House Natural Resources & Environment Committee, January 29, 2026

Transcript

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1. 0:14:58

   Good morning, every- Good morning, everyone.

2. 0:15:06

   Good morning.

3. 0:15:07

   We'll go ahead and get started. To those who are tracking this meeting, we have a lot of meetings going on right now. We, um, one of the ones that, um, engages a lot of our members right now is Appropriations Committee. So, um, we'll get started in just a minute. I think the committee's here. So, representative, if you'll go ahead and open us with a prayer.

4. 0:15:35

   Let's pray. Heavenly Father, just thank this day, Lord. I just wanna come to you and just thank you for everything that you have blessed us with each and every day. Lord, I just wanna ask you to be with our families as we're away to doing the state's business and representing the industry that we represent. And Lord, if you will, just bless all the ones and keep them safe within their travels as we head home today or tomorrow. And Lord, I just wanna thank you again for all your great blessings. In your name, we pray. Amen.

5. 0:15:57

   Amen. All right.

6. 0:16:01

   So, um, we have a substitute assistant for me, and she's not left yet, so we'll see if she hangs with me all s- all this meeting. But thank you, Amber, and thank you for being here today. So this morning, what we're gonna do is do a, what I call a deep dive into the issues with forestry in the state of Georgia. We know we had Hurricane Helene a couple years ago. We, um, have watched our state deal with the failed timber and such as that. But, um, we need an update now on how the state will, um, respond to some of the different issues.

7. 0:16:38

   One of our worries is the potential of a drought. One of the big worries with forestry right now are, are fires. So, um, this is an educational type meeting for us. And if, uh, Commissioner Sabo will come on up, and the floor is yours.

8. 0:16:57

   Thank you. And is it okay if I stand here, or would you like me up front?

9. 0:16:59

   You can stand there. It's fine.

10. 0:17:01

    Thank you. Well, good morning, committee. I appreciate the opportunity to be here to talk about forestry. So, uh, yeah, one, one of my passions, so any chance I get to brag on forestry, just whether it's us, private industry, I'm always happy to take that opportunity. Um, I believe I know just about everybody in here, but if, if I haven't met you, my name's Johnny Sabo, and, and I do have the honor of serving as director for the Georgia Forestry Commission. Um, one thing I always like to put out first, a- and I will for every presentation because I believe this plays into who we are and what we're able to accomplish as a team together, is, is our, our mission, vision, and core values.

11. 0:17:36

    Um, especially the core values and, and that using facts to drive our decisions. And that becomes really important in, in the forest industry and where we are today after Helene, mill closures, the wildfire threats that we're currently facing, and just, just, you know, where we are. There's a, there's a lot of emotions that run around, and y'all know that. You see it on the news every day. So when we back down and we use facts to drive our decisions, becomes really important. One of the highlights, some just key performance indicators, and, and this is a little busy, and for that, I apologize.

12. 0:18:07

    Um, but I'll just speak to a few of them. We'll start over in forest protection. The first number there, the 2,100 wildfires for 11- 11,000 acres. That's a 5.1 acre average. Um, so although with the increased threat of wildfires, you know, the support that we've received from, from you for the equipment that we need, you know, to be able to, to, um, have low turnover, and I'll, I'll speak to that in just a minute, we're really able to be aggressive in our fire suppression. And that 5.1 acre average, I, I'll tell you, that's a, uh, that's quite an accomplishment.

13. 0:18:41

    Um, to put in perspective, there's some federal partners where their average is 50 acres plus, some of them 120 acres per fire, right? So 5.1 acres is, is quite an achievement and could not be more proud of that fact. Um, and I framed that up a little bit differently. The governor mentioned last year in 2025, we had over 4,000 wildfires in the state. And when we look at that for how many forested acres we have, we kept it to less than a tenth of a percent of our forested acres in the state.

14. 0:19:11

    And so that just, just really aggressive, just good work by our team. And once again, just al- always proud of them. Couldn't, you know, like to brag on them. Um, forest management, two things I wanted to point out in, in there. One, our foresters been really busy, but I'll, I'll, I'll speak about them a little bit more, um, in a few slides. But something that we heard a lot of concern with after Helene was, was southern pine beetle, Ips beetles, different causes of just, let's call it insult to injury. After, after the hurricane, what standing timber we had left, you know, we didn't want it destroyed by beetles.

15. 0:19:46

    One thing that we did know is traditionally after hurricanes, it's not southern pine beetles. It's not the bad beetle, if you will, that moves in. But the state was already dealing with enough of it, especially in the north end of the state. Um, 2024, it was almost completely surrounding the, the western side of Atlanta. And so proud to say that those, those spots are down 75%. Uh, we put a huge focus on that, put additional traps out just to monitor, work with landowners who stayed really engaged with southern pine beetle and Ips beetles issues. Uh, the other one, when we talk about, uh, what our forests provide for water quality, proud to report that we had a, a 96.7 implementation rate for BMPs.

16. 0:20:26

    And essentially what that means is it, it's a voluntary practice by, by loggers and forest landowners. You know, when they are ha- harvesting timber, doing stream crossings, our people putting in fire lines, and, and those, those best management practices are there to protect our state's water quality. And so just outstanding work by the, the Master Loggers group, forest industry, and, and everybody involved in that process. I mentioned turnover. We are running 5.6% turnover within the agency. That was our, those are our current numbers.

17. 0:20:58

    And if I back out retirement, we're at 3.6%. And that is just- To me, that's outstanding. Um, and it's gonna be really crucial when we start looking at our wildfire threat this spring and, and what may be coming ahead, is to get people on consistent, consistently trained. And you just, you can't accomplish that with a high turnover. So one, I wanna thank you for everything that you've done for the Forestry Commission in, in helping us achieve that goal. Uh, the other one that I will point out for the, the last box here is the protect what matters. So that's been our focus of the year.

18. 0:21:29

    Every year we have a little bit different theme internally, and that protect what matters, it's, you know, safety, readiness, uh, service, morale, and wellness. That really points to each individual. So that's, that's my focus, that's my charge to my, my executive leadership team, is we are there to serve our employees, and we, you know, that, that is our goal. We serve them so that they can serve the public, and that's how we do that. For us, what matters is our employees, and that way our employees can go serve the public.

19. 0:22:00

    Georgia Forestry Task Force. I, I, I'm pretty sure everybody received a copy of the... Yep, good deal. Um, I'll spend a little time on this one. I've, I've covered it some, but I just kinda getting to how the sausage was made, if you will, and got to speak about this a little bit yesterday, um, with the Senate Ag Committee. But when we look at the, the forest industry and new and emerging markets and, you know, different things, there's a lot of ideas flying around. There's a lot of emotions and there, and there's a lot of hard times, um, unfortunately. You know, when we think about loggers, you know, numbers look like there's anywhere from 100 to 120 logging crews, you know, that are, that will be going out of business just with the amount of wood that came off the market.

20. 0:22:40

    And there, there's no easy way around that. There's no shortcut, no silver bullet. But I am very optimistic. One, number one s- state to do business, right? Great infrastructure, great ports. Um, we have the wood here. When we talk about sustainability, I, I think a really good indication is that the mill in Savannah was there for 90 years. And 90 years, we never ran out of wood, and as a matter of fact, we have more wood in that basin today than we did 90 years ago. So that's just one location that's really pulling from a, a half circle, if you will, right? It's not like we're grabbing wood from, from out in the Atlantic.

21. 0:23:12

    So when we look at sustainability, our genetics, the ability to, to have wood, it is here. Everything's here and primed and ready to go. Uh, before the mill closures, South Georgia especially was kind of a stop sign for new industry because the input costs were so high. The, the price of pulpwood, the price of saw timbers was, was elevated, I mean, was higher than anywhere else in the Southeast. So even if we were trying to attract industry, that wasn't a place they would want to go. Now it's, uh, it's open for business, right? You have the workers, the infrastructure, everything else you need.

22. 0:23:44

    So, so how do we get in front of that line? How do we get in front of, of Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, all these states, this South Carolina that's been competing for industry several years before us? Well, to me, that really starts with the Georgia Grown project, and, and how do we, how do we show off, how do we tell what we have? So the Georgia Grown Wood project, that's really what it's focused on, the phase two, and partnering with economic development and just really telling our story. Um, the mass timber facility, there is a company, a, an Atlanta-based company that actually built a mass timber, and when I say facility, I mean, like, to produce mass timber itself on the West Coast.

23. 0:24:27

    So there's a very clear path to build one here in Georgia to use up dimensional lumber to build mass timber, but we just don't have the market demand for it. I can tell you Forestry Commission has 101 offices. I have probably 30, 36 or 37 that need to be replaced today. And then we start looking at other uses like, y- you know, Department of Natural Resources or others where that may fit. If the state starts getting into building mass timber, and I'll say the Georgia Forestry Association and Foundation's been doing a lot of good work, there's a lot of private investment going into that as well, then we start finding other markets for our dimensional lumber.

24. 0:25:00

    So that, that shores up our saw timber industry, 'cause we can't afford to lose anything else. And then the last part, and the most important one, is probably the, the small diameter wood, and that's, that's the markets that we lost. And I feel pretty confident everybody's heard of sustainable aviation fuel and these, and different uses for this wood. And there's something that I think is really important that gets missed a lot, and that's the renewable fuel standards, and that is a federal level issue. And essentially it, it, it ensures that nobody will be able to take round wood from their property to go and to make anything that's gonna replace a fuel, to replace a petroleum-based sub- uh, subsidy, not subsidy, sorry, s- petroleum-based product.

25. 0:25:41

    And so we can reuse residuals from the saw mills, we can use a lot of things, and I do think there's a great market there, but that's not gonna replace the pulp and paper industry that we lost. Not, not unless we could change federal standards. So I would rather hedge my bets on us here in Georgia and the folks at Georgia Tech and what we can control and, and what maybe, maybe doesn't have quite the, uh, reins tightened on it. So that's where the Georgia Forestry Innovation Initiative comes in, and it's really looking to replace historically petroleum-based products like pharmaceutical coatings, car coatings, all these different things.

