The McNeil Harvest Map uses publicly-available harvest notifications submitted by Burlington Electric Department to the VT Fish and Wildlife Department to show all of the 300+ timber harvests done in Vermont between 2020-2022 for the McNeil plant. At present, the map does not include harvests coming to McNeil from New York, which amount to a majority of all wood burned at the plant.
This map is a resource to show the extent of the logging taking place for the McNeil plant, and to make it easier for folks to visit harvest sites if they wish (see below on this page). The equivalent of 16% of all timber harvested in the state is burned at McNeil, making this single, relatively small power station the largest consumer of wood in Vermont (2023 IRP, appendix B). The map is not intended to single out landowners, foresters or loggers who are involved in sending wood to McNeil; rather, it gives an overall sense of the extent and type of logging needed to fuel Vermont's most polluting facility and allows folks to see the logging for themselves.
Check out the web version below, or download Google Earth desktop (free) and load the more detailed Google Earth version, which includes overlays showing individual stands and property lines for each harvest, and in many cases allows a 'before' and 'after' view of the harvest by changing the transparency of the overlay map. The more detailed Google Earth map is available for download here.
Reading the Map
This map was created by compiling information from harvest notifications obtained in a public records request from the VT Fish and Wildlife Department. If you'd like more information on any of the harvests, you can access the full harvest notifications here, including 2023 harvests which aren't yet loaded onto the map.
Purple pins denote sites where land was permanently cleared for development, while red pins denote places where the forest will presumably be allowed to regrow after harvest. Up to 10% of all the wood going to McNeil comes from land that is permanently cleared, belying the claim that McNeil helps prevent land from being converted to non-forest uses. Many of the harvest areas are enrolled in Vermont's Use Value Appraisal program ("current use"), and map entries note whether this is the case.
The map includes any site that sent timber to McNeil from 2020-2022 — it does not imply that all the timber for a given operation went to McNeil. This is the case because neither Burlington Electric nor the Fish and Wildlife Department tracks how much timber arrives at McNeil from a given operation, only whether an operation sent any wood to McNeil. The harvest notifications, however, give some clues to how much wood from that site went to McNeil — for land clearing operations and stands that are described as "cull" or low-quality, it's reasonable to assume that much or all of the wood is going to McNeil, while any trees described as "sawtimber" or "higher-quality" likely go to another buyer.
Map dates list the earliest possible dates for the harvest, though some harvests are delayed or take multiple years to complete. Winter harvests are labeled with the year that began during that winter— e.g. "Winter 2021" refers to December 2020-March 2021.
Some harvest notifications were combined when there were multiple harvests planned for the same property within the 2020-2022 timeframe that we looked at. Beyond that, all information in the map entries is quoted directly from the harvest notifications, with occasional notes added for explanation.
This document by Massachusetts Forest Watch explains timberspeak terms — "shelterwood," "group selection," etc — used in the harvest notifications to describe logging operations. The harvest notifications also define some timberspeak terms, as in the M&L timberlands (Moretown) notification, which describes “overstory removal” as the cutting of “all stems over 6” in diameter of all species” or “all stems over 7” in diameter of all species” depending on the stand.
Takeaways from the Map — Notable Patterns and Harvests
The harvest notifications use nonsensical language and ‘timberspeak’ to obscure the fact that there are often no clear reasons besides timber production why logging takes place. “Regeneration” is a euphemism for cutting, and it is implied that regeneration would not happen properly without logging. The examples below are reproduced as fully as possible from the harvest notifications:
Spruce Lodge, Lincoln: “This stand is mature and will be regenerated through clear-cut and allowed to regenerate naturally.”
Palmer, Belvidere: “This area will be regenerated through clear-cut.”
Mark Brothers, Brandon: “The current stand does not contain sufficient quality to warrant continued management. As any partial treatment would leave residual stems at high risk of wind-throw, the stand will be clear-cut at this time to initiate the regeneration of the site.”
The practice of forestry makes its value judgments based on economics and production more than ecological health.
Many harvest notifications describe stands as “high” or “low” quality, and, as a site description from Hinesburg (Ulager, 2020) makes clear, these valuations are based on a site’s potential to produce profitable timber, not its significance for ecological health: “Former agricultural land abandoned from use in the mid 1960’s. No evidence of treatment since establishment. Quality is poor with less than 30% of the stocking suitable for sawtimber production.”
