PROPONENTS OF THE LOGGING PLAN

• NEFF (apparently the grant that started this came from them)

• Mass Audubon (gets some grant money -they won't specify how much- to oversee and make sure it's all "climate friendly")

• Woodlands Trail Partnership (North Adams doesn't have a representative on their board right now, but Dicken Crane, chair of their board shows up to all the meetings) [See Mary's Letter Below]

• New England Forestry Consultants (one employee wrote the management plan and the operations plan, another is managing the invasive species removal plan and work)

 

BACKGROUND 

In roughly 2022 a grant was offered to the City of North Adams for the purpose of creating a management plan for woodland and riparian areas in the face of climate change.  To the best of our knowledge, the mayor at the time and the public works commissioner accepted, without consulting the conservation commission or the citizens at large - at least not in any meaningful way (still working on getting public meeting documentation. They gave us dates, not sure of attendance or publication or meeting minutes at this time).

 

By city charter, and local practice, the public works commissioner is in charge of the watershed and only needs the mayor's approval to do most projects. The conservation commission should review major logging plans, but is not reliably notified of many projects they should review.

 

The public at large only began to be aware of the logging plan in late July 2024 when an iBerkshires article mentioned a conservation commission meeting about herbicide use in the watershed.  One nearby property owner publicized that on Facebook, and roughly a dozen concerned citizens showed up at the conservation commission meeting.  The plan to use herbicides was dropped, though we have not seen this in an updated operations plan in writing, yet.

 

The logging plan consists of:

 - removing about 12 acres of single species plantations (red pine and white pine, mainly), and replanting seedlings of more desirable timber trees, mainly red oak and hickory

 - addressing three acres of invasive species (the 1000 acre site as a whole is remarkably free of invasive species)

 - "selection harvest" of 60 acres of mixed hardwood (including red oak, ash, sugar maple, birch, beech, white pine, etc)

 - replacing culverts under the existing hiking trail so that it will support the logging trucks. No visible need for this otherwise.

 

All in all, the plan is ill-conceived on a the steep, fragile, wet slopes of the city watershed, since these are currently stable.   Also, the head forester declined to specify size of equipment, or the number and type of trees to be cut when directly asked in the most recent public info session. It is very unclear how much money is involved from what sources, and how much revenue will actually be generated, but estimated profits are at a mere $40,000 for the city.

 

There is far too little transparency with the public - although the letter of the law may have been met with public info sessions, I doubt even a dozen residents of the city had heard of the plan a month ago. Most city council members were completely in the dark prior to being informed via one concerned citizen attending a meeting this August. 

 

While the public comment period has been extended to September 30, the operations plan hasn't yet been updated even to reflect the promise of no herbicides, and this quote from Mass Audubon (received today) suggests they consider conservation commission review non-essential: "...we will revise the cutting plan based on these suggestions and then Pete will submit it to the conservation commission for review. This is sent to the conservation commission as a notification for their review but nearly all of our practices will fall under Chapter 132, "The Forest Cutting Practices Act", so the Service Forester approval on the cutting plan "permits" these actions. "

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The North Adams City Charter contradicts,

Sec. 25-2Forest cutting operations generally.

[Ord. of 4-9-1985]

No person shall engage in major forest cutting operations within the City of North Adams before obtaining a permit from the Conservation Commission.

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WE STILL HAVE QUESTIONS

• The public comment period is only until September 30 but we still have questions. 

• A final work plan has not been presented and is not expected before the public period ends. Will there be time to refute any changes to the plan?

• Why did the Mayor allow and support a logging plan to proceed for nearly two years that contained the plan to spray glyphosate near our public water supply?

• Why is this an "operational decision" and not up for city or council vote? 

• Addressing Invasive Species:  interestingly, although there are two areas with invasive species marked on the management plan, they are choosing not to do any work in stand 11, where the invasive species came in as a result of logging in 2017 (their own analysis). Why not? How important is addressing invasive species to them really?

• Mass Audubon speaker Andrew Randazzo says the project will help the water quality. How? By only cutting small patches (3 - 6 acres is not small!), by "mimicking natural disturbances". That's illogical. Creating a disturbance is creating a disturbance, natural or otherwise.  The human disturbance he supports of clear-cutting 3 acres, taking away the trees, and replacing them with seedlings in wire fences that will die if not watered and weeded for at least three years is much worse for water quality than allowing the "overstocked" white pine and red pine and spruce plantations to slowly fall over time. Even if they all blew down at once, the trunks could remain, and the resulting pit and mound structure of the soil would retain more water and decrease erosion

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And that's just the tip of the iceberg. 

Check out the recorded video of the last town hall meeting and let us know where you still have questions.

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