26. 0:26:14

    And what's really neat about this one is they've already done the research. This isn't money necessarily for research on can we get there? They know they can get there from a tabletop. This is scale up and transfer technology to industry. So that, that's, that's very exciting to me. One of the, uh, s- some of the early projections looks like in, in a couple years it would be about a 2 billion, um, input to the GDP, and at full rollout, 80 billion. So I mean, that is, that is a huge market that, that forestry and our renewable products, it's not even playing, we're not even playing in the game now, but we're getting there.

27. 0:26:50

    And there's no other state doing anything like that, so that really puts Georgia to the front of the line.

28. 0:26:57

    Um, a- and I'm happy to speak with anybody about that at any time if they, they have questions. Moving on to forest management. Uh, the very first thing I do wanna highlight there- Is it a 2024 study? And I'm sure you've heard forestry is a $42 billion industry in the state. It is a $59.4 billion industry in the state after 2024. Now, I do have to caveat that with the mill closures and those same numbers was a 2.9 billion loss, right? So that study's always done in a full year beforehand, so that 2.9 billion loss will be reflected in next year's number.

29. 0:27:30

    Um, so I, I, I wanna make sure that we, we talk about that and the what and the why, but that's really just due to inflation cost, the amount of wood being moved, um, salaries increased and everything over the last couple years. We did not run numbers after Hurricane Helene. Um, just we, we had other priorities, just I guess to be honest. Um, to, to brag on our team a little bit, after Helene, our leadership team came together and said that our foresters in the field are just overwhelmed with the amount of what we call cases.

30. 0:28:01

    So whether it's helping with federal programs, the state fuel mitigation programs. I said, "We, we need to get them help. What we can-- what can we do?" So our leadership decided just to take on more work their self and, and free up four positions. So the map you see there were four additional foresters that we put in the field to help with the workload. And I'm happy to say that's worked outstanding and, and those cases are starting to go down and it's, and it's more sustainable for our foresters. You know, once, once we get to-- we start closing out those cases and, and hopefully things return to normal, you know, then we- then we'll reassess those positions on where they are and where they're, where they're needed.

31. 0:28:37

    Um, talking about bragging on our folks, a lot of people don't know we have an urban and community forestry team, and they work all over the state. They do a lot in the southeast, and they are one of the best at what they do. And this is the second year in a row they were awarded a national award from America Beautiful-- America the Beautiful Foundation for their work and their efforts that they do. So when we enjoy our tree cities and, and different things like that, GFC has a huge part of it. And then just once again, could not be more proud of that team.

32. 0:29:09

    Uh, recovery efforts. So this is backing up to last year, everything after Hurricane Helene. And, uh, excuse me, getting my notes real quick.

33. 0:29:20

    Uh, one thing we were very fortunate with was to, to receive equipment money for new tractors. Uh, proud to say that we have five of the new tractors. The other ones, when I keep saying they're weeks away, that is truly weeks away. So we, we know, we know all the John Deere tractors are sitting at a, a partner that, that really a lot of the southeastern states work, work with called GR Manufacturing, and they're the ones that outfit the tractors and make them firefighting-ready. And the, the Caterpillar tractors that we order some of those, we're just, uh, we're kinda going back and forth with them on blade design 'cause we use a special, special blade on the front.

34. 0:29:55

    It's not like a normal, normal dozer. Um, also proud to say that our helicopter is en route this morning that was funded last year, so we will have our new helicopter for firefighting capability. Um, I'm gonna let them test it a little bit before we start taking flight, so we'll see, we'll see what that looks like. But, um, that, that will be a, a massive need. And now the importance of why is the other helicopter that we do have, it, it can use 180 gallons at a time to s- suppress fires. This one will use 360.

35. 0:30:27

    Our other helicopter has been in the shop for maintenance, just routine maintenance that has to happen, and we did not have it available a couple weeks ago when we were fighting massive wildfires. And so now this lets us rotate maintenance, do different things. You know, at our best, we have two helicopters. We do train with DNR, highway patrol, and we give them buckets. But at the end of the day, unless it's something you train for all the time and you continually practice, it's pretty hard to hit your target with a bucket of water swinging below you. And, and that's, that's not a knock on any pilot, it's just, you know, what you train for and what you practice with.

36. 0:31:01

    Um, our fuel mitigation program, that's the-- that's, uh, well, $135 million in total. Um, but $132 was allocated to landowners. Uh, just under $8 million paid to landowners. We're continuing to stay in contact with them, you know, asking them what they need. Do they need help? Working with the Master Logger program, if they have, uh-- if they can't find anybody to help them do cleanup, trying to marry loggers with them, if you will. Um, logging equipment is not the best equipment for cleanup, but it is work, right? And so it's, it's, it's something we can help them find and do.

