URGENT ACTION ALERT: Forest Service Targets 8500 Acres Between the Trinity Alps Wilderness and Trinity Lake
- Kimberly Baker
- 23 minutes ago
- 5 min read
The Forest Service has released an Environmental Assessment proposing large-scale commercial logging and mechanical treatment across 12,805 acres of the Shasta-Trinity National Forest in Northern Trinity County. The project runs along the Highway 3 corridor between Trinity Lake and the Trinity Alps Wilderness, a low-elevation forest that is some of the most wildlife-rich public land in Northern California. Public comments are due Friday, June 5.
What Is Proposed
The North Trinity County Community Risk Reduction Project, with the stated goals of wildfire risk reduction and forest health, proposes roughly 8,500 acres of commercial logging. At its most aggressive, this includes removing roughly 75% of the forest structure or basal area; at its most restrictive, it would remove 40%. It includes 2,000 acres of plantation thinning, post-fire logging and planting, campground maintenance, meadow restoration, and 2,000 acres of underburning. Other actions include: tethered logging of slopes up to 60%, the construction of five miles of temporary roads; an undisclosed amount of landing clearings up to 1 acre in size, road reconstruction, and “control line” construction.
A majority of the project falls inside federally designated Northern Spotted Owl Critical Habitat and Late Successional Reserves, which were set aside to protect hundreds of rare species that depend on mature closed canopy forests. The project also includes logging up to 2,000 acres of Riparian Reserves: stream-side forests that link aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, protect water quality, regulate stream temperatures, facilitate connectivity, and provide some of the most irreplaceable wildlife habitat in the region.
The project does propose a 30-inch diameter limit across most of the treatments, but this is not meaningful given the amount of landings, skid trails, logging corridors, and temporary roads required to cut and remove thousands of acres of trees. Further, it is the loggers who decide what trees to cut, as no trees would be marked, and there is little agency oversight during implementation. Importantly, the Forest Service’s own data show that trees over 20 inches make up only 12.5% of the forest stands in the project area. This accentuates how important and rare larger trees are in this landscape.
Why This Forest Matters
The forest between Trinity Lake and the wilderness is doing ecological work that the surrounding landscape cannot. Sierra Pacific Industries has clear-cut the forests bordering the project area on nearly all sides. Forests on public lands are what remains: the connected, structurally complex forest that wildlife depends on to survive. These watersheds support more than 30 documented Northern Spotted Owl territories. The owl is functionally extinct across British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon. This landscape, specifically, is the last functional stronghold for the species in the Pacific Northwest.
Low-elevation forests like these are especially critical. They remain snow-free longer, support year-round owl activity, and provide thermal refugia for cold-water streams and heat-stressed wildlife during increasingly extreme summers. They are the first forest animals to move through when dispersing and the last to dry out in drought years. Losing canopy here is not a recoverable loss on any meaningful timescale.
Forest Canopy Can Reduce Fire Risk, But Logging Does Not
The Forest Service frames this project as community protection. However, the science is clear: 1. Home hardening and defensible space is what protects homes; 2. Small diameter trees and brush carry flames into forest canopies, and these “ladder fuels” significantly influence fire behavior; 3. Nothing will stop wind-driven fire events that cause large, high-severity burns and; 4. Communities surrounded by highly flammable clearcuts and tree plantations will likely never be fire safe.
Dense canopy and forests: provide shade; create cool microclimates; support clean air, clean water, and carbon storage; slow wind speeds; suppress ladder fuels; and provide refuge for countless plants, animals, amphibians, birds, fungi, and lichens. They moderate snowmelt and runoff. When the canopy goes, so does the ecological function, and in a warming climate, these shaded, low-elevation refugia become more important every year.
Lessons Learned: The Peak Fire Timber Sales
The Peak Fire Emergency Response timber sales, within the project area, show exactly what happens when the Forest Service implements “fuels reduction and forest health” logging. This winter, logging commenced under the guise of an emergency. The treatments are the same as what is currently proposed, but spanning thousands of acres. Clear-cut and compacted log landings appear like a daisy chain along Rainier Road. Nearly every inch of the forest floor is churned up. Vegetation and hardwoods that were in the way of heavy machinery for “temporary” roads and skid trails were eviscerated and scattered, covering the ground with heavy slash. Dozens of mature and a few old-growth trees were removed, primarily for log landings. Massive piles of trees and logging slash scatter the area.
Further, the agency assured the public that no trees over 26 inches would be cut to make log landings in Northern Spotted Owl nesting habitat. It even made those promises to a federal court. Yet, we documented at least four trees between 36 and 48 inches that were cut, causing irreparable harm to one of the few consistently reproductive owl pairs in the region.
The North Trinity project proposes to proceed under the same approach: the same unverified habitat maps, the same treatment prescriptions with 20 pages of “project design criteria” created to protect forest resources, the same absence of enforceable field oversight. The stumps, the roads, the soil disturbance, the compaction, and the absence of forest canopy are harbingers of what is proposed on over 8,500 acres.
There is a Better Way
According to the agency’s own description, these forests are overcrowded primarily by trees under 20 inches, yet this area harbors one of the largest concentrations of Northern Spotted Owls in the Pacific Northwest. Balancing fire resiliency and species recovery is not rocket science. Using the existing road system, treating small-diameter vegetation, harvesting trees under 20 inches, and maintaining 60-80 % canopy would provide a more resilient landscape while maintaining and promoting wildlife habitat. That prescription is targeted, community-focused, and grounded in what the science supports.
Make a Comment
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Dear Acting Forest Supervisor,
I am submitting comments in opposition to the North Trinity County Community Risk Reduction Project. This project proposes commercial logging across thousands of acres of Northern Spotted Owl Critical Habitat, Late Successional Reserves, and includes more than 2,000 acres of logging in Riparian Reserves, in one of the most ecologically significant landscapes in the National Forest System.
These watersheds support over 30 documented NSO territories. The low-elevation forests between Trinity Lake and the Trinity Alps Wilderness represent the last functional stronghold for this endangered species. They provide refuge in the sea of flammable clearcuts surrounding and intertwined with the project area.
What this project describes, at this scale, leaves a forest permanently altered in character and ecological function. Reducing canopy cover, removing large trees over 20 inches, with miles of temporary roads, skid trails, and likely hundreds of clear-cut log landings not a community risk reduction prescription. What would remain is a disturbance footprint that is vast, long-lasting, and wholly inconsistent with forest resiliency by any scientific measure, as seen on Rainier Road.
I urge you to revise the EA around a prescription that is targeted, enforceable, and grounded in science. Protecting communities and protecting wildlife are not mutually exclusive. Treating small-diameter vegetation, limiting harvest to trees under 20 inches, using the existing road system, and maintaining 60 to 80 percent canopy cover would reduce fire risk without dismantling the forest that wildlife depends on.
Sincerely,