Timber theft cuts deep
|
|
Brian Morse of Berlin looks over the destruction wrought by unauthorized logging on a 12-acre property he owns in Plainfield. Morse discovered the damage in March 2009, days after a logger hired to cut on an adjacent property crossed onto his land and felled about 250 of the trees, leaving a huge mess. Morse sued and obtained a settlement, but says he is left with a cleanup that will cost far more than settlement funds will cover. |
Toolbox
By LOUIS PORTER Vermont Press Bureau - Published: May 12, 2010
MONTPELIER – In February of 2009, Brian Morse of Berlin bought a forested piece of land in Plainfield along the Winooski River.
The 12-acre property caught his eye because it was close to Montpelier, private and peaceful and "a beautiful piece of land" he thought he might enjoy owning.
A couple of weeks later, Morse, who owns a car repair shop just a short drive south of the Statehouse on Route 12, decided to go wander around the property since he hadn't had much time to explore it in detail.
"I went over about two weeks after I bought it to investigate it as the snow was melting," Morse said.
What he saw gave him a terrible shock.
Someone had logged about three acres of his new property, virtually clear-cutting it.
"I thought I was about to have a heart attack," said Morse. "They had cut approximately 250 mature trees," he said.
Unfortunately, Morse was in for another shock when he tried to get recompense for the illegal logging of his property: State laws offered very little recourse for someone whose land has been logged accidentally or illegally.
Morse declined to name the logging company involved. But court records from the civil lawsuit he filed – and has since settled – lists the company as Codling Brothers of Plainfield.
The loggers, working on the property of an adjacent landowner, went onto Morse's land accidentally because they did not see boundary markers, according to their lawyer, Robert Mello.
"The markings were very, very poor," Mello said. "You couldn't have seen them even if you had known where to look."
Mello said the problem was an innocent mistake and the settlement not very significant.
Morse disputes that characterization, noting the land had been "professionally surveyed" before purchase and orange tape clearly marked the borders.
Morse said he discovered that state law only penalized loggers for the value of the trees they cut. Nearly a century ago when the statute was last updated, the value of timberland was essentially the value of the trees and little more, he said.
"Legally they were not responsible for the damage to the land, just timber values they had cut," Morse said. But the damage to his land was far more, he said.
"There is no way I can put those trees back," Morse said, nor any way to restore the appearance of the cut acreage, which remains filled with tree tops and slash.
Fortunately, Morse's reputation as a mechanical wizard – his father is now-retired VW mechanic Elliot Morse – has won him auto repair business from legislators in the Statehouse. One of them was longtime customer Rep. Carolyn Partridge, D-Windham, the head of the House Agriculture Committee, which has jurisdiction over issues such as logging. When she heard of Morse's plight, she decided it was worth having her committee take a look at state laws on logging.
This week, her efforts bore fruit: A measure was given final approval in the Statehouse that updates the laws and penalties on timber removal. The provision, approved by the Senate on Tuesday as part of an agricultural bill, would stiffen penalties for those who cut trees illegally and also for landowners who don't correctly oversee logging crews they hire.
Now the bill will go to the desk of Gov. James Douglas, who is expected to sign it into law.
"Rogue loggers will cross people's property and mow down whatever they can get," said Rep. Partridge. The number of incidents may be small, but trespassing to log does happen in Vermont, she said.
The bill, H.528, was tied up in the back-and-forth of the final days of the legislative session, but the measure broke free in part because of an agreement between Partridge, the Vermont Board of Land Surveyors, the Agency of Natural Resources and the Vermont Forest Products Association, which are all supporting the final version of the legislation.
Loggers don't want to see other loggers cutting trees illegally than any other Vermonters do, said Ed Larson of the association.
"We think it is a good bill and we think it is time to put a stop to illegal logging," he said. "If there is a rogue logger out there we want to stop them in their tracks."
Ironically, a couple of recent cases in which people allegedly illegally cut trees on public land have resulted in much stiffer penalties, Morse noted.
The bill won't change Morse's situation, though he's pleased a law "that wasn't necessarily on anybody's radar" has now been updated to help anyone else in his position.
However Morse, who owns the Plainfield land through a corporation, will still have to deal with cleaning up the stumps and tops on his land, which have been sitting there for more than a year, and with the environmental effects of the logging operation, which include potential damage to nearby waterways, he said.
"It is a mess," he concluded.
3