AUBURN – A property line disagreement has temporarily halted a Lake Auburn logging project.

Loggers for the Lake Auburn Watershed Protection District mistakenly cut down a tree on a neighbor’s private lot Sunday afternoon.

“There was a conflict, and we shut down the job until we can get it figured out,” said Norm Lamie, superintendent of the Auburn Water District.

Lamie said the district performs regular timber harvesting on the land it owns around Lake Auburn. The district hires private foresters for selective harvesting every few years.

“You have to do some thinning every so often to maintain healthy growth, and that helps the watershed stay clean,” Lamie said.

“They don’t take a lot of trees, and we don’t expect to make much money off of it.”

Lamie said foresters were working in an area east of Lake Auburn and south of Church Street on Sunday when they mistakenly cut a tree at 1470 Turner St., where the water district shares a 1,060-foot property line with Daniel Stearns.

When Stearns confronted the forester, he stopped work right away, Lamie said. The cutting is on hold indefinitely.

“That property line is so long, we need to get out and re-survey and make sure we’re cutting in the right places,” Lamie said.

Stearns could not be reached for comment this week.