37. 0:31:34

    The fire breaks and forest roads, that was, uh, we knew that would be a need to get that accomplished, so we jumped on that one pretty quick. Over 3,700 miles of fire breaks and forest roads just in that impact area. And, uh, and this is why this was important. So this was the, the week right before all the ice storms. And so when fire's burning at night, you know, usually we get humidity recovery, it lays down, and honestly, that is the best time to fight aggressive wildfires. But when it's doing this at night, when it's what we call spotting ahead of itself, so that picture on the bottom left-hand corner, you can see the fire out in the front.

38. 0:32:06

    When it's doing things like that, it, it completely changes the game. And so having these lines pre-identified, pre-established, it allows us to go in and do counter fire operations or different techniques where we may have to, um, unfortunately, you know, fight fire with fire. And that's usually-- that's not our first go-to, 'cause if you're already having dangerous conditions, lighting, lighting another fire is-- may not be the best practice. But already having these lines and wide lines established and knowing where they are, knowing where our critical resources are, it actually gives us that tactical advantage.

39. 0:32:41

    So some of the other things we're doing to, to how do we take advantage of, of who we are, what we do, and how can we be better. Um, I'm really proud to say our response time, nights, weekends, holidays, from the time we receive a phone call to we have equipment on the fire is 26 minutes. And there's a lot of coordination that goes into that. It's a lot of equipment to move around the state in 26 minutes after hours, right? That's getting somebody-- That's 26 minutes from out of their house to the equipment to the fire. But what we don't have control of is our notification time.

40. 0:33:12

    How long does it take for somebody to call us? ... or to let us know. And so we're, we're working right now with a company called Pano AI, and it's just kind of a time lapse video of, of something here recently. And you can see the, the overlaying map there in your top right-hand corner. And it is AI detection. They take two cameras, they stitch it on either side of a tower, and, and they, well, they put one on either side of the tower and they stitch the film together so it looks like one seamless 360, um, view. And they have somebody monitoring it 24/7.

41. 0:33:44

    They use AI to detect the smoke. That person monitoring it then s- for us, will go and look into our burn authorizations. Like, "Hey, we have a burn authorization here." And, and I will say there's states in the West Coast using this, but they don't use prescribed fire like we do. So this is one of the things that we wanted to figure out, is this gonna send us to, you know, 500 fires in an afternoon, you know, or can we cross-reference this with our authorizations a- and, and really be a tool for us? So this is something that's really just got up and running, excited about this project.

42. 0:34:16

    Still wanna see what the data tells us. You know, how many fires are we getting notified by this quicker than, you know, typically somebody phoning it in or a plane flying over, one of our planes doing what we call smoke shifting. And then is it, is it really working to differentiate the prescribed fires from wildfires?

43. 0:34:35

    The other way we really try to stay ahead is working with our, our, um, rural fire departments. And so this is a picture of a truck that just got delivered to Early County. And many may not know, but we actually build trucks like this in our shop in Macon. So we work with the counties and we, we build them for cost. Um, I'm sure y'all have looked at the price of new cars, and so when I say the price it's gonna seem high, but this truck for the county cost them about $75,000, 75 to 78, depending on how they wanna outfit it.

44. 0:35:07

    And so just a, an outstanding program that, that we do there in Macon that I don't think gets bragged on enough. We have a, a new man leading it named Justin Brown, and he is eager and energetic and been out working with the county. So as you're working with your county fire departments and, and they're a rural department, there's some qualifications that have to go there, um, give him my name and number and I'll put him in touch with Justin and, you know, see what we can do for him. Uh, we also have 50/50 grants that we utilize with the feds. So a lot of times the counties will use that to outfit the truck.

45. 0:35:37

    Haven't seen it ever pay for a truck, but usually it's a 10 to $20,000 kind of match. So if the county's buying hose, PPE, different things like that to help suppress wildland fire communications, we can do a 50/50 grant with them.

46. 0:35:54

    Put this one in here 'cause I was asked about education during the joint, um, joint hearing and, and it, it's one I really don't brag about enough. I- everybody's familiar with Smokey, but if you look, nearly 100,000 people reached last year doing Smokey Bear programs. That is a big deal for us, especially in October, um, i- is traditionally when Smokey, Smokey programs happen. But just a great ra- way to reach community, do public education outreach. Uh, over 41,000 students reached last year. Uh, we try our best to get in every school.

47. 0:36:25

    We have a full-time person, that is their job is, is youth education. And she will basically make up boxes and kits and then work with our county units on kind of what's our message for the year, what do we wanna educate them with, how do we, you know, how do we do better? And so just a really successful program. And this, this is the fun part of the job. If you never got to go into a classroom and do a Smokey program and see how excited they get, then I encourage you to come with us sometime 'cause it really is, like it, to me, is hands down one of the best parts of the job.

48. 0:36:55

    Unless you're in a Smokey suit, they are a little hot, I'll just say. Yeah.

49. 0:37:01

    And, and on the public education note, um, before I, I play this video, and some of y'all may have seen it on so- on, uh, on social media, but something that I kind of took as a personal challenge when I got here was I didn't feel like our folks were really being represented for the first responders that they are. Um, when we think about just wildland firefighters, about 280 wildland firefighters, that that's their first and primary job, 75 first line fire supervisors and 10 fire management officers. So the, the majority of our 524 employees, their first job day in and day out is emergency response.

