September 26th, 2003

Dear Jim,

As you might expect I believe the proposed logging of the Highlands is a terrible idea for the following reasons:

Right now we have an opportunity to allow the forests to fully mature - on their own - as they are now half way or more to Old Growth. How many communities in the NY Metro area do you know of where people

can walk out their front door, drive or bicycle a few miles and walk into an Old Growth forest? Very few, if any. Isn't this something important to leave future generations? How many communities ANYWHERE have this opportunity?

If DEC would simply leave Mount Nimham and the rest of their Highlands region forests alone we would have a swath of old growth forest and natural ecosystems stretching almost unbroken from the Connecticut State line into New Jersey. This is a fact and we have the opportunity - just once in our lifetimes - to do this.

[This amounts to a little over 2000 acres in the 600,000 acre system!]

If you connect the county conservation areas with DEC's MUA's, the State Park network and the Great Swamp purchases, and look at a map - it's stunning. It's something we should be leaving our children, not a "managed" woodlot that is a snapshot of an "ideal" forest for loggable chestnut oak, which is what Jeff Weigert and DEC intend to create. That's not "forest", that's a garden and it's certainly not a natural ecosystem.

When asked about this, Jeff Weigert dismissed our concerns and said, "If you want to see old growth forest drive to the Catskills!" And, when we asked him why he didn't notify or work with our local CAC he said, "I've worked with CAC's before and while their hearts are in the right place they often don't make decisions based on science."

I don't think I need to remind you that "science" cannot measure the inherent value of a 50 mile stretch of Old Growth forest in the heart of the Hudson Highlands and the incredible promise that gives future generations. If we want to leave a true environmental legacy to our children, this one costs us nothing and has rewards that cannot be calculated.

Moreover, DEC has badly managed this project from the beginning refusing to discuss the issue with our local government (it is our roads that will be affected by their logging trucks and tour busses - yes, tour busses!) and our local residents who will be subjected to the noise of the industrial operation and our local county park, sitting immediately below the operation, that will have it's quiet shattered by the noise and diesel pollution from the logging operation.

This project provides the Hudson Highlands with absolutely no economic benefit and may actually end up costing us money to support the infrastructure it requires. DEC has said that they will not be able to pay for the project on the sale of wood from the project leaving taxpayers to foot the bill. As the state is now facing an $11 billion deficit, is this wise, especially when NOT doing this will benefit us so much more?

According to the Unit Management Plan for the Hudson Highlands DEC properties, no stand of trees should be older or younger than 20 years any other!

When we're building a serious business on tourism who wants to visit woods devastated by logging operations? The projects boosters insist you won't see it from main highways, but when you enter the woods for hiking or biking you will be met with tract after tract of recently logged woodlands - a very undesirable situation. And while there may be immediate "improvement" for some kinds of hunting that improvement will come at the cost of constant upkeep and management. If we'd just wait a few more years the woods will clear themselves out as they mature to Old Growth. They really do not need our help.

In the past man has tried to improve on nature. The Gypsy moth was brought here to improve the silk industry. Kudzu was brought here to help reduce erosion on highway cuts. Barberry was brought to create tight hedge rows. Water Hyacinth, alanthus... the list goes on and on of how we try to 'improve' nature and often this is with disastrous results. You know this to be true.

If left alone, the forests in the highlands would grow - all by themselves - into a fully mature and balanced ecosystem. You also know this to be true.

If DEC would like to remove barberry and alanthus and bittersweet from the edges of the forest I think there will be no objection. But their goal, buried beneath nice words like "treatment" and catch phrases like "improving the health of the forest" is really to create a commercial logging operation, one that cannot be sustained in suburbia without constant work.

Moreover, DEC uses another goal and that's "water quality". But then DEC can use DEP lands for this purpose. If private landowners are the target of this operation they should bear the burden, not lands held in trust.

Additionally, since DEC intends to clear 40-60% of the trees from an initial 87 acres, including the clear cutting of 15 acres, it is apparent the goal is to see how many trees one can cut before having a negative impact on the water supply(!) another reason to use DEP lands.

Does this mean DEP will now begin to log it's 4000 acres of land holdings in Putnam County?

But you see, if DEP decided to hold logging operations on their properties those operations would come under local jurisdiction and DEP would be required to undergo SEQRA and the community would have control. DEC is under no such restriction and can do what they please, bypassing local authority. This is why this project is taking place on State lands. DEP owns 4000 acres in Putnam County including lands abutting the proposed Mount Nimham project. Why not move the project onto DEP (private) properties?

We don't know what the environmental impacts of the operation are. DEC did their own internal EIS and gave the project a NEG DEC without public comment (apparently they can do this). Our planning board, our CAC, even our Town Board is miffed, especially about the lack of notification. And people living on Gipsy Trail road are furious. Had Annie Osborn not gone bragging about this project back in April, something I happened to overhear, we would never have known about it until the trucks started belching smoke and DEC started spraying herbicides and logging trucks started squeezing by school busses.

I encourage you to help preserve these Highlands forests AS FORESTS and not as a sandbox for DEC commercial foresters. If model forests need to be created then do so where the forests are ample and allow us to give future generations something we have not had in 300 years - real, genuine, old growth forest in the Hudson Highlands. We're already half way there.

If, as the article in this morning's NY Journal News states, this is one of 4 projects across the state, it can be safely surplussed without harm to their goal of teaching proper woodlot management to landowners. The Mount Nimham model forest program, along with DEC's intent to log their 2000 acres in the Highlands needs to be scrapped and I'm encouraging your support.

Let the forests in the Highlands grow old - THAT'S a legacy to leave behind.

Jeff Green PlanPutnam

CC:
Vincent Leibell, State Senator
Sandra Galef, Assemblymember
Willis Stephens, Assemblymember
Robert McGuigan, Chair, Putnam County Legislature
Lou Tartaro, Councilmember, Town of Kent
Dr. George Baum, Chair, Town of Kent CAC
Dr. William Buck, Member, Putnam County EMC