Environmental Life Cycle Assessment of Southern Yellow Pine ...

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
As well as the direct disturbance to converted wetlands, these activities indirectly affect downstream
receiving water bodies and wetlands. Conversion of wetlands to forests leads to significant nutrient
loadings from the decomposition of dewatered coastal plains soils, with affected downstream biomes
including rivers, downstream freshwater wetlands, and coastal brackish wetlands. These indirect
effects have resulted in large areas of wetlands experiencing partial disturbance throughout the
Southeastern US, as wetlands are converted from one form to another (e.g., from forested
freshwater wetland to emergent wetland). These impacts have resulted in disturbance to the
hydrology of affected freshwater and wetland biomes over large areas. 25
While disturbance to wetlands is still ongoing, the majority of wetland conversion occurred in the
19 th and early 20 th century. From the 1780’s to the mid-­‐1980’s, Alabama lost between 50-­‐95% of its
wetlands, with Georgia and Florida losing as much as 50%. 26 The conversion to even-­‐aged plantation
stands was at its peak in the early 1900s, when ambitious attempts to drain and convert wetlands
were well underway. In the 1930's, the U.S. Government provided essentially free engineering
services to farmers to drain wetlands; in the 1940's, the Government continued to share the cost of
drainage projects. This included coordinated efforts to remove surface water from wetlands,
resulting in notable wetland losses between 1900 and 1950 in Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. 27
Even after this era of significant wetland conversion, until the mid-­‐1990s, the impacts of forestry on
wetlands were virtually unregulated. Activities such as earthmoving, planting, seeding, cultivating,
minor drainage, and harvesting, were exempt from regulation under Section 404 of the Clean Water
Act. 28 In the 1990s, state and federal government regulatory agencies began to provide guidance to
clarify circumstances where forestry operations required permitting under the Clean Water Act.
Permits were required, however, only in certain forested wetland types.
While large-­‐scale conversion rates of wetlands to forest management operations have declined in the
region since the first half of the 20 th century, the converted and disturbed wetlands are in a
persistently disturbed state; these impacts are still attributed to the wood utility pole system, due to
the historical nature of the baseline condition.
Additionally, disturbance is still occurring to wetlands as a result of silviculture. Some activities
associated with forest plantations that cause disturbance to freshwater biome and wetlands include:
site preparations and timber stand management practices that alter or eliminate site hydrology;
construction of forest roads required to access cut timber sites; installation of drainage ditches
through existing wetlands; bedding of sites; subsurface drainage; and levee construction, filling, and
channelization (see Table 5). 29
25 Personal correspondence, Steven I. Apfelbaum, Applied Ecological Services, Inc. Dated 3/22/3012, 4:13AM.
26 Dahl, T.E. and G.J. Allord. 1996. History of wetlands in the conterminous United States. In. J. D. Fretwell, J.S. Williams, and
P. J. Redman (compilers) National Water Summary on Wetland Resources. U.S. Geological Survey.
27 Ibid.
28 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Fisheries and Habitat Conservation: Status and Trends of Wetlands in the Conterminous
United States, 1987-­‐1998 (Report to Congress). T.E. Dahl.
29 Ibid.
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