The Scott River Ranger District on the Klamath National Forest is proposing to log 1,026 acres adjacent to Marble Mountain Wilderness and within the Wild and Scenic Scott River corridor, tributary to the ailing Klamath River Basin where so many fish have died, as part of the Westpoint Heli Timber Sale. The logging plan would remove from five to seven million board feet of timber, use gopher baiting with strychnine on 309 acres, build 1.8 miles of temporary road, and upgrade 14 miles of existing unclassified roads in a heavily degraded landscape with unstable soils and a high potential for landslides that is already suffering from past logging, roadbuilding, and grazing. Comments are needed by July 11, 2003 urging the Forest Service to drop the sale because it will degrade Wild and Scenic River values, Wilderness values, and ancient forest habitat, and increase fire risk by opening up the canopy, lowering fuel moisture, and increasing fuels through slash and other logging debris.
The sale would threaten nesting, breeding, and foraging habitat for the northern spotted owl, goshawk territories, populations of the rare Siskiyou Mountain salamander, and aquatic habitat for coho salmon, Chinook salmon, steelhead trout, resident rainbow trout, tailed frog, and numerous other species, such as dace, Klamath small scale suckers, and the Pacific Giant salamander.
Please submit comments stating the following:
1. The Scott River Ranger District should drop the sale, and propose a restoration-only alternative that focuses on removing fuels and small diameter trees that pose a real fire hazard, rather than removing the larger fire resistant trees which are important for maintaining water quality in the Scott Wild and Scenic River and the Klamath River Basin.
2. The Scott River Ranger District should drop all timber sale units within the Wild and Scenic Scott River and near Marble Mountain Wilderness trailheads.
3. All timber sale units within geologically unstable areas should be dropped. The Scott River and the Klamath Basin is already suffering from poor water quality, which is causing adverse impacts on salmon, steelhead, and other aquatic species, and logging in unstable areas will only exacerbate the problem.
4. The Scott River Ranger District should drop timber sale units #53, #56, #48, #9, with northern spotted owl activity centers, goshawk territories, and populations of Siskiyou salamanders.
5. The EA fails to provide sufficient survey information for rare, threatened, sensitive, and Management Indicator species (MIS), and fails to ensure their future viability.
6. Gopher baiting with strychnine should not be used because it could potentially kill nontarget species such as spotted owls.
7. Sporax should not be used on cut stumps because it could potentially kill Survey and Manage fungi, and other nontarget species.
Please send comments by July 11, 2003 to Bill Bailey, Project Leader, Scott River Ranger District, Klamath National Forest, 11263 N. Highway 3, Fort Jones, CA 96032-9702
