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The 80 acres of commercial forest land owned by her and her husband was about to become a looming financial time bomb.

Gray had felt quite tied to keeping the land in the commercial forest program, as she had promised to maintain it as productive forest land when she inherited it from a friend, Donna Centille, dying of cancer two years ago. The Grays did their homework and researched the program and talked to their children, who were willing to inherit and maintain the commercial forest land.

Last December, the Grays received notice in the mail, as did all the commercial forest landowners, that a few changes were made to the program, including a different formula for calculating the withdrawal fee. But those letters sent by the DNR via certified mail did not say how the formula for calculating the fee would change or how much it would cost.

So, Gray was shocked when in late August she called the DNR to ask about another issue and found the withdrawal fee would increase nearly five fold. If the Grays withdrew their land from the program right now it would cost $8,900; after Sept. 27, it will change to $42,600.

The program, in effect since the 1920s, keeps land forested and encourages production of timber products. Though privately owned, the land is open to the public for hunting and fishing.

Withdrawal from the commercial forest land program has always incurred a fee to the local taxing unit to repay some of the tax savings they have realized over the years.In exchange, the land is put on a specific tax roll and landowners pay $1.20 per acre to the local taxing unit. The state of Michigan matches that cost for every acre enrolled in the program.

Though planning to keep the land in the program, upon inheritance the Grays researched the withdrawal fee in case of emergency. "It was nice to know it's there, and if we need to get out, we could,"she said.

According to Shirley Businski, commercial forest assistant at the DNR, the amendments to the law last September required the DNR to notify all landowners within three months of the change. But at that point, the new formula for withdrawal was not formalized.

"In December, we did not have the actual numbers from treasury to know exactly what the formula was going to look like,"Businski said. "It took awhile for the treasury and for us to put the information together."

The DNR has posted the information on its website and updated the "frequently asked questions"portion to include answers on the changes, but the department did not send out another letter and the Grays are one example of landowners unaware of the changes.

"It's just unbelievable to go from $8,900 to $42,000 and not even let the landowners in Star Township know,"she said.

The previous method of calculating a fee involved the average property value of timber cut land. The DNR is now using the average value for comparable property acquired with in the last 10 years as determined by a state tax law.

The DNR obtains a figure from the treasury of the comparable property value per acre in every county that participates in the program. In Antrim County, 4,171 acres of land are enrolled in the program.

The Grays don't want to have such an expense hanging over their heads or passed on to their children who inherit the land.

"Our 80 acres is landlocked,"Gray said. "I couldn't sell that 80 acres for $42,000. If anything happens that we need some cash, I can't even sell it."

At this point, the Grays can either keep their land in the commercial forest program or switch it to the qualified forest program, also run by the DNR. Gray said she wasn't interested before in the qualified program, but the news of the withdrawal fee forced her to look at other options, especially with her husband as a heart patient.

"I'll probably just switch to keep from having that bill over my head,"she said. "I'm not going to pass that kind of burden onto my children."

Hadley Robinson can be reached at hrobinson@michigannewspapers.com or by calling 231-533-8523.