Likewise, judgements of a stand being “mature” or “over-mature” are based on a stand’s potential for timber production, not its ecological value. One gets the impression that a tree dying a natural death is a foresters’ worst nightmare, as in the Easton Estates, Starksboro, notification: “Cutting does not appear to have been completed within the last 30 years. As such, much of the timber is over mature and appears to have stagnated. Regeneration is generally lacking.”
McNeil harvests are often “salvage” operations used to extract some value from trees that experienced a natural disturbance like windthrow. Many harvests were prescribed soon after the December 2022 wind event, calling for areas affected by wind to “essentially be clear-cut” (U32, East Montpelier) or for “all remaining trees” to be harvested (Four Hills Farm, Brandon). This is despite the fact that Northeast forests are dramatically lacking in deadwood compared to natural conditions, and that the ‘regeneration’ of a site happens naturally when trees are not harvested.
Some harvest notifications can’t help but note the beneficial regeneration that happens if trees are left to experience windthrow and die natural deaths, as in Dodge, Brandon: “Very poor quality stand which developed from former agricultural land less than 60 years ago with no evidence of treatment since establishment…Canopy gaps created by past mortality are occupied by advanced hardwood regeneration consisting of sugar maple, ash, black birch and beech.”
The only harvests to be rejected by the Fish and Wildlife Department were done so on the grounds that they threatened Deer Wintering Areas (DWA). BED commonly refers to the Acceptable Management Practices and other standards they have to meet for their Vermont harvests, but these standards are not a comprehensive ecological review. They do not analyze increased flood risk, losses of stored carbon, or make any judgment on whether the surrounding ecosystem would be better served by harvesting less or no timber. The fact that Deer Wintering Habitat was the only reason state biologists rejected BED harvests is a testament to how incomplete state regulations governing timber harvests are.
Harvest notifications sometimes explicitly prescribe more logging to solve problems caused by previous logging. In one example (Laraway Mountain Partnership, 2020), the notification described an infestation of tent caterpillars caused by a previous harvest, which necessitated more trees to be cut four years later: “This area was harvested in 2016 under an approved chip harvest plan (approved 12/11/15). Subsequently, a portion of the area was heavily damaged by forest tent caterpillar, resulting in severe decline and mortality. The management plan has been amended to salvage declining stems through a seed tree harvest.” Tent caterpillars prefer sunny areas like those created by logging, and another notification (Peaceful Ridge, 2022) describes this relationship: “Forest tent defoliation tends to last 3 to 4 years. The State of Vermont is not advising thinning in stands that have seen heavy defoliation. Logging or thinning concentrates the damage to the remaining trees in the residual stand. A combination of an insect defoliation with a significant drought could result in tree mortality.”
Some harvests, like St. Pierre (Berkshire) and Courchaine (Johnson) were undertaken specifically to increase browse for deer. This is despite the fact that forest ecologists warn of the overabundance of deer in the northeast, whose browsing stunts natural forest regeneration and skews the distribution of species towards unpalatable ones.
McNeil harvests play a role in the continued development of Vermont forestland and its conversion to non-forest uses. Particularly, the harvest notifications show a pattern of forests being chipped to clear land for isolated single family homes, and forest being “reclaimed” for industrial dairy agriculture. There were no clear instances when McNeil harvests were involved in opening up land for multi-unit and/or affordable housing.
The Coons (Starksboro) notification even suggested that McNeil’s existence improves the economics of converting forestland to other uses: “This project involves the clearing of approximately 1 acre for the development of a house site (1A on the attached map) and a light improvement thinning on the remainder of the parcel to remove hazard trees and help with the economics of the clearing project.”
The Middlesex property of Vermont’s long-time senior Senator (Leahy, 168 acres) was cut in 2020. Fish and Wildlife biologists cautioned that one of the group selection harvests — 33% of the whole stand — was a bit heavy handed and worried about harming deer wintering habitat with a hemlock harvest, but approved the cutting anyways. This land is near a large block of unlogged state land in the Worcester range, making it a great piece of habitat to leave undisturbed. Leahy directed millions of federal dollars to the McNeil district energy project, so perhaps it is unsurprising that he has a personal financial stake in the plant’s continued operation.
Visiting Sites
This map makes it easier to visit recent harvests to see their impacts on the forest. Vermont law allows public access to private land as long as the land is not posted and registered with the town clerk. Be respectful, do not interrupt an active logging job, and listen to landowners if they ask you to leave.
You are welcome to share photos from site visits with Stop VT Biomass at stopvtbiomass@gmail.com.