SC landowners brace following Savannah paper mill closure

GARNETT — The very tops of loblolly pines fought for sun on Groton Plantation. Little greenery colored the forest floor. Nutrient-saturated soil spurred narrower trunks.

This crowd of trees needed thinning. Clearing mature, diseased and inferior trees creates more space, allowing vegetation to proliferate, heat from fires to escape through the canopy and the next bounty of pines to emerge from the earth. The longer these pines remain on the stump, the greater the risk of disease and infestation.

Brian “Woody” Rogers, a vice president with Columbia-based forestry consulting firm Milliken Advisors, called the area a “biological desert.”

Finding a buyer for these walls of wood has become increasingly challenging for South Carolina landowners as paper and saw mills that previously purchased