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Specialists say it is hard to tell whether residents' fears that a plan to log on slopes steeper than allowed by law will lead to backyard landslides are warranted.

John Harper, a geologist with the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, said it depends on how the slope is logged.

"Trees do help stabilize slopes, but they're not going to stop the slopes from sliding if the slope decides to go," Harper said. "Lumbering has the potential to destabilize the slope, but every situation is different. Just because someone wants to log on a slope in Shaler doesn't mean there's going to be a landslide."

The Shaler zoning hearing board will hear an appeal of commissioners' rejection of the logging plan at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the township office, 300 Wetzel Road.

Citing a municipal ordinance that bans logging on slopes steeper than 25 percent, Shaler commissioners denied a Hampton man's request to log the slope last month.

Landslides are common in Western Pennsylvania -- causing tens of millions of dollars in damage throughout the state annually -- because much of the local bedrock tends to break down when wet, especially on steep slopes, Harper said.

"Where you find slopes in Western Pennsylvania, you find a potential landslide," he said.

But Tom Nadolny, a logger with Trumco Inc. in Atlantic, Crawford County, said fears of landslides are unfounded.

His company has been contracted by Don Beyerl, who owns the 27-acre site west of Felicity Avenue and near the Hampton border, to harvest the timber.

"Their argument that we may cause a landslide is one of the weakest arguments they have. A landslide is not going to happen there," Nadolny said.

Beyerl said he needs revenue from logging to pay property taxes. He contracted with Trumco to harvest 253 trees from the site.

Nadolny said his company's county- and state-approved soil-erosion plan will leave enough vegetation on the ground for the forest to quickly regenerate and prevent landslides.

But nearby residents like Ron Caruso, disagree. They say logging on slopes greater than 25 percent puts their property in danger.

"I think this would start a lot of land sliding down toward the creek," said Caruso, 70, whose back yard abuts the tract and overlooks an unnamed tributary to Pine Creek where the logging would take place.

"I don't want my back yard dropping. ... If he goes in there and clears some of those trees back there, it's going to get worse," Caruso said.

Residents like Caruso don't have to look far to see the damage done by landslides.

A 1997 landslide above Fall Run Ravine, in which two yards and swimming pools slid into a ravine, cost the township $230,000 to clean up.

That slide had nothing to do with logging, but it provides a nearby reminder of the region's propensity for landslides.

Nick Pinizzotto, senior director of watershed programs at the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, said that logging can be done without harm to the environment.

But landslides are a potential danger if too many trees are taken off a hillside, Pinizzotto said.

"If you remove too much vegetation on a steep slope, water when it rains won't have anything to absorb it ... and you end up with things like landslides," Pinizzotto said.

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