Sept. 27, 2019

The Delmarva Farmer drove to Deep Creek Lake last month where we met the Mountain Loggers Cooperative Association, a regional group of loggers and foresters who gather monthly to discuss issues in the forest products industry.

The discussion wasn’t all positive. The logging and forestry industries in Maryland, West Virginia and southwest Pennsylvania are ailing after the Verso Corp. closed its 131-year-old paper mill in Allegany County, Md., in June. Some loggers have gone out of business, industry leaders said. Others are on the precipice. An unknown number of forestry projects, which sold pulpwood to the mill in Luke, have been suspended throughout the region.

Meanwhile, Maryland forestry interests on both sides of the Chesapeake Bay have been lobbying the office of Gov. Larry Hogan to find some way to assist this critical but declining industry. To date, the Hogan administration has said little publicly in response.

It’s time for that to change.

On the Eastern Shore, forestry advocates for months have begged Hogan to build a new wood-burning power plant to replace one the state is removing from a Somerset County prison. The plant consumes about a third of the Shore’s yearly wood chip production. In February, forestry advocates said the governor was exploring a solution to that problem. Earlier this month, one of those advocates — Beth Hill, executive director of the Maryland Forests Association — said she was still waiting for an answer.

“It would be nice to get a response,” she said.

We feel the same way. Calls and e-mails from The Farmer to the governor’s office regarding this issue have generally gone unanswered. It’s not a good look from a Republican governor who professes sensitivity to his rural, agricultural constituency. Several sawmills on the Shore and elsewhere have closed over the last several years, as recently as April. The state counts forestry product as a resource in its renewable energy portfolio. It’s worth pursuing a solution here.

In western Maryland, logger Tim Thomas said he’s working intimately with Hogan’s office to launch two new pulpwood projects including a wood-burning power plant. He also wants to establish a wood yard that would move pulpwood to the Port of Baltimore for export.

Is it too good to be true? More than one logger expressed skepticism when asked about the projects, and the state Department of Commerce stopped short of confirming Thomas’s claims. We welcome the governor’s clarification.

The state isn’t doing nothing, however. It’s working with a western Maryland nonprofit to secure a federal grant that would pay for a long-term economic plan for the forest products industry. But that process will require years, providing plenty of time for the industry to suffer irreparable damage. The regional logging industry is suffering from economic forces similar to those afflicting the broader agricultural sector. A decline in consumer demand for paper. (The dairy industry can undoubtedly relate.) International competition. (Grain farmers, raise your hands.) An aging, heavily indebted workforce. The list goes on.

The forestry industry is more than a business harvesting a natural resource. Forestry efforts support the Bay’s health — a bipartisan priority — and satisfy forestland owners who might otherwise sell or develop that land if forestry is no longer profitable. The forest products industry also helps stabilize the state’s increasingly vulnerable rural areas, which played an essential role in Hogan’s surprising ascension to office.

The forest product industry needs help.

A long-term economic study is useful, but what can be done now, Gov. Hogan?

(This article was published in the Delmarva Farmer in Easton, Md.)