BUCKHANNON – The Upshur County Commission on Thursday learned the most optimal time to conduct the Oscar Sayer Road property timber sale will be mid-March.
Nate Kennedy, consulting engineer for Kennedy Forest Management Services, said the timber sale was delayed from earlier in the year because of the coronavirus.
“We’re just waiting for markets to come back. They’re still down to a certain degree, but a lot of it has to do with what you’re selling,” Kennedy said. “Almost 60 percent of the daily sales volume is yellow poplar, which is doing really well right now and then 27 percent is red maple, which this year, compared to last year, dropped by 20 percent, but is starting to come back slowly.”
The Oscar Sayer Road is located in the southern part of Upshur County off Holly Grove Road between Alexander and Kanawha Head.
Kennedy said Upshur County Administrator Carrie Wallace asked him what the best time to sell would be, and he responded early next year.
“I’m still nervous about what’s going to happen after the new administration takes over, but there’s also some market dynamics that change very quickly and a lot of people are moving out of larger cities and between that in lower interest rates, there’s a lot of construction going on, and it’s going to take a lot to change that.”
Kennedy explained it isn’t the landowners or the sawmills making the money, it’s middlemen.
“How soon that trickles down to the sawmills and the landowners depends,” Kennedy said. “It’s kind of happening, but it’s going to take a while for landowners to make decent money on the sale of timber, so we would be better off to wait a little longer. What I was going to suggest is, we start the process in February, with a sale date of mid-March.”
In other Upshur County Commission news, the Upshur County Commission approved an order to permit the lawful holding of Upshur County Circuit Court at the Event Center at Brushy Fork for jury selection in January, February, March and April, 2021, pursuant to WV Code §51-3-7. Occupying the existing court space is not feasible for the purpose of a jury selection without creating a substantially increased risk of transmission of the COVID-19 virus, according to the commission agenda.
