To the editor:
In “The Public Trust Doctrine: Assessing Its Recent Past & Charting Its Future,” environmental law and policy scholar Richard M. Frank explained that the public trust doctrine “provides that certain natural resources are held by the government in a special status — in ‘trust’ — for current and future generations. Government officials may neither alienate those resources into private ownership, nor permit their injury or destruction. To the contrary, those officials have an affirmative, ongoing duty to safeguard the long-term preservation of those resources for the benefit of the general public” (45 UC Davis L. Rev. 665, 2012).
As a common law doctrine, public trust is the domain of the states. In the benchmark public trust case Marks v. Whitney, 6 Cal.3d 251, the California Supreme Court affirmed, “growing public recognition that one of the most important public trust uses … is the preservation of those lands in their natural state, so that they may serve as ecological units for scientific study, as open space, and as environments which provide food and habitat for birds and marine life, and which favorably affect the scenery and climate of the area.”
Brown County Parks and Recreation has violated our public trust.
The manner in which they have done so is laid bare in “Residents wonder what happened at overlook” authored by Suzannah Couch and published on the Brown County Democrat website on Feb. 13, 2019.
In the article, Director of Parks and Recreation Mark Shields provided the most apt description of this violation, “it’s like Hiroshima.”
Hiroshima indeed. A vast tract of public forest near the intersection of State Road 135 and Greasy Creek Road has been utterly destroyed — clear-cut and logged.
Why? According to Mr. Shields, for two reasons: to fund parks and recreation capital improvement projects and to satisfy public will.
Regarding the funds parks and recreation will receive to support capital improvements, The Democrat’s article implies that the logging generated less than $13,000 (albeit the reporting is less than clear on this point).
Although this may have been the reasonable value of the lumber, Mr. Shields failed to appraise the value of the forest. What price can we place on the natural beauty and environment of Brown County? We know from the most recent economic impact study that we gleaned $42.7 million from tourism in 2017. While that study did not ask, you can bet that entire figure on the fact that folks do not travel here to view deforested lands. Now, as a result of Mr. Shields’ unfortunate and irreversible decision, that is precisely what they will see upon cresting the first big hill south of Indianapolis on their scenic drive south into Nashville.
Mr. Shields destroyed a generation of forest and potentially impacted our tourism industry (the largest nongovernmental industry in Brown County) to pocket less than $13,000 for projects “such as improving the baseball diamonds.”
Regarding public will, Mr. Shields stated that, “we would not have pursued clearing this if it wasn’t for just having public requests to do it.” His assertion begs the questions: What form did these public requests come in, how many were received, and were they even from residents of Brown County? I live on Freeman Ridge just over a half-mile from where the logging occurred, and no one ever asked me or my neighbors for our opinion.
It is hard to imagine that there could have been overwhelming support for logging of public lands when many Brown Countians still keep SAVE YELLOWWOOD signs in their yards months after losing that battle to the governor. It almost makes one wonder if that is why there was no public debate over this decision in the first place.
Mr. Shields’ reasons for destroying public forest are unjustifiable under inquiry.
While the deforestation may be “more drastic than expected,” due to a “breakdown” in communication with the logging company, Mr. Shields is still entirely culpable. The fact that he hopes to mediate this by gathering volunteers to plant hardwood seedlings in the spring is laughable. It will take a lifetime to restore what he has destroyed. In the meantime, local residents will see the appalling evidence of his poor decision making every day.
Mr. Shields should step down or be removed by the board of commissioners for violating the public trust. He has failed to safeguard the long-term preservation of natural resources held by our government in trust for the benefit of the general public. Instead, he has destroyed them.
The directors of our county departments are not entitled to carte blanche decision making over the lands they manage. As a result of this experience, the Brown County Board of Commissioners must adopt new rules governing proposed uses of our public lands. The logging of our public forests should never again occur without prior public notice and without opportunity for public debate. This proposal should be introduced at the next meeting of the commissioners on March 6.
Our artisans are renowned for drawing, painting and photographing Brown County landscapes. In the stewardship of our public lands, government officials should perhaps ask themselves, “would the outcome of our decision be something our artisans would want to capture?”
Charles Benson, Nashville
Send letters to [email protected] by noon Thursday before the date of intended publication (noon Wednesday on holiday weeks). Letters are the opinions of the writer. Letters must be signed by the author and include the writer’s town of residence and a contact number in case of questions.
Only one letter every two weeks, per writer, to allow for diversity of voices in the opinions section. Please be considerate of sharing space with other letter-writers and keep your comments concise and to the point. Avoid name-calling, accusations of criminal activity and second- and third-hand statements of “fact.”
