Take Action: The Jess timber sale would remove vast amounts of forest canopy, disturb riparian reserves and targets old growth and mature wildlife trees within Critical Habitat for the Northern spotted owl. The project would cut nearly 1,000 acres of north facing slopes within the North Fork Salmon River watershed on the Klamath National Forest, adding to the cumulative effects of 45,000 acres of wildfire, extreme impacts from firefighting and post-fire logging from the 2013 Salmon Complex Fire.
The Wild and Scenic North Fork Salmon River is one of the most important rivers for the last remaining wild-run of spring Chinook salmon and contains habitat vital to rare and threatened species. These north facing native stands offer cool microclimates that contain precious remnants of older trees and are generally less susceptible to severe fire events. Removing 70% of the forest canopy, as proposed would be detrimental to wildlife and would increase fire behavior in the long-term.
The recently released Draft Environmental Impact Statement did not consider the massive impacts from recent two years of fire activity. Nearly the entire road system in North Fork watershed has seen considerable traffic from large trucks and heavy equipment. The prolonged high-use of roads has caused sediment to flow into creeks throughout the watershed. In the Jess project area, approximately twenty miles of ridge top fire lines were bulldozed to bare earth during the 2014 Whites Fire and are now covered in slash. Further, wet weather post-fire logging has occurred roughly 1,000 acres of steep erodible hillsides directly across the river.
The Jess DEIS did not consider the newly proposed Westside post-fire project introduced by the agency last month, which targets up to 43,883 acres of fragile post-fire habitat throughout the Klamath National Forest. Within the Whites Fire footprint, directly across the river, 7,600 acres of Late Successional (mature trees) Reserves, Riparian Reserves and the North Fork Salmon Wild and Scenic River corridor are threatened.
Please urge Klamath National Forest decision makers to protect our wildlife and wild places and to work proactively and collaborate with local communities, partnerships, watershed restoration and fire safe councils to create an alternative that would follow the recommendations in the Salmon River Community Wildfire Protection Plan and would accomplish fuels reduction, forest health and fire resiliency objectives in a way that retains forest values.
Dozer lines in the proposed Jess timber sale project area from the 2014 Whites Fire
Canopy removal with leave tree mark- all trees not marked with orange would be cut
Jess Project forest stands
Wildlife trees