CONCORD, N.H. (AP) – A record-high amount of timber taxes paid to Coos County this year – more than double last year’s revenues – is fueling concerns about heavy logging by new landowners in the North Country.

At the same time, timberland owners and environmentalists have split over how to study the pace of logging in the region and the wood supply for industry – a dispute that spilled over into their fundraising.

Jasen Stock, executive director of the New Hampshire Timberland Owners Association, cautioned that this year’s increase in timber taxes is due to higher wood prices and better marketing by new landowners. Also, because a lot of land was changing hands last year, harvesting in some areas was limited.

“We now have markets that can take a spruce log down to 3 to 4 inches in diameter and sell that as a saw log … whereas before that might have just gotten thrown into a pulp mill,” Stock said Wednesday.

Still, the $561,111 in taxes for the 2004-2005 logging season, which ended March 31, dwarfed last year’s total of $228,199. The county taxes are based on the value of wood cut in the unincorporated areas.

Bayroot LLC, an unknown investor whose lands are managed by Wagner Forest Management Ltd. of Lyme, paid the most: $187,461, including $117,045 for a single operation in Millsfield.

The largest single operation and the second-largest total was in Success, where Thomas and Scott Dillon of Anson, Maine, paid $159,924. Plum Creek Timber Co., of Seattle, had the third-highest total, paying $106,089 for cuts in Cambridge and Wentworth’s Location.

All three are new owners who bought their land in late 2003 or 2004.

The Dillons’ commercial clearcutting on part of their 22,500-acre parcel in Success has been a lightning rod for controversy over whether heavy logging in the North Country threatens future wood supplies for the state’s forest products industry, primarily lumber and paper mills and wood-fired power plants.

That controversy led the New Hampshire Timberland Owners Association and the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests to announce six months ago they would cooperate on a study of North Country logging.

One of the study’s stated goals was to examine current and past rates of timber harvesting and tree growth, according to the groups’ Feb. 1 news release. The other was to look at the long-term wood supply for industry.

But last week, just as the county released its timber tax revenues, the Timberland Owners and Forest Society acknowledged a disagreement over the research – and a dispute over fundraising.

The Forest Society wants to use available aerial photos and satellite images to examine the pace of timber harvesting in the North Country over the past few years. The Timberland Owners oppose that approach – and said so in a letter to prospective Forest Society donors.

“Unfortunately, that is true,” Niebling told the Berlin Daily Sun last week. Instead, Dartmouth College will work with the Forest Society on an aerial study. Niebling was on vacation and could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Stock said Wednesday his group is wary of aerial photos because they require extensive, on-the-ground verification.

“The problem with aerial photography and satellite imagery is it’s a snapshot,” he said. “Your imagery shows you a clearcut … but it doesn’t show you what was on the ground before the clearcut” or whether the clearcut was good forestry.

The two groups still plan to collaborate on a wood flow study, and both are soliciting grants and donations to pay for it. Ted Howard, professor of Forestry Economics at the University of New Hampshire, will help them draft a study design and bid request.

The key questions, said Howard, are: “Do we, or do we not, have a sustainable wood supply for the wood-using industry of New Hampshire? How do we maintain inventories and flows of products in the face of changing land use?”

The joint study probably will look at timber tax revenues, U.S. Forest Service timber inventory data and a recent wood flow analysis by the North East State Foresters Association, Stock said.

AP-ES-07-20-05 1630EDT