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Tour offers glimpse of fire-prone Watershed By Vickie Aldous Ashland Daily Tidings Residents can see for themselves the trees that could be cut to reduce wildfire risk on city owned forest lands in the Ashland Watershed. The Ashland Forest Lands Commission is holding a field trip into the lower Watershed on Tuesday from 3 to 7 p.m. Those interested in attending are encouraged to sign up for the trip by calling Nancy Slocum at 488-5587. Participants should meet at 3 p.m. at the swimming hole in upper Lithia Park near the intersection of Granite Street and Glenview Drive. "It would be great if people came out. The more, the better," said City of Ashland Forestry Consultant Marty Main, who will be leading the tour. "People interested in forest lands and drinking water should come." Those attending will be able to see commercially-sized trees marked for removal, he said. For six years, the city has thinned small diameter trees and brush to reduce wildfire risk on its lands, but now has reached the stage where larger trees could be helicopter-logged as soon as this fall or winter. The forest lands commission is preparing a plan for the more intensive thinning operations, which could prove controversial. The plan must be approved by the Ashland City Council. Tuesday's tour will focus on an approximately 480-acre parcel in the lower watershed stretching from Granite Street to the upper end of Reeder Reservoir. The parcel - portions of which burned in 1901, 1910 and 1959 - contains mainly young and middle-aged trees, unlike the 160-acre Winburn parcel higher in the Watershed that has old-growth characteristics, according to the city's draft forest land restoration plan. The lower parcel is a high priority for treatment since it lies at the edge of town at the urban/wildlands interface. Treatments of the lower and Winburn parcels could be separated to expedite thinning of the lower area. Trees there are falling prey to insects after being weakened by drought and overcrowding from wildfire suppression. The lower property receives about 10 inches less rain per year than the higher elevation Winburn parcel, according to Main. "There's an awful lot of trees recently killed by insect mortality," he said. However, logging operations in the lower parcel are complicated by steep slopes. With one-third of the acreage classified as high hazard on slope stability scales, significant portions may not be treated, according to the draft restoration plan. Small diameter materials already have been thinned on 200 acres in the lower parcel, according to the plan. The forest lands commission has not determined how many acres would be thinned or what volume of timber would be removed from the lower and Winburn parcels. Commissioners also have purposefully avoided discussion of the economics of the project to reduce incentive to target large, commercially-valuable trees to recoup treatment costs. However, trees over 17 inches in diameter - the size at which scientists say they begin to exhibit old growth characteristics - could be logged. Older, even-aged stands could be thinned if stress is evident through very slow growth rates, weakening crowns, dead trees and other indicators, according to the draft plan. Large hazardous trees could be removed along roads and near structures, and large trees growing under and crowding still larger trees could be cut as well, the plan states. Trees to be removed that are over 17 inches in diameter will be tracked with explanations provided for public review, according to the plan. Despite the opportunities for public involvement and oversight, the draft plan has some people concerned. Local environmental activist Eric Navickas said cutting large trees opens the canopy, exposing the forest to increased sunlight. "In general, all fuels reduction can be done through understory thinning of materials," he said. "The reality is the more canopy closure you maintain, the more resilient the forest will be to fire. Sunlight dries out the fuels on the forest floor." Trees left behind after thinning operations also can be shocked by the increased sunlight, he said. Logging of trees over 17 inches in diameter would mark a major departure from previous city fuels reduction efforts, Navickas noted. "This needs a lot of citizen input because this is precedent-setting," he said. If residents don't actively oppose cutting of large trees this time, that could encourage the city and the Ashland Ranger District to conduct large diameter timber sales for fuel hazard reduction in the future, he said. The Ashland Ranger District is in the midst of a multi-year wildfire fuels reduction project on portions of its lands in the watershed. That project includes a 17 inch diameter cap on logged trees. Although the Winburn parcel has not been commercially logged for wildfire fuels reduction alone, many large trees were logged in the 1990s by a private timber company in exchange for the company not logging property closer to town. The forest lands commission has planned additional tours to city-owned portions of the watershed on Tuesday, July 8, and Tuesday, Aug. 12. Groups with specific interests also can request special Saturday tours. LINKS: DAILY TIDINGS: Main | News | Sports | Obituaries | Opinion | Columnists | AP News | Subscribe | Archives | Weather | Classifieds | Contact Us | Privacy REVELS: Main | Calendar | Dining | Movies | T.V. OTHER: Road Cams Copyright 2003 Ashland Daily Tidings 541.482.3456. 1661 Siskiyou Blvd., Ashland, OR 97520. Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. - Advertisers -