RENSSELAERVILLE — While state forests were created in New York with intent to log them, some residents in Rensselaerville who live near a state forest were surprised and concerned with the way trees are being cut down there.

At Rensselaerville’s last town board meeting, on March 8, planning board Chairman Richard Amedure told the board that clear-cutting and other practices were leaving the forest “an absolute disaster.” Highway Superintendent Randall Bates also expressed his dismay to the board about the way the forest was left after logging; he said that the roads were being damaged as well.

The board discussed sending a letter to the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation, expressing these concerns.

“It’s devastating to me personally,” said Bates. “Because I’ve used that land my entire life, and it’s being destroyed.”

Speaking as a citizen of the town, Bates told The Enterprise on Monday that he is concerned about how clearcutting could impact wildlife habitats.

“I have a personal concern about the logging,” he said. “But that is not a highway issue.”

Bates also said it is difficult to travel through the forest on foot due to wood left behind on the ground. Noise from a nearby state-owned gun range may travel farther without the thick forest to absorb the sound, he said. Bates said, too, he is concerned about how the logging trucks could affect streams when crossing them and how they could compact the soil.

“It’s unreal to see that much clearcutting,” he said, but later noted, “It’s not a highway problem; it’s not a highway issue.”

Amedure has lived in his home near the Rensselaerville State Forest since 1993.

“They’re always logging up there,” he told The Enterprise on Monday.

According to Rick Georgeson, a public information officer for the DEC, timber has been harvested from state forests since the 1930s, the state now manages over 787,000 acres of forests located throughout New York except in the Adirondack and Catskill state parks. While the forests are used recreationally, the DEC has also continued to sell timber from them.

In the Rensselaerville State Forest, abandoned farmland was planted in the 1930s; timber has been regularly harvested there since then, he said, and nearly all of the forest has been “harvested” from at some point.

Amedure noted that the Civilian Conservation Corps planted trees like the hardy and fast-growing Norway Spruce during the Great Depression with the intention of later harvesting them. He logs himself, but is critical of the practice of increased clearcutting, which he says began four or five years ago in the Rensselaerville State Forest in areas such as Civilian Conservation Corps Road.

“I just don’t understand their plan,” he said.

Amedure said that logs have been left in piles in the forest, as well as treetops left behind on the forest floor. He is concerned that, in a dry season, they could fuel a wildfire. A state forester told him that the area was too moist for this, but Amedure said that hilltops in the area used to have active fire towers when logging was more frequent.

Areas of regrowth, said Amedure, grow in too thickly after clearcutting, causing many young trees to die or parts of the forest too dense to walk through, he said.

“All these trails are destroyed,” said Amedure of walking and snowmobile trails. Tracks from equipment have left holes that are three feet deep, he said. The roads also have been made impassable, he said.

“It looks like hell,” he said.

Amedure also said that the Fox Creek was being crossed over by loggers using a makeshift bridge but they neglected to put in cross ties, which caused the creek bed to erode.

Amedure, like Bates, is concerned that the cleared forest will not muffle noise from the state gun range; he is the one of the petitioners in a lawsuit against the state for building the range.

He said he has spoken to officials at the Department of Environmental Conservation.

Damaged roads

Bates said that CCC Road has already been badly damaged but was not an issue for the town highway department because it is a state road. However, that changed when logging traffic moved to the town-owned Kenyen Road.

Only seven-tenths of a mile of Kenyen Road is paved, another mile is dirt, and the next half-mile is seasonal. When it thaws, Kenyen Road is easily damaged by large trucks, said Bates, and this year weather has fluctuated with several freeze-and-thaw cycles.

In the third week of January, after warm weather caused the ground to thaw, the logging trucks damaged both the paved and dirt sections of the road, Bates said. He had to put down stone the next day to mitigate the problem.

Bates said he met with the logger who agreed to use only the seasonal portion of the road. The highway superintendent then posted a sign stating that the rest of the road was only for local traffic and not through traffic. However, the trucks soon began using that portion of the road again, he said.

Damage is currently not an issue as the ground is frozen, said Bates.

“I was there this morning and it was still frozen,” he said on Monday.

