ESFPA E-News

Important WOTUS Update 

On Wednesday the EPA released its much-anticipated final rule defining Waters of the United States (WOTUS) following the Supreme Court’s decision in Sackett v. EPA.  The revised definition can be found here.

EPA’s action is helpful in that it removes references to the “significant nexus” test from the rule along with water bodies, primarily wetlands, that do not have a continuous surface connection to rivers, streams, lakes, and other significant water bodies that plainly fall under the EPA’s regulatory jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act.

EPA did not address ongoing ambiguity regarding the “relatively permanent” test used to determine whether water bodies are permanent enough to fall under EPA’s jurisdiction.  That ambiguity, coupled with the agency’s determination that it did not require public comment on its changes to the definition, will likely be further litigated.  The article included below provides a nice summary of the state of play.

Overall, this is good news that significantly reduces our exposure to EPA jurisdiction.  We will keep you informed as ongoing litigation unfolds and EPA’s intentions clarify in the coming months.

Clean Water, Clean Air and Green Jobs Environmental Bond Act Survey

The State has created a new web-based survey as part of ongoing efforts to involve stakeholders and all New Yorkers during the Bond Act rollout. The survey is not a formal funding application, but instead helps users share potential project ideas and other feedback on the State's funding mechanisms. The survey will help collect feedback about the types of projects communities may be seeking to support with Bond Act resources. Entries will be collected until Sept. 15, 2023. 

We are encouraging ESFPA members to complete the survey.  You can enter a specific project, but we are asking in the first question for members to comment on the use of Bond Act funds for acquisition of easements (State working forest conservation easements as well as land trust easements) and for projects on state owned working forest easements addressing climate change, flood mitigation and recreational use of eased lands.

You can use the following in response to the survey question "General Feedback or Questions About Challenges in Accessing New, Existing, or Past State Funding Opportunities":

Acquisition of Conservation Easements

For nearly 30 years ESFPA member companies have been partnering with New York State on the acquisition and conservation of Working Forest Conservation Easements throughout New York State. To date, we have collectively conserved over 800,000 acres of working forests. This has brought billions of dollars of private equity to match millions of dollars of public financing (EPF and 1996 Bond Act, among others). Acquiring working forests and encumbering conservation easements helps ensure these lands contribute to New York’s forest economy, provide recreation access to forest lands, and are a lasting contributor to biodiversity, clean water and carbon storage and sequestration.

In addition to these Working Forest Conservation easements, ESFPA has been a supporter of the Environmental Protection Fund (EPF) Easements for Land Trust program which provides funding for land trusts to acquire easements.  This is a tremendous tool for keeping forests as forest and enabling land trusts to work with private forest landowners on properties that the State would not be interested in owning development rights.  The only condition ESFPA has had is that such easements do not preclude the active management of forests including timber harvesting. While we would never impose conditions on private landowners to manage or not manage their properties, we would not want language in an easement to preclude a future landowner from pursuing their stewardship objectives.

There have been rumblings that the State Attorney General may be opining that easements may not be eligible for conservation easements. ESFPA would strongly oppose any such opinion as we believe easements both State and land trusts are one of the strongest tools we have to leverage combined public and private conservation in New York while also supporting New York’s forest based economy, recreational use of forests and combating climate change.  ESFPA supports the commitment of Bond Act funding for the acquisition of both publicly held and land trust held easements.

Mitigation and Restoration on Publicly Held Conservation Easements

As recently witnessed in the July 2023 storms in the Central Adirondacks/ Hudson Valley, the increased intensity of rainfall and flooding has wreaked havoc on public and private infrastructure including dams, culverts and bridges on public and private highways and properties.  On State owned conservation easements these damages have tolled in the millions of dollars and the expense has been borne by the private landowners of those eased lands.  Yet the public derives a lot of recreational benefits from these Working Forest Conservation Easements and in many instances, the State owns the recreational rights. 

Roads and bridges within these easements support hunting camps, fishing access sites, snowmobile trails and access for forest management and biologic diversity projects. When impacted by these storms, the public loses access to roads including municipal highways, state access roads, and private roads.

Given the public nature of the roads and the public's access on them, these eased properties should be eligible for Bond Act projects related to: climate adaptation and mitigation projects that enhance natural and working forest lands to sequester carbon; flood risk reduction projects such as restoration and removal, alteration, or right sizing dams, bridges and culverts; restoration projects, such as floodplain, wetland, and stream restoration; forest conservation; and endangered and threatened species projects.

Recreation Infrastructure Projects

Lands under State owned Working Forest Conservation Easements provide public recreation rights that support camping, hiking, wildlife observation, hunting and fishing, snowmobile and ATV recreation, horseback riding and a host of other recreational opportunities.  In most instances these rights are owned by the State yet are significantly underutilized due to a lack of resources to develop the infrastructure necessary to permit their use.  Bond Act funds should be available to build out this recreational infrastructure and to increase recreational opportunities to relieve overuse pressure on other State lands and recreational resources.

Vertical Integration Part 1: Interview with LAFCO's Eric Ross

From The Norther Logger

In recent years, in large part due to a lack of logging capacity and also other regional factors including available wood and changing weather patterns, the forest products industry has seen some mills and large forestland management companies bring logging and road crews in-house — examples of taking direct ownership of various stages of a company’s production process rather than relying on external contractors, i.e., vertical integration.

In this episode, The Northern Logger speaks with Eric Ross, general manager of Lyme Adirondack Forest Company (LAFCO), about their recent foray into in-house logging and road crews. LAFCO manages 235,000 acres of land in the Adirondacks, the largest private ownership in New York State.

Listen to the interview by clicking the link below:

Log-A-Load for Kids T-Shirts Still Available

Over the years your donations have helped create miracles for countless local children and their families, some of whom are part of our forest industry family. This year, Log-A-Load for Kids is selling Log-A-Load/ Children’s Miracle Network t-shirts for only $20! T-shirts are available sizes M-2XL.

Please make all donations to the Empire State Forestry Foundation (ESFF) and mail them to:  47 Van Alstyne Dr. Rensselaer, NY 12144 Or you can VENMO your donations to @ESFF-LogALoad. Donations through the Empire State Forestry Foundation are 100% tax deductible. We greatly appreciate your help in making even more miracles possible this year.