 1990s, many thought all of the property would remain in its natural state. Now, the Waynesville town board has reserved the right to conduct selective logging as a means of promoting forest health and securing some money from the land.

Logging via helicopter would most likely eliminate the need for new roads to be built — thereby addressing many erosion concerns. Still, logging would mean the difference between a natural versus managed forest.

The question raised is one that town officials and citizens in Sylva and Waynesville must wrestle with — is allowing timber management worth it if it means that lands are preserved for public use rather than sold off for development? Others argue that there is a third option — preserving the land and letting it become an old-growth forest.

Should the town of Sylva decide to reserve its timber management rights, that does not mean that it must act on them. The great thing about trees is that they keep growing.

“It’s like money in the bank, every year that it grows it puts on value,” said Swanner with T&S Hardwoods.