North America

The Proliferation of Chip Mills in the Southeastern United States
Prepared by Douglas Sloane
for the Biodiversity Action Network

Executive Summary

Today the proliferation of chip mills presents a growing threat to forest sustainability in the southeastern United States which is a patchwork of recovering ecosystems that are among the most critically endangered in North America. The proliferation of chip mills and increased logging to supply them is driven by excessive consumption and an intensely competitive forest products market which are damaging already weakened southeastern ecosystems. In response to the growth in logging in the past decade and the increased demand for wood fiber in the South, and in light of the predicted increases in global consumption and southern production over the coming decades, the federal government in concert with state governments should undertake a regional assessment of the impact of chip mills and adopt a moratorium on permitting new chip mills until appropriate responses are in place. Individual communities and local governments should carefully scrutinize the potential impacts of new chip mills to determine their full impacts and sustainability. Chip mills should not be permitted unless it can be shown that they will not be unsustainable and that they will not detract from nontimber values desired by communities affected by them.

Introduction

Today chip mills present a growing threat to forest sustainability in the southeastern United States. Over the past ten years, during which chip mills have proliferated across the extended southeast region, opposition to their impacts has arisen. Today their impacts compound problems in already weakened southeastern ecosystems as their proliferation is driven by excessive consumption and an intensely competitive forest products market environment.

Today’s forest is a patchwork of recovering ecosystems that are among the most critically endangered in North America. According to a ground breaking assessment of North American terrestrial ecosystems produced by the World Wildlife Fund, southeastern forest ecosystems are among the richest, most diverse temperate ecosystems in the world.

Direct Causes, Underlying Trends and Perspectives on Chip Mill Proliferation

A pattern of chip mill proliferation is evident across the southeastern United States driven by consumption and market competition. The impacts of chip mill proliferation raise significant concerns because they compound pressures in ecosystems already affected by substantial ecological crises.

New Threats to Forest Ecosystems - The Proliferation of Chip Mills and Regional Opposition.

Over the past decade more than 100 chip mills have been constructed in the Southeastern, United States. They now operate together with approximately 40 that were already resident in the region approximately a decade ago. It is currently estimated that the equivalent of 1.2 million acres of forest are cleared annually to supply chip mills and that all chip mills may supply as much as 20% of the total capacity of the pulp and paper industry in the Southeast. The chips are used to supply the pulp and paper industry as well as the manufacture of oriented strand board, a composite wood product like plywood, and rayon and other products. Production capacity among these chip mills ranges from 47,000 tons per year to 2.34 million tons per year. Average production is 300,000 tons per year.

In the ten year period 1985-1995, annual pulpwood production in the southern, United States increased twenty percent from 57 million cords per year to 72 million cords per year. Simultaneously chip mill production capacity increased (300%) from 10 million tons per year to 40 million tons per year. The increase in chip mill capacity is equivalent to 67% of the increase in pulpwood production during that time period.

Chip mills have proliferated across the southeastern and southern United States - as far northwest as Missouri and into the furthest northeastern extent of the region. They operate in East Texas and North Florida, and in the deep South, which shows the most severe resource depletion and evident ecosystem degradation.

Their proliferation is clearly evident in North Carolina where thirteen years ago only three chip mills operated; today nineteen produce chips. In the state, concerns have compelled the Governor to initiate a state study of their impacts. Concerns have been raised about the effect of chip mills on the fate of the state’s furniture industry.

Despite the fact that there are few chip mills in Tennessee, the state is not unaffected by their proliferation. The Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, constructed at a cost of $2 billion to the American taxpayer, is a conduit which permits Tennessee’s hardwood forests to be fed to chip mills located in Mississippi and Alabama.

Waterways play important roles in other parts of the region as well. In Kentucky the expansion of Willamette’s Hawesville pulp and paper mill is expected to be supplied, at least in part, by two new chip mills built specifically for the purpose. Chips from at least one will be shipped via river. Lower river transportation costs increase the sourcing area of chip mills and the pulp and paper mills they often supply. By increasing the economically efficient sourcing areas of central facilities, chip mills enable exploitation of previously inaccessible forest ecosystems.

