State forest agency urges expanding disaster relief to include sawmills and secondary processors

Oliver Pearson, director of forests at the Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation, told the House Agriculture, Food Resiliency & Forestry Committee that "the forest product sector experienced large financial losses from the 2023 and 2024 floods." He said the department supports including "forestry operations" in the relief fund language of Senate Bill 60 but urged the committee to broaden the statutory definition to cover additional business types.

The department's forest economy program manager, Catherine, presented survey results the agency collected after the July 2023 and July 2024 flood events. Catherine said the 2023 survey drew 90 respondents and produced a conservative estimated baseline of about $2,800,000 in direct financial losses; she cited survey design choices (binned loss categories) and incomplete coverage of affected businesses as reasons the figure should be treated as a minimum. For the 2024 event the agency received about 250 responses and said 110 reported significant losses, with the greatest county-level impacts reported in Essex, Orleans and Caledonia.

Why it matters: committee members are considering whether the Farm Security Special Fund (the statute and program named in the bill) should be amended to explicitly allow payments to more kinds of forestry-related businesses. Expanding the defined scope will change how the state prioritizes limited disaster-relief dollars and which business categories can apply for rapid assistance.

Key details and department recommendations

- Definition issue: Pearson said the statutory definition of "forestry operations" in Title 10 (the state statute cited by witnesses) currently covers on-site logging and on-site processing but does not capture many traditional sawmills and secondary processing facilities that reported damage and business interruption. He recommended the committee consider expanding the definition to include sawmills and secondary processors.

- Types of losses: Catherine and other agency staff said the most common impacts reported were business interruption and infrastructure damage (roads, culverts and bridges). Many respondents reported inability to access sites or to operate safely, leading to payroll and operating costs while revenue declined. The department emphasized it reported only direct losses and did not calculate indirect multiplier effects.

- Insurance and federal programs: Catherine reported that standing-timber insurance is rare in the region and that business-interruption coverage was also uncommon among respondents. The Farm Service Agency's Emergency Forest Restoration Program (a federal program administered through local FSA/NRCS offices) supports restoration of damaged forest infrastructure; the department said roughly 50 landowners filed administratively complete applications after 2023 and about 30 did so after 2024 and that those applications are being processed.

- Takeaways for the bill: the department suggested (1) adding forestry operations to the eligible recipients of the Farm Security Special Fund, (2) including the term "regeneration" among eligible activities so replanting/regeneration work is explicitly covered, and (3) designating the Commissioner of Forests, Parks and Recreation or the commissioner's designee as a member of the Farm and Forestry Operations Security Special Fund review board (or considering whether an existing board such as the Working Lands Enterprise Board could perform the review role instead of creating a new body).

Committee concerns and context

Representatives warned against making the fund so broad that it would exceed available state resources; Representative Lipsky said the intent was to cover direct forestry impacts such as damaged logging roads and culverts, not every downstream business effect. Committee members discussed trade-offs between covering timber-owner losses (including standing timber that lost value) and limiting the fund to immediate operational and infrastructure damages.

The department cautioned the committee the surveys are conservative, do not capture all affected businesses, and therefore the dollar totals are minimum estimates. Agency staff also noted that a minority of affected contractors applied for any assistance and that frequently available disaster programs emphasize physical infrastructure rather than business-interruption losses, which accounted for much of the reported harm.

Next steps

Witnesses said they would be available to advise drafting language to clarify eligible activities and membership of the review board and to consider whether existing state entities could handle administration. The committee did not take formal action during the session; committee members said they planned further consideration during later discussion of Senate Bill 60.