An underwater logging company threatening to leave the state if officials don’t speed up their logging permits can just give the state the money to hire the extra workers needed to handle the sudden flood of applications, a state official said Monday.
“We’re willing to do that,” state Administration Secretary Mark Bugher said in a telephone interview from Madison. “It’s legal.”
The state’s Department of Natural Resources suggested the idea to Superior Water-Logged Lumber Co. of Ashland as a way to answer company complaints about how long it is taking to get salvage permits from state and federal regulators.
Company founder Scott Mitchen has threatened to move to Minnesota or Michigan because of the limited number of salvage permits it has been granted. As for paying for more regulators, Mitchen said, “Personally, I don’t think it is fair; we are not hot on it.”
The plan to tie huge balloons to the perhaps millions of sunken logs that sank in the 1800s while being floated to sawmills has turned into a logistical nightmare.
