Whites Gulch after 2014 Whites fire burned and cleared understory. Photo by Kimberly Baker.
Call it “Christmas in May”; the Klamath National Forest is set to give a big gift to the logging industry at the expense of taxpayers, wildlife and watersheds. Take Action Now. The Klamath National Forest is offering to “sell” old-growth forests for logging in the Middle Creek and Whites timber sales for as little as 50 cents per thousand board feet. To put this amount in perspective, timber trucks will roll out of the forest for less than the price of a cup of coffee. While 50 cents cannot buy a newspaper anymore, it can buy a lot of timber.The cost of this giveaway is extraordinary.
First, these timber giveaways come at an extreme ecological cost. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that the Westside Project may result in the “take,” which includes potential death, of up to 103 northern spotted owls. To put this number in perspective, 103 owls would be approximately 1-2 percent of all northern spotted owls in existence (at a time when owl occupancy is declining at nearly 4% a year). Furthermore, the clear cut timber sale is likely going to result in sediment pollution and landslides into Klamath River tributaries that provide critical coho salmon habitat. The coho population in the project area is on the brink of extinction and this project could be the final straw.
Second, these timber “sales” come at great cost to taxpayers. As a “deficit” sale, meaning that the revenue from the sale will not cover the costs incurred by the Forest Service in offering it, taxpayers are going to subsidize logging of northern spotted owl habitat and the degradation of critical salmon habitat. What’s more, taxpayers will also pay to clean up the mess after logging is completed. The Klamath National Forest estimates that it will cost $27 million to treat slash from logging and “reforest” after operations damage the chance for natural regeneration. In contrast, the Klamath National Forest estimated that the project will only bring in $800,000. In other words, taxpayers will be on the hook for over $26 million dollars.
National forests are our public lands. We shouldn’t give them away to appease the timber industry.
Click here to send a letter to the Forest Service and elected officials to stop the giveaway of our public forests. https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=http%3A//wildcalifornia.org/blog/the-great-forest-giveaway/