By MAUREEN PICHÉ

HANNAWA FALLS – Responding to concerns by neighbors, a county forester says there are no plans to clear-cut county-owned woods enjoyed primarily by residents along the River Road adjacent to Postwood Park.

Aaron Earl, St. Lawrence County Soil & Water Conservation District Forester, said he recently received several phone calls from residents concerned that the county was in the process of clearing out the woods and planned to sell all the lumber.

However, the county has hired loggers to carry out a typical harvest or thinning of hand-selected trees as part of forest management, he said.

“When the logger went in to clear the landing from which he would be operating the harvest, one person saw this and thought it was a clear cut,” Earl said. “That was not the case.”

The forested land sits between Postwood Park and the Birch Road cul-de-sac. A small group of residents there has access to it, using paths to walk, bicycle and cross-country ski.

Earl said while the county does occasionally clear cut woods they own, there are no plans to do so in this high-use stand know as Area 30. The carefully followed county forest management plan instead helps maintain a park-like forest that is safe for people to use, with older, potentially dangerous trees removed to allow for new growth, he said.

“We could let nature do it. If we don’t thin them, they’ll eventually do it on their own, but it will be a much longer process,” he said. “We’re taking out trees before they lose their value, and we’re making room for new ones.”

He explained county foresters go into county-owned stands and manually mark the trees to be thinned out based on their financial viability and the impact their removal would have on the remaining growth.

The county then creates a list of trees and sends it to loggers for bids. Loggers estimate how much they might earn from selling the harvested trees and then bid slightly below that to make a profit. The winning bidder pays the county for the right to cut and take the trees.

But Earl said profit isn’t the county’s biggest priority when it comes to forestry.

“It’s not so much a matter of money but improving the stand,” he said.

During the harvest, Earl stressed that the public should stay out of the woods to avoid possible injury.

He noted because of the weather, the harvesting in Area 30 had to be halted until the spring.