Not only will billboard companies be able to cut down many more trees than they could before a new law loosened restrictions, under newly approved rules taking effect in March they won't have to replace them, either.

Environmentalists and others fear thousands of roadside trees that are decades old will be lost as a result. "We don't think the state legislature should give away the public's trees, particularly when the public is not getting anything in return," Molly Diggins, executive director of the state chapter of the Sierra Club, said Tuesday. "This is being done in the name of regulatory reform, but the legislature has gone too far. This is a giveaway to the billboard industry."

The General Assembly approved a bill expanding the clear-cutting zone around billboards in June. It went into effect in October but, like many laws, it required the appropriate state agency to come up with rules to implement it. The state Rules Review Commission approved temporary rules just over a week ago. Permanent rules take as long as a year to go into effect so that broad interests can be considered. But the General Assembly, in passing the law last summer, required the state Department of Transportation to develop temporary rules on billboards that would go into effect much quicker.

That was just fine with the billboard industry, which helped write the legislation, steered it through the General Assembly and guided it through the rules process. But when the Department of Transportation proposed a rule requiring companies to replant if they clear-cut 60 percent or more of the area they're permitted to cut, the industry cried foul.

"This became law over three months ago," Robert Sykes of Capital Outdoor Advertising, said at a public hearing in December. "As simple as the process was when this was passed, it continues to be massaged into an over-complicated train wreck for all involved."

Sykes was one of several industry representatives who spoke at the hearing. Ultimately, they persuaded state staff that DOT didn't have the authority under the new law to impose a mandatory replanting requirement.

The legislation received little public attention after its most controversial provision - allowing electronic billboards regardless of whether local communities wanted to ban them - was dropped after city and county officials objected.

But now that the industry has quashed the replanting regulation and trees could begin to fall in March, opponents have sounded alarms.

"Scenic North Carolina is at a complete loss to see what the hurry is to issue permits," said Ryke Longest, director of the Environmental Law and Policy Clinic at Duke University, which agreed to represent the beautification organization before the rules commission. "We're considering all our options, including litigation."

No one can say for certain how many more trees will end up being cut down as a result of the new law. There are about 8,000 billboards in the state now and an average of 240 permits issued each year.

The Department of Transportation calculated the potential economic impact at $12 million to $15 million for the loss of 200,000 trees over a five-year period, but says that is based on the market value of trees and how many removal permits have been issued in the past.

Jon Nance, DOT's chief engineer, said that has no relation to how many trees billboard owners will cut under new rules. "It's hard to predict how many signs, how quickly, how big the tree sizes," Nance said.

Diggins of the Sierra Club hopes the industry can be restrained through the permanent rule process. "Whatever the real number is, we are assuming that the cutting will occur very quickly, both due to pent-up demand from the industry, but also a need to stay ahead of the regulatory process."