Description: The Virginia Department of Forestry inspects approximately 5,000 logging jobs per year for approximately 220,000 acres annually.  The logging jobs are a mixture of total harvests, thinning, and select harvests.  Virginia Dept of Forestry employees strive to provide sound management advice including pre-harvest planning in order to prevent any water quality issues from occurring during a timber harvest.  However, there are issues from time to time that must be dealt with, and the Silvicultural Water Quality Law empowers the Department of Forestry to work in conjunction with all parties involved to correct any situations on these jobs  resulting in or that could result in sedimentation of any waters of the Commonwealth.  The job is challenging because no two logging jobs are the same.  In this presentation, we will discuss the role of the Department in the water quality process, how we handle different situations, and the difference between Virginia's BMP Program and the Water Quality Law.

Presenter: Kevin Dawson, Water Quality Specialist, Virginia Department of Forestry, graduated from Virginia Tech with a B.S. in Forestry.  He has worked as an industry forester for Westvaco Corporation as well as a logging contractor, and he has been with the VDOF for 15 years.