Photo by Troy Sherk

Bryan Siebert, of Scotland, is concerned about the clear cutting of trees in St. Mary’s County. The Aiken clear cutting project near his home left what he calls a “pitifully narrow,” 50 foot critical area “buffer” next to the Bay, and these trees that were left appear to be dying. “They appear to me to be turning brown,” says Siebert.

Siebert believes something related to the timbering has caused the trees to look like they are turning brown and perhaps dying. “I do not know who is responsible for remedying this potential environmental hazard and potential consequence of permitted clear cutting.  Certainly if they are dying, all the verbiage in the permit about this being a wildlife corridor, even if true, would now be made doubtful.  Is the Maryland Association of Forest Conservancy District Board responsible for this issue and remedying it if the trees are dying?” he asked in a letter to Ms. Veith, of St. Mary’s County Planning and Zoning, in a letter dated Oct. 17. The letter has still gone unanswered.

After receiving no response from Veith, Siebert sent a letter to Commissioner Dement on Nov. 5. Dement called him at home about the letter and later told him at a commission meeting he had turned the letter over to Dennis Canavan to answer.  As of January, Bryan Siebert is still awaiting a response, and the trees continue to look like they may be dying.

“I am not happy that clear cutting can occur in extremely delicate areas, and I am not happy that citizens have no formalized and meaningful say in the activities of their neighbors which may effect their own property, its value, and, their health as well as the health of the Bay,” explains Siebert. “It is not so much an issue of whether people are conforming to the existing law and regulations I don’t think.  Rather it is that the laws and permitting systems are faulty, there are too many people involved in the process at too many levels of government, and citizens have too little control over what is going on.”

“I know the area is some what technical and that I do not know all the rules inside and out.  No one does,” Siebert told The Bay Net. “But they could at least write me and tell me where I am wrong, what they can do or won’t do about  the issues I raised  and why.  I know some of the issues overlap with state authority.  They could enlighten me on those areas as well so I could better focus my efforts.” Siebert says so far officials have shown him “only a turned back.”

“I am interested in finding out why it is that there still remain so many ways to desecrate the bay and why the county doesn’t do more about it,” Siebert told The Bay Net.  

Veith came to a Potomac River Association meeting in November and when asked why the timbering was  permitted so close to the water (50′) she said that to take more land would have tremendous consequences for the landowners because it would encompass so much more land  than the  50′ critical area. Yet, notes Siebert, home owners have to observe a much wider critical area 100′. “Different owners of the same type of land are treated in different ways,” he explains. Siebert is concerned that to his knowledge there have been no technical studies as to whether