NC CHIPSTUDY - The Slugfest continues By Ron Huber With the passing of time, more and more of the shape of the North Carolina woodchip study has revealed itself . While the study was demanded and even forced into being by Dogwood Alliance, it has been the industry-funded academics of Duke and North Carolina State University that have put flesh on the study's bones. Now, in the waning days of the pre-millennium, the study, Frankenstein-like, has begun arisen, its empty eyes fixed on some distant unknowable target Fred Cubbage, head of North Carolina State University's forestry department, is the chief surgeon of this Franken-study. While some, including this writer, have met with Dr. Cubbage and left feeling impressed by his earnestness, an examination of his writings and published statements have revealed a strong tilt toward the forests-as-paper-feedstocks point of view. During an interview about the chipstudy in Business North Carolina magazine last year, Dr. Cubbage was asked; Do the environmentalists have a point? Cubbage replied : "I haven't run the calculations yet, but it would be extremely doubtful that chip mills would have as large an impact on the landscape as environmental groups say. " Such a statement, revealing his pre-judgment on the study results before any of the research has actually been carried out, did not augur well for the application of disinterested science to the state's review of the impact of woodchip mills on the economy and ecology of North Carolina. Indeed, subsequent statements and writings by Mr. Cubbage and by most other scientists participating in the study have shown that their plan is rather the opposite - "interest-driven science". The "interest" mentioned in the preceding sentence is of course the university's beloved friends and funders in the pulp and paper industry. As prime butterers of NCSU and Duke forestry academe's daily bread, it is THEIR interests that will shape the course and outcome of the study. Let us look at some of the ways that this has been reflected in the actions of the scientists participating, and at the extraordinary ways that industry has interwoven itself into the fabric of the study GNARLY, DUDE... In 1995, the Governor's Task Force on Forest Sustainability called for the creation of a Southern Center for Sustainable Forests, that would carry out research necessary to provide a sound scientific basis for sustainable forestry practices. The newly formed Natural Resources Leadership Institute, a USDA-NCSU-industry hybrid dedicated to forcing win-win solutions onto intractable win - lose issues of environmental protection and resource conservation, was tapped to create the Southern Center. The woodchip study would be this organizations first big task. Regrettably, NRLI (pronounced "gnarly") is top heavy with industry; the shape of their work previous to creating the Southern Center has reflected this. A rather good example is the NRLI study "Preventing Sedimentation from Timber Harvesting in Northwestern North Carolina", carried out by NRLI "student" Reid Hildreth, of the NC Division of Forest Resources. As has long been known in western North Carolina, loggers rarely if ever follow the state's Best Management Practices for forestry. While this should not be surprising, given that the BMPs are voluntary, the state also frowns severely on stream siltation, on logging down to the shoreline, on the use of streams as skidder trails, and other hydrology-damaging practices. If the voluntary guidelines are conspicuously ignored, the letter of the law calls for enforcement actions to take place, include stop-work orders and fines. Happily damaging North Carolina's streams, industry was shocked when the state government tried to enforce its stream protection laws. NRLI was called in, convening a stakeholders group of loggers, landowners, wood buyers and foresters, for the purpose of finding ways of safely circumventing state law. Indeed a solution was found: loggers will notify the state when some of their logging events are taking place, and give state foresters permission to visit the job and suggest ways to better comply with the forestry guidelines. The tradeoff : the state would cease from attempting to enforce the sediment pollution laws on any of the dozens of logging operations taking place at any one time, so long as state foresters could visit a scant few of the operations and "assist" the loggers in complying with the guidelines. With the above as atypical example of NRLI at work, the prospects for an evenhanded woodchip study coming from the NRLI-spawned Southern Center were grim indeed. And such has come to be the case - A chipstudy that is very much slanted to produce an outcome favoring increased industrial deforestation of the Tarheel state. A study free of the recent advances in understanding wrought by conservation biologists. Let us count the ways: THE RECORD The issue has yet to be resolved whether the meetings of the woodchips study advisory committee are "Public meetings". hence recordable by any interested person. NRLI has maintained they are not, using some very shaky legalisms. A request has gone out from a Dogwood affiliate to the state attorney general for a more formal ruling on this point. In the mean time, NRLI has wriggled on the issue, declaring that the media COULD record the meetings, though not the interested parties. That this makes no legal sense does not appear to concern Steve Smutko, director of NRLI. But as is well known, those who control the means of communication control the public perception. Speaking of means of communication, with NRLI in charge of creating the minutes to meetings of the woodchip study advisory committee, and the meetings of its various subcommittees, it should have come as no surprise that the official record would be flawed. Sure enough, comments recorded in the advisory committee meeting minutes were stripped of identifying names , lending a strange anonymity to the process. As Dogwood director Danna Smith put it, "It gives the feeling that we're all one big happy family." Danna's request to NRLI that the minutes identify the source of the statement in the minutes drew a predictable response from industry representative Bob Slocum that this would be too much work for the note taker. The note-taker, embarrassed at this implication of incompetence, said that she would add the identity of the speakers at the meeting to the extent she was able to do so. FUNNY THINGS HAPPEN ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM One of the pivotal elements of the NC Woodchip study is the plan to hold public forums at the beginning, middle and end of the study process. At these events, to be held at locations across the state, the scientists involved in the study would discuss their research to date, and field questions from the audience. Industry has fought to reduce the number of forums, seemingly desirous of leaving out eastern North Carolina entirely as well as limiting the forums to the early stage of the study (February 99) and at the very end around January 2001. Leaving eastern North