was pretty infuriated by the vast collection of tree stumps I saw by a lake (photo).
That's a reservoir - the trees would have been under water and wasted had they not been cut.
You could also have confused this with Potholes State Park, also a reservoir.
The recent drought has caused such low water levels the stumps are now visible from the HWY.
If you look up the mountain sides you'll see the active tree farms and clear cuts.
Yes, that's the problem........clear cutting........the bane of forest management. It screws up our water, watersheds, wildlife and fish, and causes landslides. Its bad enough that its done in both tree farms and forest preserves alike but its also being done in irreplaceable old growth forests as well. Clinton tried to reverse the process and was only partly successful. Bush has pretty much undermined what advances Clinton did accomplish. This article is circa 1998, two years before Bush would start screwing things up.
If Bush believes so fervently in God, he would that God is in those forests:
Our Forests & Our Future
A Report on 1997 Federal Timber Sales and Projects Issued Under President Clinton's Northwest Forest Plan In Washington, Oregon and California
TThis special section was excerpted from Our Forests & Our Future, a ForestWater Alliance report on the NW Forest Plan.
The ForestWater Alliance consists of 21 forest and watershed protection groups (including ONRC) in western Washington, western Oregon, and northern California. These groups are working to permanently protect ancient forests, salmon habitat, drinking water supplies and unprotected wilderness in the Pacific Northwest.
ONRC staff contributed greatly to this report. Regna Merritt and Doug Heiken gathered timber sale data and contributed text, and Mark Hubbard wrote portions of and edited the entire report.
Introduction
The Northwest Forest Plan
The History
For decades in the Northwest, the federal government has been in the business of selling off ancient forests from our public lands. The practice of clear-cutting old growth forests has harmed forest species, damaged salmon streams and degraded watersheds that provide drinking water to many people in the Northwest.
By the early 1990s much of our National Forests in western Washington, Oregon, and northern California were a tattered maze of clear-cuts, logging roads, and remnant stands of ancient forests. Several forest species and salmon runs were on the brink of extinction. Illegal overcutting of the forests eventually led a U.S. federal court to stop old growth logging until a plan was devised to protect the Northwest's ancient forests and salmon streams for the future.
In April 1993, President Clinton held a "Forest Summit" in Portland, OR, which brought people together in an attempt to resolve the environmental crisis in the Northwest's forests. The end result of the summit and the process that followed was the Northwest Forest Plan for federal forest lands in western Washington, Oregon, and northern California.
The Forest Plan
Put into effect in May, 1994, the Northwest Forest Plan was heralded by the Clinton Administration as the plan that would save ancient forests and protect salmon in the Northwest.
Unfortunately, the plan has fallen short of the President's goals. Five years after President Clinton's forest summit, the federal agencies charged with protecting the public's national forests continue to clear-cut the Northwest's ancient forests at an alarming rate. Safeguards for streams, salmon, drinking water, wildlife, and ancient forests have often been ignored.
Four years after President Clinton's Northwest Forest Plan went into effect, federal bureaucrats are exploiting loopholes in the plan to clear-cut in streamside reserves, log on steep, landslide-prone slopes, log in ancient forest reserves, liquidate 300-year-old stands of ancient forest, log unprotected wilderness areas, and log in watersheds that provide communities with drinking water.
Under the impression that their public lands have been protected under the Northwest Forest Plan, the public is generally unaware of the continuing mismanagement of the Northwest's federal forests. Yet public recognition of the value and importance of these forests is higher than ever, with more people realizing that healthy forests and watersheds mean a healthy economy for communities in the Northwest.
About the Timber Sale Data
Sale data for this report was collected for federal fiscal year 1997 sales, scheduled for auction between Oct. 1996 and Sept. 1997. All timber sales were issued under the direction of the Northwest Forest Plan. The federal government maintains that all Northwest Forest Plan timber sales auctioned in October-December 1996 under the "Salvage Logging Rider" still fully complied with the standards and guidelines of the Northwest Forest Plan.
All acreage and road mile totals were obtained or estimated from federal government timber sale documents and maps.
All cumulative acre totals are conservative. Actual totals for FY 1997 are higher. For example, approximately one hundred FY 1997 timber sales (cutting a total of about 7,000 acres) were not included in this report because the federal government deemed these sales exempt from environmental analysis, making adequate data hard to obtain.
Ancient Forest is defined as stands averaging more than 150 years in age.
Unprotected wilderness is defined as RARE II inventoried, plus uninventoried roadless areas >1,000 acres.
