Salvage Logging – a Terrible Idea

In My Opinion. By Jurgen Hess.

Eagle Creek Fire

The Eagle Creek Fire burned this September across almost 50,000 acres of the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area, an area hiked, visited, and loved by millions.  U.S. Rep. Greg Walden wasted no time in introducing a bill to mandate salvage and restoration on burned national forest lands. Pushing Walden to enact this bill, H.R. 3715, is his concern that the “value of the burned timber not be lost.”  In assessing this bill, we must start with the first purpose of the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area Act: to protect and enhance the scenic, cultural, recreational and natural resources of the Columbia River Gorge.” The second purpose of the Act, economic development, is subservient to the first purpose.

The two purposes of Walden’s bill: salvage and reforestation are quite different. Salvage generally means logging dead or dying trees to capture their economic value. Reforestation means planting the area with trees similar to those burned. Salvage of trees after a wildfire is always controversial, but will be especially so in the Scenic Area, one of America’s most admired landscapes.

Fire created a mosaic of burned and live trees. SMA Open Space land.

The national forest lands in the Scenic Area have different regulations from most national forests. Most of the burned areas in the Scenic Area have a Special Management Area (SMA) Open Space designation that does not allow logging for commercial purposes on national forest lands unless vegetation management (as salvage logging) enhances the scenic, cultural, recreational and natural resources. The proposed salvage logging would require amending the Scenic Area Management Plan. Furthermore, much of the burned area is designated wilderness, wherein commercial logging is prohibited. Notwithstanding the above restrictions, the rugged steepness of the Gorge would limit potential logging, even by helicopter—if it were legally possible.

What about the environmental impact of salvage logging? There is much scientific evidence that salvage logging harms regrowth of trees, streams, and wildlife. Salvage logging methods, such as skidding trees, can disturb soil, causing erosion and sedimentation, which in turn creates stream turbidity impacting fish.

“Fire is helping us manage the landscape,” said Robin Dobson, U.S. Forest Service Columbia River Gorge Ecologist/Botanist, “We need recurring fires, they open the canopy, thin the forest; ridges are supposed to be open. Logs should be left in place unless there is some compelling restoration use for those logs. Dead wood on the ground is essential for soil building and insects.”

Burned forests are essential for bird species like Black-backed woodpeckers, which eat insects in burned trees.

Mt. Hood National Forest wildlife biologist Patty Walcott stated that a certain percentage of forests should always be in a burned state to provide wildlife benefits for species needing that unique habitat.

There are Northern Spotted Owl sites within the Eagle Creek Fire burn area, although it is not yet clear whether or how they have been impacted by this fire. A 2014 research study on spotted owls in the Sierra Nevada (Strix occidentalis occidentalis) four years after a fire found that most of their radio-marked owls were foraging in high-severity burned forest. The burned areas contained more snags creating habitat; they held higher shrub and herbaceous plant cover which provided greater abundance of prey. The study recommended that burned forests within 1.5 kilometers of nests or roosts of this species not be salvage-logged. This species and other forest creatures evolved with recurring fire in the landscape.

Oak re-sprouting after fire

Ecological forestry guru and University of Washington Professor of Forestry at University of Washington, Dr. Jerry Franklin said, “Salvage logging and other post disturbance practices can have profound negative impacts on ecological processes and biodiversity.”

Reforestation is done for multiple reasons: to get a new forest growing quicker, to slow down erosion, and to design the new forest with a desirable species mix. Is reforestation needed for the burned area? That issue is not as controversial as salvage, but nature itself reforests burned areas quickly with seeds from trees still alive. The Eagle Creek fire, like most forest fires, created a mosaic of brown burned areas and green live trees with much of the fire on extremely steep slopes and ridges. Some deciduous trees as oaks and maples re-sprout after a fire. However, in areas where fire left large patches of bare soil, seeding of native tree and shrub species would be beneficial to heal bare slopes and slow down erosion, especially on steep slopes. The Burned Area Emergency Response team, which is already at work, will likely recommend doing that.

There have always been fires in the Columbia Gorge—fire has created the forests of today. Photos from the early 1800s show a landscape of silver snags from past fires with a new forest coming in among the snags. Recent fires in the Scenic Area, including the Falls Fire (1991), the Microwave Fire (2009) and the Rowena Fire (2014) have all been restored by nature doing what she?s been doing for millions of years.

To summarize thoughts on the bills’ salvage and reforestation aspects:

• Salvage for economic reasons would be illegal in Open Space and Wilderness lands
• The land is too steep for logging
• Logging would have adverse impacts on wildlife, streams and soil
• Salvage logging is not needed for the forests to recover
• Reforestation would be beneficial to quickly heal bare slopes

There is a concern with the procedural and precedence setting aspects of the Walden bill. The bill would shorten public review times, exempt requirements of the Endangered Species Act, and does not allow federal judicial review of projects. These provisions short circuit the public’s ability to provide input, circumvent protection of endangered species, and set a terrible precedent.

Burned and live trees on a steep slope, Eagle Creek Fire.

There will be more catastrophic incidents similar to the Eagle Creek Fire. While the bill particularly applies to the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area it includes all federally designated Scenic Areas.

This is very poor legislation. Friends of the Columbia River Gorge have already come out against the bill. The proposal is not needed and if the Forest Service is pushed to do salvage logging projects, it would do significant harm. The bill would violate the Scenic Area Management. It would set a precedent that violates common sense and the public’s rights. Let’s hope cooler heads prevail in the House and Senate to stop this terrible bill.

Jurgen Hess spent 34 years in the US Forest Service. He led the US Forest Service Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area planning team, was Acting Area Manager for the Scenic Area and sat on the Gorge Commission representing the Secretary of Agriculture.

Footnotes:

• Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area Act, PL 99-663, November 1986

• Management Plan for the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area, 1991 Amended 2004

• Salvage Logging and its Ecological Consequences, Jerry Franklin, et al., Island Press, 2008

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