Lots of new clearcuts will appear in the wind damaged areas from Lake Quinault all the way down to Astoria. Port Blakely, Rayonier, and others say there is more than 200MM board feet down in GH County. Probably 5 times that.

Love watching those FB's work.

I believe it would help to hold timber companies responsible for their practices. But I seriously doubt that it put an "end to the vast majority of all economic growth in WA." I used to work out in the woods, and forestry products are a fraction of the state's economy, compared to what they used to be.

Thurston County apparently banned development in floodplains years ago, yet Lewis County can't? And Lewis County claims that filling the floodplain won't raise flood levels? What idiocy. Neither the county, or developers or any one else should be able to get flood insurance in these flooded areas. THAT will stop future development from going where it shouldn't http://www.usatoday.com/weather/news/2007-12-09-lewis-flooding_N.htm

these sites might help with getting some facts straight

http://www.city-data.com/city/Chehalis-Washington.html

Dave D,

Of course timber companies donate to political campaigns, just like most major and minor industries do. Everybody's out to protect their interests. You realize that laws are made by and for those who benefit from them, right? Most laws are not passed for the "public good."

Vince,

Todd's point about most damage resulting from practices that occurred under the Forest Practices Act prior to 1987 is important. The FPA since then is the most restrictive by far in the nation I believe. But there's nearly a century of work that occurred under no environmental protection, and the landscape is still far from being recovered.

I should have mentioned above that those DNR payouts were related to mudslides off DNR clearcuts that killed people in their homes. If no one had died, they would have trusted the legal system to get them off for just property damage.

Makai,

The SF Skok is more than a perfect example of what not to do. It's also an example of what strong political connections can accomplish. Simpson arranged a give away of US National Forest timber for the company to manage as though it were private forest land. Ironically it was called a "sustained yield" unit, and of course it's just the opposite. Probably the most devastated forestland in the state. But it sure helps to have friends in high places, and the folks at Simpson did, all the way to the White House.

Timber,

That's a cool machine. How large a stem can it handle? Looks like about 12 or 14" sticks, little more than pecker poles.

Pisco,

I know that forestry is a small part of the state economy. But it takes a forest practice action in order to clear land and convert it to a car dealership, a shopping mall, a condo complex, etc. Even most western WA ag land was once forested. Forestry is everywhere and permeates much of what occurs in WA. And those forest actions may not cause much environmental harm in and of themselves, but permit subsequent activities that bugger up the landscape for profit, and result in increased flood risk.

Comparing Thurston and Lewis Counties is more than just a difference in competence and stewardship. Both are about preserving status quo. The most flood hazard areas in Thurston Co. aren't ripe for prime development, and that's probably as much coincidence as it is intelligent planning. The main developed areas in Lewis Co are in the Chehalis River flood way and flood plain. Rather than move upslope, the city and county fathers want to maintain the status quo and keep developing where they always have, and besides, it's so handy to I-5, which is no coincidence, since the freeway was routed to pass near the cities. If the major development in Thurston Co. had occurred in a major floodway, I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that they would have done the same as Lewis Co. and continued to develop where it made poor environmental sense. The human capacity to remain committed to non-viable relationships with the land (and just about anything else) should never be under-estimated.

Sg

Looks to be the evil doing of a gigantic timber company.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004076111_weycologging16m.html

Steelheadman, where is the picture taken that is in your message?

I have not contributed because I did not want to show Timber my obvious ingnorance of the fine logging practices that have been done in Washington State. Bad logging practice is not the full story in this latest event, but it is a major contributor. When we start looking at the habitat issues that our wild salmonid face, bad logging practices are in the top 3 IMHO.

Ed, Just click on the link and they have pics in the upper right hand corner. Just click next to take you throught the map of Stillman Creek and the mudflow, and last the downed trees. There is also a slide show with 12 pics somewhere on there. I wouldn't want to be the geologist that signed off on this.

