U.S. Proposes Logging Curb in Sierra to Protect Owls

Hoping to avoid a new round of hostilities over spotted owls, the U.S. Forest Service on Monday proposed to curtail logging on 10 million acres of national forest in the Sierra Nevada but allow the selective cutting of some of California’s old and large trees.

The plan amounts to a compromise designed to protect the woodland habitat of the California spotted owl, which is not endangered, and several small forest mammals while allowing at least enough logging to reduce the risk of catastrophic fire in the increasingly populated Sierra.

Forest Service officials concede that the restrictions on timber harvesting would lead to a loss of jobs and tax revenue in rural counties in the Sierra Nevada.

The Forest Service would like to avert the furor that engulfed the Pacific Northwest after a different owl, the northern spotted owl, was placed on the federal endangered species list, halting all logging in national forests in parts of Northern California, Oregon and Washington for more than three years.

With the California spotted owl, which is more abundant than its northern cousin, the Forest Service wants to keep the bird population from declining so the emergency measures imposed in the Northwest forests will not be called for in the Sierra.

“Part of our job is to keep species from going onto the threatened and endangered species list,” said Matt Mathes, a spokesman for the Forest Service.

But the Forest Service plan, released as a draft for public com ment, was immediately criticized by environmental groups, which claimed that it weakened existing protection for the owl and other species, and by the timber industry, which argued that the California owl does not need any more help to survive.

“This plan allows logging and road-building into what scientists know are the best remaining habitat areas for California spotted owls and other ancient-forest dependent species,” said Barbara Boyle of the Sierra Club.

Jim Craine, vice president for resources of the California Forestry Assn., argued that the plan’s proposed rollback in the total amount of timber to be cut will only serve to increase the fire danger.

Moreover, Craine said that concern for the owl is misguided.

“I think a whole lot of this agitation over the health and viability of the spotted owl is political,” he said. “I really believe that the owl in many areas is on the increase, and there are figures to support that belief.”

Depending on which of seven alternative approaches is chosen, the Forest Service plan could reduce the timber harvest in the Sierra from an average over the past decade of about 1 billion board feet per year to as little as 114 million board feet. The agency’s “preferred alternative” would lower the harvest to just over 400 million board feet.

But Forest Service officials conceded that any one of the options would have an impact on jobs and revenues in the 22 counties where there are national forests covered by the plan. Those counties receive a share of the timber harvest revenues and use the money to support schools and roads.

An interim owl policy in effect for two years has already had a significant impact on several counties. For example, by reducing timber harvests by 50% or more, the interim policy took a sizable bite out of the school and road budgets in Lassen, Plumas and Sierra counties in the northern Sierra.

At least 10 sawmills have closed in the Sierra counties since the interim policy took effect, according to a Forest Service analysis.

“There’s no question that some counties are going to have to be looking for other means of support,” said Janice Gauthier, who heads the Forest Service team in charge of the plan.

“But I think many people already realize that timber harvests aren’t going to be what they were,” she said. “Society is telling us they want the preservation of older trees, and forest animals, and they don’t want any more clear cutting.”

The driving force behind the proposed plan is to protect habitat for the California spotted owl, said Gauthier. At the same time, she conceded, the Forest Service was inviting controversy by basing a forest plan on protection of species that may not be in any immediate danger.

“The owl population is doing pretty well,” she said, noting that the Forest Service has identified 835 “known sites with pairs of owls” in the Sierra.

Altogether, the plan takes into consideration the well-being of about 400 species of wildlife. Some of them are listed as endangered or threatened, Gauthier said, and others such as the owl, the wolverine, the Pacific fisher and the pine marten are considered “sensitive” because their habitat may be imperiled.

Gauthier said that the proposed plan allows more logging, except along stream beds, than was permitted under the interim policy.

For example, the interim policy prohibited cutting of any trees larger than 30 inches in diameter. The new plan would allow trees up to 40 inches to be cut down.

The new plan would also allow more logging of dead trees, which often provide nests for small forest animals, but which have been blamed for increasing the potential for wildfires.

“We are providing an improved opportunity to address the fire danger,” Gauthier said.

Years of drought and fire suppression have clogged Sierra forests with dying trees and deadfall, creating a tinder accumulation that many veteran Forest Service officials say is the worst they have ever seen.

Some environmental groups contend that the fire danger is being exaggerated by the timber industry. But they also contend that logging practices have contributed to the so-called forest fuel load. The timber industry’s historic preference for cutting the big trees and leaving the small ones, it is argued, is greatly responsible for today’s dense, brushy conditions.

Although the plan permits some logging of large trees, it focuses on eliminating “fire ladders”--the shorter, dense growth that allows fire to spread to the highest tree tops, where it is hardest to contain.

The plan will be subject to public review and possible revision over the next several months. It will not become final until sometime next fall, Gauthier said.