50. 0:37:35

    And so we started talking about how do we, how do we do that? How do we address that issue? How do we let people know who we are and what we do? And, uh, so we, we sat down with the marketing group, which some friends kind of gave us a consultation, and their first thing was, "We need to change our name." I said, "Absolutely not. What else you got?" And, um, and they, they came up with the idea of, "Well, how about a tagline?" Right? If I said, "Just do it," you know who that is. Whether, whether you like them or not , you know who that is. All right, so we, we gave that some thought. And our comms department came up with about 10 or so taglines.

51. 0:38:07

    We ended up narrowing it down to like five or six, and then we sent them out to all of our employees. And this is what they chose, if I can get it to play. When emergencies strike, Georgia's first responders answer. When flames rise or storms tear through, GFC rangers respond day and night to protect, contain, and clear the way forward.

52. 0:38:38

    Our foresters are the first responders for the forest, identifying threats early, tracking invasive species, and restoring what others can't see until it's gone. Together, we serve every county, every landowner, and every acre of Georgia's forests. Georgia Forestry Commission: Fighting fire, protecting forests, serving Georgia.

53. 0:39:08

    Yeah, I, I'm a fan. Obviously I'm biased, but I was a fan of it. Um, no, just once again, great comms team. All that was done in-house with, with our people. And so just a, a lot of good work, a lot of good things happening. And, and I will end with this to wrap up. So- Talking about emergency response and protecting the forest, we do get involved in everything. We-- Although we are a wildland fire agency first, we are trained in all hazard response. So under the direction of, of GEMA at the SOC, we actually-- When I say we, myself, Commissioner Rabon, we started talking after Hurricane Helene and said, "Okay, well how can we do better?

54. 0:39:44

    How can we serve the public better, not duplicate efforts, especially under a large scale incident such, such as Helene?" And so Winter Storm Fern was a perfect time to, to test that. We went into unified command, worked out of Macon with DNR and Department of Ag, and utilized a lot of their law enforcement officers to, to help us keep our chainsaw crews safe. Um, the last crews will actually be demobing or going home today, so we have, we have finished that assignment. Cleared 28 counties, over 3,000 miles of road assessed, and then debris removed on 368 miles of roads.

55. 0:40:19

    And, you know, something that didn't really dawn on me until our crews were doing it is in those mountain roads and working with counties like Habersham County that had a lot of destruction, y- you can't just, you can't push it to the uphill side. It's, it's not gonna go anywhere. And you can't necessarily push it to the downhill side if there's a creek. So back to our BMPs and our water quality. So a lot of that stuff had to be picked up, put in a truck, and taken somewhere to places where we could put it and spread out the fuel loading, right? We didn't want a bunch of fuel just pushed off the side of the road up next to somebody's house, 'cause we know that's gonna create an issue for us later.

56. 0:40:51

    But, but the combination with our team, DNR, and Ag Law, there, there is a very obvious path- pathway forward to how we get better, how we do better for the state. And so, um, uh, I know I can't thank C- Commissioner Rabon enough and Commissioner Harper. They were there Sunday. Sunday, all three of us were in the command post in Macon, you know, working with the team, talking, you know, what do they need, and just their level of engagement. And that's, uh, I, I've said it before and I'll continue to say it, that is really just how government should work. It was no pride of ownership or what agency had what or was doing anything.

57. 0:41:25

    It was just a bunch of people coming together that wanted to do the right thing and, and finding efficiencies where we could. So really proud of that effort. And with that, I know I've talked a lot, so I'm happy to stop or take any questions. And thank you for the opportunity.

58. 0:41:39

    Thank, thank you very much for that and for your presentation. And, um, y'all just push your buttons if you have a question to ask, and we'll rotate around to give everybody a chance. But for, uh, the people who are watching, w- we-- you have done a great job of making us aware that, that the mill closings is absolutely something in front of us that needs to be addressed. And then the second thing, um, more for a- anybody to understand when Helene hit, you had the felled timber, then you had to deal with that.

59. 0:42:11

    But the third part of the problem is the wood that is now timber for a fire. So, um, and so I think it would help the public to understand that, if you wanna make any more emphasis there.

60. 0:42:23

    I'm happy to. Um, so we knew when the, when all that timber fell, and, and if you go back and you look at major hurricanes from Hugo in '89 to Ivan, Michael, um, e- even Katrina up through Mississippi, there's only been a few that really hit and affect timber the way Helene did. And it's, it's usually not that first year. It's usually years two through five when the wood starts drying out, especially the hardwoods and hardwood bottoms if we get into a drought. And that's really what we're seeing right now in, in southeast Georgia more than anywhere else.

61. 0:42:56

    And so those, that, those immense fuel, fuel loadings that it's really hard to push through and, and push through in a safe manner. Those, those bottoms and drains there where they almost start burning like wicks, and very intense, and a lot of heat. And so we, we know that is an issue and something that we're being really aggressive on, putting a lot of resources on as soon as, as soon as we do get a call or notification. Um, but at the end of the day, there's, there's no great market for the wood. Um, as bad as Helene was, now you couple that with the loss of industry, and those hardwoods would probably have been salvageable for another two or three years.

