Trinity-Neches Forest Landowners Association

10/08/2026

🌳 COUNTY SPOTLIGHT #7 — VAN ZANDT COUNTY 🌳
The final county in our seven-county TNFLA spotlight series!

🌲 FORESTLAND FIRST

Van Zandt County sits where the Post Oak Savannah, Blackland Prairie, and East Texas landscapes meet. Its forests include oak-hickory, oak-pine, bottomland hardwoods, and smaller areas of pine.

The Texas A&M Forest Service’s 2013 East Texas inventory estimated about 128,800 acres of timberland in Van Zandt County. Oak-hickory was the largest forest type, at about 91,600 acres. That inventory is sample-based, and county estimates.

Tree species named in the county’s regional description include post oak, blackjack oak, pecan, and elm along streams.

🚜 FARMS, RANCHES & WORKING LAND

The 2022 USDA Census of Agriculture counted 3,206 farms covering 416,603 acres in Van Zandt County. That included 271,326 acres of pastureland and 35,134 acres of woodland. Farms reported $168.3 million in agricultural product sales.

Hay and forage are important crops: the census reported 71,600 acres harvested. The county also reported 94,140 cattle and calves. Working farms, ranches, and woodlands are a major part of the county’s rural landscape and economy.

💧 WATER, WILDLIFE & PLACES WE VALUE

The Neches River rises in eastern Van Zandt County. The Sabine River forms part of the county’s northeastern boundary, and creeks in the east drain toward the Trinity River watershed.

These connected waterways support local farms, wildlife, recreation, and downstream communities. Van Zandt County is also home to Lake Tawakoni and Purtis Creek State Park. The Texas State Historical Association describes wildlife in the county that includes white-tailed deer, squirrels, raccoons, bobcats, coyotes, foxes, and many other species.

🔥 WILDFIRE & BURN-BAN UPDATE

Van Zandt County’s website lists a burn ban effective August 10, 2026. Please check the County’s current notice and Watch Duty or the Texas A&M Forest Service fire map before burning or sharing a specific active-fire update.

⚡ ENERGY PROJECTS & LAND-CONVERSION PRESSURE

Van Zandt County Commissioners Court adopted a temporary moratorium order on green-energy construction and surface operations on February 11, 2026. The County’s posted order covers projects including solar, wind, and battery energy storage. Because it was a temporary order, check the latest County records before describing its current status.

The county has existing solar development, and public project tracking lists additional proposed solar and battery projects. For example, the tracker lists Caney Creek Solar as a planned project and Goldfinch Solar with a proposed battery-storage component. These are project listings and interconnection requests.

Across all seven TNFLA counties, our earlier project review identified about 43,992 acres—nearly 69 square miles—of potential land conversion.

The question is not whether a landowner may make choices about their own property. It is how we preserve informed choices, working lands, water, roads, emergency access, and the long-term health of our rural communities as development moves forward.

🌲 What do you most hope will be protected in Van Zandt County? What would you like TNFLA to learn or share about forestland here?

Comment with a 🌲, share this with a neighboring landowner, or tag someone who loves forests and rural Texas.

Sources: Texas A&M Forest Service, East Texas Forestlands 2013 · USDA 2022 Census of Agriculture: Van Zandt County · Handbook of Texas: Van Zandt County · Van Zandt County burn-ban notice · Van Zandt County Commissioners Court information · Public project tracker

10/08/2026

Looking forward!

Texas Black Bear Association - Non-Profit Organization to bring Black Bears back to Texas

09/14/2026

🌲 PUBLIC COMMENT OPPORTUNITY: USDA ROADLESS RULE PROPOSAL

The USDA Forest Service is requesting public comments on its proposal to rescind the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule.

The current rule generally restricts road construction, road reconstruction, and timber harvesting within inventoried roadless areas on National Forest System lands, with limited exceptions. It applies to federal national-forest land—not privately owned forestland.

USDA states that rescinding the rule would return decisions concerning these areas primarily to individual national-forest planning processes. The proposed rescission would not itself approve a specific road, timber harvest, or development project, but it would remove the existing nationwide restrictions.

