WMNF Pond Brook Timber
Harvest
Finished After 3 Winters
Story and Pictures by Edith
Tucker, Berlin Reporter
March 30, 2011
Editors Note: The timber harvests described in this article were done along Primary Trail 109 with impacted sections of trail located in the Berlin (WMRR) trail system and in the Groveton (GTB) trail system. Many thanks to Serge Leveille who repaired trail damage last summer that was done during the 2009-2010 season. Also many thanks to the USFS and Lamont Trucking & Excavation for rebuilding a substantial portion of the WMRR trail north of Spruceville Road that will make a great base for that section of trail for many years to come.
STARK — Twenty-seven-year
old Berlin native Casey Leveille, now of North Conway, dragged the last marked
logs down to the landing with his cable skidder on Tuesday, March 22, on the
Pond Brook timber sale in the Kilkenny Unit of the White Mountain National
Forest (WMNF).
The clutch of white and yellow birch plus a couple of softwoods represent the
final haul on what has been a three-winter frozen ground harvest.
Casey’s dad, Serge Leveille of Berlin, a certified logger who owns and operates
the S.L. Logging Company of Berlin, has been working on this timber sale since
the winter of 2008-2009. He is a subcontractor for Cersosimo Lumber Co., Inc., a
thriving family-owned company in Brattleboro, Vt., now headed by a third
generation family member. Cersosimo, pronounced as four syllables —
“Sir-sos-i-mo” — is one of New England’s largest producer of high-quality
northeastern hardwood and Eastern white pine lumber.
Serge, a 1976 graduate of Plymouth State College with a degree in accounting,
enjoys his work in the woods and has never worked behind a desk, he explained.
His son, Casey, now works fulltime with him, and his stepson, Matt Dupont, works
three days a week, allowing the young man to study auto mechanics the other two
days at White Mountains Community College.
“My crane looks old, but it’s paid for, so I don’t have to keep it busy all the
time,” Serge explained. On this final day of work before pulling his machinery
and trailer off the landing, Serge operated his chainsaw, cutting the logs to
the correct length.
The log landing is on an old “borrow” or sandpit site on land that the U. S.
Forest Service acquired in the 1980s from Diamond International Corp. Pines were
planted to reclaim it. Three years ago, the USFS paid Lamont Trucking and
Excavation of Berlin to reconstruct the old Diamond woods roads.
Two Cersosimo subcontractors worked on this timber sale with cable skidders, the
other being Mike Dandeneau of Dummer who had already pulled his equipment off
the job.
The sale offered in June 2008 also included harvest units in the Rocky Pond area
off Spruceville Road.
It has produced 460,000 board feet, primarily of mixed hardwoods, as well as
1,405 cords of pulpwood and firewood, explained Androscoggin Ranger District
timber sales administrator Reg Gilbert of West Bethel, Me.
The sale followed the Environmental Assessment (EA) that was completed in May
2007, said Androscoggin District Ranger Katie Stuart of Shelburne.
A number of foresters planned and marked this timber sale, including Jeff
Williams, now Androscoggin Assistant District Ranger for forestry, Gail Wigler,
Steve Bumps, and Gilbert as well as forest technician Randy Harrington.
Cersosimo paid $186,760. Out of these funds, the USFS purchased a portable
bridge for $26,700 that it will retain for use on future timber sales across the
Forest. After all road costs were deducted, the sale netted $99,836 — nearly
$100,000.
Group selection techniques that opened up areas of one tenth-to one-acre in size
were done on 187 acres, and 10 acres were clear-cut. The town of Stark’s
treasury also came out ahead since Cersosimo has paid the state’s 10 percent
timber tax on the value of the harvested wood.
The project also included some carefully planned “value added” cutting,
including wildlife openings that will be permanently maintained by controlled
burns and 16 acres of pre-commercial thinning.
This year about 40 million board feet of logs and pulp are under contract on the
WMNF in 17 sales with a value of some $4 million. Seven timber harvests took
place this winter on the “Andro,” administrator Gilbert said.
In addition to visiting the Pond Brook log landing, Andro District Ranger Stuart
and Gilbert stopped at the Cersosimo concentration yard on the grounds of the
White Mountain Lumber Co. yard on Berlin’s East Side.
The Vermont-headquartered company’s northernmost log buyer-forester, Pete
Howland, was busy at work scaling hardwood logs, some of which came off both the
Pond Brook timber sale and the Lower Loop timber sale on the Kilkenny Loop Road.
Given the time of year when winter cuts are drawing to a close, Cersosimo now
has some half million board feet of hardwood logs in this yard, plus a few pine
logs, Howland said. Ninety percent of these logs were harvested in Coös, with
some from a cut in Jackson in Carroll County.
Howland, who has been in
the business for nearly four decades, keeps an eye on 10 subcontractors that
operate cable skidders and only one a cut-to-length system. Cersosimo’s White
Mountain concentration yard is one of five that it operates in northern New
England, along with three sawmills: one in Rumney, and two in Brattleboro, Vt.
It also has grading and milling facilities, kilns transportation facilities,
storage, gravel pits, and other enterprises. Cersosimo can saw three quarters of
a million board feet of lumber a week.
At tour’s end, the two USFS employees said they find the work they do deeply
satisfying. Although working for a large federal agency has its occasional
frustrations, both said it is gratifying to work on the multi-use WMNF where the
stewardship horizon is long and there are lots of opportunities to interact with
longtime area residents as well as shorter-term visitors.
This year, when the 100th anniversary of the Weeks Act of 1911 is being
celebrated, has given them — as well as area residents — a chance to reflect on
the many benefits that the nearly 800,000-acre WMNF provides.
Last Tuesday Berlin native Casey Leveille of North
Conway skidded out the last logs from a three-winter timber harvest on the Pond
Brook sale off Route 110 in the Kilkenny Unit of the White Mountain National
Forest in Stark. The logs are now in the Cersosimo concentration yard at White
Mountain Lumber in Berlin.
Serge
Leveille of Berlin, owner of the S.L. Logging Co., paused from operating his
chainsaw as a subcontractor for Vermont-based Cersosimo Lumber Co., at an
Androscoggin Ranger District timber sale on which he’s been working for three
winters in Stark.
Cersosimo Lumber Co. forester/log-buyer Pete Howland, left, interrupted his
scaling to chat at White Mountain Lumber Company yard in Berlin with timber
sales administrator Reg Gilbert and District Ranger Katie Stuart, both U. S.
Forest Service foresters on the WMNF’s Androscoggin Ranger District.