{"id":97897,"date":"2018-09-19T05:03:09","date_gmt":"2018-09-19T11:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/logging-returns-to-the-san-juan-mountains\/"},"modified":"2018-09-19T05:03:09","modified_gmt":"2018-09-19T11:03:09","slug":"logging-returns-to-the-san-juan-mountains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/logging-returns-to-the-san-juan-mountains\/","title":{"rendered":"Logging returns to the San Juan Mountains"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Levi
Levi Nielson, with Cascade Timber Salvage, drops a beetle-killed conifer tree last week near Beaver Meadows Road in a timber salvage area northeast of Bayfield.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Commercial logging is making a comeback in the San Juan Mountains.<\/p>\n

Stagnant over the past decade, Matt Janowiak, district ranger for the U.S. Forest Service\u2019s Columbine district, said timber sales will increasingly be reintroduced on the landscape of the national forest in Southwest Colorado.<\/p>\n

\u201cDemand is increasing \u2026 so there\u2019s going to be more of it,\u201d Janowiak said.<\/p>\n

Commercial logging has lagged the past decade as demand for lumber waned, he said, driven in large part by the Great Recession around 2008 and its impacts on the housing industry.<\/p>\n

A further hit to the industry locally occurred around 2011, when the region\u2019s largest mill, Montrose Forest Products, declared bankruptcy, Janowiak said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe tried to sell timber, and we got no bids for several years,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Forest Service in Southwest Colorado, however, has gradually been rebuilding its timber program since 2011 as demand ramps back up.<\/p>\n

Most recently, a logging operation started north of Bayfield, on about 650 acres along Beaver Meadows Road. The sale will remove, over the next three years, about 52,000 spruce trees that died from beetle kill.<\/p>\n

\"A
A beetle-killed conifer tree was cut down in a timber salvage contract near Beaver Meadows Road northeast of Bayfield. Cascade Timber Salvage of Bayfield won the contract and is currently logging in the area.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Local operator Andy McCoy, whose Bayfield-based company Cascade Timber Salvage won the bid for the \u201cTrout Creek Salvage timber sale,\u201d said he was tenacious in his attempt to win the contract.<\/p>\n

McCoy, a fourth-generation La Plata County resident, said he started his logging outfit in the 1990s. It has survived over the years by cutting down trees on private land, and, when possible, on the national forest.<\/p>\n

McCoy said he \u201cwould have been out of business\u201d if not for the collaboration with local Forest Service staff.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey did an outstanding job getting this sale out just in time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The timber sale up Beaver Meadows Road is ideal for a number of factors, McCoy said, namely easy access to the land and quality of the wood, which just recently died from the invasive beetle.<\/p>\n

\"Andy
Andy McCoy, right, owner of Cascade Timber Salvage of Bayfield, talks with Josh Merrill-Exton, a timber sale administrator with the San Juan National Forest, before hauling in a load of timber near Beaver Meadows Road northeast of Bayfield. McCoy said most of the wood will go to mills around Colorado to be used to build houses.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

McCoy said his phone rings almost every day from people interested in buying this wood, which ultimately will be sold to mills around the state for housing, among other needs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is one of the best sales in the state, I bet,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Forest Service, by mandate, is tasked with a variety of responsibilities on public lands, including creating hiking trails for recreational use, protecting the health of the forest and opening opportunities for industry like mining or timber sales.<\/p>\n

Recently, the Trump administration called for more logging on the national forest as a cost-effective strategy that would reduce the risk of wildfire. Many argue, however, this strategy is being used as a political tool to justify more logging.<\/p>\n

In the San Juan National Forest, at least, Janowiak said he doesn\u2019t expect any large-scale, clear-cutting timber operations. Instead, timber cutting will be a more low-intensity project on the land.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s pretty much how we\u2019re going forward,\u201d Janowiak said.<\/p>\n

Environmentalists make a stand<\/div>\n

Logging operations have a tumultuous history in the San Juan Mountains.<\/p>\n

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the environmental movement on a national scale pushed hard against massive, destructive logging. In the Pacific Northwest, especially, protesters went to extremes by chaining themselves to and living in trees.<\/p>\n

The attitude also existed in Southwest Colorado, said Mark Pearson, executive director of San Juan Citizens Alliance, when the Forest Service proposed a number of controversial timber sales in old growth forests in roadless areas.<\/p>\n

\"A
A stand of beetle-killed conifer trees is part of a timber sale north of Bayfield. The U.S. Forest Service says it hopes to offer more timber sales around the San Juan Mountains.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

In one instance around 1990, a group of students from Fort Lewis College tried to block a timber sale in an area known as Sand Bench, east of Durango near the Piedra River, by chaining themselves to bulldozers.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy that time, it was a last-ditch effort,\u201d Pearson said. \u201cThe contract had already been issued, and it was eventually logged.\u201d<\/p>\n

