Rangers Find Spikes Driven Into Trees in Cutting Zone

U.S. Forest Service rangers supervising a controversial tree-cutting operation in the San Bernardino National Forest on Tuesday found steel spikes driven into two pine trees, a potential hazard to lumberjacks.

The spikes, which can damage tree-cutting equipment and injure workers, were removed and the cutting operation went ahead, according to Art Gaffrey, a Forest Service resource officer. Gaffrey did not speculate on who may have driven the seven-inch steel spikes into place.

Discovery of the spikes came one day after rangers and lumberjacks found a spray-painted sign warning “100 Spikes” in an area being heavily cut of deformed and dying pine and oak trees.

Plan to Fell 7,500 Trees

The cutting is part of a Forest Service plan to fell nearly 7,500 trees over the next three years, due largely to damage by mistletoe. While best known as a lovable Christmas talisman, mistletoe is a parasite that in some varieties is a tree killer. The spread of mistletoe figured in the Forest Service cutting that got under way last week.

“This is probably the most drastic cut you will ever see in the San Bernardino Mountains--and, yes, it looks terrible now,” said Forest Service Ranger Mark Bethke as he surveyed a timber-strewn, five-acre clearing where until last week stood a grove of 100-year-old trees that had been weakened and deformed by a parasite known as dwarf mistletoe.

Bethke, who supervised the therapeutic cut he described as part of a program--in the planning stages since 1981--to improve the “health and vigor” of the national forest, added, “We see this as a treatment for our grandchildren.”

The program calls for the selective cutting and sale of 7,444 diseased and deformed trees within 240 acres of the national forest, Bethke said. The wood is being sold commercially for use as lumber and firewood. Money generated from the sale will be used to reforest the area with seedlings resistant to mistletoe, he said.

Only in places where mistletoe is rampant will entire stands of trees be leveled, as was the grove in the Snow Valley area near here, officials said.

Mistletoe is spread by seeds that burst from pods in late summer and early fall and can be propelled up as far as 100 feet, Forest Service officials said. The seeds, which are coated with a sticky substance, adhere to nearby foliage and limbs and then germinate and feed on nutrients produced by the host tree. Eventually, the tree weakens and becomes highly susceptible to insect attack.

“Sometimes you have to clear-cut so that the mistletoe doesn’t spread,” said Steve Loe, a Forest Service wildlife biologist. “Now, we can ignore this and lose the whole forest over hundreds of years, or we can accelerate the (cutting) process in certain areas to get it healthy again.”

That argument has failed to take root with the owners of about 12 nearby vacation homes who have pleaded with the Forest Service to stop the cutting. Instead of forest vistas, some of these cabin owners now have views of tree stumps, which they say has adversely affected the value of their cabins.

“All we want is an environmental impact statement to supersede an environmental assessment done on this project back in 1981,” said Jim Lyon, 50, a local real estate agent who bought a cabin here in 1981 for $50,000. “We want more public input and private sector expertise.”

But Lyon said he was angered by the tree-spiking incident and noted, “It doesn’t help our cause at all. It can only lead to trouble.”

Following discovery of the warning sign Monday, Forest Service rangers began checking trees and cut lumber with metal detectors. Joe Ligman, forester for Portland, Ore.-based Louisiana Pacific Corp.’s Inyokern operations, said spikes could pose a potential danger for workers who are cutting down the trees and those who will later saw them into boards.

“We are going to have to check those logs with metal detectors to prevent mill damage and injuries,” Ligman said.

So far, conservation groups such as the Sierra Club and Audubon Society have not taken a formal position on the project, which includes known habitats of such rarely seen wildlife as the spotted owl and a snake called the rubber boa--both shy, nocturnal animals that prefer timbered areas.

“I am concerned about the spotted owl and the boa,” said Larry LaPre, president of the San Bernardino Valley Audubon Society. “But as far as I know, what they are doing is legal.” Besides, he added, “Mistletoe is a fairly dangerous pest.”

To help mitigate the concerns of cabin owners, the Forest Service has left a “buffer zone” of trees near their dwellings. It is also leaving two fallen logs per acre in heavily logged areas to serve as rubber boa habitat. A spotted owl nest discovered less than a mile away from the Snow Valley area is being closely monitored.

Biologist Loe said that although he is sympathetic to the concerns of critics, the controversy raises a fundamental question.

“Should we allow the people we have hired to manage our forests do their jobs?” Loe asked. “Or should the public try to take over management of our national forests? That seems to be the real question here.”