A Lesson in Wood Hauling History
Greetings,
Local roads including town, county, and forest roads, are perhaps the most significant piece of the infrastructure for the movement of raw forest products. The rural areas with contiguous acres are where most of the forests exist and are best suited for forest productivity.
What is interesting is that the Lake States Region has lost an estimated 3.5 to 4 million tons of market in the past fifteen or more years, yet there seems to be a misconception that log trucks are doing more damage to the local infrastructure. If there are less markets and less wood produced how can that be true? Especially when in Wisconsin, significant changes were made in 2005 to reduce road damage on local roads.
I am told there have been several gross weight increases over the years and weight limit was 80,000 pounds on 5 axles nationwide when I began trucking in 1974. Michigan is the exception and has been an axle weight state for several years. According to history, Michigan started out with 13 axles and has been at the current 11 axles for as long as I was involved with hauling wood. Several states including Wisconsin and Minnesota did and still do have additional weight allowances during the frozen road period.
Frozen Road Law as it is known, does include extra weight for hauling road salt for winter road maintenance. In addition, there are multiple special permits for various agricultural products such as raw forest, cranberries and fall harvest crops like vegetables including beans and potatoes. To the best of my knowledge these are all 5 axle permits with weight allowances up to 90,000 pounds. Below is language from the permit condition sheet.
Axle weight limitations are shown on Form SP4416, "Raw Forest and Agricultural Products Weight Limitations Chart". This permit allows 112.5% of the weight authorized by Wis. Stats. s. 348.15(3)(b) and s. 348.15(3)(c). • Single axle 22,500 lbs. • Tandem axle 38,300 lbs. • Maximum GVW 90,000 lbs.
The 90,000-pound permit for the raw forest axle weight limits shown above came into existence in 1985. At that time most mills were purchasing wood by stick scale. The idea was to give a 10,000-pound variance to allow for the differences in wood weight as this changes often depending on where the wood was grown. A cord of Aspen, for instance grown on clay soil is typically heavier than Aspen grown on sandy soil. Without the ability to weigh each load the variance was supposed to provide a cushion for not getting an overweight ticket. The permit system worked well for several years as the original permit purchasers understood the permit and its purpose. As time went on that changed.
As new haulers came into the forest industry, they interpreted the 90,000-pound variance to be the maximum weight limit. As time progressed, the 10k tolerance disappeared and the weights increased drawing attention from county highway commissioners. At that time, the County Highway Association contacted GLTPA to discuss the situation and that was the beginning of several years of meetings which led to what is known as the 98 on 6 raw forest permit.
Many of the meetings were educational. Counties knew very little how timber contracts work, how the markets fluctuate quickly, how logging is impacted by the weather and all the little nuances that make for interesting business management. The forest industry learned a great deal from the counties including details about road construction, non-industry complaints about trucks wrecking the roads, enforcement and several other aspects of how counties and road commissions work.
After all the meetings what became law was Wisconsin 2005 Act 167 allowing log trucks to haul 98K on a six-axle combination vehicle. Some folks including many local township officials believe the forest industry received a gift of increased weight which in their opinion will do more damage to “their” local roads, which brings us to issue at hand. The issue is weight limits and permits being put in place by local government with the intention of saving and protecting “their roads.”
Here are the facts on what was agreed to by industry and the road managers and what was included in Act 167. The forest industry was provided with a higher gross weight; however, the maximum axle weight is lower for hauling timber than any other industry including town and county maintenance and dump trucks. All other industries can haul a maximum of 20K on a single axle. Hauling forest products with a 98K permit allows a maximum axle weight of 18K. Because road damage is based on what are known as ESALS’s (equivalent single axle loads) the lower axle weight causes less wear on a road. Generally speaking, and not including bridges, axle weight, not gross weight, is what determines road damage.