Clear-cut acreage is defined as any logging prescription that leaves an average of <15 trees per acre. This includes most "regeneration harvests."
Logged acreage is defined as all logging prescriptions, including clear-cuts, "regeneration harvests", shelterwoods, partial cuts, thinning, and salvage.
About This Report
This report provides a snapshot of what happened in our Northwest federal forests in 1997. Information was compiled from federal fiscal year 1997 timber sales in the 17 National Forests and six Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Districts in Washington, Oregon, and California operating under the Northwest Forest Plan.
The total number of acres cut and miles of road were compiled and broken down into categories reflecting their effect on ancient forests, drinking water, salmon habitat, and unprotected wilderness areas.
Individual sales from Oregon are highlighted to give a more in-depth view of what is happening on certain National Forests and BLM Districts. A special section on mining near salmon streams and in unprotected wilderness is also included.
What We Found
The assumption that the Northwest Forest Plan is protecting ancient forests, salmon streams, drinking water, and unprotected wilderness is erroneous. In 1997, timber sales sold under the plan clear-cut 7,032 acres of ancient forest, logged 5,523 acres of forest in streamside reserves, and logged 7,872 acres of forest in ancient forest reserves. Additionally, timber sales were sold in municipal drinking watersheds and in unprotected wilderness.
In 1997 federal managers consistently used loopholes in the plan to allow logging inside reserves. Some streamside reserve boundaries were shrunk to allow more cutting of trees. Protections were removed for some unstable lands prone to mudslides. In one timber sale, a loophole was used to allow logging straight across a stream.
Ancient forests are not adequately protected under the Northwest Forest Plan. In 1997, over seven thousand acres of 150-500 year old trees were sold for logging. Stands of ancient forest with trees over five feet thick and 200 feet tall will be lost forever.
Salmon are also imperiled by timber sales and logging road construction allowed under the plan. In the Umpqua National Forest in Oregon, a series of sales will impact the already endangered Umpqua cutthroat trout. In northern California, several 1997 sales will put coho salmon and steelhead trout at risk.
Unprotected wilderness areas have fared no better under the forest plan. These pristine areas offer some of the last, best pockets of forest habitat and provide good salmon stream habitat and clean water in Northwest watersheds. But the Northwest Forest Plan has allowed timber sales and road development in some of these last, best places.
Lastly, drinking water supplies are put at risk under the Northwest Forest Plan. In 1997, officials in several Northwest cities and towns voiced their concerns over federal timber sales in their municipal drinking watersheds. Many timber sales proceeded in community drinking watersheds with no consideration of the impacts on drinking water.
Please take a moment to read this report and reflect on the state of our national forests. The report will take you through the issues of ancient forests, salmon habitat, drinking water, and unprotected wilderness. At the end (p.15), we come back to the people of the Northwest and look at what they want in forest protection. We think you will be surprised to find out what they expect!
ONRC Action Special Section / Our Forests Our Future
Drinking Water
In 1997, timber sales approved under the Northwest Forest Plan will:
Log 33 timber sales in drinking watersheds
Log 5,794 acres in drinking watersheds
Our federal forests in the Northwest provide many people with clean, clear drinking water. In Oregon alone, more than half of the population gets its drinking water from streams originating in federal forests.
Logging and road construction in community and municipal drinking watersheds add erosion and silt to the drinking water. During winter storms the runoff from roads and clear-cuts can muddy water supplies to the point where drinking water for whole communities is placed in jeopardy.
Over the past two winters in the Northwest, winter rains have fallen with a vengeance. But instead of falling on intact forests which could hold the rain like a sponge, these rains fell on clear-cuts and logging roads. The resulting landslides and heavy erosion placed many drinking water supplies at risk.
The Northwest Forest Plan fails to protect drinking water in two ways:
The plan barely acknowledges that drinking water is an issue. Municipal drinking watersheds are not given special designation or any special protection. Instead, many are actively targeted for logging.
The plan does establish "key watersheds" in an attempt to offer special attention to watershed restoration. However, these "key watersheds" do not prohibit logging and do not necessarily include watersheds used for drinking water.
In October 1996, Oregon Senator Ron Wyden sent a letter to the Clinton Administration asking for a review of the Northwest Forest Plan to ensure that drinking water sources were properly protected. The Clinton Administration has not publicly responded to Sen. Wyden's request.
The following sale is an example of where the plan fails to provide protection for drinking water.
continued............
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