Comments may address:

* Whether the Roadless Rule should be retained or rescinded
* Alternatives to complete rescission
* Forest and watershed protection
* Wildlife habitat and recreation
* Wildfire and forest-management needs
* Road-construction and maintenance costs
* Economic and environmental effects

USDA asks commenters to explain the reasons for their position. Individual, substantive comments are especially helpful.

Deadline: October 6, 2026

➡️ SUBMIT AN OFFICIAL COMMENT HERE:
https://www.regulations.gov/commenton/FS-2025-0001-342438⁠

📄 Official proposed rule:
USDA Roadless Rule proposal⁠

The docket number is FS-2025-0001, and the Regulatory Information Number is RIN 0596-AD66. Comments become part of the public record, so avoid including confidential personal information.

09/12/2026

🌳 COUNTY SPOTLIGHT #6 — LEON COUNTY

Leon County sits along the western edge of East Texas forest country, where the Post Oak Savannah meets the Piney Woods. Its forests are far more hardwood-dominated than those of Houston or Cherokee County—but they remain vital to wildlife, water, agriculture and the county’s rural character.

🌲 FORESTLAND FIRST

The current USDA Forest Service inventory estimates approximately 213,000 acres of forestland—about 31% of Leon County.

WHAT GROWS HERE?

• 159,400 acres — Oak/Hickory | 74.9%
Post oak, blackjack oak, water oak, southern red oak and several hickory species

• 24,900 acres — Oak/Gum/Cypress | 11.7%
Sweetgum, bottomland oaks and baldcypress in wetter corridors

• 17,000 acres — Oak/Pine | 8%
Oaks mixed with loblolly and shortleaf pine

• 9,700 acres — Elm/Ash/Cottonwood | 4.6%
Primarily along floodplains, creeks and river bottoms

• 1,900 acres — Nonstocked or regenerating forest | 0.9%

These categories describe the dominant forest mixture; individual stands may contain many additional species.

📉 THE LONG VIEW

Leon County’s current forest estimate is approximately 114,000 acres lower than its 2005 estimate—a decrease of roughly 35%.

Because Forest Inventory and Analysis data are sample-based and inventory methods evolve, this should be viewed as a serious long-term warning rather than an acre-by-acre clearing count. The direction still matters: forest loss and fragmentation affect timber supply, wildlife corridors, water infiltration, wildfire behavior and the rural economy.

🌾 FARMS, RANCHES AND WOODLAND

Leon County has:

• 1,597 farms and ranches
• 423,117 acres of land in farms
• 103,548 acres of woodland within farms
• 97% family-owned farms
• 96% of agricultural sales coming from livestock, poultry and related products

Forests and agriculture are not separate stories here. Many Leon County families manage timber, cattle, wildlife and water on the same land.

💧 WATER AND WILDLIFE

The Trinity and Navasota river systems, Lake Limestone, numerous creeks and forested bottomlands connect Leon County’s land directly to regional water supplies.

Wooded stream corridors slow runoff, protect soil, filter water and provide connected habitat for white-tailed deer, wild turkey, quail, migratory birds and many other species.

🔥 WILDFIRE REMINDER

The late-August Center Fire grew to approximately 120 acres before reaching 80% containment.

As of September 11, Leon County reports no burn ban in effect. Nevertheless, the Center Fire is a timely reminder that healthy forests, maintained access routes, defensible space and adequately equipped rural fire departments are essential.

☀️ ENERGY AND LAND-CONVERSION PRESSURE

Construction is underway on the 595-megawatt Pecan Prairie Solar facility, reported to encompass approximately 1,300 acres in Leon County.

Leon County’s public interconnection-queue listing currently shows 18 solar, battery-storage and gas-generation requests, with 13 listed as active. A queue position does not guarantee construction, but it shows the scale of development interest focused on this rural county.

Across all seven counties in our TNFLA spotlight series, projects identified thus far represent approximately 44,000 ACRES—nearly 69 SQUARE MILES—of potential land conversion if every proposed project is built.

