By PAULA TRACY, InDepthNH.org
PITTSBURG – A company that issues carbon credits in the southern tip of the state has increased its timber harvest plans in the 146,872-acre Connecticut Lakes Headwaters area for the next decade. An advisory committee that says that’s still lower than previous cuts wants more time to review the document and its potential impact on the economy.
At 1 p.m. on Wednesday, members of the Connecticut Lakes Headwaters Citizens’ Advisory Council met at the Pittsburg Fire Station and were briefed on the plan by representatives of Aurora Sustainable Lands LLC. Instead of clearing between 10,000 and 20,000 fathoms annually, the company wants to increase the number to 20,000 to 30,000 fathoms under the new, revised plan.
The body is an advisory committee for the land use of this vast forest area.
It advises and recommends actions to state Department of Natural and Cultural Resources Commissioner Sarah Stewart, who attended the meeting remotely.
Stewart had initially stated that there would be a comment period for the nearly 150-page revised document until next Friday.
The committee voted to ask her to extend that period until October 4, and she agreed.
Some said the state, which has an easement requiring a clear-cutting plan, needs to know much more about what carbon farms are and what future impacts they will have on state habitat, lost municipal and county revenues, and forestry and recreation jobs before it can sign any long-term agreement.
Also, registration data for such carbon capture farms — which allow planting trees to offset corporate carbon emissions rather than cutting them down — is currently being compiled by the state, along with an analysis of lost timber tax revenue. The recent passage of House Bill 1697 https://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/bill_status/billinfo.aspx?id=2225&inflect=2 will create that data, but it is not yet available, and it may be wise to wait for that information before signing the plan, said Executive Councilor Joe Kenney, R-Wakefield.
The company’s previous draft plan, presented in January, called for an average of 10,000 to 20,000 cable savings per year.
The state rejected the proposal because it holds a $40 million easement to ensure the land is accessible for public recreation and timber harvesting. Negotiations have begun with the Attorney General’s Office and are ongoing without a final 10-year contract in place. But public and advisory committee participation in the revised draft is a necessary second step in the process, said state forester Patrick Hackley.
Logging was more like 40,000 fathoms on the state’s largest private property a year before it was included in California’s cap-and-trade system, locking up some of the standing trees as long-term carbon offsets. Looking back historically, when the land was used as an industrial logging area, 120,000 fathoms of timber were logged there annually in 1926, less than 10,000 in the 1930s, and rising to about 80,000 fathoms per year in the 1970s and 30,000 in 2023, according to the draft report.
Blake Stansell, president of Aurora Sustainable Lands LLC, said he wants to “continue to build trust” with the community, noting that when the company acquired the property in October 2022, there was initially a false assumption that there was no active clearing taking place on the property.
The company’s main goal is to protect forests from climate change by actively managing 650,000 hectares across the country to remove and store carbon from the atmosphere.
These rumors sent shockwaves through the region, whose economy relies largely on logging and recreational activities.
Stansell said he believed the cuts proposed in the revised bill were “achievable.”
He also stressed that public access would continue to be available, noting that U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen, who as governor over 20 years ago ensured that it would remain that way in perpetuity. Shaheen and others, including former U.S. Senator Judd Gregg, led an initiative to create a conservation easement that essentially gave the rights not to develop the property, but allowed it to be sold for logging and kept in private ownership.
While most of the land owned by Aurora is also former industrial forestry land, there are catches here in the form of easements that restrict and dictate what is allowed.
The draft, revised in July, calls for an “estimated” 20,000 to 30,000 fathoms to be logged annually through 2032. It gives the owner plenty of leeway to phase out the plantation stock, but it’s still below the average 40,000 fathoms logged on the property before it became part of the carbon capture landscape, and well below growth levels, says Charles Levesque.
Levesque is a member of the advisory committee and was one of the original drafters of the easement for the land more than 20 years ago, before carbon capture was another way to make money from forest land.
Some members of the advisory committee expressed concern that this plan does not include Aurora’s willingness to expand OHRV access to the property over the next decade, nor does it intend to close access.
Coos County Commissioner Ray Gorman said he believes the minimum cut should be 30,000 per year, and Levesque said 25,000 to 35,000 is easily sustainable for the county.
Gorham also expressed concerns about accessibility for recreational activities and the lack of OHRV trails.
He also said that he believes much more education and understanding is needed in society, adding that business owners do not know what a carbon sequestration forest is.
“It was bought with public money,” he said of the easement on the property. “A lot of money.”
But member Harry Brown said the intention was never to have “a bunch of dirt bikes riding around on it,” but rather a mix of recreational and forestry use.
The headwaters are in Pittsburg, Clarksville and Stewartstown, but most of it is in Pittsburg. Pittsburg city officials, whose budget depends heavily on revenue from the timber tax, previously reached an agreement with Aurora for some sort of tax replacement for next year, anticipating a significant drop in revenue due to the lower timber harvest expected this year.
A copy of the just released new, revised blueprint for operations for the next 10 years can be found here: https://www.nhstateparks.org/NHStateParks/media/NHStateParks/PDFs/Committees/CT%20Lakes%20Headwaters/REVISIONS-to-Initial-Stewardship-Plan-by-Fee-Holder-for-Distribution-(08-15-24).pdf