Underlying Trends

The context of this proliferation is complex. Most of the logging to supply chip mills comes from private lands which comprise 90% of the forest land in the South. Of that 90%, 70% is owned by nonindustrial private forest (NIPF) landowners while the remaining 20% is owned by the forest products industry. Though the South contains roughly 6% of the world’s forests, it produces 25% of the world’s industrial roundwood. In total the South accounts for 23% of U.S. softwood growing stock and 53% of total U.S. softwood removals and 44% of U.S. hardwood growing stock and 60% of hardwood removals. In 1991 "North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, and Tennessee had the largest inventories of hardwood growing stock and sawtimber."

"Forestland area in the United States (737 million acres) is about two-thirds of the forested area present during the 1600s (Darr 1995). Since the seventeenth century, approximately 124 million acres of forests have been converted to other uses, primarily agricultural. More than 75 percent of this conversion has occurred in the last century (Darr 1995)."

Predictions by the U.S. Forest Service indicate that timber removals in the South will increase sharply because limits have been imposed on logging levels on western public lands. The effects of increased demands on southern forests and predicted increases in forest management intensity in the South have prompted the U.S. Forest Service to predict that, "industrial and nonindustrial hardwood inventories are anticipated to be lower in 2040 than in 1991. On industrial and nonindustrial lands, inventories will be concentrated in timber ages near or below minimal merchantable limits. Although regional variations will occur, private forests will be younger and, on average, smaller in diameter than in the past.... (USDA Forest Service 1995a)."

The Forest Service has also predicted, "Increased timber mortality and tighter timber supplies on private forests generally.... [and i]ncreased conflicts among uses of private forests, including those resulting from protection of threatened and endangered species."

Scientific Perspective

Maximized utilization of forest resources for commodity production exemplified by whole tree chipping for the pulp and paper industry may reduce long term productivity of the land and impair the health of aquatic ecosystems through erosion and siltation. The National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences predicts that, "Growth and inventory trends on nonfederal forests are likely to have important impacts on water quality, wildlife populations, and recreation values. For example, on private lands, habitat will shift to... early and mid-successional stages of forest development."

Hagermand (1992) has shown significant water quality impacts resulting from logging, and Ribaudo (1989) has identified the following as effects of increased sedimentation which results from logging activity:

"Reduction in the value of freshwater and marine recreation.... Increase in damage from floods.... Increase in the cost of maintaining roadside ditches.... Reduction in the productivity of commercial fisheries.... Reduction in the productivity of commercial fisheries.... Increase in municipal drinking water costs.... Reduction in the quality of municipal and industrial water....[, and] Increase in the cost of using water for industrial cooling processes"

Of particular concern regarding increased logging to supply chip mills is the underlying fact that forests are the source of "60% of the nation’s total stream flow, [and] the primary means by which high-quality water is provided for industrial, municipal, and recreational uses." Impairment is already at such a level according the U.S. Forest Service that 80% of the nation’s streams could be improved for fish habitat, water quality and fish community composition. In the Southeast 75% of the endangered species in the Southern Appalachians are connected to stream ecosystems and at risk from impacts of logging.

To highlight their concerns with the impacts of chip mills 100 scientists recently wrote the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, "We respectfully direct your attention to a matter of regional and national significance: the threats posed by logging to supply chip mills in the forests of the Southeastern United States and Central Appalachia. We are concerned by the fact that chip mills are rapidly proliferating in this biologically rich region promoting increased unsustainable logging and increasing the pressure on already threatened ecosystems."

While aquatic impacts have been cited among the detrimental impacts of logging, the effects on bird life and other public trust resources should be recognized as well. Forest fragmentation is often cited as a contributing factor to the decline in neotropical migrant song birds, and increased management intensity for maximal fiber production is directly linked to reductions in forest structure and long-term productivity.

In the Southeastern United States, the World Wildlife Fund has documented a biological crisis of immense proportions through its Conservation Assessment of North America. The assessment details prospects for terrestrial ecosystems in the region. According to the report species rich, globally outstanding terrestrial ecosystems are critically endangered, and forest ecosystem loss and degradation is clearly evident throughout the region.

