ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, January 13, 1997 TAG: 9701130098
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: C. WAYNE ASHWORTH
THE VIRGINIA Farm Bureau Federation is concerned about the proliferation of a mind-boggling array of local ordinances around the state that are restricting environmental forestry practices and the harvest of wood products.
Because 48 Virginia localities have an ever-growing number of varying local ordinances that greatly hinder forest management practices, we are in strong support of Senate Bill 592, The Private Forest Land Conservation Bill.
Getting this legislation passed during the 1997 General Assembly will be one of our top priorities.
The bill, if enacted, would allow hard-working families from Chincoteague to Chilhowie to continue practicing state-approved forestry practices.
Senate Bill 592 would give the state forester authority to oversee all forestry operations and override local laws that unfairly restrict forestry activities.
Currently, local governments are regulating what private landowners can and cannot do with their land, even if the property owner is following state forestry guidelines.
The ordinances are costing forestry owners a lot of money. In some cases, landowners have tried to harvest small acreages of timber, but when county-mandated buffer strips were taken into account, there was very little left to harvest.
Some rules allow timber harvesting and others do not under virtually the same circumstances. These regulations are eliminating the economic incentive for landowners to practice sound forestry management, discouraging them from implementing appropriate forest-management decisions.
Many times, landowners must deal with ordinances in multiple jurisdictions and fight the legal staffs and budgets of large metropolitan counties and cities.
This results in forests being converted to less desirable uses.
The Senate bill would stop local governments from using police and zoning powers to prohibit these state-approved forestry practices. But it in no way reduces environmental safeguards provided in the Silviculture Water Quality Law, the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act, the Reforestation of Timberlands Act and the Virginia Seed Tree Law.
It does not restrict state mandates for designated scenic highways or Virginia byways.
Like agricultural commodities, forestry products are a valuable resource to many landowners in the state and to Virginia's economy as well.
Forestry contributes nearly $12 billion in economic and recreational activity across the Old Dominion each year.
Our prominent forestry industry relies upon this renewable resource, which is grown by private families on nearly 12 million acres in Virginia. That represents 77 percent of all commercial forest land in the state.
Growing trees in Virginia is a family affair, just like farming where families use that income for living expenses, education costs and retirement plans.
But forestry products don't just benefit individual families.
For every hard-earned dollar generated by landowners for harvested timber, another $49 is created in economic activity from the sawmill to the trucking company to the processing mill.
And forest lands benefit more than just the economy. They benefit you and me. They provide open spaces, protect and sustain wildlife, and they help avoid conversions of land to less desirable uses like strip shopping centers and other rapid development.
Forest lands are much easier and less costly for localities to maintain than development. For example, the Piedmont Environmental Council found that for every tax dollar collected from forest lands, farms and open spaces, it costs only 19 cents to cover services for those lands.
Schools, shopping centers and other businesses require extensively more than what their tax dollars generate.
But our valuable forests are being gobbled up by the hungry prongs of development bulldozers, which are stripping 20,000 acres of trees per year from this hallowed ground in Virginia.
The Farm Bureau, which represents 35,000 of the state's farmers and landowners, wants to protect Virginia's forests and forest values through the land-use decisions of private owners.
We want a healthy environment and the continued availability of forest products. It's in everyone's best interest to protect the rights of private landowners to manage their property, so that whimsical decisions will not be made with this precious commodity that benefits the economy, the environment and the beauty of Virginia.
C. Wayne Ashworth is president of the Virginia Farm Bureau Federation in Richmond.
LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines KEYWORDS: GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1997by CNB