Carolina out of the forum equation seems especially ludicrous in light of the just announced plans for a major new paper mill near in eastern North Carolina near Manteo, on the tidal Roanoke River near the coast. Dogwood pointed out that this would effectively preclude meaningful public input into the process; industry, never that enthralled with the idea of the public being involved, has essentially shrugged, so what? In addition, given the potential for mischief a la the Tennessee forestry study, Dogwood has opposed the final meeting being used as the basis for developing policy recommendations from the study. Surprisingly, industry has agreed, something that may give us pause as to whether or not policy decisions should flow out from the study. But in the interim, the Dogwood position is that the public forums will be used inform the public and let the public give the researchers input. Three researchers gave presentations on their projects at the December meeting: Duke University soils ecologist Dan Richter, NC State University forestry department stormwater scientist Jim Gregory, and NCSU Professor of Multidisciplinary Studies Sarah Warren. Richter's study "Forest Harvest Effects on Soil and Water" will use "scientific literature review, on-site field visits, discussion s with forest-resource managers and scientists and simulation modeling. While, refreshingly, Richter is on of the few chipstudy scientists that will actually go out in to the forest to do part of his study, (unlike the "studies" of wildlife and timber supply), at the same time, the Duke professor will shy away from a cumulative impacts review (no good model, he said), will put historical blinders on by using the condition of North Carolina soils during the high erosion era of the antebellum agricultural period as his control period. Asked why he wouldn't go earlier into per-farming times, Richter scoffed that the native peoples of the area had regularly burned the area over, presumably leading to massive erosion, though he offered nothing to substantiate his claim. Richter also stated that he will not place much value in the results of the Tennessee Valley Authority IS that found severe impacts to stream life from clearcutting-induced erosion. Instead, Richter said he will rely on US Forest Service study results from their research station in Coweetah. Predictably, the Forest service has found that clearcuts do not impact soil or water quality.... Weirdly, Richter said he will not do research on the role of leaf litter in the creation of forest soils. Nor will he look at the role of micro-organisms on soil health, or even, alarmingly, on the impact of sediment on mussels and other aquatic . He was also non-committal on whether he would study how the shortened time periods between clearcutting that takes place when younger trees are acceptable for harvesting, will impact soil erosion and soil recovery. STORMWATER -- a Flood of Misinformation NCSU Professor James Gregory was tapped to study the effects of chipmill activity on stormwater. His study, "Survey of Stormwater and Process water management at Round Wood Chip Mills in North Carolina:" will , remarkably, shy away from actually testing any water at chipmills. Instead, Professor Gregory will contact chipmill operators and query them as to whether their stormwater runoff is following acceptable guidelines. He will visit some chipmills, (those that give him permission), and will, under a code of silence if he discovers and violations of water pollution law, do a visual observation of the water runoff, on site, and record whether it was clear or cloudy. No analysis for tannins and other leacheates, no check for petroleum contamination or other chemicals used to sharpen or lubricate the blades and other systems. The good doctor has prepared made "preliminary" visits to five chipmills so far, and has prepared a questionnaire for all eleven of the chipmill operators that have deigned to participate in the study. The fact that the stormwater "study" will be stage managed by the participating chipmill operators themselves leaves one with very little confidence in the results. But then Professor Gregory noted that "Funding and time constraints dictate a survey approach with limited stream quality assessment", so we should not be surprised. Last but not least, NCSU professor of Multidisciplinary studies Sarah Warren held forth on her study element; "Wood Chip Production in North Carolina: the Social Impact Assessment Component." "Changes in the manufacturing and natural resources environment of a community can often produce tension among the inhabitants," Professor Warren writes in her study synopsis, adding "In the case of wood chip mills and their radius of impact, some concerns may seem to divide segments of the community." In her study, Professor Warren will use census data, one-on-one personal interviews and focus groups, to analyze these divisions. the interviews and group meeting will be repeated several times over the course of the study, so see if sociological impacts of chipmill construction and operation are causing changes over time. While her research plan is sound in many ways, one important flaw is the limitation of her scope of studies to comparing counties with chipmills versus counties without chipmills. A finer level of detail would better her results, such as comparing counties where logging and chipping is at a very high level, versus those where it is not. One hopes that she will listen to the concerns over this , as laid down in the advisory committee meetings and in the upcoming public forums. In closing, many of the other elements of the woodchip study are flawed as well - the wildlife study in particular, where Messers Hess, Lancia and Mitchell will simply "...combine existing information about the character and extent of forests in North Carolina with information about wildlife habitat requirements to predict the wildlife species one would expect to find in the forests." add this this information to Dr. Cubbage's "projected forest inventory" and then crunch the whole mess through a model. The resulting virtual wildlife living in virtual forests will be modeled back and forth from the present to the year 2040, resulting in...what? A virtual paycheck for the learned trio, one guesses! A closing thought: Like anything else on earth, the final outcome of the study will rest upon how closely it is followed, monitored and participated in. If this study is to be more than just an affirmation of the status quo, it will need your incisive insights, your peerless peering into the behind-the-scene machinations driving the scientists to create what will be either a Frankensteinian monster, or a useful review of the past, present and future of north Carolina's forests. In the near future, a great deal of information on the North Carolina Woodchip study will be posted on the Dogwood Alliance website, (www.dogwoodalliance.org), from key documents, to connections with the researchers themselves, and much much more. Go there, become informed, and help make this the study that we fought for.