Weyerhauser owns (owned?) most of the headwaters of the Chehalis basin. They have been slicking off the timber from the toe of the slope to the mountain top for years. Riparian protection is a common joke in the upper Chehalis.

The next big insult that this "upstanding" corporate group will bring to us is selling off the lowlands to developers... coming soon to a stream near you.

It looks like the decision to log those slopes above Stillman Ck (>50 degrees, >100%, unstable soils on unstable slopes) had more to do with extracting $$ from Weyerhauser's land base, and calculating that the risk of negative PR is < the value extracted from the logs. Not gonna' be much of a crop there in 40 years from now.

OK, I revise my previous statement that most erosion problems from forest lands are due to pre-1987 practices, and that sometimes they're due to current practices as well.

Sg

20 inches of rain had a lot to do with it. There were a lot of slides, timber or not. This one was bad, regardless.

huh

OK

A logger works for a paycheck. That's all it is. With the direction the timber industry has been going since the 80's, if said logger has a family to take care of he can do one of two things. Start a new career with a promising rather than declining future, or hang on to logging and hope there is enough work to keep him busy until he can retire.

Timber - the loggers generally don't make the decisions where to log or how to log. At least with the big companies that is. What needs to happen is some fundamental shifts in how we log the land. Clearcutting is efficient, but it is penny wise and pound foolish (as we recently have seen). We all will have to pay more for all of our wood products but it will be better for the environment and we will have less of an impact on the riparian habitat and the fish.

The days of extremely labor intensive logging are going away. Just as the milkman has generally vanished, so will the logger - replaced by a more efficient technology. It's a really old story that will continually repeat. So, some loggers will still be loggers, adapting to the new technology and rolling with the punches. Most will need to find new work, what that is, I don't know. Some will probably find work keeping the logging machines in trim, there will still be truck drivers, some mill workers, etc.

Off OT kinda. Yea, I know - you don't want to wade thru some codger's trip down memory lane but here you go anyway. My Great Grandfather moved to Marysville in about 1892, bought some farm land on Ebey Slough and dug out a log pond. The logs were brought in by rail or later by truck, boomed up into a raft and floated down the slough to be picked up by a tug and taken to the booming grounds in the Snohomish River and the other sloughs in the delta prior to going to the mill.
My Dad had a qypo log outfit with his Uncle. The truck was a WW2 rig with log bunks and a trailer. They had a cat with an arch and a donkey that was rigged to a spar tree on the landing. A gypo is an independent logging outfit.
I worked in the woods with him for a few weeks for a couple of summers at the age of about 9 or 10 as a whistle punk. If the logs were in a ravine, the donkey operator could not see if the logs were ready to highlined to the landing to be loaded on a truck. A whistle punk was used to signal the donkey operator when the log is hooked up to the high line. I was the signal guy.
He did selective logging for property owners or bought the trees to fall and sell to the mill. He logged around Arlington, Granite Falls, Tulalip Rez, among others. He worked from sunup to sundown and in the winter, hand split shakes after dinner.
After Dad decided he was ready to try something different, he bought the land, selectively logged it, subdivided and sold it.
Logging, like commercial fishing, was a whole way of life that most younger people now days, especially new comers, aren't even aware of.There's a street in Marysville named after my Great Grandpa. Dad cut down the town Christmas tree for several years for Mayrsville. Thanks for letting me lay this out. I haven't thought very much about this for a long time. Guess I just miss my Dad. He was 84 when died last December.

I already talked about this earlier.....I know exactly how it works...Been there done that....There needs to be tighter regs for the big companies like I said earlier some of them do there own studies and decide to log it themselves...There are alot tighter regs on the private folks and I'm sure if any of you have ever tried to get a cutting permit to take some trees off your land you would have found this out...

Salmo
"You realize that laws are made by and for those who benefit from them, right? Most laws are not passed for the "public good."

That's the point I was going to make. It's the fault of the politicians.

Sorry about the rambling off-topic post . I guess L'ecole No.41 Recess Red brings out the rambling old man in me. Good wine with a steak though.