One of the clearest examples of this is in the Mississippi River Valley where "rich bottomland forests ... are virtually all cleared . . .[and] 91-95 percent of this habitat has now been converted to agriculture or other uses, or is highly degraded." The report continues, "[t]here is no possibility at present of connecting the existing blocks [of habitat] and there is little left to conserve".

That bleak picture is fortunately not repeated as severely in the Appalachian Blue Ridge forests that run along the spine of mountains from Pennsylvania to Alabama. Though the Appalachian Blue Ridge forests are recovering from significant past abuse, they are not as degraded as those in the Mississippi Valley, however they are still vulnerable.

The adjacent ecoregions, the Mixed Mesophytic Forest and the Southeastern Mixed Forests, are both critically endangered according to the report and in need of immediate protection according to World Wildlife Fund. The report suggests that many of the forests of the Southeast require immediate efforts to forestall more degradation and recommends protection and restoration of these globally outstanding forests immediately.

Forest Industry/Inventory Perspective

While a strong consensus exists within the scientific community that southeastern and southern forest ecosystems generally are in crisis and specific reports concerning the region document major ecological problems, the pulp and paper industry, recognizes only a problem of tighter future fiber supplies. As reported by the U.S. Forest Service there is, "Less intensive management of nonindustrial private forests than needed to meet expected increases in timber consumption."

Industry’s interest in nonindustrial private forest lands arises from the fact that those lands comprise a large segment of the potential timber base and are a great source of potential increased timber harvest. In fact, "The total growing stock of hardwoods compared to removal levels is huge, with a buffer equal to 62 years of annual harvest, even without any further growth." In fact, "In both the South and the North, hardwood growth considerably exceeds hardwood removals. The ratio of growth to removals is 1.5 in the South and 2.05 in the North.

The picture for softwoods is quite different. Softwood inventory findings from the latest Forest Inventory Analysis from the U.S. Forest Service show that "softwood harvest exceeds growth in most of the key forest survey units where large paper mills are located." "Softwood growth was less than removals for most of the major pulp producing states: including Georgia (a growth to removal ratio of 0.85), South Carolina (0.70), Alabama (0.91), Louisiana (0.80) and Mississippi (0.80)."

"The relatively low [softwood] inventory to removal ratio’s in the Southeast region can be attributed mostly to intensive pine plantation management and short rotations. The ratios on the South Central states, especially Mississippi and Louisiana would seem to suggest more problems with sustaining long-term timber harvests at current removal levels."

Political Perspective

Five years ago, as a Senator, Al Gore wrote:

I have heard from hundreds of Tennesseans worried about the impact of the proposed chip mills, including people in the hardwood industry concerned about the possible adverse economic effects caused by clearcutting. Community and business leaders have informed me of their fears that chip mills would hurt tourism in the Tennessee Valley region, and conservation groups have contacted me citing specific environmental damage known to be caused by chip mills. . . . In my view there is no justification for permitting even one chip mill operation along the Tennessee River. . . . I urge the permitting authorities to act in the best interests of our people and our future. Permits for chip mill operations along the Tennessee should be denied.

 

More recently the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, as well as 100 biologists across Southeast have argued that chip mills are a significant problem because they cause:

(1) the harvest of ‘new’ (unconventional) species and smaller sizes of hardwoods; (2) the loss of mature mast-producing trees; (3) adverse impacts to threatened and endangered species; (4) adverse impacts to neotropical migratory birds; (5) loss of terrestrial wildlife habitat, especially for mature forest dwellers; (6) reduced water quality; and (7) adverse impacts to aquatic species and their habitats."

Almost ten years ago the chief of the game section in South Carolina’s Wildlife and Marine Resources Department wrote,

"Substantial increases in timber production on private land will result in a reduction of key wildlife habitats such as bottomland hardwoods, riparian and other wetland zones, longleaf pine communities, and mature mixed-pine and hardwood forests."

Timber production on private lands has increased since then.

Small sawmill owners have been concerned about the growing trends in the pulp and paper industry and the spread of chip mills. Woodrow Burlson of B and B Lumber from Brilliant, Alabama said, "Before the chip mill opened we got seven to eight loads a day. Now if we get two a week we are lucky. They’re ruin’n us. They’re puttin’ us out of business!"

