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May 22, 2007
Salvage Logging Planned Along Roads and Trails Affected by Last
Year's Fire
Proposal Would Allow Logging Companies to
Remove 700,000 Board Feet of Lumber on the Mt. Pinos Ranger
District; ForestWatch Submits Comment Letter
Urging Officials to Limit Project
Ventura County, Calif.
- The U.S. Forest Service recently announced plans to conduct
salvage logging along forty miles of dirt roads and trails in the Los Padres National Forest.
The proposal would allow commercial logging companies to remove
approximately 700,000 board feet of lumber from areas of the
forest affected by last year's Day Fire. An unknown additional
number of trees would be removed by Forest Service crews and
collected as fuel wood, piled and burned, or left on site.
The salvage logging is proposed in
the Grade Valley and Alamo Mountain areas of the Mt. Pinos
Ranger District. Most of the logging would take place in the
Alamo Mountain area, including Gold Hill Road from Piru Creek to
Alamo Mountain Road; Alamo Mountain Road, including Dutchman and
Twin Pines Campground; and Little Mutau Road to Buck Creek
Trailhead. Other tree removal is planned for Grade Valley Road,
from Lockwood Valley Road to Thorn Meadows, including the
popular Fishbowls trailhead.
Trees are already marked for removal by logging companies
along Grade Valley Road in the Los Padres National Forest.
The purpose of the project,
according to Forest Service officials, is to reestablish safe
public access to this area of the forest. Recently, ForestWatch
submitted a detailed letter to Los Padres National Forest
officials, urging them to remove only those trees that pose a
truly imminent danger.
"We appreciate the Forest
Service’s desire to provide and maintain safe recreation
opportunities in areas affected by last year’s wildfires, but we
also have concerns about large-scale tree removal in this remote
area, particularly when conducted by commercial logging
companies," said the ForestWatch letter. "Wildfire is a natural
component of this landscape, and burned trees, snags, and downed
woody debris fulfill important ecosystem processes. To preserve
the visual and recreational values of this area, we believe that
only the most dangerous hazard trees posing an imminent threat
to public safety where people congregate – such as at trailheads
and campgrounds – should be cut. We believe that it is not
appropriate to offer any trees through a commercial timber
sale," said the letter.
The project aims to remove all "hazard trees" in the area. The
agency would classify a tree as a "hazard" if all or a portion
of the tree has high potential to fall or roll onto a roadway or
facility and cause personal injury or property damage. The
Forest Service did not release an estimate of how many trees
qualify under this definition. However, any hazard tree whose
height is between 1 and 1.5 times the tree's distance from the
roadway could be cut, meaning trees as far away as 200 feet or
more from the road may be removed.
The Forest Service intends to
use a combination of federal work crews and private logging
companies to cut trees. Part of the project involves a formal
commercial timber sale, whereby the Forest Service would offer
approximately 700,000 board feet of the most commercially
valuable trees to one or more logging companies. The cut logs
would likely be transported to the nearest lumber mill in Terra
Bella, nearly 100 miles away at the base of the Sierras.
ForestWatch supports limited hazard tree removal adjacent to
trailheads and other places where they pose an imminent threat.
Retaining cut
trees in the project area would provide many more benefits than
removing them for commercial purposes. These trees provide
valuable habitat for cavity-nesting species, maintain diverse
microclimates, preserve soil moisture, and enrich the soil with
nutrients. Fire is a natural process in this ecosystem, and many
areas affected by the fire are showing new signs of growth.
Several creeks run
through the project area, including Piru Creek, which is
recommended for federal protection under the Wild & Scenic
Rivers Act. Other streams in the area include Frazier Creek,
Alamo Creek, and Cedar Creek. ForestWatch recommended that no
heavy logging equipment be allowed within several hundred feet
of these streams in order to protect them from erosion.
The ForestWatch
letter also requested additional information about the project,
noting that the Forest Service's description of the "proposed
action" was only a half-page long. There should be another
opportunity for public comment sometime this summer before a
final decision is issued.
Grade Valley Road, one of two areas where salvage logging is
proposed in a patchwork of green and brown trees.
Los Padres National Forest fire
crews have already removed the most hazardous trees from these
areas. A public closure order has been in effect for this area
since September 2006, when the Day Fire burned more than 160,000
acres of the Los Padres National Forest. That closure order was
lifted last month, restoring public access to most of the
national forest.
If approved, it would be the first
commercial timber sale
held on the Los Padres National Forest in recent memory. |
