WatershedEvents

BACK IN (PARTIAL) ACTION

I've been laid-up for the last few months - stroke #4 if you can believe it. Now I'm even more challenged than before. It seems to have impacted the essential interior muscles and bodily processes that make most natural and normal processes possible more than anything else. I can still get some external help from the limbs on my left side....and my brain - while full of holes blown through it by the multitude of strokes I've had without knowledge of them - it seems to be at least partly intact.

That's both a blessing and a curse. The damned thing always wants to be exercised and continually searches for something it thinks is worthwhile to focus on.....besides itself that is. However, it generally only wants light duty workouts and accordingly always avoids crossword-puzzles, number games, riddles, and  anything requiring much mental equity.

Anyway, I'm back to abusing the tip of my left index finger on this keyboard as I slowly hunt-and-peck for words that no longer can be spoken clearly enough even for Dragon, my expensive-but-now-useless VR program to transcribe them. And I am focused on what I consider "a worthwhile project:" The Study of a Local Group of Douglas Fir Trees.

Close-up of #4 showing both the gnarly texture of a not-so-young tree's bark, but still young-looking in spots. (See especially the upper third of this photo for younger, blister-like bark.)

Today I'd like to focus on FIR TREE #4 in my backyard. (I wrote about getting underway with the Fir Tree project a couple posts ago, and then other events took over.) #4 is one of the largest of the trees and is beautifully situated on one side of a lovely Japanese Maple.(#5 is just 12 feet or so further away.)

It is a very tall tree, but not that much taller than many of the younger trees around it. I think it may be old enough that it has begun bulking up in the trunk faster than it stacks on new sections of vertical growth. It generally has that gnarly rough textured bark characteristic of Old Timers, although it also has some bark with a younger look mixed in (see photo above) a rough indication of where it is age-wise.

I would take an educated guess of its age being around 125-150 years old, no older. That makes it "mature" for sure; but it isn't "old growth" by any stretch of the imagination.

This area of the state was logged off to the veritable bone by the turn of the last Century, and there are still a couple cedar artifacts left in the yard from that time:

An artifact of a less mindful time, this 3 feet-high cedar stump core is all that is left of a giant.

We are a stone's throw from the Capital State Forest, and by the very early 1920s our property was probably part of a privately owned forest-land. The trees maybe were a little less ruthlessly treated than they might have been otherwise; still, this acreage appears to have been harvested around that time. Hence, most of the other big fir trees on the property or in the neighborhood are just a little over 100-125 years old. #4 is one of the exceptions, and one of the more handsome I might add.                      

 

BEARS U1 & U2 AND MCLANE CREEK

The DNR has announced plans to take bids on a couple stands of timber located in the State’s Capital Forest. The two sections are called Bears U1 and U2, and you can find them by enlarging this map to 50% and studying the east side. Look in Quadrant #35 in the extreme NE corner, just a stone’s throw from the Mclane Creek Nature Preserve. You'll see that U1 actually comes down very close to the creek itself.

A little familiarity with the lay of the land in that area should give you a good idea why wetlands advocates might be alarmed by the news. At the very least, logging in that specific area is sure to increase environmental strain on Mclane Creek and the basin through which it runs. And with a little attendant bad luck during the process it could even end the creek’s usefulness as a spawning ground for multiple species of Salmon.

The terrain in that general area is very steep and rugged. The base rock is Basalt, but the upper surface is several layers of till and glacial outwash deposited by both the advance and retreat of the Puget Lobe of the glacier that moved over and through this area around 19k BP. This soil is mostly packed layers of sand and gravel somewhat amended over the centuries by intermittent deposits of wind-blown silt and organic matter.

As a “skin” it leaves a lot to be desired because it is neither thick nor well-connected to the bedrock. Saturated with water it tends to move easily over sloped ground. When that slope approaches the Angle of Repose (roughly 30-40 degrees) layers within the saturated soil may begin to move on their own – “creep” takes place. At steeper angles that movement may occur wholesale – a landslide, in other words.

The slopes upon which Bears U1 & U2 are to take place are uniformly steep, sometimes so steep as to be unnavigable except by the most determined and skilled hiker. Even when the landscape is healthy and in its natural state this steepness, combined with the area’s geological properties and its location just a short distance above the creek makes any major disturbance in the area a potential threat to the stream and it’s seasonal lodes of Salmonid species,

At any point in time serious threats to the creek’s existence as a Salmon bearing stream will almost surely occur. A disastrous forest fire, landslide, or weather event – any one of these kinds of extreme events could occur. But an incursion by a timber operation would almost certainly cause permanent damage to Mclane Creek’s continued ability to be a spawning ground for the thousands of Salmon that return each year.

“The Mclane Creek basin is in relatively good shape,” according to a study by Thurston County’s Regional Planning Council. But the key word here is "relatively," and its vital not to loose sight of it when studying any environmental report by a state or federal authority. The fact is Mclane Creek isn’t at all “well.” Its dealing as best it can with a suite of serious water quality and environmental challenges. Almost all are attributable to human action, and all of them combined have been severe enough to land the creek on state and federal D303 lists of water quality impaired streams for decades.

The major issues from a Salmon standpoint are turbidity, temperature, and nutrient load. A forest operation like this in such proximity to the creek is bound to negatively impact all three of these. How much impact is a very difficult question to answer, until the damage is done. But there will be significant damage to the regular order of things, of that there can be no doubt. You can’t cut down a bunch of big fir and cedar trees without tearing up a good sized chunk of underbrush and the ground upon which all of it grows. While most of it will regenerate* over time, the initial blow will be felt by the land for years.

The timber harvesting industry has made great strides in terms of protecting human and forest health, and the DNR and other state agencies have much to say about how the process of harvesting should take place; but for locations such as those where Bears U1 and U2 are proposed, those rules and regulations won’t prevent real damage from occurring to the soil, vegetation, and wildlife of the area. Neither will they adequately protect the Salmon of Mclane Creek. 

As far as the potential revenue that Bears U1 and U2 timber sales might generate for the state, an intact forest is worth potentially much more, particularly in the long haul. There's always the Carbon Capture angle to consider. It would be great if DNR decided it should look toward that option where Bears U1 and U2 are concerned, now that it can.

_________

*Growing a monoculture where a diverse one once existed is in no way "regeneration," but it's what frequently gets passed off for being one by proponents of plantation forests.