Activist opens wallet to save forest

[Lynn]

Activist opens wallet to save forest

He pays $270,000 to keep 18th-century oaks from the saw

By ANNE PAINE Staff Writer

A stand of white oaks near Dickson that are older than the nation and were briefly destined for the veneer factory have been snatched from the saw blade and could open to the public within a year.

"You can almost hear those trees talk," said John Noel, a businessman and environmentalist instrumental in saving the stand. "You can feel it, the history. When John Hancock, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were signing the Declaration of Independence, this forest was already growing."

Defenders of the trees say that the value that has drawn interest to the property is bound up not just in the scores of slow-growing oaks but in a cave, sulfur springs nearby and the Bon Aqua area's history.

Investors had bought 35 acres covered with the old trees at auction in September and were in the process of selling the timber when Noel stepped in.

"We made a handshake deal in the middle of that forest, and they kept it," said Noel, who, as a real estate investor himself, could talk the language.

"They listened to my plea not to cut that forest."

Noel is paying about $270,000, calculated by taking the land's value plus the profit investors would have made from the timber sale. The state hopes to pay him back.

The price was about double the standard cost of acreage in the area, but the trees bump up the value considerably, an expert said.

It's well worth it, according to Jack Little, a longtime specialist in forest management.

Some of the trees are more than 120 feet tall. The sight of them, with their wide canopies and straight trunks, staggered Little when he walked the land with Noel and state officials.

"I didn't think there was any such piece of property in Tennessee, or the Southeast for that matter," Little said.

"John (Noel) did the right thing, bless his heart. That should be preserved for generations in the future to see because there's nothing like it around."

White oaks are valuable, especially for veneer, he said, and few of this size and this quality remain, especially in such a substantial grouping.

Nobody has done a count, but estimates of the number of trees vary from 60 to more than 100. The large trees could average more than $1,500 in value, Little said, with some worth up to $7,000 or $8,000. Veneer wood is highly sought, particularly by Japanese and German outfits that sell the thin sheets for covering the walls of luxury offices and other uses, he said.

That potential market value attracted Billy Duke of Dickson to the auction in September. He bought the 35 acres with his brother Jimmy Duke and Jackie Batey with the idea of selling the wood and allowing development, which they do for a living.

Noel's offer, now part of a signed contract, changed the formula.

"I don't have the money to buy it and put it in a conservation easement and just let it lay," Duke said. "He's making me proud it's going to be preserved because I've never seen timber like that before in my life."

Noel, president of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy and vice president of the Tennessee Conservation Voters, had first appealed to state conservation officials to buy the land, but he knew they couldn't act quickly enough to save the forest.

The officials, however, have agreed that the property should be protected, and last week the State Building Commission approved plans to move ahead to purchase it, as long as an appraisal verifies its value and details can be worked out. The process could take a year, with the money coming from a combination of federal funds, trusts, grants or state money set aside for land acquisition.

Noel has written the check for the earnest money. He will pay the rest at closing. And, the land will be his until the state evaluates the site and decides whether it's worth $270,000.

Tennessean.com
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