We’re all used to seeing accounts of clear-cutting in forests, and to the erosion problems that can result. We’re familiar, too, with the arguments for the benefits of some logging; depending on the conditions, even the US Forest Service sometimes increases what it allows to be cut and sold in certain areas. What’s unusual, though, is to see clear-cutting happening in the middle of a city.
South Knoxville, Tennessee, has cited a logging company for stripping trees from two hillsides within the city limits. Although urban logging is legal—on undeveloped land, a quarter of the trees can be cut within a five-year period—there were complaints that the ridges of the hills were completely bare, that the lumber company was operating with no site plan, and that sediment from the logged sites was flowing into local creeks. Yet the most recent “stump count,” conducted in January after the city ordered the cutting stopped, showed that just over 20% of the standing trees had been taken, well within the allowed limit. Work resumed, but the city issued another stop-work order last week. The lumber company is working to resolve the violations and is now replanting the areas that have been cleared.