Bates said that the paved section of Kenyen Road will have to be repaved, and stone and shale will have to be added to the dirt portion. With the costs of the initial repairs in January included, Bates estimates it will cost the town between $20,000 and $60,000 to repair.

Bates said he spoke to a state forester and logger in the park and over the phone about his concerns. The forester said that the Department of Environmental Conservation could potentially reimburse the town for the repair costs, said Bates.

“DEC has heard from a few local residents with concerns about logging in the Rensselaerville state forest,” Georgeson wrote in an email. “During the mid-winter thaw there was a slight issue with mud on the harvest off Kenyen Road. This issue was addressed and measures were taken to ameliorate the situation.”

Setting weight limits

Bates said that he is now trying to combat the issue of damaged roads by pushing for the town board to pass a local ordinance to allow him to put a temporary weight limit on town roads.

“It should be common sense,” he said, of trucks not driving on town roads or dirt roads.

The board discussed the bill at its March 8 meeting. It would bar vehicles weighing six tons or more from the date of the ordinance being issued by the town until May 1 on three designated roads — Kenyen Road, Golf Road, and Golf Road Extension — according to town attorney Thomas Fallati, who spoke about it at the meeting. He suggested passing an ordinance for the season every year.

“But it is an ordinance so it does need to be a public hearing,” he said.

A public notice and signs need to be posted, Fallati said. The ordinance could end any time sooner and be set up at any time, he added. Bates said that vehicles such as fuel trucks could apply for a permit to enter the town.

Bates told the board he felt that no roads should be specified at all, and instead that the ordinance should be used as “a tool” by the town board to be implemented depending on the condition of a road or the weather

“It’s just not a blanket thing; it’s as-needed,” he said.

Fallati said he would have to look into whether roads would have to specified in the ordinance or not. Bates agreed that the board should not rush to pass the law this year, especially as mud season is expected to end soon.

“I think we should get the law right rather than rush now,” he said.

State regulations

Georgeson said that logging can occur any time during the year in state forests as long as conditions allow for it but state contracts say logging must stop or be limited in “extreme conditions, such as mud.”

When logging occurs in state forests, a DEC forester will regularly visit the site to ensure the contracted logger is following the state contract and using best-management practices, said Georgeson.

Due to wet springs and falls and humid summers in the region, wildfire is not a risk, said Georgeson.

Georgeson confirmed that clear-cutting has been used on occasion in the Rensselaerville State Forest, describing it as a useful and beneficial tool in forestry. He said that the fact that the remaining trees reseed the forests so often makes replanting trees unnecessary.

In Berne’s Partridge Run, a state wildlife management area, trees are being cut — 144 acres will have places with clear-cuts — to provide young-forest habitat, which is needed in the state. Similarly, in Knox the Margaret Burke Wildlife Management Area will have clear-cutting in certain areas.

The contractors’ use of equipment such as bulldozers, forwarders, skidders, loaders, and slashers is monitored during the inspections from the DEC, said Georgeson.

Georgeson said that staff at the DEC discussed issues with the roads and the creek with Bates. He said that the contracted logger had agreed to “a course of corrective actions” with the highway superintendent.

DEC’s management of its state forests has also been certified under two different independent programs, said Georgeson: the Forest Stewardship Council, an international not-for-profit that sets standards for forest management; and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, a North American not-for-profit that also sets standards for forest management.

Georgeson said, too, that the state follows guidelines to minimize forest disturbances and erosion from logging to protect water bodies.

Timber harvests begin with DEC foresters marking trees in state forests, said Georgeson. Timber-sale contracts are awarded in public bids to “the highest responsible bidder.” The contracts include provisions requiring the buyer to abide by best-management practices to protect the environment.

Bridges, culverts, or other erosion control-devices are used during or immediately after logging to prevent erosion in bodies of water, said Georgeson. Logging may also be restricted to certain times of the year or with certain equipment if the ground is wet or muddy or areas are particularly sensitive.

According to a report on Cornell University’s website, over 67,000 state residents work in forest-products manufacturing with a payroll of over $2.5 billion. An additional 3,000 foresters and loggers are employed.

Forest products annually contribute $8.8 billion to the state gross product, and ship over $6.9 billion. Average annual capital investments are $430 million.