In 1992 the TVA led the only evaluation of chip mill deforestation to date. The Environmental Impact Statement found that even one of the three proposed chip mills would have jeopardized the continued existence of a number of threatened and endangered species. Many people were concerned that the chip mills would have hurt more sustainable resident saw timber businesses as well as other aspects of the local economy. Opposition included chambers of commerce and tourism bureaus.

Recently in Arkansas a town voted to deny a business license to a chip mill proposed by Weyerhaeuser. In Missouri the Governor there has initiated a state study of the impacts of chip mills while the state Department of Natural Resource has taken chip mills out of the general permitting process under the Clean Water Act and required that they receive individual permits which receive greater scrutiny and allow for more effective public input. As in North Carolina there seems to be a de facto licensing moratorium until the study is complete even as the state is considering an official moratorium.

In Tennessee the Governor’s Forest Management Advisory Panel is considering the issue, and in South Carolina a newly proposed chip mill has begun to raise concerns there. To date in no case, other than the one study of three proposed chip mills outside of Chattanooga in 1993, have the overall off-site and cumulative impacts of chip mills been thoroughly assessed.

Both the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have repeatedly opposed the permitting new chip mills without further assessment of their impacts.

Underlying Causes of Chip Mill Induced Forest Degradation

Excessive consumption has driven the need for chip mills and is at the root of their proliferation. That consumption alone, however, does not fully account for their proliferation. Highly competitive forest product market forces are a contributing factor. They have resulted in the creation of a system of industrial forestry designed to maximize commodity extraction and minimize costs that has driven the proliferation of chip mills and a broader pattern of forest degradation in the Southeast.

Government failure to provide a buffer between the unbridled demands of excessive consumption and industrial pressures, on the one hand, and their effects on human and natural communities, on the other, is significant underlying cause. The failure of landowners to manage on a longer time horizon in a more environmentally sensitive manner is partly caused by lack of adequate information about alternative management techniques, the impacts of chip mills and broader forest degradation patterns across the region.

Excessive Consumption

Underlying consumption trends are vital to understanding the proliferation of chip mills. In approximately the past 35 years wood use has doubled and paper consumption has more than tripled globally. In the last part of this century and over the course of the next fifteen years, demand for paper is expected to grow by 50% more. A recent report on southern timber supply, predicted a significant increase in the demand for forest products over the next few decades and projected that 80% of the increase in U.S. domestic production would be supplied by southern forests.

Compared to the rest of the world, Americans use a greater portion of global resources per capita than any other segment of the world’s population. Overall we consume 30% of the world’s total resources, and a vast majority of wood consumed for industrial use is utilized by developed nations in the industrialized world. Nearly 75% of industrial wood is consumed by 23% of the world’s population. Of the wood chips produced by chip mills most are used domestically, and only a small percentage is exported. "In the last 30 years there has been a major shift in emphasis from producing quality timber to producing quantities of fiber. Lower-quality products such as pulp for paper and wood-based panels like fiberboard and plywood have expanded far faster than traditional wood products like sawnwood."

Globally, "46 percent of the world’s paper output is used to make packaging materials while 41 percent goes to communications (newspaper, printing and writing paper) and 6 percent ends up in household and sanitary products." Much of this is unnecessary excess consumption.

One of the factors that influences the impact of consumption, is the fact that consumption pressures are relatively mobile in the long-run. The implications of that are evident in the increased pressures on southern forests resulting from curtailed unsustainable logging practices on public lands in the West which have shifted pressures to the southeastern U.S.. Ultimately no less than a reduction in the impacts of consumption will reduce the crisis in southern and southeastern forests caused by those increasing pressures and increasing consumption tends.

Industrial Forestry

Excessive consumption alone does not fully account for the proliferation of chip mills. The South’s comparative advantage in producing trees for fiber provides a financial incentive for the proliferation of chip mills. Industrial capacity including chip mills built to capitalize on the Southeast’s comparative advantage has resulted in a situation in which an increasing number of facilities demand resources, producing shorter logging rotations and requiring more intensive forest management. The effect is a race to the bottom in which forests are cut more often, managed more intensively and pushed beyond sustainable ecological limits.

