| Helmick urges state to 'go green' to help timber industry
By Mannix Porterfield
Register-Herald reporter
www.register-herald.com
CHARLESTON â West Virginia still hasn't taken a decided move toward the "green building" standard, and Senate Finance Chairman Walt Helmick showed his impatience Monday with such inaction.
"We should already be there," Helmick, D-Pocahontas, chairman of the Forest Management Review Commission, declared at its monthly interims meeting.
As the timber industry struggles, Helmick suggested the adoption of a "green building" standard that calls for monetary outlays up front to ultimately save on expenses in the future with environmental friendly construction.
"This is something we should have done a year ago," Helmick said. "We're a little bit behind."
A separate interims panel discussed the idea again but took no concrete action on the matter.
Afterward, Helmick said the timber industry has lost 3,000 jobs of late but could rebound if the state moved toward the "green" standard â one that is sweeping the country.
"A lot of people want to know, individual customers want to know, that the 2-by-4s I bought didn't come from Joe Blow who screwed up the land, destroyed some water or took off without paying his workers' compensation," Helmick said.
"Did the lumber come from a sustainable industry? And are they treating the land in a way that they're good stewards?"
Helmick also called for an end to the severance tax, after state Forester Randy Dye said West Virginia timber harvesters are at a disadvantage since surrounding states don't collect one.
"Obviously, the industry is in trouble," Helmick said. "This (green standard) may help the industry. They can maybe sell more. We need to look at this green thing. It's the move of the country."
Historically, the taxman has not been a friend of the timber industry in West Virginia, and consequently, forests suffered, Dye told the commission.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, he said, excessive taxes were imposed on timber interests, and they responded by buying up huge tracts, erecting mills, clear-cutting and then departing.
In the Depression years, Dye noted, each county relied on its own means of ascertaining the value of timber land.
One operation, originally known as Cherry River Boom and Lumber Co., has changed hands four times since 1901, and cut more than 3 billion board feet. Today, it is known as Collins Hardwoods.
In the 1930s, the federal government snapped up 153,000 acres at the princely sum of $2.50 per acre, or $38,250, and today that expanse is worth $1,000 per acre, Dye said.
Dye said state foresters now pay 4 percent in severance tax, figured on the value of a tree when it is cut. Whoever owns it at the time ponies up with the tax.
"Under our laws, a severed tree is a manufactured product the moment it hits the ground," he said.
Foresters began paying more a few years ago in severance taxes to help bail out the troubled workers' compensation fund before it was privatized.
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