Officials Can’t See the Forest for the Trees, Critics Say

The Forest Service has suspended plans for salvage logging of fire-killed trees in the Sierra after an appeal by environmentalists who say the agency is exploiting loopholes to clear-cut healthy old-growth forests.

Forest Service officials expect most of the salvage operation to resume in two national forests northwest of Lake Tahoe, part of the ongoing effort throughout the West to remove dead timber to reduce future fire threats.

They say the appeal was granted to gather more information on the effect on the California spotted owl, not because of violations of federal forest protection measures.

Opponents say the Forest Service got caught.

They say the agency is exaggerating fire damage estimates in the forests along the Pacific Crest Trail to dodge environmental restrictions so it can harvest more so-called dead and dying trees--some more than 200 years old and larger than 3 feet in diameter.

“This is a very high-quality, old-growth forest, nesting habitat for the California spotted owl, and they are talking about virtually clear-cutting it under the guise of salvaging fire-scorched trees,” said Chad Hanson of Grass Valley, Calif., director of the John Muir Project, an affiliate of the Earth Island Institute.

Hanson and others challenging the logging say the Storrie fire that burned two summers ago through the rugged mountains of the Plumas and Lassen national forests caused far less damage than the Forest Service claims.

“Most of these trees are not dead,” Hanson said. “Many are not even visibly burned.”

Forest Service officials have heard the charges before. They say they are confident of their assessments as well as their belief that the forest will benefit if some of the trees are cut, about 70 million board feet’s worth--enough lumber to build 7,000 typical three-bedroom homes.

“It is restoration work. There is no guise to it,” said Ed Cole, supervisor of the Lassen National Forest, where most of the Storrie fire salvage project is planned.

“People are painting a picture like we are denuding the forest. It was a 45,000-acre fire and we are only looking at a project area of about 3,500 acres. And it’s not like we are removing every tree from those 3,500 acres,” he said.

Part of the disagreement centers on the difficulty of determining when a tree is dead.

“You can have a green tree standing out there that is a dead tree,” Cole said.

Opponents say the Forest Service is using faulty standards to gauge the scorching of tree crowns, the damage to the tree’s inner skin known as the cambium and the extent to which those calculations relate to whether a tree is really dead.

“These trees have survived many, many scorchings over their life. They have very thick bark. To say they only look alive, they are really dead, is absolutely ridiculous,” Hanson said.

The dispute is part of a larger debate that has raged for years over whether logging helps or hurts a forest after wildfires or insect infestations. Scientists have argued before Congress on both sides.

Environmentalists argue that if the Forest Service was true to its claim that the health of the forest is the priority, it should wait a few years to see if the scorched trees die.

“What’s the rush?” Hanson asked.

But agency officials and leaders of the timber industry counter that the wood will rot, lose its market value and add to the buildup of fuels that stoke future fires.

“The commercial logging aspect of it is one way to remove the fuel from these acres where somebody actually pays the federal government to do it,” Cole said.

“If you don’t remove it this way, sooner or later it will be removed at taxpayer expense. We’ll have to pay hard money to haul the stuff, pile it and burn it.

“Right now we have a commercially viable project, but we are into the second year, and deterioration comes on pretty fast in the second year,” he said.

An increasing percentage of the Forest Service’s timber operation has been in salvage operations during the last decade, while the logging of green trees has declined dramatically, from about 12 billion board feet nationally in 1990 to about 2 billion board feet last year.

Hanson, a native of Glendale, said he first became concerned when he observed logging operations while hiking the Pacific Coast Trail from Mexico to Canada in 1989. Upon graduation from law school at the University of Oregon in 1992, he filed a lawsuit challenging salvage logging plans there.

The suit was nullified when President Clinton signed a salvage logging measure that exempted the harvests from existing environmental laws.

“I’ve been involved on the policy side ever since,” said Hanson, who contends that salvage logging actually increases fire risks by removing large trees that provide shade and store water.

“The Forest Service is trying to get the vast majority of its logging projects out everywhere through post-fire salvage sales,” he said.

“Basically, any time a fire burns the Forest Service goes in and says, ‘The entire area has been incinerated and there is no more habitat for things like spotted owls or the Pacific fisher and so we can log . . . it.’ ”

Phil Aune, a vice president of the industry’s California Forestry Assn. who worked 35 years for the Forest Service, accused Hanson and others of abusing the appeal process to delay salvage projects.

“The tactic is the same with every major wildfire across the western United States--delay long enough so the economic value goes away,” said Aune, former director of forest management and research at an agency lab in Redding.

“I find it quite ironic that if you remove just one tree by harvesting they say you will have a great effect on the California spotted owl, but if hundreds of trees are killed by a fire, it can still be considered California spotted owl habitat,” he said.

Although the Forest Service’s regional office granted the environmentalists’ appeal, a spokesman said officials there share Cole’s belief that the majority of the proposed salvage operation will go forward.

“We don’t feel there are large deficiencies” in the initial project that was rejected, spokesman Mark Mathes said. “The regional office does feel that trees need to be cut in these areas. We’d just like to see a little more analysis done.”

Cole expects the revised environmental assessment to be completed by the end of the month and a decision issued in February, also subject to appeal.

Environmentalists warn that the agency could be in for a court battle.

“There will have to be a dramatic reduction in the logging levels,” Hanson said. “If they are going to break the law, we will sue them.”

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On the Net:

California Forestry Assn.: www.woodcom.com/woodcom/cfa/

Earth Island Institute: www.earthisland.org/

U.S. Forest Service: www.fs.fed.us/