One of the forces behind this is intense market competition that has prompted the development of industrial forestry designed solely to maximize commodity extraction and minimize costs. Among the effects of market competition, adoption of labor saving technology has increased the efficiency and rapidity of logging. This has created the situation where the South is able to supply 25% of the world’s industrial roundwood from 6% of the world’s forest base.

Located away from central facilities, chip mills are able to access more plentiful sources of wood for chipping and shipment to central facilities for production. By reducing the price of production industrial forestry increases the portion of the land base that can be used economically and raises consumption levels and increases impacts to the land because products are cheaper.

Market uncertainty also drives the need to keep prices down and maintains unrelenting pressure on forest ecosystems. "[T]he timber industry must be especially sensitive to the costs of securing timber and the cost of product manufacture. Moving the cost of timber production and product manufacture on to the market is not always possible, given the uncertainty of many markets and their highly competitive nature." This results in the fact that industry pursues a strategy which precludes any consideration of factors nonessential to fiber production. Another way to view this is that strong global competition for composite board, pulp and paper, and other fiber products are predicted to "put downward pressure on prices and encourage producers to pursue labor-saving and other cost cutting strategies." Industry intends to increase the utilization of hardwoods in the South to limit further increases in prices which occurred in the last decade.

Another factor which is increasing the rate of chip mill proliferation and forest degradation is the fact that softwood supplies are tight nationally. This has been caused by intensive logging across the South and the Southeast and by the fact that the industry has been unable to secure as much access to public land timber as it had anticipated in the West. Societal values, which imposed limits on logging in the West, are resulting in greater pressures in the South so that communities are now being confronted with similar decisions and choices among values.

A number of other factors are at play and will likely increase forest degradation in the Southeast. Expected increases in hardwood pulping technology, better hardwood harvesting systems, and the use of otherwise unmerchantable trees in composite fiber boards will all increase pressures on southern forests.

Failure of Governmental Stewardship

"[M]any of the policies and programs, especially those for nonindustrial private forests, have been developed in response to single concerns (for example, timber, wildlife, or water quality) and assigned to different agencies for implementation: education to extension services; service forestry to state forestry agencies; water quality to state pollution-control agencies, and so forth. There has never been a strategic, multidimensional program rooted in a comprehensive national policy focused on nonfederal forests. The result is numerous programs that often lack a common vision or direction."

Norman Christensen, the Dean of Duke’s prestigious school of the environment, observed "it is no longer possible for the ecosystems that provide goods and services to humans to meet the competing demands of different constituencies for the full expectation of each constituency. In most regions we can no longer simultaneously meet public expectations for scenery, biodiversity, wilderness, high-quality water, and fiber in historic amounts or past rates.... [T]his is not a matter of "man against the rights of nature," it is simply a matter of conflicts in human wants.... [I]t is clear that leadership from the public sector will be needed to reconcile conflicts across complex ownership boundaries and among goals that are realized at different temporal scales."

Federal level

Generally there is limited jurisdiction at the federal level on private land logging. Authority to address forest degradation has been divided among multiple agencies and branches of government. Jurisdictional boundaries which have been defined both legislatively and administratively often do not usefully overlap ecological boundaries. Data gaps and inconsistency contribute to the difficulty of assessing problems, and bureaucratic isolation allows issues associated with the impacts of industrial forestry and chip mills to go largely unexamined given the small nexus each unit of government has with a particular issue.

At the federal level inconsistent and often conflicting action on the part of the government has failed to fully address the threats posed by chip mills and industrial forestry. Given divided authority and conflicting interpretations of laws the federal government has rarely forced full consideration of chip mill impacts or utilized the full extent of its authority. With only a few exceptions the government has largely failed to use its discretionary authority to address these problems.

The current conservative national political mood has weakened the little legislative support that existed for conservation. This is generally favored by the forestry industry associations including the American Forest and Paper Association, the American Pulpwood Association, and state forestry associations which are all strong opponents of any regulation of forestry. Though the Missouri Forest Products Association briefly supported a state study of impacts of chip mills and a moratorium as well, it quickly withdrew from that position which was not supported by national forest industry associations.

