April 22nd 1999

Mendocino Redwood Co. hosts Albion tour

By Lisa Norman
The Mendocino Beacon
April 22, 1999

The walk began at Tom Bell Flat, about 11 miles up Comptche-Ukiah Road last Wednesday. It was a field trip through a timberland area of the Clearbrook timber harvest plan within the Albion watershed.

Mendocino Redwood Co. President Sandy Dean and members of company staff including recently hired Nancy Budge, director of stewardship, Timberlands Manager Tom Schultz, MRC Biologist Bill Stevens, and Albion/Navarro Area Forester Jon Woessner, the person who wrote the Clearbrook harvest plan, hosted the recent field trip. The tour was open to the public and 15 residents - registered timber operators, small landowners, and concerned citizens from Albion, Comptche, Mendocino, and Fort Bragg, attended.

The group stopped at three points within the plan to comment on logging operations and forest practices. Discussion throughout the walk was punctuated by questions from the public.

MRC purchased about 120,000 acres of Louisiana-Pacific's North Coast holdings in June of last year. This area is divided among watersheds with roughly 30,000 acres in the Albion and Navarro areas, 40,000 acres in the Rockport area, and 50,000 acres in the Greenwood and Garcia River areas.

The 218-acre timber harvest plan scheduled for discussion during the tour, THP 1-98-350-MEN, was approved by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection in February. Two types of silviculture were chosen for the plan. About half the area, 114 acres, was marked for single tree selection and the other half, 104 acres, was marked for group selection.

After a lawsuit was filed by the Albion River Watershed Protection Association stating that the cumulative impact analysis in addition to alternative discussion information were inadequate, MRC asked CDF to rescind its approval of the plan and subsequently the public comment period was reopened until the first week of May.

The plan is now technically unapproved and awaiting CDF's OK, however, a subsequent court date with the watershed protection group is expected to delay any logging operations should the plan again obtain approval.

The slide

The first stop on Wednesday's tour was in an area adjacent to Tom Bell Bowl, about 400 to 500 feet above the watercourse along the logging road that runs from Tom Bell Flat up the ridge. Shelter wood removal had occurred in the area in 1988 as part of a Masonite plan inherited by L-P, and the outside edge of a 50-foot section of the road had slumped 6 feet.

"The road cracked a bit last year, and really went this year," said Woessner.

The slump in the logging road was attributed to the "old system" of road making in which a bulldozer cut into the terrain to form a road and then pushed the excess debris over the outside edge.

Today, road work is different, and loose debris is instead excavated, hauled out and then packed onto a flat area, said Schultz. The new system minimizes the amount of fill on cut roads that might eventually make its way into a fish bearing stream.

The spotted owls

The second stop was further up the road from the slide, and the area was designated as unentered second growth; the area had not been logged since the old growth was cut about 70 years ago. Forty percent of the trees had been marked for single tree selection with no trees in excess of a 48-inch diameter to be harvested . The entire plan follows that diameter rule, in addition to no trees being cut that are more than 250 years old, said Woessner.

Albion resident Bill Heil cautioned that the second growth trees might be the future of the forest and the company, as well as everyone else, needs to be careful about what is done to them in addition to the heritage trees.

"They have to last."

Discussion continued with respect to whether or not spotted owls had habitat in the area. Stevens explained that the area had been surveyed for owls six times last summer, sometime between March and August, and no sighting was made.

CDF therefore approved the area as a "no-take" zone, and that certification was good until March of this year when the company would survey the area again to obtain recertification. (See related sidebar for an explanation of the hooting practice.)

Albion resident Beth Bosk was concerned that though the area had been designated to be without spotted owl habitat during the summer, owls might have entered, unnoticed, in a time when their traditional habitat area was being logged. Their habitat could change, she said, especially if they have no where else to go within their home range.

Woessner said that the area was "called" four times, three are required for recertification, in five-day intervals, between March 1 and April 15. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services has also agreed with the California.

Department of Fish and Game that the area is "no-take" for spotted owl.

Jay Palmer of Albion, not present on the tour, said that he sighted a spotted owl in the area last November. He did not report this to the company's survey crew when the plan was first undergoing approval, but said he has since reported the issue to Albion River Watershed Protection Association and will be submitting a statement in writing.

The logic of group selection

The third stop took residents off the logging road into the brush of the forest, surrounded by trees in a once-entered second growth stand. It was harvested as a single tree selection in 1984 and had been marked for a group selection in the recent harvest plan. As a rule, no more than 20 percent of the total group selected area may be harvested, and groups harvested may be in pockets of half an acre to two-and-a-half acres, no more, said Woessner.

The independent timber fallers all agreed that the area looked good and had a healthy bunch of young trees growing since the 1984 cut. Woessner then explained his reasons for changing the silviculture selection to a group selection. He made the alteration to lessen the severity of windfall damage within the stand. Trees shake less vigorously from harsh winds when left in groups.

MRC was then questioned to whether or not it had a model for future stand conditions that it was using to determine its present logging practices. Dean assured everyone that a long-term management plan is about a month away - not years away.

Budge added that MRC has taken more risks than any other company she has know in her 25 years of working in the industry in Idaho. "We are in discussion right now, developing a long-term strategy."

Copyright 1999 Mendocino Beacon and Fort Bragg Advocate