76.14.080 - Fire protection projects -- Assessments -- Payment.

Fire protection projects — Assessments — Payment.

The department shall develop fire protection projects within the high hazard forest area and shall determine the boundaries thereof in accordance with the lands benefited thereby and shall assess one-sixth of the cost of such projects equally upon all forest lands within the project on an acreage basis. Such assessment shall not, however, exceed twenty-five cents per acre annually nor more than one dollar and fifty cents per acre in the aggregate and shall constitute a lien upon any forest products harvested therefrom. The landowner may by written notice to the department elect to pay his assessment on a deferred basis at a rate of ten cents per thousand board feet and/or one cent per Christmas tree when these products are harvested from the lands for commercial use until the assessment plus two percent interest from the date of completion of each project has been paid for each acre. Payments under the deferred plan shall be credited by forty acre tracts and shall be first applied to payment of the assessment against the forty acre tract from which the funds were derived and secondly to other forty acre tracts held and designated by the payor. In the event total ownership is less than forty acres then payment shall be applied on an undivided basis to the entire areas as to which the assessment remains unpaid. The landowner who elects to pay on deferred basis may pay any unpaid assessment and interest at any time.

[1988 c 128 § 43; 1955 c 171 § 5.]