As a general observation, there is too little participation of those not immediately concerned with the financial bottom line of the forest products industry in determining, forest management policy in the Southeast. At the state level weak laws governing logging do not protect forest habitat. Few laws have any teeth. Most often the laws recommend voluntary best management practices which, even when well applied, do not protect forest ecosystems and only address water quality.

State level

From a legislative perspective at the state level no southern state has enacted a comprehensive forest practice law. In other parts of the country, "Since the mid-1980s, a third generation of forest practice... laws and programs has evolved. In some states... these laws and programs are concerned with the long-term, cumulative effects of forest practice(s) on the sustainability, productivity, and biological diversity of forest ecosystems.

Information Inadequacy and Bias

Mobilization of any action to address the direct and underlying causes of deforestation and degradation relies both on available information and the integration of that information in decision making from the community to the national level. The failure of governmental action as well as the failure of communities to fully address the threats posed by chip mills is caused in part by lack of adequate, detailed, comparable and predictive information and part by the lack of integration of information into decision making. Franklin writes, "almost nowhere do we have good long-term assessment of how sustainable our current practices are; data are not sufficient to provide definitive answers"

Christensen writes, "The bottleneck to bringing the best information to bear on complex management issues is often not the generation of new knowledge but the incorporation of existing knowledge into management policies and protocols." Changing the perspective from which managers address problems through integrating new information is similar to the larger process in changing patterns in society. "Paradigm shifts in resource management are driven by shifts in societal goals, including economic factors, agency and stakeholder agendas, and only to a limited degree by new knowledge."

Noting that it is often the integration of information rather than the generation of new information, it is still useful to note that the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences has identified lack of information as a contributing factor in the difficulties in dealing with issues related to nonfederal forests. "Particularly troublesome are the information void and inconsistencies that often plague analyses of major issues involving nonfederal forests. The information available to describe the latter is often out of date, gathered by agencies with conflicting interests, and inconsistent in form and presentation, making its aggregation across regions impossible." However this problem is not limited to domestic forest issues. Data gaps and problems are evident in international the Food and Agriculture Organization’s data even though it is the most wide-ranging set of data on forest utilization globally.

A similar problem is also apparent in the information generated by the U.S. Forest Service’s forest inventory analysis. Because it is done on five to ten year rotations it often lags far behind what is actually happening on the ground. As a result it is difficult for decision makers and communities to access accurate, up to date information. Even if the information were up to date, there would still be too little comprehensive information being produced on ecosystem integrity and functioning and the tradeoffs between forest commodity production and non-timber economic values.

On the scale of the individual landowner, access to balanced information is also a problem. According to Dale Robertson, former U.S. Forest Service Chief, loggers largely dictate what is cut on private lands as well as the information landowners get. Industry initiatives, such as tree-farm programs and landowner assistance programs, also provide only part of the spectrum of information needed for landowners to make balanced decisions and this compounds the problem.

Trade

In some areas, such as those affected by the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway for example, trade has had a significant impact. Trade, however, has not been a major underlying cause overall because only a small percentage of the total amount of chipped wood is exported.

Recommendations

A regional assessment of the impacts of chip mills is needed to fill information gaps and publicly examine the effects of chip mills to inform community leaders and government officials alike and initiate a debate about the appropriate response to their impacts. The information available about their impacts so far suggests a pattern which is likely to be unsustainable in the long run. On that basis and to ensure no further reduction in the availability of valued non-timber forest outputs, a temporary moratorium on permitting new chip mills should be developed until a study is complete and appropriate responses in place. Until a temporary cessation of constructing new chip mills has begun, community leaders and government officials should carefully consider the impact of chip mills on an individual basis and decide whether they should be allowed on their merits. In a larger process community leaders and governmental officials should begin the development of a system of ecosystem management that ensures the maintenance long-term functioning and resiliency of ecosystems at a landscape level.

Greater awareness and activism at the community level and better integration of responses across levels of government are critical components of resolving challenges presented by chip mills. In consideration of the unprecedented pace of habitat modification and our global impacts on natural systems, an increasingly conservative approach should be taken to further impairment of ecosystems functioning, and communities and government should strive to restore those ecosystems that have been impaired.