Not every project will advance. But landowners and communities deserve a complete accounting of the cumulative effect on forests, farms, wildlife habitat, water and rural fire protection before additional land is committed.

💬 LEON COUNTY LANDOWNERS—WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU

• What is your greatest concern for Leon County’s land?
• What is your greatest hope for its future?
• What forestry, wildlife, water or land-management topics would you like TNFLA to cover?

Please share this post and tag Leon County landowners, farmers, ranchers, foresters and neighbors who care about the future of our working lands.

SOURCES:

USDA Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis / Texas A&M Forest Service
https://texasforestinfo.tamu.edu/tsa/

USDA 2022 Census of Agriculture—Leon County
https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/AgCensus/2022/Online_Resources/County_Profiles/Texas/cp48289.pdf

Leon County official website and burn-ban status
https://www.co.leon.tx.us/

Repsol Pecan Prairie Solar Project
https://www.pecanprairiesolar.com/

ERCOT resource and interconnection information
https://www.ercot.com/gridinfo/resource

Leon County interconnection-project summary
https://www.interconnection.fyi/projects/state/TX/leon-county

Track 18 interconnection queue projects in Leon County, Texas. 13 active projects, 5 withdrawn. Updated daily.

08/30/2026

COUNTY SPOTLIGHT #5 — HOUSTON COUNTY

Houston County is one of the most heavily forested counties in our seven-county area. Nearly 395,000 acres—about half of the county—are forestland.

FOREST MAKEUP

🌲 Loblolly/shortleaf pine — 51%
🌳 Oak/hickory — 22.5%
🌲🌳 Oak/pine — 17%
🌿 Elm/ash/cottonwood — 5%
🌳 Oak/gum/cypress — 2.5%
🌱 Other forest types and nonstocked land — 2%

Pine and mixed oak-pine forests together account for roughly 68% of Houston County’s forestland. These working forests support timber jobs, wildlife habitat, clean water, recreation and family landownership.

A SPECIAL FOREST

The Davy Crockett National Forest spans Houston and Trinity counties, protecting more than 160,000 acres of East Texas woodlands, streams, recreation areas and wildlife habitat. The forest sits within the Neches and Trinity River basins—two watersheds shaped by Houston County’s forests and bottomlands.

AGRICULTURE

Houston County also has 1,411 farms covering 483,598 acres, according to the 2022 Census of Agriculture. Ninety-seven percent are family farms, and nearly 100,000 acres of land in farms are classified as woodland.

Livestock, poultry and related products account for 86% of county agricultural sales. Forestland, pasture and agriculture overlap here, creating a landscape defined by working family lands.

WILDFIRE UPDATE — WATCH DUTY

As of early Sunday morning, Aug. 30, Watch Duty listed the Houston 7844 Fire near the 2300 block of County Road 4030 in the Crockett area as 12 acres, 100% contained and inactive.

Earlier this month, the Houston 7085 Fire burned 4.8 acres and was also listed as 100% contained and inactive.

These fires were limited in size, but they are reminders that even small incidents can threaten homes, timber, livestock and rural access. Conditions and incident status can change quickly—continue checking Watch Duty and local official sources.

ENERGY AND LAND-CONVERSION PRESSURE

The proposed “Houston County BESS,” a 125.4-megawatt battery-storage project, remains listed as active in the ERCOT interconnection queue near the Mustang Prairie–Latexo transmission line. A queue listing is not a construction permit or a guarantee that a project will be built, but it signals continued development interest in the county.

ACROSS ALL SEVEN COUNTIES: approximately 44,000 ACRES—nearly 69 SQUARE MILES—of potential land conversion associated with the large-scale energy projects identified in TNFLA’s project inventory.

Houston County landowners: What changes are you seeing on the ground—wildfire risk, timber conversion, subdivision pressure or new energy infrastructure? What do you hope will still define Houston County a generation from now?

Share your observations below, and tag someone who cares about Houston County’s forests and working lands.

