Pictures of slash presenting fire hazard to Mt. Gretna

As you look at these pictures, I ask you to think about two things:

First, please compare this slash with the slash left on the harvested blocks that are easily visible from Pinch Road and State Road 117. Notice the size, or diameter of the trunks of the wood left behind, notice the arrangement of the slash and its piles, and notice the size of the slash piles themselves.

Second, please look at the size of the wood left behind in the nuisance block. Also note the continuity of these slash piles--as they seem to go on for the length area of the nuisance block.

For comparison, here are some photos of the slash left behind on the SR 117 harvested block, on the other side of Mt. Gretna:

The west end of the 117 block:

The east end of the 117 block:
A closer view of one side of the harvested block that abuts the homes of several Mt. Gretna residents, aka nuisance block:


A larger view of the overall block:

A view of the other side of the nuisance block:

In all honesty, in all of my experience with forestry in the Maine woods, I have never seen a harvester leave a block in this condition. Never. And, I have never heard any official try to convince anyone those conditions were forestry's "best practices." Never.

It is clear that this wood provided the contractor with little merchantable wood, given the multi-branched trunks and their lack of straightness, and, therefore, he deemed it not a good business choice to spend any money or time hauling it out or chipping it, and calculated that no one would see it from Pinch Road and be concerned about it. He probably also relied on lax enforcement of the contract, and of forestry's true best practices, by the PA GC.

Even though the PA GC has stated that the purposes of the harvest were to salvage dying trees and to create feeding habitat for deer, after seeing the huge slash piles up there you have to ask yourself:

1. how are trees to be planted on this block, and how is any vegetation to grow there,

2. how is game--especially a large mammal, to traverse that block, and

3. how long will that fuel take to decompose, given its large size.

Given the current condition of this block, it is extremely difficult to see where the latter goal is being pursued, suggesting that the harvest was really pursued to generate revenue.

Further, the harvesting contract requires that the contractor not damage trees marked to remain, and to complete all terms of the contract before getting his bond back and being allowed to harvest any other blocks. A closer inspection of trees remaining on all these blocks reveals significant damage from the harvesting, in addition to the slash/fire hazard issue here. However, a PA GC officer stated Friday that they consider the contract closed and, ergo, the contractor is able to get his bond back and to trash and threaten some other shmuck's backyard.