Recommendations to Conservation Community Based on Land Ownership Patterns

Land ownership patterns suggest that a strategy should be adopted by the conservation community aimed at influencing the composition of the markets for forest products rather than the choices of individual landholders. At the level where the market for forest products is developed there are fewer decisions to influence, more constituencies that are interested and fewer specific restraints on landowner decisions and consequent restrictions on private property rights.

Both the industry and conservationists recognize that management practices on all non industrial private forest land ownerships will ultimately affect the success of conservation and the level of forest product output. Conservationists’ comparative advantage resides in the ability to focus people’s concern on the construction and development of industrial facilities and to force decisions there which influence the markets that are available in the short-term. Debate and discussion at the level of market creation allows various constituencies that might not normally have the time or resources to participate in individual forest management decisions to articulate their concerns and maintain their stake in decisions that affect their interests.

Recommendations for a Stronger Forest Conservation Community

Conservation over the long-term must be firmly rooted in local support or it wont be tenable. A great challenge awaits the conservation community in developing the infrastructure and strength of the community to address the proliferation of chip mills. Although a small number of groups have begun to organize effective resistance to the proliferation of chip mills, a stronger community is required and more resources are needed.

Successful conservation efforts won by the environmental community on western public lands are now supported by a broad spectrum of society well organized by the conservation community. Today the Southeast presents a challenge similar to the Pacific Northwest of 25 years ago where latent concern, largely untapped awaited proper organization.

Further Recommendations

In addition to challenging the proliferation of unsustainable forest practices at the market level and building a stronger forest conservation motivated and driven by this issue, consumption reduction is essential. The use of alternative fibers including agricultural waste and recovered waste paper as well as other options should be encouraged.

Slowing the rate of forest degradation and promoting the goal of maintaining and restoring ecosystem functioning and resilience will be difficult because the South contains such a large percentage of U.S. forestland and because of the strength of the industry in the region.

However, the following should be considered:

Federal Level

Federal agencies should address the impacts to water quality resulting from chip mill induced forest degradation through their authority under the Clean Water Act. The President’s Clean Water Action Initiative has begun a process that needs to be made effective for the chip mill problem on the ground. The Vice President has clearly articulated his goals. He has written, "polluted runoff has for too long eluded control under conventional regulatory approaches. Communities need federal help and partnership to protect water quality on a community-led, watershed basis, rather than through piecemeal steps. It is incumbent upon all Federal agencies to respond to these challenges in a manner that honors and furthers the goals of the Clean Water Act."

In addition to EPA and other responsible agencies and the states fully exercising their authority under the Clean Water Act, other agencies within the Administration must address this problem as well. Because responsibility for forests has historically been dispersed by Congress among the departments of the Interior, Agriculture, Defense (through the Army Corps of Engineers) and the Environmental Protection Agency, a coherent approach to nonfederal forest policy has been lacking. An effective response to the problems posed by chip mills must be multi-agency in focus and include the EPA, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Forest Service, the Army Corps of Engineers and to a lesser extent, the Tennessee Valley Authority.

The National Research Council has emphasized this type of approach in writing "Investments in the careful design of federal agency responsibilities and linkages to other units of government is critical to the sustainability of nonfederal forests." Immediate steps should be undertaken to meet this challenge.

Fiscal incentives should also be adopted to encourage long-term ecosystem management approaches to conservation, and perverse incentives that increase short-term resource exploitation should be eliminated. So far unfortunately too "[l]ittle attention has been given to the use of tax policy as an economic incentive for private investment in watershed-management activities, protection of scenic beauty, recreational opportunities for the public, and preservation of forest ecosystems for certain types of flora and fauna."

Federal agencies must also recognize the problem that lack of balanced information brings and strive to incorporate existing knowledge into management policies and protocols.

