Damaged timber on Lincoln County School District property willbe salvaged despite concerns by an area forester the district wouldnot be able to hire a logger without relaxing its bondingrules.

Bowlin Logging of Brookhaven won a bid to salvage the timber. Ithas been estimated the district had approximately $20,000 worth ofsalvageable timber on the ground from Hurricane Katrina,Superintendent Terry Brister said.

“I’m just thankful we got someone who is bonded,” he said. “Iwasn’t going to chance a multi-million dollar lawsuit for a fewthousand dollars.”

County Forester Howard Stogner had twice requested the boardrelax its rules that a logger must be bonded to operate on schoolproperty because he could not find a bonded logger to accept thejob. Waiving the bond requirement would open the project to manymore loggers, he said.

The board discussed Stogner’s recommendation each time butdenied it because of the fear of liability should the logger havean accident.

“If they’re not bonded, we’re taking a chance. If they’re notbonded, we’re not protected,” Brister said in rejecting therecommendation at the last meeting of the board. “We could get$10,000, but it could cost us a million (if something should happenand the district gets sued).”

Until Monday’s approval, the board had decided to wait until abonded logger could do the job or to not salvage the timber if abonded one could not be found.