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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Valley&State Backpage O&E Sports Archives Classifieds Faith&Beliefs Obituaries Revels September 28, 2004 Watershed plans off target with logging The Forest Service logging project proposed under the guise of fuels reduction in the Ashland Creek Watershed is currently proposed to include 8 1/2 linear miles of ridgetop logging into the McDonald Peak Roadless Area as well as heavy logging into the lower parts of the watershed. The city, under the guidance of the Mayor Alan DeBoer-appointed Forest Lands Commission is now proposing an alternative that removes the roadless area logging, however, compensates by allowing more acres to be logged in the lower watershed. The historic position of the city of Ashland has been that we will only support prescribed fire and noncommercial pile and burn projects as a means of addressing fuels. Many respected fire ecologists have stated that prescribed fire can be used safely and effectively in this watershed to reduce fuels. I fully support restricting this project to noncommercial treatments alone as the city has historically stated. I have been quoted in the Tidings as supporting a diameter limit which I have brought up as a means to demonstrate how willing both the Forest Service and the city are to bow to industry demands to provide timber from public lands. Limiting the diameter of trees logged to 17 inches is a common restriction for fuels reduction projects, however, I must be clear that I will only support noncommercial work as a means of fuels reduction. Science has shown that thinning of overstory canopy trees actually increases fire potential by drying out the site, increasing the growth of small diameter highly flammable brush and mistletoe branches, and raising the oxygen-to-fuel ratio during a fire event. These conditions are clearly evidenced in the extensive areas in the watershed that the Forest Service has previously logged under the guise of fuels reduction. There are many controlling factors that limit fuel buildup. Old growth forests exist in a very stable condition where different species exist within different levels of the canopy. Shading, finite availability of water and soil nutrients, and constant entropy caused by moisture, fungus, chemical processes involved in decomposition and macrobial as well as microbial life limit fuel buildup. Please speak out against any logging in our municipal watershed as well as other pristine areas that are being threatened and please put pressure on our local environmental groups to take a firm stand that logging is not an acceptable form of fuels reduction. Eric Navickas Ashland DailyTidings.com Home Page Valley&State | Backpage | O&E | Sports | Archives | Weather | Classifieds Columnists | Faith&Beliefs | Obituaries | Revels | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2004 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Click Here Site Search: .:Advertisements:. RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams