NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The city has set a public information session about controversial plans to log parts of the Notch Reservoir watershed. 

 

The forum will take place on Thursday at 6 p.m. in City Council Chambers at City Hall. It will include representatives from Mass Audubon, New England Forestry Foundation, and the Woodlands Partnership of Northwest Massachusetts, of which North Adams is a member. 

 

The city is set to implement a 2022 forest management plan around the reservoir to preserve its watershed, root out invasive species, promote sustainable growth and bring in some revenue. The 10-year plan apparently began as a way to improve culverts and stream crossings and it identifies key forest health threats and climate change risk factors in the 1,073-acre site.

 

However, the Conservation Commission in July balked at plans to eradicate invasives through the use of chemical means and sharply questioned how access into the site would affect crossing streams and entry by prohibited vehicles. Nearly a dozen residents attended an August meeting of the commission to express opposition to the forest management plan, questioning the active need to "manage" the forestland and how the plan would affect the forest, trails and reservoir.

 

Opponents organized as "Save Notch Forest Coalition" and started a petition on Change.org signed by more than a thousand people calling on Mayor Jennifer Macksey to halt the application and that a public meeting be held to better inform residents of what is happening. 

 

According to the plan, the "greatest health concern" is the dense canopy and lack of regeneration west of Notch Brook as that area has not been harvested in three decades. This is in contrast to the more recently logged eastern side.

 

"Periodic timber harvesting in the future will focus on increasing the health of the forest by improving tree species and age class diversity, promoting biological diversity, and taking the necessary conservation measures for a clean water supply to the watershed," according to the plan. 

 

A communication from the mayor's office announcing the public forum says "each management practice was carefully selected for each unique section of the forest (each 'stand') with goals to ensure the future forest has improved biodiversity, climate change resilience, and ability to produce valuable local wood products that can substitute for fossil fuel-based products and support the local economy."

 

Michaela Lee, a coalition member, said from their research this will be a "high grading" timber harvest practice to take out the very mature, more expensive trees. Their concern is it will become a "tree farm" that will affect the Bellows Pipe Trail, the wildlife and the water quality. 

 

"The damage that it could cause is just not worth it, in our opinion, and the many opinions of the professionals that we have reached out to," she said recently. 

 

"These woods mean a lot to me. ... it's so important to me that I'm willing to fight as much as I can and just keep repeating everything until something happens."

 

A project summary, plans, maps and a list of FAQs can be found here.