Page 11 - Georgia Forestry - Issue2 - Spring 2019

$762,683,909
estimated value of damaged trees
Harsh but IValuable Lessons
n a way, Butler’s farm encapsulates most of the problems faced by the 7,000 forest landowners in South- west Georgia affected by Hurricane
Michael. Though those problems are con- siderable, there is also plenty of cause for optimism and, overall, the forestry community has gleaned some valuable economic and environmental lessons from 2018’s eventful storm season.
Weighing Costs
and Benefits
For tree farms where the impact was the most severe, a clear-cut and replanting was in order, but more moderate cases were
a tough call. Often, logging companies were held back from salvage operations because the conditions were too wet. (On the bright side, water has the potential to help preserve the timber and make it saleable, provided it’s harvested before March or April.) More importantly, though, it could be extremely difficult to turn a profit on the wood, especially if a logger had to travel long distances to pick it up.
“We’ve got to be within a reasonable range of one of our markets to make it work financially,” said Clay Crosby, CEO of Twin Rivers Land and Timber, a Per- ry-based company that specializes in raw biomass procurement. “The main thing is to make sure there’s enough volume of wood to justify bringing all of our equip- ment in there.”
The cost of carrying chippers, grinders, loaders and strainers for a given project
broken, and they presented the owner with a difficult decision: either pursue some kind of salvage operation to reduce fire hazards, and recoup the value of the timber that was lost, or leave the tract alone, and allow it to recover over time.
In most cases, this decision was made after talking to a specialist, who could visit the property and make an objective analysis. Not surprisingly, the past few months have been especially busy for people like Wayne Worsham, a forestry consultant, who has operated in South- west Georgia and the Florida panhandle since the 1980s. Two days after Hurri- cane Michael, Worsham hit the road, visiting at least 30 non-industrial clients around the region and giving advice on whether to clear-cut, retrieve downed trees or pursue passive maintenance in the areas that were affected.
“I live in a small county, and it would have been ground zero,” Worsham said. “Almost every timber stand had damage, and over half had 50 percent damage.”
Some of these lessons were admittedly harsh. A Timber Damage Assessment survey, conducted by the Georgia For- estry Commission (GFC) shortly after Hurricane Michael, indicated that 20,510,889 tons of pine and 17,178,721 tons of hardwood were affected, at a total estimated value of $762,683,909. The authors found that of the 2,368,226 acres of forestland with some level of impact, nearly two-thirds fit into the “moderate” damage category seen on Butler’s farm. These were tracts of land on which more than 25 percent of the stems had been
The cost of carrying chippers, grinders, loaders and strainers for a given project would have to be weighed against the potential benefit of bringing the wood to a mill that was close by and wasn’t overwhelmed, or past its quota.
would have to be weighed against the potential benefit of bringing the wood to a mill that was close by and wasn’t over- whelmed, or past its quota. Moreover, prices were severely depressed: trees that would have brought in $14 per ton of pulpwood via conventional practices were only bringing in about $2 per ton if they’d fallen during the storm. Similarly, the price for chip-n-saw was likely to go from around $21 per ton to $5 per ton, and saw timber from $30 per ton to $12 per ton.
The cost of replanting is also con- siderable. To regrow marketable pine, Worsham estimated that most landown- ers would have to spend about $90 per acre on chemical spraying, to prevent
hardwoods from getting a foothold. This is in addition to fertilizing and weed control over the next year, which run at about $40 per acre. Seedlings could cost anywhere between $60 and $200 per acre — depending on whether the trees are open-pollinated, mass-control pollinated, or varietal planting stock — and planting could cost $85 per acre if done with a v-blade bulldozer. And while many clients were eligible to clas- sify damaged trees as a “casualty loss,” entitling them to a deduction on their federal income taxes, this deduction was subject to some restrictions, and was largely based on the current market value of the timber, or the size of their investment, which could be pretty small.
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