By PAULA TRACY, InDepthNH.org

CONCORD – An attorney for the owners of the Connecticut Lakes Headwaters, Aurora Sustainables, was among opponents to an amendment related to a carbon sequestration bill being considered in the House Municipal and County Government Committee. 

He laid out Aurora’s vision and interest in being a partner with the state, provided it recognizes the company’s private ownership rights.

House Bill 123, which was heard by the committee last week https://indepthnh.org/2025/02/10/carbon-credit-sequestration-taxing-bill-gets-support-and-opposition/ would allow towns to collect a tax on standing timber for tracts enrolled in carbon sequester programs. 

The amendment, heard Tuesday before the same committee, would make it law that “no land owned by a county or by the state of New Hampshire shall be enrolled in a carbon sequestration program” and “that” shall include “any land put into trust which receives any public money from the state.”

Supporting it was the NH Municipal Association, but opposition included that from the Nature Conservancy, the Society for the Protection of NH Forests, the New Hampshire Timberland Owners Association, the Farm Bureau Federation and others, including Aurora.

Opponents said the amendment could impact lot owners who take advantage of state programs for habitat management and preclude them from entering the carbon market.

Many also said the issue of carbon capture is complex and bills may be going before the state’s full understanding of existing and emerging carbon markets, both regulated and unregulated are known.

Concord tax attorney Bill Ardinger represents Aurora, which owns the 146,000-acre northern tip of the state.

The privately owned industrial land has a state easement designed 20 years ago when it was being sold, which allows for traditional uses of harvesting timber and recreating while also allowing it to be privately owned and taxed. The easement, which cost over $30 million in state, federal and private funds, was drawn without knowing the future, that a different way of making money would emerge, such as carbon sequestration.

Ardinger said private property owners have the right to decide to harvest timber to allow for tourism uses and, “They have many ways of earning income….and one of those may be this developing carbon sequestration system out there. (It’s) another way to get income from your private ownership of private property.

“The constitution of this state and the federal constitution prohibit governments from taking private property, either directly through eminent domain or in many cases – and one I think where this language would point to where this is targeted to a particular format – it would be a regulatory taking. In other words…. I think that if this language were to be interpreted to apply to private property you would have another issue that other people who have testified have not brought forward, that it would violate the federal and state constitution. New Hampshire has one of the strongest protections for private property rights in the country,” he noted, and has recently strengthened it.

“Aurora, my client, continues to manage its property, this very precious property, consistent with the terms and the spirit of the conservation easement with the state of New Hampshire. We work with the state regularly and we are trying to get the stewardship plan finished. We are working on that. We are working with stakeholders. We are very happy to have timber harvesting continuing on the property even though it has been enrolled in a carbon program since 2013. And the fact that it has been in the existing state stewardship plan. There has been harvesting going on regularly of timber since that time period, subject to important things like weather, and markets. Weather has been very tough up there recently with entire roads washed out,” Ardinger said.

“So we are continuing to harvest up there consistent with the terms of the easement. We are also very supportive of tourism efforts, of motorized vehicles of hunting and of preserving the incredible quality of that forest for wildlife and the environment and we intend to continue to do so. And the fact that we are here is just to let you know just how much a partner we intend to be with the state of New Hampshire,” he said. “But we expect that the state will continue to work with us as a private owner consistent with private property rights,” Ardinger said.

Remote people who signed in included eight in support and 35 in opposition. 

The Farm Bureau Federation opposed it as well with Robert Johnson noting some of its close to 2,500 farmers take state grants to help improve habitat and other reasons and the bill could preclude those parcels from carbon capture. 

The amendment was deemed a non-germane to House Bill 562 filed by state Rep. Joe Alexander, R-Goffstown.

This legislation, from Rep. Arnold Davis, R-Milan, has been filed to deal with dwindling timber tax revenue due to property owners like Aurora, now able to get money to leave the timber growing, rather than cutting; and the ripple effect to the historic logging, milling and transportation.

It is a very complex and emerging market that could have profound impacts on the state, particularly its north country with a tax loss and a change in habitat management.

 When owned by the Forestland Group in 2013, the 146,000-acre Connecticut Lakes Headwaters Tract, at the very northern tip of the state, was enrolled for 100 years in the California carbon compliance market. It was part of massive land buy of formerly industrial lands for Aurora but unlike the other tracts it acquired for “carbon first” this one has an easement, purchased by the public, to maintain traditional uses including timber management.

When news began to spread at log landings and in coffee shops in Pittsburg and other spots two years ago that the average annual cut on the tract would be dropped by about half, local officials began to look at the situation and the timber tax revenue dropped. A local mill went down to four production days a week and is now having to go as far as New York state to source the wood which used to come from the Headwaters tract. 

Instead of just making revenue from logging, a new market had been emerging, particularly in California, where landowners are paid to NOT cut the wood. This reduces corporate carbon footprint damage.

“Public lands, paid for with tax dollars, should be viewed differently” than private lands, Davis said.

Some asked if it was possible that in the future this could be a revenue stream for the state which is being cut off by the bill.

Jasen Stock, executive director of the New Hampshire Timberland Owners Association, said NHTOA opposes the amendment.

“This is a property rights issue for us,” he said

Meredith Hatfield, for the Nature Conservancy, opposed the bill and said carbon sequestration can coexist with a lot of uses.

“We do think this is a very complicated issue that would benefit from further study,” she said.