Sources: USDA Forest Service FIA/EVALIDator; USDA 2022 Census of Agriculture; USDA Forest Service; Watch Duty; ERCOT interconnection-queue data; TNFLA seven-county project inventory.

08/29/2026

COUNTY SPOTLIGHT #4 — FREESTONE COUNTY

Freestone County sits where the Post Oak Savannah, Blackland Prairie, and East Texas Timberlands meet—a diverse landscape facing increasing development pressure.

🌲 HOW MUCH IS FOREST?

The most detailed Texas A&M Forest Service county inventory estimates approximately 292,400 forested acres—about 51% of Freestone County.

Estimated forest types:

• Oak forest — 130,900 acres, or 45%
• Other hardwoods — 87,200 acres, or 30%
• Juniper-pine — 51,500 acres, or 18%
• Mesquite — 15,600 acres, or 5%
• Nonstocked or regenerating forest — 7,100 acres, or 2%

Typical trees include post oak, blackjack oak, water oak, black hickory, cedar elm, hackberry, eastern redcedar, and—toward the eastern timberlands—loblolly and shortleaf pine.

These are inventory estimates, not parcel-by-parcel measurements.

🚜 FORESTS AND WORKING LAND

The 2022 Census of Agriculture counted 1,291 farms covering 372,086 acres in Freestone County. That included 53,054 acres classified as woodland. Livestock and poultry produced 95% of the county’s agricultural sales.

Forest and farm acreage overlap, so those totals should not be added together—but both show how strongly Freestone County still depends on working land.

💧 WATER

Most of Freestone County drains toward the Trinity River, while the southwestern edge lies within the Navasota River watershed. Richland-Chambers Reservoir crosses the Freestone–Navarro county line, and Fairfield Lake has long been one of the county’s best-known natural and recreational resources.

🌳 WHAT HAPPENED AT FAIRFIELD LAKE

The loss of Fairfield Lake State Park created a major public change.

For more than 50 years, Texans had access to the 1,821-acre state park and Fairfield Lake. The park was located within a larger property of approximately 5,000 acres.

The state did not own the tract—Texas Parks and Wildlife had leased it since 1971. When Vistra sold the property to Todd Interests in June 2023, the lease ended and public access closed.

Todd Interests is now developing the property as The Freestone Club, a private luxury lake-and-golf community.

Technically, this was not the sale of state-owned parkland. But Texans still lost a long-established state park and public access to the lake.

🔥 FIRE CONDITIONS

Freestone County’s official page lists a burn ban effective August 5, 2026. Earlier this year, the county declared a local state of disaster because of wildfire and drought conditions.

For landowners, wildfire preparedness remains part of responsible forest and pasture management.

⚡ ENERGY DEVELOPMENT

County meeting reports have identified:

• 459 acres associated with Ratcliff Solar

• 16,059 acres reported within Palmera/Utley Solar’s Zone 8!!😢

• A 1,430-acre expanded reinvestment zone for Piedra Solar and battery storage

Freestone County is also seeing construction connected to the CyrusOne data-center campus and the 460-megawatt Pin Oak Creek natural-gas facility. Their acreage is not included because reliable land figures could not be confirmed.

ACROSS ALL SEVEN COUNTIES:

44,000 ACRES — nearly 69 SQUARE MILES — of potential land conversion associated with the large-scale energy projects we have identified.

This represents the potential footprint if all identified proposals are built, it excludes withdrawn projects and projects for which reliable acreage could not be verified.

Freestone County shows how quickly one landscape can be pulled in different directions: forests, ranches, reservoirs, public recreation, private development, and industrial energy growth.

What part of Freestone County’s land and forestry story concerns you most—and what should still be here for the next generation?

Sources-Texas A&M Forest Service forest inventory⁠, USDA 2022 county profile⁠, TPWD Fairfield Lake record⁠, Todd Interests’ Freestone Club page⁠, and Freestone County burn-ban information⁠.

08/28/2026

If calling it “just pine trees” makes you cringe, you’re our kind of people. 😂🌲

TNFLA brings East Texas landowners together to learn about forests, wildlife, water, ponds, wildfire and protecting the land we love.

