A small group gathered over the weekend to protest clearcut plans by SDS Logging Company in the White Salmon River area
Local stand: Friends of the White Salmon River quickly rallied after an application to clearcut was filed. Photo by Jurgen Hess
By Jurgen Hess. July 13, 2020. Twenty-three protesters in COVID masks waved signs at passing cars on Washington SR141 at Husum in Klickitat County on Sunday morning. “Justice for Nature” and “Stop Logging Save Spring Creek!” typified the sentiment.
Friends of the White Salmon River organized the event in opposition to a plan by the SDS Lumber Company to clearcut 86 acres of forest along Spring Creek within the White Salmon Wild and Scenic River area. The application also seeks permission to construct four new spur roads totaling just under half a mile in length.
In May, Columbia Insight reported on local suspicions that the company was preparing to log the area. Those suspicions have been validated.
On July 7, SDS and landowner Stevenson Land Company filed an application with the Washington Department of Natural Resources to log the area. Local reaction was swift.
“The area was once a forest, (now) it’s surrounded by clear cuts with leave trees for stream protection blown over,” said protestor and area resident Cheryl Shipp, noting it’s the job of the U.S. Forest Service to protect the river corridor.
“The Forest Service just shifts (responsibility) to someone else,” added Shipp.
Protestor and biologist Bill Weiler described the proposed logging site as “a riparian area with raptors, trees shading a Class A stream and a popular recreation area.”
Friends of the White Salmon River president Pat Arnold said the Forest Service should negotiate to stop the logging and buy the land. She stopped short of calling for legal action.
“The Forest Practices Act has no State Environmental Policy Act or environmental review (obligation),” she said.
At least one Black Lives Matter sign found its way into the protest.
“People of color have been marginalized and now so has this natural area. Our community needs to protect this area,” said Lyle resident Kenzi Stasiewicz, who wore a shirt emblazoned with the sloan “Save the Salish Sea.”
DNR forester Whitney Butler is taking public comments on the SDS logging application until July 20. Comments can be sent to Whitney.Butler@dnr.wa.gov.
I understand concern about cutting down the trees, but I watched thousands of acres of timber die from the Pine Bark Beetle in British Columbia. Eventually the summer”s lightning storms arrived and thousands of acres of dead timber and everything in its path burned. It was devastating to the residents, the wildlife and the economy of the area. Then the creeks and rivers in the area were damaged by silt runoff and log jams from dead trees. I don’t know that logging would have helped the situation, but it makes one realize, trees don’t live forever.
I will add that the Pine Bark Beetle infestation began in a Provincial Park where no logging was allowed.
Pacific Northwest history clearly shows that when people interfere with the continued operation of private tree farms and farming operations, those ownerships become uneconomical, and the lands get converted to some new and more economical use (e.g., housing, recreation developments,etc.). Partially to their credit, activists realize this, and consequently argue that government purchase is the answer… failing to realize that there will never be enough public money to buy even a fraction of the lands.they wish to remove from production and preserve. The White Salmon River watershed is a diminishing example of a traditionally working landscape, and we need to credit that land use for the functional ecosystems, open spaces, and uninterrupted vistas we all enjoy.
If anti-timber activist groups feel that federal and state forest management laws and regs are intolerably weak, they should approach private timberland owners with their own money, and offer to purchase conservation easements on the lands in question. Purchase of such easements would attach stronger protection measures and limits to future conversion to uses like housing.
Unless such a modern alternative approach is adopted, these groups are, in the end, forcing all of us to live next to sprawling Clark County-type subdivisions, instead of regulated timber harvests and farming operations. I’ll vote for being next to the harvest / farm each and every time.
In response to Laurene Eldred, the timber on this parcel is healthy. Pine Bark Beetle has certainly been a consideration on forest land around here, but in this case, we are discussing a small healthy parcel, in an specific place that in no way resembles the thousands of acres in British Columbia. Agreed that trees don’t live forever, and we’d be thrilled to see this and other parcels run on sound ecological principles, including timber harvest.
Steve, Friends of the White Salmon is far from an anti-timber group. Activist we hope to be, but anti-timber we are not. We have said repeatedly and publicly that we prefer and support timber and agricultural use over residential development, and we fully mean that. We understand that reputable timber companies intend to preserve the resource, and we support that. Conservation easements are useful, but there have to be willing sellers.
I feel you have jumped from one specific situation, where we are working to implement a plan that SDS agreed to voluntarily to protect the Wild & Scenic portion of the river, to generalizations about the nature and purposes of FWSR. Yes, the 700+ acres agreed to should be protected, and that might include ecologically sound timber harvest. This does not mean that we wish to remove resource lands from production. We are calling on SDS to be the partners they could be in this effort. We respect their need to maintain a flow of timber into their mill, and we respect SDS as neighbors and an important part of the economic base of this community.
As for forcing people to live next to sprawling Clark County development, Klickitat County needs to take a more rational approach to comprehensive land use planning and zoning. You may remember that FWSR fought off a proposal to rezone several thousand acres from resource land to two-acre zoning. That proposal certainly would have brought in subdividions.