ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, February 16, 1997 TAG: 9702170036
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHRISTINA NUCKOLS STAFF WRITER
SURPRISINGLY, FOREST OFFICIALS would rather timber companies at logging sites like one in Dry Hollow harvest all the trees, not just some.
Some people make faces as they drive past men stacking logs along Dry Hollow Road. Others avert their eyes and remind themselves that one day the massive, muddy trucks will haul away their final load of timber and be gone.
It's not easy to ignore the logging operation that began last fall on Poor Mountain in West Roanoke County. The 1,800-acre tract, which will be harvested over the next two years, dwarfs the 217 acres logged in the county for all of 1996.
Forestry officials say the Dry Hollow timber cutting is the county's largest in at least 30 years. There have been larger logging operations in the region, including a 3,000-acre tract in Bedford County several years ago. But Roanoke County is different from most counties in Western Virginia. It is populated by "city folks," loggers say, and there are few places where even a much smaller logging operation can be conducted without disrupting the view from someone's picture window.
The Dry Hollow cutting is important because of its timing as well as its size. Through public hearings and surveys, county residents have identified ridgeline protection as a top priority they want addressed in Roanoke County's new comprehensive plan, due at the end of 1997. At the state level, the General Assembly passed a law last month prohibiting local governments from interfering with logging operations.
The Dry Hollow operation will involve only a little clear-cutting, but it may surprise some that forestry officials endorse that method of logging.
It's unclear how those competing interests will be resolved or how they will affect Dry Hollow. For now, the residents, loggers and forestry officials who share the mountainside are looking for common ground.
The neighbors
Nine-year-old Craig Kafura looked sleepy but solemn as his dad, Dennis, and their neighbor, Jim Wolf, made an early morning survey of the logging near their homes.
"I think it's just going to turn a nice drive down here into a mud pit," Craig said.
Dennis Kafura and Wolf are the most outspoken opponents of the cutting.
"I can't dump hazardous chemicals on my land because it has long-term effects," Kafura said, "and logging is sort of the same way."
Seated in front of his fireplace nursing a cup of coffee, Wolf was more circumspect.
"It's their land to carve up as they want," he said. "Legally, they can clear-cut the whole thing."
He is afraid that the rugged terrain behind his home will erode when trees are removed, sending silt into the stream that runs near his home.
"God never meant for terrain like this to get logged," he said.
Residents on Dry Hollow Road learned about the logging operation last fall when hunters forwarded tales of new logging roads criss-crossing the mountainside.
The news was not a total shock. Last year, a developer from Arizona moved into a vacant shack on the road and erected a sign that read "Paradise Valley Resort: A Planned Resident Community." He filed a proposal with the county to build 250 homes on the mountainside, but then pulled up his sign and left when he couldn't finance the project. Before leaving, he told neighbors the land would be sold for logging.
Some local residents have chosen to remain silent. A few have bought land from the logging company at attractive prices. Others have taken advantage of the free firewood from leftover stumps and branches.
Eilene Mills, whose family has lived on Dry Hollow Road for generations, said the logging operation would be easier to live with if the road were in better shape.
Logging trucks, construction trucks and trucks carrying supplies for renovations at Camp Roanoke all use a narrow, winding road with a blind curve beneath a railroad underpass at its entrance. County officials have earmarked $500,000 to fix the curve, but for now Mills and her neighbors must honk their horns and pray they don't meet a truck.
The loggers
Jimmy Maddox, president of Otter River Lumber Co., didn't intend to become the owner of Roanoke County's largest active logging site.
Much of the timber that comes through his sawmill in Huddleston is purchased from other loggers and such companies as Georgia Pacific. But the Dry Hollow site happened to be available when the market for lumber was strong.
Of the 100,000 acres of forest in Roanoke County, 90 percent is privately owned. Maddox's company paid more than $765,000 for the Dry Hollow land, and he has no plans to let it sit idle while he pays $2,530 a year in taxes on it.
Still, he readily admits his critics had a legitimate complaint when his loggers began cutting trees at the edge of Dry Hollow Road. He fired the offenders and hired a new crew willing to leave a buffer.
As for the rest of the property, Maddox said he will clear-cut only stands of pine trees. If hardwoods are more than 10 inches in diameter, they will be cut, he said.
He's not the only logger treading lightly when it comes to clear-cuts. The Virginia Forestry Association's 1996 Forester of the Year, Elmer Hatcher of Bedford County, said he clear-cuts only 5 percent of his jobs. Lawmen Logging, a group of local law enforcement officers who harvest timber when they're off duty, bill themselves as anti-clear-cutting good guys.
Maddox predicts opposition will die down in Dry Hollow once the logging moves away from the road.
"This spring when the leaves come out, from the road you will never tell it's been cut," he said.
The foresters
Even as loggers are backing away from clear-cutting, the state foresters who regulate them hail its advantages over selective logging.
In selective logging, loggers harvest the best trees and leave the smaller, weaker ones behind, said Chris Thomsen, district forester with the Virginia Department of Forestry.
So far, loggers aren't buying that argument. They aren't willing to face criticism when they clear-cut a forest, but there's also a profit motive.
"The biggest and the best is what they're going to make money on," Thomsen said.
He can't force loggers to clear-cut. The only law that applies to most timber cuts simply prohibits "excessive sediment" in streams. He admits the wording is vague, but it gives him authority to require culverts or bridges at stream crossings.
Loggers who don't comply can be fined $5,000 a day, but most are simply shut down until they fix the problem. That happened last week at one loading area in Dry Hollow, where foresters stopped work until a culvert was repaired.
Foresters try to cajole loggers into doing more than the law requires, such as reseeding logging roads and installing dirt barriers to disperse water runoff. But it's purely voluntary. Loggers aren't even required to notify the state when they begin a new cutting. Fewer than 20 percent do, Thomsen said.
There are only 30 foresters overseeing 17 counties and more than 500 logging companies in Western Virginia. They try to inspect every known logging operation at least once, although the Dry Hollow site merits weekly visits, Thomsen said.
In the Northeast, counties help regulate logging. The law passed last month prevents that from happening in Virginia. Thomsen said local control can create a mish-mash of conflicting and bad laws, particularly on emotional issues such as logging.
"Even the people who maybe should know better are kind of caught up in this anti-clear-cutting sentiment," he said. "The trade-off for selective cutting will be an inferior forest."
LENGTH: Long : 147 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: JANEL RHODA STAFF. 1. Nine-year-old Craig Kafura, hisby CNBfather, Dennis (top), and neighbor Jim Wolf are upset by damage to
Dry Hollow Road. 2. Logger Jimmy Maddox (left) talks with Chris
Thomsen, district forester. While foresters are pushing
clear-cutting, timber executives avoid it because of negative public
opinions about the effect it has on land. color. 3. Loggers
contracted by Jimmy Maddox's company were fired after they cleared
this area off Dry Hollow Road. Graphic: Map by staff.