The second condition is that the 98K permit uses a combination vehicle to spread the load over a larger footprint. This is helpful when it comes to bridges and culverts to keep them in place longer and without the need for repair prematurely. With funding provided by GLTPA and federal money from a C-FIRE program, GLTPA did implement a bridge study which was done by the engineering department at UW Madison and completed in January of 2010. The purpose of the study was to determine if logs trucks could be configured better to meet bridge standards. The outcome was that log trucks are configured well for the work they are doing.
Another condition of the 98K permit is that it allows law enforcement to examine weight scale tickets at mills purchasing wood by the ton. No citations can be issued but it allows enforcement to determine who the intentional overweight haulers are so appropriate enforcement action can be taken. Minnesota has a similar law with the exception that in Minnesota, trucking companies of all products can be issued a citation based off the mill weight ticket not to exceed $250.00, but there are limits. Also included in Minnesota law is that when hitting egregious overload weights, it becomes a felony with very serious consequences. Some southern states have the same law.
Next on the list is that overweight fines for the timber industry are slightly more than double of what any other industry pays. For instance, a 2,000-pound overweight fine for log trucks is $471.20. For other products, the fine is $201.00. It has been a while since these calculations were made so they may be higher given today’s court costs. In addition to the higher fine structure, a company having several fines in 12-month period could have their permit rescinded for several months as well.
Lastly, when hauling with the 98K permit, there is no tolerance for loads weighing more than 98K. There is tolerance for over axle weight if the load is not over the gross weight. At the time, the 98K law was enacted there were two choices, one choice was losing the 90K permit and revert to hauling 80K. The other choice was to work with local officials and move forward with a new weight law designed to utilize lower axle weights, lessen the impact on local roads, and improve industry competitiveness in a global market.
Given the facts that the forest industry is the ONLY Wisconsin industry with lower axle weights designed to preserve local infrastructure, and the penalty structure designed to ensure adherence, why is that towns and some counties continue enacting restrictions and additional permits aimed at restricting the movement of forest products? The most recent example is the Town of Webb Lake in Burnette County which recently enacted an ordinance stating the following:
That all operators of heavy trucks shall have permission to use the Town of Webb Lake roads listed below provided they will reimburse the Town of Webb Lake for the cost of all repairs for any damage done to the Town roads according to Section 86.02 (allows the township the right to collect three times the actual cost of repairing the roads) and 349.16(1)(c) (road restrictions) of the Wisconsin Statutes. 2. Owner/Operator provides the Town of Webb Lake with a surety bond in the amount of $2000.00 or deposit with the Town a check in the amount of $2000.00 to be held in escrow until the Road Supervisor has determined that no damages are present.
The $2000.00 bond or deposit is in addition to the $75.00 permit fee. Aren’t these the roads we already pay state and federal fuel tax, license fees, and federal excise tax to pay for? Weren’t most, if not all these roads put in place to enable a forest industry to do business in the state and generate $24 billion dollars annually for the economy? Isn’t forestry the industry that provides multiple products supporting everyone’s daily life and takes care of the forests keeping them healthy to produce clean air, clean water, wildlife habitat, and recreational opportunities?
Extremists in California and several other western states were successful in driving the forest industry out only to have their forests become diseased, dead, and dying, which has caused millions upon millions of acres to burn year after year costing billions of dollars and loss of life to fight. If these types of restrictions continue Wisconsin could end in the same situation only it will be local government driving it out and not extremists’ lawsuits. When the cost of doing business becomes too expensive and too restrictive, industry and loggers will leave. To the individual implementors of these restrictions it may seem like a small matter. To a logging company it’s an expensive nuisance especially when several of them operate in multiple towns and counties.
If there is not enough money to go around when it comes to fixing roads driving more business out the state will not only not fix the problem, but it will also make it worse than ever. And just so no one is left out, Michigan is experiencing the same restrictions in some areas. The bottom line is that nationwide road funding is in short supply and needs to be fixed at its root cause. Placing more restrictions on the one industry, forestry, that impacts everyone in multiple ways will only make the problem worse.
Until next Month,
Henry