Tag someone who will stop the car to identify a tree!

Trinity-Neches Forest Landowners Association Texas Forestry Association Texas Water Development Board Texas A&M Forest Service Texas Parks and Wildlife U.S. Forest Service Trinity-Neches Soil & Water Conservation District #422 Texas Society of American Foresters ArborGen Texas Landowners Council Texas Conservation Alliance Angelina Nacogdoches County Forest Landowners Association SFA Arthur Temple College of Forestry and AgricultureTexAgs Cody Harris

08/27/2026

🌲 COUNTY SPOTLIGHT #3 — CHEROKEE COUNTY

We’re continuing our look at the forests of Henderson, Anderson, Cherokee, Freestone, Houston, Leon and Van Zandt Counties.

We’ve covered Henderson and Anderson. Today: Cherokee County.

🌲 HOW MUCH OF CHEROKEE COUNTY IS FOREST?

Cherokee County has approximately 401,000 acres of timberland — about 60% of the county.

That makes forestland one of Cherokee County's most important natural resources and one of the defining features of its landscape.

🌳 WHAT KIND OF FORESTS — AND WHAT TREES ARE GROWING THERE?

Texas A&M Forest Service estimates Cherokee County's timberland breaks down approximately like this:

• 119,500 acres — Oak-Hickory | 29.8%
Look for post oak, blackjack oak, southern red oak, white oak and several species of hickory.

• 85,000 acres — Oak-Pine | 21.2%
Mixed stands of oaks with loblolly and shortleaf pine, often accompanied by hickory and sweetgum.

• 80,700 acres — Planted Pine | 20.1%
Primarily loblolly pine, the dominant commercial pine of East Texas.

• 78,900 acres — Natural Pine | 19.7%
Primarily loblolly and shortleaf pine. Cherokee County is particularly important for shortleaf pine.

• 17,200 acres — Elm-Ash-Cottonwood | 4.3%
Bottomland forests containing trees such as elm, ash, cottonwood, river birch and other moisture-loving hardwoods.

• 12,900 acres — Oak-Gum-Cypress | 3.2%
Bottomland forests with water and willow oaks, sweetgum, blackgum and baldcypress.

• 7,100 acres — other forest types | 1.8%

🌲 Cherokee County's native forests include an extraordinary variety of trees:
loblolly pine • shortleaf pine • post oak • blackjack oak • southern red oak • white oak • water oak • willow oak • hickory • sweetgum • elm • pecan • river birch • baldcypress • blackgum • eastern redcedar • sycamore

Cherokee County's historic soil survey specifically describes its sandy uplands as forests of shortleaf pine, loblolly pine, hickory, post oak, blackjack oak and southern red oak, while its bottomlands supported oak, elm, pecan, birch, water oak and willow oak.

🌲 A SPECIAL FOREST

Cherokee County is home to the 2,788-acre I.D. Fairchild State Forest, established in 1925.

The forest is primarily shortleaf pine and is used to demonstrate sustainable forestry, timber management, prescribed burning, wildlife habitat improvement and shortleaf pine restoration.

🔥 FIRE & OUR FORESTS

Cherokee County remains under a county burn ban as dry conditions continue.

The most recent documented wildfire was the Cherokee 6916 Fire, which began August 13 about 5 miles northeast of Jacksonville. It burned approximately 2 acres and is now inactive.

Another recent fire, the Cherokee 6644 Fire, was reported about 6 miles southeast of Rusk on August 5 and burned approximately 39 acres before reaching 100% containment.

For forest landowners, even small wildfires are important reminders of the value of fuel management, prescribed fire, maintained access roads and defensible space.

💧 FORESTS = WATER

Cherokee County lies within the Neches River watershed, with the Neches forming much of its western boundary.

The county also connects to Lake Palestine, Lake Jacksonville and numerous creeks and tributaries.

Forests matter to water. Forest soils slow rainfall, reduce erosion and sediment movement, protect streambanks and allow more water to infiltrate into the soil rather than immediately becoming runoff.

