on the cover / By Malcolm Terence

Klamath: Direct Action!

The tribe had supported the concept of fuels reduction, he said, both in terms of fire protection and because removal of small diameter conifers promoted the growth of acorn-producing hardwoods, a traditional food base for local tribes.

But he was always suspicious, he said. “The buzz words change. Now it’s Fuels Reduction. Community Protection. At the end of the day the Forest Service is still looking for trees to put on the back of logging trucks. OCFR was going to be the model for a new era. There were touchy-feely meetings. Most of us have done it before and been kicked in the teeth. I’d tell myself I shouldn’t participate and I’d know I’d regret it.”

He was not exactly a fan of the Final Environmental Impact Statement that incorporated the demands of the tribe and the collaborative group. But the product on the ground was even worse. He said agreements to protect the spiritual trails were ignored, and that the system to yard logs was switched from end-line cables to high-lead cable towers that required felling of large anchor trees adjacent to the spiritual trails. He cited the cutting of three-foot and four-foot diameter trees where the agreed limit had been six inches, of large log decks stacked on or near the ceremonial trails, and of hardwood cutting for commercial sale when hardwoods were supposed to be protected and enhanced.

Leaf Hillman said trust could only be restored if the Tribe and the collaborative group had a monitor of its own choosing “with authority to overrule or on a par with the Forest Service’s sale administrator.” He added that the agency should rewrite the contract because many key provisions of the FEIS never appeared in the contract that actually governs what happens in the logging. He said the problems could not be blamed on either the timber purchaser or the new Orleans District Ranger, Nolan Colegrove. Colegrove took the post after the logging had begun.

Leaf Hillman’s critique is similar to that of Kimberly Baker, a participant in the OCFR Collaborative Group since the process began nearly four years ago. She labeled the logging “a tangled mess of broken assurances.” She said the sale administrator had allowed the logger to enlarge logging corridors from the agreed-to 10 feet to 20-40 feet and, in the process, had targeted the largest, most fire-resistant trees. Removing larger trees allows more sun to hit the forest floor and this, in turn, promotes the growth of understory brush, which increases the intensity and spread of wildfires.

Baker is a long-time public lands advocate for Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC) and Klamath Forest Alliance, two regional environmental groups that have not shied from litigation in the past, but she says it is premature to discuss lawsuits against OCFR.

Nonetheless, her groups — the Karuk DNR, the Mid Klamath Watershed Council and Oregon-based KS Wild — all signed on to a detailed five-page indictment of the problems with the project after they met with Six Rivers Forest Supervisor Tyrone Kelley in mid-December. The letter reads like a preliminary legal brief and demands that the logging contract for mechanical treatment remain stopped until differences are ironed out. The same letter encourages the agency to go ahead with manual fuel reduction.

The letter states that the complainants had “explicitly requested that Mark Crawford Logging not be used … due to his past record in the area” and asks for details of how the Crawford outfit was selected as a subcontractor. It cites dissatisfaction with earlier Crawford logging jobs in the area.

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