The Sad, the Bad and the Blue (Stain)

Forestry statistics for Libby South Fire Kill Salvage Sale

(click here to return to the salvage logging page)
(click here for a photo gallery of the proposed sale)

Facts about the Libby South Timber Sale
Prepared by Libby Creek Watershed Association

General:

Status: Washington State Department of Natural Resources plans to auction the burned timber on May 7, 2002. A citizen’s appeal of the sale went before a state appeals board. Although the appeal was sold before being heard, the citizens' appeal (by Libby Creek Watershed Association, with support of Kettle Range Conservation Group) was still able to drop 23 acres of cable logging on slopes over 67% steepness.

Location: Libby South Timber Sale is located in the Methow Valley, just above the town of Carlton, Washington in the Libby Creek watershed.

Cause of the fire: The fire started on July 9, 2001 by Washington State Department of Natural Resources staff operating a defective DNR truck. The fire spread rapidly through poorly managed and overgrazed DNR forests. The fire burned 3830 acres at a cost of $3.6 million. No structures were lost-just barely.

Size: Washington State Department of Natural Resources expects to clearcut 2.3 million board feet (about 575 truckloads) from 418 acres of public forest (just under a square mile). Nearly 3 miles of new road will be constructed for the timber sale.

Yield: The forest targeted by the Libby South Timber Sale has extremely low timber productivity - only 12% of the state average.

Income: The minimum bid from the damaged timber is only half that for green wood, lowering the economic return to only 6% of the state average or just 3% of commercial forest land.

Conditions: Following fire, forest soils are very sensitive to additional disturbance until the vegetation has had a few years to recover. Unlike green tree harvest, it is well established that salvage logging increases fire risk, soil erosion, and spread of noxious weeds, which are already severe at Libby South.

Logging: The DNR’s logging plan is to clearcut the entire forest, leaving and leave only 5 trees for wildlife in each acre. Given soil disturbance, low rainfall, loss of shade cover and other environmental impacts, revegetation after logging is not promising.

Statements by the Libby Creek Watershed Association, a group of homeowners and small woodlot owners living in the Methow Valley, Washington.

These forests only receive 15 inches of rain a year, mostly in snow, but often associated with pounding summer thunderstorms. It takes a tree 100 years to grow only 70 feet tall at Libby South, so many years must elapse between timber harvests.

On most of the planned harvest area, the soil is unconsolidated glacial till on extremely steep slopes. Over the years, the Libby Creek watershed has experienced many debris flows, mudslides, rain-on-snow events and landslides following logging, road construction and fires.

Federal soil scientists classify the potential for erosion, seedling mortality, and plant competition as "severe" in the logging area. A DNR geologist classified the logging area as "being prone to rapid and very rapid runoff" with a "high to very high hazard of erosion."

Erosion, debris flows, or landslides caused by logging this forest are likely expected to dump sediment on private homesteads along Libby Creek and the Methow River, and put our families and homes in harms way. The DNR geologist reports that a thunderstorm could cause debris flows and landslides to impact the nearby Methow River from the logging area.

As part of the natural forest recovery process, beneficial fungi and insects have begun the process of breaking down the dead wood into humus, while providing soil nutrients for the emerging vegetation and food and shelter for fire-dependent birds and wildlife.

The DNR has consistently lied to the public and in their environmental documents about the impacts to this area. The DNR turned off the fax machine during comment periods, failed to observe required waiting periods before approving plans, and ignored rules intended to protect the public.

We are seeking responsible management of the public forests that surround our homes. We are asking DNR to manage these lands for long-term sustainability, so that they can be productive for our children's children. Starting fires, followed by clearcutting on sensitive soils that is likely to bring the mountain down onto our homes and into our rivers is not responsible management.

This is an extremely stressful process for all involved because salvage has been put on a fast track, while at the same time state funds have been drastically cut. In addition, the recent death of presiding judge Deborah Mull has cast a gray pall over the entire proceedings, and brought sorrow to those involved.


More information about Libby South
prepared by George Wooten
Botanist, Kettle Range Conservation Group
May 1, 2002

Land Condition at Libby South

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Suppressed, unhealthy stand of trees at Libby South
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Detail of ignition source showing dense stands of knapweed and cheatgrass covering hillsides where fire spread from.
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Photo of scorched, overstocked, trees at Libby South.
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Close up of a future debris flow site - weeds and erosion where the fire started.

Technical calculations for Libby South (the sale was modified at least four times – these calculations are based on the first three versions):

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(Click for an aerial view depicting the proposed Libby South timber salelayout).
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Proposed road locations at Libby South are in prime wildlife habitat (click to enlarge). This wildlife habitat is propsed for as a landing and slash dumping area along the haul road into Libby South Timber Sale, in a steep and narrow canyon filled with aspen and wildlife.
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Libby South 100-year old stick sale.
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View from north edge of sale toward south edge on ridge at center of photo.

Discussion:

The Okanogan National Forest, and most of the USDA, classify land producing less than 20 cubic feet per year as non-commercial, i.e., unable to pay for the cost of logging and fire-fighting. Yield tables published by USDA Tech. Bulletin 201 were also consulted. No yields are given for site indices less than 80, again, because this low of a site index is considered off-base to timber harvest. However, if the site index was 80, the yield at 100 years of 12"-plus fir trees is given as 2,410 cf, or about 24 cf / ac / yr.

If timber mining were legal, yield tables based on actual productivity for mixed conifer for a Douglas fir site index of 71, are suggested as being somewhere near 29 cf / ac / yr. by Randall O’Toole of Cascade Holistic Economic Consultants, in Review of the Okanogan National Forest Plan, Nov. 1982, which is based on moderate thinning to maintain the stand at a higher yield, albeit at an economic cost which can seldom be justified on noncommercial forests.

For comparison, according to the State of Washington Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee’s Report 96-5, "Forest Board Transfer Lands", in 1993, Washington state forest lands generated $69 per acre, the highest of any state. In 1995, DNR spent approximately $30 per acre to manage around 600,000 acres of forest board lands. In this document, DNR indicates that the state-wide yield per acre at harvest for a 100-year rotation for is 74,950 bf (p. 43), or about 749.5 bf / ac / yr. With a slab & kerf factor of 0.5, this works out to 749.5 / (12 * 0.5) = 125 cf / ac / yr. Thus, compared to the state average, the yield per acre at Libby S. is 14.75 / 125 = a return to the trust of only 12% of the state average, or about 6% of an acre of commercial west-side forest like that of Weyerhauser.

Question: Why is Libby S. so low in timber productivity (12% of the state average), when it should be higher to account for the standing old growth pine on the site?

Answer: Because this area receives only 15 inches of rain a year, trees naturally grow about one-tenth of the rate of a productive west-side forest. It took over 200 years for some of the large ponderosas on this site to reach their present size. In addition, most of the trees are overstocked and unhealthy, because of a lack of thinning, whether silvicultural, or natural (as would normally happen during historical underburns in the original stand).

Weeds at Libby South:
On November 27, a group of citizens visited portions of the Libby South proposed Sale area. Vegetation was recorded at the site where the fire began, in a ravine with open shrub-steppe on one side and riparian forest on the other. observed was heavily infested with noxious weeds. A partial vegetation list follows (*'d items are introduced species):

Definitions: