After a nearly four-year hiatus, funding has been restored to maintain the nearly 3,400 acres of Erie County forest. But not everyone is happy with the county’s plans for the woodlands.

On Thursday, the County Legislature OK’d nearly $148,000 to reopen the forestry division of the Erie County Department of Parks, Recreation and Forestry. The funding includes $60,000 to create three parks maintenance positions for the forests in Sardinia, Boston, Concord and Holland, as well as $80,000 in building and grounds equipment, for the rest of 2009. For the full 2010 calendar year, the three jobs will cost $120,000 in salaries and benefits.

Erie County Parks Commissioner James Hornung said the forest has fallen into neglect since funding was cut following the 2005 county budget crisis.

“We have assets in the county that are not being utilized,” Hornung said. “Our forests are one of them.”

Plans include harvesting sap for syrup from maple trees — which would reap the county an estimated $35,000. Legislator Daniel M. Kozub, chairman of the energy and environment committee, said the work also will include preventive maintenance on thousands of trees.

But not everyone is convinced the county is heading in the right direction.

Larry Beahan, the forestry chairman for the Niagara Group of the Sierra Club, said the county should not have created the positions until a master plan is in place. “It’s standard operating procedure when you cut trees out of the forest that you first establish a plan.”

Beahan said he is concerned that the county wants to use the forest for revenue purposes instead of preservation.

“It’s a good thing to have a forestry department because there is work to be done,” Beahan said. “We don’t want a forestry department that thinks it has to produce enough revenue to justify its existence.”

Hornung said the only trees that will be cut down before a plan is in place are those that need to be removed or are dangerous to hikers. He said initial revenue for the forestry department will be generated from the harvesting of hundreds of dead trees throughout the county’s parks, not the logging of forest trees.

The Erie County Forest Management Plan, drafted in 2003, will be updated and revised.

“I will absolutely not leave anyone out of the discussion,” Hornung said. “They’re all deathly scared of the county mismanaging the forest. That’s not what I’m going to do.”

The forestry division also plans to combat the invasive emerald ash borer beetle, a destructive insect that has already begun to infect trees in Cattaraugus County.