Brian Griffiths: Pittman is the wrong messenger on forest conservation

This Monday the Anne Arundel County Council will vote on a forestry bill that will reform how trees are cleared in the country. County Executive Steuart Pittman is the proponent of this bill, but he’s the wrong messenger for this bill.

The bill increases the fee-in-lieu for most projects from either 40 cents or 50 cents per square foot (the current cost is dependant on if the land is in a priority funding area) to $1.25 per square foot outside of critical funding areas. That’s a significant leap in costs. Furthermore, the bill increases the cost of clearing forests in violation of the forest conservative law at an additional $1.25 per square foot. And these costs are reduced from Pittman’s original proposal of $3.00 per square foot.

There are several reasons why Pittman’s advocacy is problematic.

First, a significant chunk of forest was cleared without a permit on Dodon Farm in 2010, the farm owned by the Dodon Family Trust. The Dodon Family Trust is headed by the mother of Steuart Pittman.

In a complaint filed with Anne Arundel County in 2010, the land at 420 Dodon Road in Davidsonville had 7.8 acres logged without a permit. On top of that, the Maryland Department of the Environment found not only improper logging but that during the logging tree stumps were cleaned and the resulting debris was pushed toward a sensitive stream. Ultimately, a civil citation was issued on the property for all of these logging shenanigans. All on Dodon Family Trust land.

A photo exists of what the land looks like pre-and-post logging. And it appears that the forest was cleared to allow for the creation of The Vineyards at Dodon. Hardly a good reason to clear 7.8 acres of forest given Steuart Pittman’s righteous indignation over forest conservation and logging.

Second is the fact that the Pittman administration’s numbers are in question. There is conflicting data about the numbers provided by the county Director of Environmental Policy Matthew Johnson to the County Council. Data provided by the Chesapeake Conservancy shows variances in how much tree canopy coverage was lost over the course of the last ten years. It would seem imprudent to provide only a cherry-picked section of data on this important bill.

Finally, there’s a question as to whether or not we’re losing forests at all. Data available on the county website shows that National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System data submitted to the Federal Government by Anne Arundel County via the Maryland Department of the Environment showed a net increase of the acreage of trees on county and private land and a net decrease on federal and state land from 2012-2018.

We’ve got more forests now than we did seven years ago. What losses there were during that time period would have been unaffected by this bill because net losses were on federal and state land that is outside of the county’s purview. That’s not insignificant.

Weirdly, the Pittman administration tries to explain this away by saying that their analysis is based on more reliable measuring from environmental interest groups.

Many people can get behind the idea of forest conservation and not clear-cutting trees just for the sake of doing it. But a bill that more than doubles fees to clear forest may not be the solution, especially given the fact that we’ve increased our forest coverage.

But it’s clear the Pittman administration is not playing straight with the voters or the County Council. Steuart Pittman owes both the County Council and the people of Anne Arundel County an explanation.

Brian Griffiths is the editor of RedMaryland.com, a conservative political commentary website. He lives in Pasadena.