State Level

The challenges presented by chip mills and industrial forestry can not be effectively met by action solely at the federal level. States can aide in federal activities particularly in the implementation of the Clean Water Act by rapidly completing lists of impaired streams under the total maximum daily load provision of the Clean Water Act, but they must also pursue their own path. On a state by state basis individual states should rectify deficiencies in state laws governing forestry to address chip mill impacts on a landscape level in order to maintain structure and functioning of impacted ecosystems. To specifically address the impacts of chip mills, states should undertake studies of their impacts in conjunction with the federal government and, in addressing problems that are raised, give equal weight to non-timber forest benefits. They should strive to incorporate best available scientific knowledge into management policies and protocols, and they should increase monitoring activities and data gathering both on the forest impacts of chip mills and the areas they are sourcing from. At a minimum each state should adopt policies which prevent them from giving development assistance money to resource extractive industries that are not proven to be sustainable. Other state incentives should reevaluated, and it should be ensured that all incentives relative to forestry are in line with ecologically sound management practices

Local Level

Local governments and communities should evaluate chip mills in light of all available information including the relatively few jobs that chip mills create as well as non-timber forest benefits. They should adopt business licensing laws that give them firm control over chip mills construction and the ability to deny licenses. They should strive to avail themselves of balanced information from all levels of government as well as the public interest, nonprofit community and incorporate that existing knowledge into management policies and protocols. They should refrain from licensing chip mills unless they have been proven not to be unsustainable.

Universities

Universities should engage their research capabilities to investigate many of the unanswered questions associated with chip mill and the associated increased logging. They should generate specific predictive information about what impacts will be at various increased levels as well as information about the impacts this will have on ecosystems and the services they provide. They should investigate both the economic tradeoffs and non-economic quality of life issues impacted by chip mills, and they should strive to integrate their information into the political process.

The National Research Council recommends, "Research focused on nonfederal forests should be strengthened by expanding public and private investments in research, improving the organization and management of research, and guiding research with a strategic research plan for nonfederal forests."

Pulp and Paper Industry

The pulp and paper industry should move beyond the Sustainable Forestry Initiative which is insufficient and establish a credible system of ecological management.

Solid Hardwood Industry

The solid wood hardwood products industry, including the furniture industry, should ensure full evaluation of the impacts of chip mills on their industry and assure that chip mills do not adversely affect them.

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Cubbage, Frederick W. and Abt, Robert C. "Trends in Hardwood Availability." Prepared for Proceedings of the 26th Annual Hardwood Symposium, NCSU, Version #3, #21 Paper TMBRNHLA, June 1998.

Hagerman, J.R. Upper Little Tennessee River Aerial Inventory of Land Uses and Nonpoint Pollution Sources cited in Niemi, Ernie; Whitelaw, Ed, 1997. Assessing Economic Tradeoffs in Forest Management, General Technical Report, PNW-GTR-403, Portland, OR: US Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station.

Johnson, Tony G. 1996. Trends in Southern Pulpwood Production 1953-1993, Resource Bulletin SRS-3, Asheville, NC: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Southern Research Station.

Johnson, Tony G. and Steppleton, Carolyn D. Southern Pulpwood Production, 1995, Resource Bulletin SRS-8, Asheville, NC: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Southern Research Station.

Memorandum from Vice President Albert Gore, for Heads of Departments and Agencies, Oct. 18, 1997 on the subject of Clean Water Act Initiative, available on the Web at http://www.epa.gov/OWOW/cwa/vpmemo.html.

Murray, Douglas "Assessing Economic Tradeoffs in Forest Management in Tennessee." The Center, Lafollette TN, 1998.

Murray, Douglas "Increased Clearcutting for Wood Chip Production in Tennessee: Statistics Effects and Trends." The Center, Lafollette TN, 1998

National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences. Forested Landscapes in Perspective, Prospects and Opportunities for Sustainable Management of America’s Nonfederal Forests. USA: National Academy Press, 1998.

Niemi, Ernie; Whitelaw, Ed, 1997. Assessing Economic Tradeoffs in Forest Management, General Technical Report, PNW-GTR-403, Portland, OR: US Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station.

Ribaudo, M. C. Water Quality Benefits from the Conservation Reserve Program cited in Niemi, Ernie; Whitelaw, Ed, 1997. Assessing Economic Tradeoffs in Forest Management, General Technical Report, PNW-GTR-403, Portland, OR: US Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station.

Smith, Danna Chipping Forests and Jobs: A Report on the Economic and Environmental Impacts of Chip Mills in the Southeast. Chattanooga: Dogwood Alliance and Native Forest Network, 1997.

"U.S. Chip Mill Installations." Timber Processing, July/August 1989, p. 86-92.

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