ASHLAND — The county’s forest manager came to the commissioners’ meeting Thursday bearing gifts in the form of dollar signs.
Chad Sanders, Mohican-Memorial State Forest Manager, presented Ashland County Commissioners with a check in the amount of $28,720 for timbering operations in 2021.
The money is divided among three entities in October of each year. Ashland County and Hanover Township each received $7,180. The rest, $14,360, will be given to the Loudonville-Perrysville Exempted Village School District.
State law allows the Ohio Division of Forestry to harvest timber as a forest-management operation.
Sanders said the $28,720 figure represents a typical level of timbering operations during any given year.
“This is pine thinning, which is removing small-diameter trees and letting bigger trees grow,” he said, adding the division of forestry sells the timber by the ton by public bidding.
This year, Hochstetler Log Homes bought the timber, Sanders said.
But timbering operations from June 2022 to July 2023 will likely fetch a higher payout, he said.
That’s because of the amount of logs harvested following the tornado that ripped through Mohican-Memorial State Forest on June 13.
The Mohican-Memorial State Forest Tornado Response Plan for 2022-23 shows there were 480 acres of severely damaged forest, “or areas with more than 75% of the trees on the ground.”
Forestry crews have been working to salvage timber from fallen trees since the storm, but much of that work remains to be done, Sanders said. The forest manager said the tornado response plan broke the work up into varying priorities.
He noted a lot of the work will be done through the winter, when trails aren’t utilized as much.
The forest’s trails are open, but park and pack campsites have been closed since the storm and will likely remain so to prevent from people being in dangerous areas, Sanders said.
Sanders said he expects forestry to fetch “hundreds of thousands of dollars” next year, which would represent timbering operations from June 2022 to July 2023.