🌾 WORKING LANDS

Cherokee County has:

• 1,411 farms
• 325,551 acres in farms
• 148,984 acres of pasture
• 83,623 acres of farm woodland
• 74,816 acres of cropland

Forestry and agriculture are intertwined here. Much of what USDA calls “farmland” in East Texas also contains working woodland.

⚡ AND ONE NUMBER WE ARE WATCHING ACROSS ALL SEVEN COUNTIES

As this series continues, we are also tracking how much rural land could be converted if the large-scale energy projects currently operating or moving through the development/interconnection pipeline are ultimately built.

Across Henderson, Anderson, Cherokee, Freestone, Houston, Leon and Van Zandt Counties, our current conservative working estimate is:

≈44,000 ACRES
Nearly 69 SQUARE MILES

of potential land conversion associated with the large-scale energy projects we have identified.

This represents the potential footprint if the projects we are tracking move forward — and it is likely conservative because we have not assigned guessed acreage to energy/Solar/ BESS projects when the actual project acreage cannot yet be verified.

🌲 FOREST LANDOWNERS — I WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU:

What is your biggest concern for your land?

What is your hope for your forest 25, 50 or even 100 years from now?

And what would you like to know about Cherokee County forestland in a future post?

Please tag a neighboring landowner or share this with someone who loves and wants to protect our East Texas forests.

SOURCES:
Texas A&M Forest Service — Forest Inventory & Analysis
Texas A&M Forest Service — East Texas Forestlands 2020
Texas A&M Forest Service — I.D. Fairchild State Forest
USDA NRCS — Soil Survey of Cherokee County
USDA — 2022 Census of Agriculture
Cherokee County — Emergency Management/Burn Ban
NIFC wildfire incident data
ERCOT/interconnection records
Texas A&M AgriLife

08/26/2026

🌲 MEET THE SEVEN COUNTIES TNFLA SERVES 🌲

Henderson • Anderson • Cherokee • Houston • Freestone • Leon • Van Zandt

Yesterday, we began our county spotlight series with Henderson County. Today, we move to Anderson County.

🌳 ANDERSON COUNTY FOREST SNAPSHOT

Anderson County contains approximately 381,000 acres of forestland—about 56% of the county’s land area.

Its forests are approximately:

• 39% loblolly/shortleaf pine
• 25% oak/hickory
• 15% oak/gum/cypress
• 10% mixed oak/pine
• 9% elm/ash/cottonwood
• 2% other eastern softwoods
• Less than 1% exotic hardwoods

The USDA Forest Service estimate is approximately 11,000 forested acres lower than in 2005, a decline of about 3%. Because county-level forest inventories are based on sampled plots, these figures should be viewed as estimates rather than exact tract-by-tract counts.

💧 FORESTS PROTECT ANDERSON COUNTY’S WATER

Anderson County lies between the Trinity and Neches rivers. Its forests help slow runoff, hold soil in place, filter sediment and pollutants, support groundwater recharge and protect downstream water quality.

A wonderful conservation success is the new 6,900-acre Trinity River Wildlife Management Area, which protects 11.3 miles of Trinity River frontage and helps create a network of more than 38,000 protected acres along the Middle Trinity.

🔥 FIRE-SEASON UPDATE

The Anderson 7239 Fire, discovered August 19, burned approximately 4.5 acres before reaching 100% containment. Anderson County is currently under a 90-day burn ban that began August 18.

Anderson County landowners:

🌲 What is your biggest concern for your land?
🌲 What is your hope for your land?
🌲 What would you like TNFLA to cover in future forestland posts?

Please share this with an Anderson County landowner—or tag a neighboring landowner, or someone who loves forests or your favorite conservationist.

Sources:

U.S. Forest Service, Texas A&M Forest Service Texas Parks and Wildlife Palestine, Anderson County, Texas Trinity-Neches Forest Landowners Association Texas Water Development Board Texas Society of American Foresters Frankston, Texas Gus Engling Wildlife Management Area Trinity River Wildlife Refuge Trinity-Neches Soil & Water Conservation District #422
And Duty