Mobile County Public Schools Look To Harvest More Timber

By Chad Petri Reporter

Mobile School officials are increasing timber production on land the district owns. They say this is more profitable than selling the property. Mobile County Public Schools Look To Harvest More Timber

Published: Fri, July 25, 2008 - 2:59 am Last Updated: Mon, July 28, 2008 - 11:45 am

Chad Petri

Chainsaws are buzzing in a forest owned by the Mobile County Public School District. In an era of budget cuts more tree cutting could help.

“Between the ’07, ‘08 and ‘08 and ‘09 physical year we're going to try to accelerate those two years in cuttings to generate an additional $800,000 dollars,” says Executive Manager of Facilities and Land Tommy Sheffield. Mobile County Public Schools are one of the few districts in the state to have this kind of operation. Sheffield says decades ago, every county in Alabama was subdivided into several 16 part sections. The school board got 1/16th of every plot. While many counties sold their land over the years, Mobile officials have held on to 22-thousand acres. Most of it's devoted to timber.

“Go out, cruise it take another assessment of what we got, and just fine tune everything,” says Forestry Land Manager Shaun Goolsby. Mobile officials manage the land and bid work out to timber contractors. This is a thinning operation; they take the small trees away so the larger ones can grow more.

“It'll give them more room to grow they'll grow at a faster rate, get more sunlight and nutrients,” says Goolsby. “They'll bare more cones which is natural regeneration.” School officials say they make more money holding on to the land than selling it.

“Taxpayers would say 'you own all this property we know the property values, sell it!' well, we don't get the money. If we sell it, it goes to state trust and we get a dividend off that trust that's pennies to the dollar,” says Sheffield.