62. 0:43:34

    Not like the pines that start rotting. Now we have nowhere to move the hardwoods. So we have a lot of fuel sitting there. It's really just a tinderbox waiting. Um, I think I mentioned in the joint appropriations the Okefenokee Swamp. You know, it, it typically burns every seven years or so, and, and unfortunately we are due. And, uh, when we look at the yearly water, uh, yearly average, we are below some critical thresholds for the swamp. And so that's something we're really paying attention to. Yesterday there was actually a, uh, kinda all-hands-on meeting down at the refuge with US Fish and Wildlife, of course.

63. 0:44:10

    It's, it's, it's their property. But us, the, the State of Florida Forest Service, National Forest since they butt up to 'em on the south end, private landowners, and then we brought in our incident commanders from the state and federal level, and really just placed an emphasis on, on private property. One, landowners have already been through enough. Um, I, I was proud to hear that the report out from the US Fish and Wildlife was that big box mentality, and that's something we call it in the fire world of, "Okay, here's our big box and we're just gonna light everything off in between." That is not acceptable.

64. 0:44:42

    We don't do that here. And, um, so ju- just making sure we're gearing up. Even things as silly we, we talked about yesterday is just pre-identifying restaurants and hotels and having all this stuff ready to go, so if we do have to flood resources into the area, we're not worried about the logistics of it. We can move people in quickly. And, um, I, I don't wanna say we're as prepared as we can be. There's always more work to do, but that is something we are absolutely paying attention to. And to some degree, I hope it starts raining and doesn't let off for some time, and I am completely wrong.

65. 0:45:13

    But at the end of the day, I'd much rather be prepared.

66. 0:45:15

    And, and so to understand also, I remember the Okefenokee fire from years ago. You could not see driving down 95. I mean, smoke just covered the whole area. But I learned something and wanna find out if it's still true. In Georgia, we can control the land and property we have with fires, but there's another policy at the federal level where they do not do control burn or control, like on the Okefenokee. If a fire's there, it's allowed to burn its way out. Is that still the, the policy?

67. 0:45:47

    And, and that's what I was referring to as kinda that big box policy. Um- I, I don't wanna say that's the policy anymore. Um, I'm a little bit more familiar with the US Forest Service side. They, they don't do that near as much. So, um, a stat I seen yesterday from a US Forest Service standpoint, they had as, they had as many fires. Th- They were their highest year since 2016 as far as number of wildfires, and they reduced it to half the acreage. So the, the feds are actually starting to learn from the states that are a lot more aggressive, and, um, US Fish and Wildlife is following that model.

68. 0:46:22

    Congressionally, US Fish and Wildlife, uh, actually under Department of Interior, just formed the US Wildland Fire Administration. So there's still a lot of questions. Even the, the US Fish employees, they have a lot of questions about what does that mean, what do we look like going forward. That was something that was just hired. They, or, or just, uh, formed. They did hire their person to lead that program. Uh, but at the end of the day, the refuge manager down there, his name's Michael Lusk, he's an outstanding partner. Um, we work with him year in and year out to establish a, a very wide boundary all the way around a refuge.

69. 0:46:54

    And so I, you know, can't ever promise anything, but I'm confident in their understanding of how important the private lands are, and we can't just let fire burn uncontrollably. So-

70. 0:47:05

    Thank you

71. 0:47:06

    Yes, ma'am

72. 0:47:06

    And, um, you have a few questions, so we'll go into that. But this has, um, been very informative and really appreciate you doing that.

73. 0:47:14

    Thank you.

74. 0:47:14

    So number 24.

75. 0:47:17

    Thanks, Madam Chair. Just, uh, thanks for the presentation.

76. 0:47:20

    Yes, sir.

77. 0:47:20

    Uh, definitely informative. Appreciate it. Just a couple questions. Uh, you mentioned the helicopter pilots and training, and I may have missed that part. Now with the new helicopter, the, uh... I'm glad we got the increased water on the load. I think that's gonna help. Are, are they doing more training now because of that, since it's gonna be more useful, or do we have any-

78. 0:47:40

    They, they, they are. So we-

79. 0:47:41

    ... keep the accuracy up?

80. 0:47:42

    We have been preparing. And as soon as that was allocated last year, um, one of our more tenured pilots, he, uh, he, he said, "I wanna fly that helicopter." So he's went and got his license. He is ready to go. Um, but on top of that, whenever you buy a new, new ship like that, you actually have to send people to the manufacturer and receive all of their training. And so all that's completed. We're bringing it back. But now we'll do in-house training when it comes to actually, um, you know, getting water with it and dumping it and just, you know.

81. 0:48:13

    There's so-

82. 0:48:13

    Sure

83. 0:48:13

    ... there's so many hours that they need to put on it before we say, "Okay, it is ready to go fight fire." And, uh, and we got a pretty aggressive plan to make that happen.

