Approved July 9, 2001
Timber Sale: "Fuels Reduction for Community Protection - Phase I" Timber Sale, Lower Trinity Ranger District, Six Rivers National Forest
The Six Rivers National approved a proposal on Monday July 9 to salvage log approximately 21 million board feet of timber from 1,050 acres in Horse Linto Creek and other key salmon watersheds of the Trinity River basin. Approximately 0.4 miles of new temporary roads would be constructed, and another 2.65 miles of previously used roads would be reconstructed, to facilitate the logging. Approximately 334 acres of the sale area is located within the Orleans Mtn. "C" RARE II Roadless Area in East Fork Horse Linto Creek. This timber sale is just the first of several phases of logging proposed by the Six Rivers National Forest within the fire area. Forest stands targeted for logging in the first phase are those that were severely burned in the 1999 Megram Fire. To avoid citizen challenges, the Six Rivers National Forest applied for, and received, an "Emergency Situation" determination from the Chief of the Forest Service that would exempt 863 acres of the project from administrative appeals
Currently Proposed Close By:
Timber sale: "New River Community Protection & Burned Area Restoration" Timber Sale, Weaverville Ranger District, Shasta-Trinity National Forest
The Shasta-Trinity National Forest has issued a scoping document outlining their proposal to salvage log approximately 3,730 acres and conduct prescribed burning on an additional 890 acres within the New River watershed of the Trinity River basin. The timber sale would log within both burned and unburned forests in the Onion Fire area. Logging is proposed directly adjacent to the Bell-Quinby, Cow Creek, and Little French Creek RARE II Roadless Areas, and within several 1,000-acre roadless areas contiguous to RARE II roadless areas and the Trinity Alps Wilderness. A majority of the area proposed for logging is located within areas intentionally burned by firefighters during the 1999 Onion Fire. Comments on the scoping notice were due by December 29, 2000. An Environmental Assessment (EA) for the sale was originally planned for release in March, 2001, but is not available yet.
Issues
The two timber sales are located in the heart of the largest concentration of ancient forest habitat in northern California, including unprotected roadless areas adjacent to the Trinity Alps Wilderness. A majority of the timber sale areas are within Late-Successional Reserves and Tier 1 Key Watersheds established under the Northwest Forest Plan. The forests and streams in the area provide critical refuge for a host of plants, fish and wildlife species, including rare orchids, salamanders, northern spotted owls, goshawks, fishers, martens wolverine, steelhead, chinook, and coho salmon. The proposed logging and road construction threatens to severely impact these species, as well as domestic water supplies in Hoopa, Denny, and other Trinity River communities.
The current timber sale would log approximately 334 acres within the Orleans Mtn. "C" RARE II Roadless Area in East Fork Horse Linto Creek. The Shasta-Trinity National Forest timber sale would log within several hundred acres of un-inventoried roadless areas that are contiguous to existing wilderness and larger inventoried roadless areas. This logging would irreversibly impact the natural ecological integrity of these areas, their pristine nature, unique characteristics, natural aesthetics, and habitat conditions for threatened, endangered, rare, and sensitive species that depend on large, undisturbed areas of land for their survival. The Roadless Area Conservation Rule issued under President Clinton allows for the removal of material from substantially altered areas provided there is no additional classified road construction (36 CFR 294.13(b)(4)). This loophole in the Roadless Rule is their justification for entering the roadless area. However, the Forest Service's "Cohesive Strategy" for addressing fires acknowledges that roadless areas are the least at risk of high-severity fire, and are also the farthest away from communities in need of protection.
Despite their names, the proposed timber sales have nothing to do with community protection. Recent Forest Service research demonstrates that the most effective thing to protect homes and structures is to reduce the amount of flammable material directly adjacent to homes and other structures. The proposed logging and road construction would remove large-diameter wood (>36 in.) on remote ridges miles away from any community. Logging in these locations will do nothing to protect communities. To be effective in protecting communities, fuels reduction should be focused on highly flammable small-diameter (<3 in. diameter) materials such as brush and twigs directly adjacent to homes, not on logging old-growth stands in remote, wild areas. The Forest Service has failed to demonstrate why logging large diameter material is necessary and why removal of small diameter material close to homes alone cannot achieve community protection objectives.
There is no evidence that the area within the Big Bar Complex Fire is at an increased risk of repeated fire. In fact, fuels levels in the fire area are quite low and will remain low for at least a decade as new vegetative growth occurs. There is also no conclusive evidence that logging reduces the risk of high intensity wildfire. However, ample evidence exists that demonstrates that logging may actually increase the risk and severity of fires by removing the cooling shade of trees and leaving highly flammable debris behind.
The stated objective of the two timber sales is to create "fuel breaks" to stop future wildfires. However, the Forest Service doesn't have the necessary funding or institutional will to maintain the "fuel breaks" they create through logging. Thus, they will most likely turn into "fuel bombs" as brush and shrubs grow in over time, compromising firefighter safety and effectiveness.
A majority of the timber sale areas are supposed to be managed for the benefit of species that rely on late-successional and old-growth forest habitat. However, the proposed logging will create unacceptable impacts to rare, threatened, and sensitive plant and wildlife species dependent upon these older forests.
Logging and prescribed burning on soils already burned in the 1999 fires will result in further damage to soil structure, lowered soil productivity, and increased soil erosion. Even in severely burned areas, significant forest stand structure still remains on site in the form of scattered live trees, large snags, and down logs, providing habitat for numerous wildlife species, preventing widespread erosion, and providing shade for millions of tree seedlings regenerating in the area. These remaining materials are critical for natural fire recovery processes, and their removal could retard or prevent this natural ecological recovery.
The Forest Service has failed to adequately address the cumulative impacts from the 1999 Big Bar Complex Fire, over-aggressive fire suppression activities (including illegal logging off firelines during the fire), past logging and road construction, and future planned logging in the fire area. Water quality and aquatic habitat within the area have been degraded as a result of past impacts, and will be further degraded if the proposed logging is allowed to proceed, in violation of the Northwest Forest Plan Aquatic Conservation Strategy, the federal Clean Water Act, and the North Coast Region Water Quality Control Plan.
