Fraser Timber fined for clear-cut violations

Fraser Timber Ltd. of Ashland will pay $2,000 in fines for not documenting buffer zones between its clear-cuts, the Maine Forest Service announced Thursday.

The company violated the portion of the Forest Practices Act, which allows clear-cuts provided they do not exceed a certain size and are separated by forest buffers.

Fraser legally clear-cut an area in Township 10 Range 6 in Aroostook County in 1997, then returned to the site to harvest trees in the buffer zone in 2002.

The cuts themselves were of legal size under Maine’s forestry rules, but Fraser had not kept proper maps recording the harvests, said Don Mansius of the Maine Forest Service.

For more information, see www.maineforestservice.org.