84. 0:48:21

    That's good. That makes sense. And then how often, i- if you had to do it percentage-wise, do you fight fire with fire? I, I known, known that practice in the past and seen it done. Um-

85. 0:48:32

    It, it's, it's not a high percentage. If you can, if you can get in there and remove the fuel, and essentially that's what we do with the, with the bulldozers. Um, so the, the, in wildland fire we have a thing called a wildland fire triangle, and, um, and fuel is one of the most important parts of that. Fuel, heat, the fire itself, and, um... I just lost the third one. I, I, dang it, I even said the wildland fire triangle. I'll get it in a second. But-

86. 0:48:56

    That's okay

87. 0:48:56

    ... anyway, the, the best part to do it for wildland fires is to remove that fuel. Um, you can do that with a counter fire operation. That's essentially what it's doing, is removing the fuel in front of it. But it is a significantly better tactic, if possible and safe to do so, to get as close to it with the tractors where you can see what the fire's doing. You can make sure it's, it's hitting your line behind you and actually going out and not jumping your line and hooking around you. But a significantly better tactic to try to put it out as you go. So that, that's our first and primary way we fight fire.

88. 0:49:28

    But once again, with the fuel loading in the Helene area, that tactic has to change.

89. 0:49:34

    Got it. Thank you.

90. 0:49:34

    Yes, sir.

91. 0:49:35

    Thank you. Number, um, 16. Cannon.

92. 0:49:40

    Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, oh, there we go. Um, in terms of prescribed fire and the amounts of acreage we got going in the state, uh, you see, um, what's that trend line looking like? As we get more folks involved in prescribed fire, are we losing folks that are doing prescribed fire?

93. 0:49:57

    It, it has been increasing over the last couple years. Um, last year had a little bit of dip after Helene, but it's been steadily rising. Um, and, and that is, one, in part to the private practitioners that do it, but, but also to the, the, uh, federal agencies that are getting better at doing it and a little bit more aggressive. Um, GFC on average usually burns, whatever the, whatever the statewide number is, we're usually somewhere in that 10%. So somewhere, I wanna say the last couple years we were around a million and a half acres. So we usually burn about 150,000 acres, and that's all for private landowners.

94. 0:50:30

    That's very little bit is on, on state lands. But, you know, partners like DNR and the other agencies, it is continuing to grow and get better.

95. 0:50:39

    I don't always get a permit, so, uh, don't, don't, don't get to, don't get too mad we don't get permits. Sorry about that.

96. 0:50:45

    There's a list.

97. 0:50:48

    So number 18.

98. 0:50:51

    Thank you, Madam Chair. When you were talking about the, um, of course the loss of the small diameter f- markets and the, but the, there are things online, um, or, you know, in the queue to come forward. What can we do to help foster that and move it along a little faster if possible, and, and what is the kind of possible timeline of those coming online, those other markets?

99. 0:51:19

    Um, well, o- one, my m- im- immediate reaction would be to, uh, support the, the Forestry Task Force and the recommendations there. Um, there will be some other recommendations coming out soon on, um, you know, from partners like GFA. And it's about, it, there's a lot of interest. Um, and, and not to say companies or anything else, but had a great call with a company out of Europe the other week that's, that's really looking at Georgia. Um, you know, th- they, they, they're, they, they will settle in the southeast, but they're really focusing on Georgia because of everything that we offer here.

100. 0:51:52

     And so that is- Ah, once again, you, you firmly use this word. I am very optimistic. There, there's a lot of people interested in coming to our state. But as y'all know, it, it takes time to acquire the land, to build something, to, you know, to, to get that going. So, uh, I'm on a two to five-year timeframe for things to really start turning around and getting better. Um, I don't think we'll ever see pulpwood prices that we did in the southeast of the $18, $20 a ton, you know? But if we can get it back into the low teens, that would be huge.

101. 0:52:26

     Um, what we are competing with is, when we, when I talk about competition with other states, I know some large landowners in, in Mississippi and Arkansas and out there, and they're actually getting 25 cents a ton for their pulpwood, you know, where we're still looking at two to four.

102. 0:52:39

     Mm-hmm.

103. 0:52:39

     And so when you're, when you're a company and you're looking for your input cost, which is a majority of, of, um ... Sorry, that, that input cost from the wood is, is really the majority factor into your business and your, your profit margins. You know, you're gonna go where your input costs are cheaper.

104. 0:52:58

     Right.

105. 0:52:58

     But are there other things we can offer? And, um, Jeff Cannon at EPD, I mean, he, he takes any forestry project, you know, himself. And not that we're cutting any corners or doing anything, but he also makes sure it doesn't sit on anybody's desk. Economic development, um, I get to work with Sydney Smith. I, I thank her, uh, you know, we get to talk multiple times a week on some different stuff going around. So there's, there's a lot of movement and a lot of momentum, but really it's just appreciate your support for everything and, and I don't, I don't really know how else to say it. I wish there was an easy answer, but unfortunately there's not.

106. 0:53:31

     I get it.

107. 0:53:31

     Yes, ma'am.

108. 0:53:32

     Thank you.

