Logging operation takes

to the air near

Watauga-Ashe border
By Scott Nicholson
nicholson@wataugademocrat.com

Some locals have been scratching their heads over big noisy birds dangling logs in the sky.

No, it’s not a scene from a science-fiction movie; it’s a newfangled way of logging timber.

Helicopter logging has long been popular on the West Coast, where there are large tracts of inaccessible land, but now the practice has moved to the Eastern seaboard.

Locally, Savannah Rose Timber Management has logged a couple of tracts of land using a large commercial helicopter. After finishing up a 500-acre timber harvest in the Sutherland section of Ashe County, this week the team tackled a nine-acre property in Sugar Grove.

Todd Green, owner of the Lenoir-based Savannah Rose, said the practice is rare because of the cost involved, but can be cost-effective in areas that are landlocked, where building roads would be invasive and expensive or where terrain prohibits a more conventional harvest.

Green’s company cuts hardwoods using forest management principles that ensure a healthy forest will return, and forest officials say using helicopters instead of skid loaders and trucks offers better environmental protection.

N.C. Forest Service ranger Rudy Johnson said it was the first time he’d ever seen helicopter logging near Boone, but the practice is becoming more common. As part of his duties, he inspects logging sites to ensure they follow state forest guidelines. While landowners are free to harvest their trees as they wish, they must ensure that erosion and silt don’t run into waterways as a result of logging.

“With helicopters, there’s very little disturbance,” Johnson said. “It’s definitely more environmentally friendly.”

Green said the additional cost is offset by the accelerated rate of harvest. While logging in a traditional manner yields 30,000 board feet of hardwood a day, a helicopter operation can harvest between 105,000 and 140,000 board feet a day. Green said he contracts for logging rights with individual property owners, then puts the harvested timber up for bid among regional sawmills. In this case, Blue Ridge Lumber Products of Marion was the high bidder, so the logs end up there for milling.

“It gets the job done faster and there’s a quicker turnover,” Green said. “We get a better price because the mill can get set up for the timber. Instead of getting the inventory over a week, it gets it in one day.”

Green said he contracted with Columbia Helicopter Company, which operates a number of different commercial helicopters. They are used not only for commercial harvests, but also in disaster areas when quick clean-up of debris is essential. Green said the Sugar Grove tract was landlocked, which made helicopter logging more viable even though it was a relatively small piece of land. He said even small harvests can be cost-effective if the helicopter is in the region and can move more easily from one job to the next. He has contracted for a few more helicopter harvests in Watauga and Ashe counties, as well as Virginia.

Roger Miller, district forest ranger responsible for water quality, said helicopter logging has a lot of potential for the area, but the cost would probably limit its use. He said it can be a better method for maintaining forest health and limits some of the invasive practices that lead to erosion from logging.

“One advantage is that there are no roads cut,” Miller said. “Building roads is one of the biggest sources of sediment and erosion coming from logging operations.”

He said while more helicopter logging will occur, it’s unlikely to become a regular practice in the mountains. “It’s been done on a limited basis in the mountains. The places it works best are areas of high-value timber that would be costly to get out anyway. Typically it takes a tremendous amount of timber to make it worth it.”

Green said the helicopter would be busy on jobs in Virginia until early next year, when it would return to the region to help him with some harvests.