A controversial plan to cut 52 acres of pine trees in the Manuel F. Correllus state forest has no anticipated start date more than a year after it was approved.
Though the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, which owns the 5,300-acre forest in the middle of the Island, said it is committed to the cutting, the state agency can’t find anyone to swing the axe.
DCR put the project out to bid in January, but the plan was stymied when only one bidder came in well over the state’s budget. DCR undertook a second request for proposals later in the year, but when the deadline came on Sept. 18, no one had bid on a project, a spokesperson said last week.
DCR is now evaluating options to move the project forward. The agency said in a statement that it remains dedicated to the overarching goal of cutting 175 acres of white pines, a requirement under a previous permit the state granted in 2001.
The plan to chop the trees in the southeastern part of the forest has been met with both approval and resistance on the Island. Local fire chiefs and many ecologists and conservation groups have backed the plan, saying it will increase biodiversity and cut back on the chance of a large-scale fires. Others argued the Island should protect its trees and questioned if the project should go through another layer of environmental review.
The white pines were planted in decades past as part of an effort to establish a lumber industry on Martha’s Vineyard. But when lumbering didn’t pan out, the trees took root in that corner of the forest and have grown so thick that it is hard for other species to survive there.
DCR has planned on restoring the area to a sandplain grassland. That type of habitat, which consists of short grass and shrubs, is increasingly disappearing, and the Vineyard’s sandplains are some of the few left in the world, officials have said.
DCR’s plan was to have a forestry company cut an initial 12 acres to test out the strategy, before moving on to another 40 acres. Then a second phase of cutting would then come after.
DCR is required to remove about 175 acres of trees at the behest of the state Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program. The latter state agency required the removal of the plantation to make up for past fire lane clearings in the forest.
The previous lone bid for the work was $1.1 million, which the state said far exceeded the budget.
If the work does happen, the cutting is estimated to produce 2,600 tons of wood chips, and there have been proposals to send some of the wood to local sawmills.