109. 0:53:34

     Thank you. Number 10?

110. 0:53:38

     Thank you, Johnny.

111. 0:53:38

     Yes, ma'am.

112. 0:53:39

     Um, I have two questions. One, who does the task force consist of? Is there a list of people, or can you tell us?

113. 0:53:44

     There, there is. It's in the manual, so I'll, I'll try to go off, off the top of my head, and if I miss anybody, I'm just gonna apologize now. Um, it was all state agencies except for the Georgia Forestry Association, so, so Tim Lowermore and Matt Hestad were on it. Um, but ourself, economic development, uh, USG, so we had, we had Warnell, Georgia Tech, and ABAC, Department of Ag, and, and really the Rural Center was a big factor in there. Um, with Charlie Fiveash, our new director.

114. 0:54:15

     Um, oh, I know I'm missing some.

115. 0:54:18

     Any private industry?

116. 0:54:20

     No, we consulted with private industry and, and, and had multiple meetings, um, utilized things like, like the GFA regional meetings. UGA hosted a bunch of workshops, and we took all that input. We would have private presenters, but then when it came down to the kind of closed doors conversation, if you will, it was really just that group focused in on.

117. 0:54:40

     Okay. Um, and if I can ask one more question, um, how many acres do you think we lost in forest land due to clear cutting after Hurricane Helene?

118. 0:54:50

     I will have to get back to you on that one. That's a very good question.

119. 0:54:52

     I'm just curious. All right. Thank you.

120. 0:54:53

     Uh-

121. 0:54:53

     It's a lot.

122. 0:54:54

     Yeah, a lot. Yeah, there you go. It's like-

123. 0:54:58

     I don't see any more questions. I just want to make a couple of, um, points. Number one, the committee, while we're in session, we went to a mass timber building and, um, had a meeting there at, near the Ponce City Market.

124. 0:55:12

     Mm-hmm.

125. 0:55:12

     And so that product is actually being put into practice in, in Georgia. So whatever we can do to promote that, we will. But-

126. 0:55:20

     Thank you

127. 0:55:21

     ... w- one of the, uh, other areas, a- a- and I think it's a matter of education and, and investment of time and understanding, but our trees absorb carbon for us. And I think urban areas of the State of Georgia now are more interested in micro, um, areas to green up a little bit.

128. 0:55:45

     Right.

129. 0:55:45

     And I know y'all are working on a couple of those problems.

130. 0:55:48

     Yeah.

131. 0:55:48

     But, um, what is not known by so many people is we don't do anything but have the trees, and they take care of a lot of our, um, carbon is, is one of the things. They, they help us with that.

132. 0:56:03

     Yeah, the, the, um, ecosystem services is kind of how we refer to it, that all Georgians benefit from our forest, both within the cities and our, our rural forest landowners. Um, you know, that, that's something years ago was quantified, if you will, and we've been talking with UGA on do we need to do a project like that again? But when we talk about our clean air and our clean drinking water, if we lose our forest in this state, that, it, it's a game changer. It's a whole different dynamic. And so I don't, y- you know, when, when we talk about having healthy markets, and healthy markets drive, you know, forest landowners, I mean, a landowner's gonna do what they're incentivized to do, essentially, right?

133. 0:56:41

     And so that starts with healthy markets. And then those healthy markets create healthy forests, creates, uh, less wildfires, you know, just so many benefits, and it, it really is a trickle effect. And so when we talk about forest industry and what this means to Georgians, you know, talking about m- not just air quality from the carbon capture, but you mentioned driving down 75 and just, you know, or, or 95 and being smoked in, um, you know, from fires. That's, when we look out west, they lost their industry years ago, had a massive mountain pine beetle problem, which is very similar to southern pine beetle, and now they have all the, all this dead standing timber and, and some on the ground, and that created uncontrolled catastrophic wildfires.

134. 0:57:23

     So the, it will take years to get there, but it is a real future, you know, if we don't find healthy markets. So that's a lot at risk for all Georgians.

135. 0:57:35

     Um, and so to end on a positive note -

136. 0:57:37

     Please. Please, yeah. Somebody called me Director Doom yesterday, and I gotta get rid of that one. That's not good.

137. 0:57:42

     No, no. Um, it's, it's amazing. Um, I almost think we need a little superhero segment to show what, what y'all do in your partnerships with our other agencies. That's another thing that doesn't happen across the United States are these partnerships. And, um, just wanted to give you and, and the public a moment to understand what all the benefits we receive. And, um, I'm hearing from people in urban areas, how can they do small little forested areas and things like that.

138. 0:58:12

     Mm-hmm.

139. 0:58:12

     So there, there are always ways to approach and do this issue. But on behalf of the committee here, thank, thank you, and thank for the people who make up the forestry group.

140. 0:58:21

     Thank you.

141. 0:58:22

     We appreciate you.

142. 0:58:23

     Thank y'all.

143. 0:58:25

     And stay tuned, all of y'all. We have bills in subcommittee now, and we'll be posting when we have our subcommittee meetings. And, um, see you soon. Thank you.