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Oriented-strand fiber board ("chip") mills can process as much wood in one month as an average-size sawmill consumes in an entire year. In the Southeast, this tremendous consumption capacity forces chip mills to draw raw material from a large area-typically a 75 mile radius-and has encouraged the management of forests specifically for chipping material. This brand of forest management has been characterized not only by shorter rotations, but also the proliferation of clearcutting, which produces more wood per acre for less cost. The chip mill industry prides itself on "efficiency"-chipping more volume in less time for less cost. While this may be good for short-term profits, it is not good for the economy, or the forest. According to available information, chip mills in the Southeast produce about 317,250 tons annually, equivalent to more than 8,700 acres of forest clear cut every year for each mill. With at least 140 chip mills operating in the region, the annual loss is estimated at more than 1,500 square miles of forests. In the Southeast, private lands provide a major source of raw material for chip mills. Although there are many voluntary forest-related programs, the region has virtually no mandatory regulations that apply to the management of private forest land. Comprehensive forest protection legislation and regional sustainable forestry plans, which are effective in some states, have yet to surface in the Southeast. While laws to ensure adequate reforestation following harvest are in place in some southern states, many lament that these regulations do not address other critical ecosystem components. The rapid depletion of forests by chip mills has had devastating impacts on the diversity of the region's forest-dependant economy. Some sawmills have been forced out of business. Reports show that softwood cutting is exceeding growth, and that hardwood shortage is imminent. Despite these ominous trends, studies indicate that the best potential for job growth in the forest products industry lies with solid wood manufacturing (i.e. sawmills). One reason is that sawmills and other solid wood firms employ twice as many people as the pulpwood segment per unit of wood harvested, which means more jobs per tree. For example, a box and pallet company in North Carolina processes 13 truck loads of trees every day and employs 90 people, while a chip mill company that chips 70 truckloads every day has only 8 employees. In another example, furniture manufacturers in Alabama generate 40 jobs for every million dollars invested, while chip mills contribute only one job for every million dollars invested. Differences like these are largely attributable to the fact that chip mills use large machines and very few people to process trees into chips. Sawmills and secondary producers (such as furniture makers and flooring manufacturers), however, are more dependant on labor for their finished products. Moreover, the few jobs created by chip mills are relatively low paying (ranging from $8 to $14 per hour) and no value is added to the resource before it leaves the community. The value-adding jobs are exported up to hundreds of miles away in another state. Profits and better-paying management jobs derived from the community's forests end up far from the community. For nearby communities, the presence of a chip mill in an area means noise and dust pollution, hazardous truck traffic on rural roads and bridges, real property de-valuation, and water quality degradation. In addition, local tax money is used to accommodate chip mill facilities. Hundreds of trucks a day deliver trees to a chip mill. Road improvements and maintenance are at the community's expense. Chip mills seek millions of dollars in tax credits to build the facilities, including road construction and tax-free construction loans. Despite these legitimate concerns, citizens faced with the threat of a chip mill have little or no legal recourse to get local governments or permitting agencies to deny permits to the chip mills. To compound the problem, large corporations spend both time and money convincing local authorities and politicians that citizen's concerns are unfounded, and that the chip mill will contribute jobs and money to the local economy. Activists in the Southeast are calling for action to resolve the chip mill problem. Some of the steps they are proposing include a comprehensive, regional study of the impacts of chip mills; a moratorium on new mills; annual US Forest Service inventories of timber supplies; a ban on importing and exporting raw forest products; incentives for landowners to selectively manage forests on long rotations; and reform of the chip mill permitting process. Even so, chip mills are, at least in the near term, a permanent fixture in the Southeastern landscape. The impacts of such large scale industry will clearly be felt for decades to come.
Article excerpted from "Chipping Forests and Jobs: A report on the economic
and environmental impacts of chip mills in the Southeast." The complete report
is available from Dogwood Alliance at 828-883-5889 or
Chip Mill Update and Request for Member Action Last September, a letter was sent by fourteen environmental and civic organizations to the then Governor of South Carolina, David Beasley, asking that he look into the problems associated with clearcutting of forests to supply chip mills. The Governor did not respond meaningfully. Now that the political situation has changed and there is a new Governor from the opposite party, there is a consensus among the groups that the letter should be resent (with some additional information) and perhaps this time it would generate a more concerned and productive response. The new letter will address many issues associated with this industry, including the recent actions by South Carolina's Department of Health & Environmental Control regarding the permit for the Norbord mega-chip mill in Laurens County. The letter will be asking the Governor to: 1) place a moratorium on the licensing of any new high capacity wood chipping facilities until a comprehensive study of cumulative, secondary, and off-site environmental and economic impacts of the existing facilities in South Carolina is undertaken and completed; 2) that a thorough study of the potential logging impacts of the newly permitted Norbord Industries chip mill in Laurens County be initiated as a case study for launching a state-wide chip mill assessment; and 3) that the State of South Carolina partner with federal agencies (EPA, USFWS and others) who are now considering a region-wide study to examine the problems associated with industrial scale logging. What you can do is write to Governor Hodges requesting he initiate these recommendations, and state your concerns about the depletion and degradation to the environment and communities that this industry leaves in its path. The Governor's address is: Governor Jim Hodges |