Timber industry needs help to keep driving SC economy

As legislators finalize the state budget, I worry that they might neglect to adequately support one of South Carolina’s economic engines, one that helps drive our manufacturing economy and simultaneously enhances our water resources, soil conservation, wildlife and recreation. That economic engine is the state’s forests, which cover more than two-thirds of the land area.

Timber is one of the foundations of our state economy — our No. 1 harvested crop and the No. 1 commodity exported from the Port of Charleston — and the S.C. Forestry Commission is critical to maintaining and developing our forests and protecting them from wildfires, insects and diseases. Recently, tight budgets have made that job more difficult.

Back in 2008, the forestry sector’s economic impact was $17 billion. The Forestry Commission, along with the S.C. Forestry Association and other allies, initiated the 20/15 project to increase forestry’s economic impact to $20 billion by 2015. A report my co-authors and I released last month found that the number has grown to $21 billion. A major responsibility of the Forestry Commission is helping grease the skids to attract new wood-using industries to the state, so it deserves much credit for that growth.

We usually think wood-based capital investments mean large pulp and paper mills and sawmills. But the state recently attracted a $795 million investment in a renewable energy facility at the Savannah River Site, a $230 million expansion of an engineered wood products plant in Barnwell County and a $119 million wood pellet plant in Greenwood. Even a new “small” wood chip mill in North Charleston involves a $32 million investment. There are lots of wood-using industries besides paper and lumber, and the Forestry Commission works to attract them with projections of our future wood supply.

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Thousands of acres of SC forests fall to make way for mega-farms

SC Forestry Commission turns 90, plants tree

Playing with fire: S.C. not ready for next big blaze

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Last winter (while Gatlinburg was on fire and a 10,000-acre wildfire was burning in the Upstate) the state forester noted that South Carolina was “playing with fire” and was “not ready for the next big blaze.” He pointed out that our wildfire equipment is out-of-date and unreliable, and the wildfire staff is inadequate for the major wildfires that seem to be occurring more often. I thought he understated the problem.

Back in 1976, I was a forester working to fight the largest wildfire recorded in the state. It started near Myrtle Beach National Golf Course and burned across the Intracoastal Waterway the first afternoon. Before it was over, it burned an area 14 miles long and six to seven miles wide. I recently looked at an aerial view of the same area, and the forest that burned that first afternoon is pretty much recovered. Parts of the same area burned in 1954, 1967 and 2002. Of course, there are now housing developments nearby.

Back in 1976, the forest industry offered assistance with equipment and personnel; those assets no longer exist. Heaven help Horry County and the other areas of the state that are prone to wildfires; old equipment and limited firefighters will lead to a disaster.

Most of South Carolina’s forests are privately owned, mostly by small family owners. The Forestry Commission has a long history of providing management advice and technical assistance to these family forest owners. At one time, most counties had a forester who provided those services. Today, one forester handles several counties. The foresters are spread thin, and that assistance is no longer helping keep the wood supply flowing.

Think back to those numbers about the economic impact of the timber industry. It is heavily dependent on those owners continuing to grow timber.

Underfunding the state Forestry Commission could dampen one of the state’s most important economic engines.