If a tree falls in the woods and there's nobody around to hear it, does it make a sound? Who cares, as local tree-huggers have successfully blocked the state from entering into commercial logging contracts at Allegany State Park. What on the surface seems to be a victory for the environmentally conscious, actually is another decision counter to the needs of the Southern Tier.It's an unpopular opinion that state parks and forests are a hindrance to local economies, but the evidence is clear. They lock up tens of thousands of acres, drastically diminishing the potential tax rolls of towns and counties (most do nothing to add to the local economy). Phillips Creek State Forest, in my "neck of the woods," is a mostly unvisited area of 2,709 acres that consumes parts of the towns of Alfred, Ward and West Almond in Allegany County. Here, what was once rolling fields was reseeded in the 1930's to weed trees such as red pine and scotch pine. The original plan for the forest involved careful stewardship, including thinning and selective logging. Unfortunately, since the state wiped the land off of the tax rolls, the trees have been abandoned and left to strangle each other. The end result is an absurd expanse of toothpicks planted very neatly in rows upon rows, as far as the eye can see, appearing nothing like what one would think a forest should.
So now that the state has wrestled land from its rightful owners, environmentalists have blocked them from properly caring for the forests. Commercial contracts would enable the DEC to profit from the appropriate care-taking of state lands. Only two other options remain;: either the state will ignore the health of the forests at Allegany State Park, or the costs of providing such care will be passed on to the people of Cattaraugus County.
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