Public sentiment, however, forced the Forest Service to establish the \u201cRoadless Rule\u201d in 2001. The rule prevents road construction and timber harvesting on nearly 58.5 million acres of national forest land.<\/p>\n

Since then, Pearson couldn\u2019t recall a controversial logging project in the San Juan Mountains.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce that rule came into effect, it took all these very controversial logging in roadless area sales off the table,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Logging can be done right<\/div>\n

The Forest Service\u2019s Janowiak said the Forest Service has come a long way in logging practices.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have taken a very different approach to logging, looking for ecosystem restoration work rather than making the forest as commercially available as we can,\u201d Janowiak said.<\/p>\n

\"An
An operator with Cascade Timber Salvage pulls out a beetle-killed conifer tree cut down near Beaver Meadows Road in a timber salvage area northeast of Bayfield.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Aaron Kimple, program director of forest health for Mountain Studies Institute, said logging can be done right, but it takes proper planning.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs industry moves back in, we need to make sure we\u2019re honest about what we\u2019re trying to do on the landscape, where and why,\u201d Kimple said.<\/p>\n

Three species of trees are generally harvested around Southwest Colorado: spruce, ponderosa and aspen. Each carries its own environmental concerns.<\/p>\n

Spruce harvests, from an ecological standpoint, are the hardest to justify, Kimple said. Logging removes the larger trees, which provide the shade and shelter younger trees rely on. That can hamper regeneration of the forest.<\/p>\n

Logging roads and equipment driving over saplings can further exacerbate this issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere seems to be a little more acceptance for logging, but we need to think about the right tools and the right places,\u201d Kimple said.<\/p>\n

Does logging really reduce wildfire risk?<\/div>\n

Because of recent wildfires around the West, the Trump administration and Congress have directed the Forest Service to solicit more logging on public lands to reduce the risk of wildfire.<\/p>\n

The actual benefits of logging to help reduce wildfire risk, however, increasingly have been called into question.<\/p>\n

George Wuerthner, an ecologist and author who has written extensively about fire ecology, said all large wildfires burn in extreme fire conditions (drought, high temperatures, low humidity, high winds), regardless of logging or thinning of the forest.<\/p>\n

Logging, in fact, can make fire spread quicker by opening up the forest floor, which allows fuels to dry out quicker and removes the protection from wind that large tree stands provide, Wuerthner said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe majority of all fires are very small, burning a few acres or less,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is the large ones we\u2019re concerned about where a lot of evidence suggests thinning, logging and particularly sales don\u2019t have much influence on the outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"An
An operator with Cascade Timber Salvage pulls out a beetle-killed conifer tree cut down near Beaver Meadows Road. The timber sale will remove more than 50,000 spruce trees that died from beetle kill.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

MSI\u2019s Kimple added that logging removes larger trees while leaving shrubs, grasses and smaller trees that are more fire prone in the forest.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of our big issues on the landscape is that we have a large, dense undergrowth that (logging operators) are not interested in,\u201d Kimple said. \u201cWhat are we going to do with the smaller stuff, the slash, left behind?\u201d<\/p>\n

Projects planned for area<\/div>\n

Several proposed logging sales are in progress around the San Juan Mountains. These areas have been identified in the San Juan National Forest\u2019s long-range plan as suitable for sales.<\/p>\n

In the next few years, logging may start on Middle Mountain near Vallecito, some areas around Wolf Creek northeast of Pagosa Springs and about 62,000 acres of ponderosa pine near Dolores \u2013 the biggest project.<\/p>\n

Janowiak said the Forest Service always monitors an area after logging has passed through.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the forest isn\u2019t regenerating as expected, we will go in there and do some reforestation,\u201d Janowiak said.<\/p>\n

The sale on Beaver Meadows Road is considered one of the lesser impactful logging operations in the area. No objections were submitted during a public comment period. The area is adjacent to a road, and crews are using old road beds to get into the harder-to-reach places of the forest.<\/p>\n

\"The
The U.S. Forest Service says logging is making a comeback in the San Juan Mountains. Recently, a timber sale of beetle-kill spruce started north of Bayfield.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

It also is employing local workers out of Bayfield. McCoy and his crew have set up campers to stay at an elevation of about 10,500 feet while they work eight- to 10-hour days.<\/p>\n

McCoy said the work will continue even as it begins to snow, and it will last until they are forced to leave when the area becomes inaccessible.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s actually cleaner to work in the snow, and it\u2019s a nice time to work,\u201d McCoy said. \u201cIt\u2019s great that this wood is going to use and not rotting out here in the woods.\u201d<\/p>\n

jromeo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Service: Expect more timber sales in Southwest Colorado<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":97898,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[21,2487,13,445,549],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-97897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-cortez","tag-forestry-and-timber","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-newsletter-lead","tag-united-states-forest-service"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97897"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=97897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}