Environmental Forest

story by Mike Blain

The Free Press

Although recent announcements of the closure of the commercial and sports salmon fishing seasons off Washington's coast have caught some by surprise, the problem has been evident for years.

In light of a newfound and self-professed commitment by many of the larger timber companies to "environmental forestry," as well as ongoing efforts by several companies to take into account the cumulative effects of intensive logging on fish and wildlife and adjust forestry on their lands accordingly, the Washington Free Press felt it was time for a closer look at Washington's commercial timber lands.

While much of the debate over the spotted owl has focused on logging on U.S. Forest Service land (because that's where most of the remaining old growth is), far less attention has been paid to logging practices on private land.

A Free Press investigation of public documents from 1989 to 1993 found literally hundreds of "stop work orders" and "notices to comply" issued by the Washington Department of Natural Resources against major commercial timber operators for violations of this state's Forest Practices Act.

While most of these enforcement documents addressed seemingly minor incidents, such as erosion caused by failure to maintain culverts on a logging road, there were numerous flagrant cases of illegal logging. What about the cumulative effect of these "minor" violations throughout the state, year after year, on fish and wildlife?

Several large timber companies, including Weyerhaeuser and Plum Creek, have admitted that some of their forest practices in recent decades have had devastating effects on fish and wildlife in certain areas. But these companies say they've changed their ways, and that they are working with state agencies and the public to improve their forestry. In many ways, that's true. What the Free Press found, however, raises some serious doubts about the ability of some large timber companies to routinely follow well-known state regulations.

In addition, it's time to question the ability and the desire of the state agency charged with regulating logging on private land - the Department of Natural Resources - to adequately enforce state laws. Some scientists say that the adverse effects of poorly built and maintained logging roads on private land are one of the major causes of siltation and degradation of salmon spawning grounds in this state.

Poor timber practices spell death for salmon
Although many factors contribute to the decline of wild salmon runs - poor ocean conditions, logging, dams, over-fishing, urban development and pollution - logging is one area where a basic change in practices can dramatically reduce habitat destruction.

Many efforts to protect fish habitat, however, come at the expense of timber industry profits. Leaving larger stream-side buffers of standing timber to protect salmon streams means lost income for timber companies. Properly maintaining logging roads to reduce erosion also costs money. This burgeoning conflict between people who make a living off of two resources that once seemed inexhaustible, salmon and trees - which are now both quite obviously finite - is what promises to make the battle over endangered salmon runs much more explosive than that over spotted owl habitat.

Despite the fact that you can still find boxes of "Spotted Owl Helper" on the counter of the 7-11 in Port Angeles, the bird is not hunted or raised for human consumption. As a commodity, the spotted owl is commercially worthless.

Salmon, on the other hand, provide thousands of Northwest residents with a living, both directly and indirectly. Less tangible, but possibly just as meaningful, is the cultural importance of salmon. The fish are intimately intertwined with local Native American traditions and lifestyles. Salmon - along with the snow-capped mountains, evergreen forests and Puget Sound vistas - are inevitably cited among the wonders of the Pacific Northwest.

Tourists don't go down to Pike Place Market to watch the vendors yell and toss around frozen spotted owls.

If spotted owls are the canaries in the coal mine whose decline sounded the alarm about the widespread loss of old-growth forests, then salmon decline should be heard as a relentless, blaring air-raid siren about the degradation of the entire Northwest ecosystem.

Salmon and Private Land
How much of a role does private timber land have in efforts to save and restore salmon habitat in Washington state? Forest Service land comprises far less of the timber land in Washington than it does in Oregon. In fact, Washington has a higher percentage of its forest land under private ownership than any other state in the West.

According to a 1992 study by the University of Washington's College of Forest Resources titled "Future Prospects for Western Washington Timber Supply," private owners control 60 percent of Western Washington's timber lands and produce 70 to 75 percent of the state's harvest.

The study showed that industrial landowners (Weyerhaeuser, Champion, Plum Creek, etc.) provide the bulk of that timber harvest. If efforts to protect or restore Wash-ington salmon habitat harmed by logging are going to have any chance of being effective, they must focus on logging on private forest land as much, or more so, than logging on public land. Watersheds and salmon pay no heed to human political boundaries, and coordinating restoration efforts on salmon runs that cross federal, private and state land will be a monumental task.

"When it comes to private land, the situation is difficult, because we have this idea about private property being sacrosanct," says Alan Copsey, chair of the Washington Environmental Council. "[Habitat destruction] on private lands is so much more complicated. We can't deal with it in the same way. In a sense, the federal stuff is easy by comparison."

"Routine" Logging Violations
As the state agency in charge of monitoring forest practices on private and state land, the Department of Natural Resources wields a number of regulatory tools. Theoretically, DNR can temporarily shut down logging operations with stop-work orders; it can demand that problems be fixed with notices to comply; it can issue civil and criminal citations for egregious violations of the state Forest Practices Act.

While DNR officials emphasized that stop-work orders and notices to comply were merely "administrative documents" and they did not neccesarily mean that a timber operator had done anything wrong, a close look at specific documents reveals some disturbing patterns.

Research was limited to companies that are members of the Washington Forest Protection Association, the lobbying group that represents private timberland owners - primarily large commercial timber operations (see related stories, page 10 and 11). The search was further narrowed to documents that indicated a violation of the state Forest Practices Act.

Many of the documents merely informed operators to stop logging because a spotted-owl nest had been found in the area or advised operators they needed to resubmit a logging application because of changes in the planned harvest.

Even so, more than 200 violations of the Forest Practices Act from 1989 to 1993 - by 17 companies that are members of the WFPA - were documented. Reasons for the violations included erosion and stream siltation resulting from improperly maintained logging roads, operators driving heavy equipment across and up and down streambeds, logging outside of approved areas, and clearcutting areas that were only approved by the state for selective harvesting. See box below for some examples from state documents.

Effects of Logging Roads
The litany of violations is representative of the sorts of violations that occur. While road maintenance may receive far less attention than clearcutting, studies indicate logging roads may have a much worse impact on salmon habitat. A little bit of mud flowing off a road and into a small stream might not seem like much at the time, and is sometimes unavoidable, but the cumulative effects are devastating to fish habitat.

"Over time and over a large region, over numerous miles of roads in a watershed, it could add up to some significant impacts over the long term," says Tim Cullinan, a wildlife biologist with the Washington state branch of the National Audubon Society.

"A minor violation may have minor impacts in just the local vicinity," he adds. "But when you start adding up all of these minor violations, in a watershed the size of the Skykomish or the Snoqualamie or some big river like that where these companies have these big tree farms, you can have some major impacts on the tributaries of those big rivers."

Logging roads generate a huge amount of fine sediment, according to Paul Kennard, a geologist who works for the Tulalip Tribe and issued a report for Weyerhaeuser on how to assess the risks to watersheds from logging roads. He says that much of the sediment goes directly from roads into streams. Instead of rainwater going underground, as in the forests, water is funneled onto logging roads as they form new drainage networks, which connect directly to streams. This increases water flow and sedimentation when it rains.

Massive sedimentation and stream siltation due to landslides and "debris flows" can also occur due to poor road drainage. "What happens is the water collects on the upslope side of the road," Cullinan says. "It starts to percolate underneath and it lubricates all those soil particles and they all just slide down the hillside. So the whole road profile that's built up just kind of slides away."

Studies have shown that logging roads are associated with a much higher incidence of landslides than clearcuts (far more than uncut forest). A 1991 document prepared by a consulting firm for DNR, "Methods for Testing Effectiveness of Washington Forest Practices Rules and Regulations with Regard to Sediment Production and Transport to Streams," summarized 25 landslide studies done in Washington and Oregon since the 1970s. The studies found that between 200 and 3,300 percent more landslides occurred in clearcuts than in mature forests.

"Even higher incidences of landsliding from logging roads have been documented," according to the report. "Landslides associated with roads ranged from 1,000 to 38,000 percent (average of 11,000 percent) more than in unroaded and unlogged forests. These inventories indicate that logging roads are the major source of landslides in managed forests in Washington and Oregon."

All of this can add up to devastating impacts upon salmon, steelhead and trout. Fine silt fills in the spaces between gravel in spawning beds, making it difficult for eggs to hatch and young fish to survive. Landslides and sedimentation also fill in deep channels, spreading out rivers and streams, resulting in higher water temperatures in shallower water. When this is combined with a lack of shade because streamside trees have been cut, temperatures can rise even higher, wreaking havoc on fish which cannot survive, let alone reproduce, above a certain temperature. (See related story, page 9.)

Why all the Violations?
So who is responsible when a logging operator violates state laws? DNR says that the operator, the landowner and the timber owner (sometimes three different entities) are all individually and legally responsible. DNR usually deals with the operator; actual civil or criminal citations are rarely written.

But there are many unanswered questions about why violations of well-known rules continuously occur. Are the operators or timber companies ignorant of the rules? Are the rules so strict that many violations are unavoidable? Or are they simply cutting corners, knowing they probably won't get caught (like motorists doing 65 in a 55)?

"There's really no excuse for a company like Weyerhaeuser or Trillium or Plum Creek or Champion to be violating the rules," says wildlife biologist Cullinan.

He says a farmer or a rancher can be excused for not knowing the rules when they have 60 acres of timber and only file for a logging permit once in a lifetime. But not with the commercial operations.

"It's the job of their foresters, and their logging engineers and their loggers, to know what those rules are and to follow them," he says. "If they are constantly having these routine violations of these regulations, you can't give them the benefit of the doubt anymore that these are somehow unintentional violations of the rules. At some point you have to start to suspect that maybe these are deliberate."

When an area is clearcut, despite the state order to leave most of the timber standing for slope stability (as happened with several violations), it certainly appears some of these incidents are not mere misunderstandings or accidental violations. Some think the timber operators often weigh the benefits of pushing the envelope on logging rules against the likelihood that they will get caught or fined.

Like other industries, timber companies toe the line on environmental regulations, say environmentalists, and they often overstep it. But time and money lost to stop work orders and, often, a pittance of a fine, is easily offset by lower costs and more production.

"It's a constant game that goes on between the loggers and the enforcers," says Cullinan. "It's a gamble on the part of the logger. He can violate the rules and probably has at least 1-to-1 odds that he's going to get away with it."

Those in the timber industry, not surprisingly, don't see it that way. "Stop work orders and citations are a rare event," says Tim Larkoski, a forester at Weyerhaeuser's massive Snoqualmie Tree Farm just east of Seattle. "People get fired for that sort of thing."

Larkoski says his company pays strict attention to state logging regulations, and works closely with DNR to quickly take care of problem areas. But, he readily admits, logging operators do make mistakes. "They happen because of lack of attention to detail by people managing on the ground. And there are some legitimate mistakes." But, like Cullinan, Larkoski says "ignorance is not an excuse."

Employees at Weyerhaeuser, Larkoski adds, are professionals who get paid to know the rules and regulations. "We look pretty funny in the paper when we make mistakes," he says. "There's no incentive for us to screw up."

DNR: Department of Nothing Remaining
The timber industry fought stricter forest practices regulations passed in 1992 (including maximum fines being raised from $500 to $10,000 and increased streamside buffers), says Mike Munson of the Washington Forest Protection Association, but the companies believe in following the rules that have been passed. "When the rules are violated," he says, "we believe there ought to be fines."

Some say, however, that many violations go unnoticed or are simply ignored, and even when a logging operation is written up, it amounts to a slap on the hand. Audubon biologist Cullinan says he has been out on commercial timberland with DNR officers on the Olympic Peninsula numerous times. "I've had arguments right out in the woods with DNR foresters who are standing there looking at a clear violation of the law," he says, "and they will insist that the best way to deal with it is to educate the logger so he doesn't do it again. And they will use that as an excuse to not fine the person."

Cullinan says that DNR (nicknamed by environmentalists as the "Department of Nothing Remaining" for logging practices on its own state land) always gives the landowner and the logger the benefit of the doubt. "They always try to convince themselves first that it was an unintentional violation, the person just didn't know, something went wrong, it was beyond the person's control. DNR has never been very aggressive at pursuing punitive action like that."

In addition to an unaggressive approach to enforcement, DNR simply lacks the money and the staff to adequately enforce state laws, says Cullinan. "There's no way that the enforcement people at DNR can keep up with the workload. So a lot of enforcement just never happens."

The state can write all the rules it wants to protect salmon habitat, Cullinan concludes, but it doesn't make one bit of difference if they aren't being enforced.

"Those rules are written for a very specific reason," he says. "There's a reason that we have regulations that say use a particular culvert size and space the culverts out every so many feet. They are written to protect those fisheries resources and the water quality, and the rules are just not going to have their desired effect unless they are followed."

DNR officials contend that their degree of vigilance with enforcement is more a philosophy of government rather than a case of looking the other way while violations occur. DNR has always operated under a policy of "voluntary compliance" says Dan Bigger, a DNR forest practices specialist. "We don't write tickets like many other agencies do. We try to work with the operator and the landowner to get the job done on the ground."

He says that the language of the Forest Practices Act encourages this approach. Although stricter rules and penalties were approved by the state, he says that the state Forest Practices Board (which is dominated by timber interests) has told DNR not to run amok with them. "We are to use all the other tools of enforcement before we go into civil penalties."

This approach to monitoring logging on private land really offends some people, he says. "They think if there's a violation [logging operators] should be slapped alongside the head, fined substantially or thrown in jail. In the first place, if we started doing that, we would lose the authority to do it very quickly. In the second place, that doesn't correct the problem on the ground."

He admits that DNR is thin in the woods, but says the agency has more personnel on the ground than almost all other agencies. "We can't police the woods any more than the state patrol can truly police the freeways. You have to rely on the people to obey."

Trillium: Violating the Spirit
Relying on logging operators to obey certainly hasn't always worked in the past, as DNR is well aware. Big differences exist in the rates of compliance by different companies, as well as in the effort being put out by some companies to take care of problems. We found more violations of the Forest Practices Act by Weyerhaeuser than any other company, but Weyerhaeuser is also the largest private timber land owner in the state.

Trillium Corp., which owns far less timber land than Weyerhaeuser, had nearly as many violations. Plum Creek, once labeled the "Darth Vader" of the timber industry for its logging in Montana and Washington in the mid-'80s, had very few violations.

Environmentalists in Bellingham fought bitter battles with Trillium over its logging in the Lake Whatcom watershed (Bellingham's water supply) in the late 80s and early 90s. They say Whatcom County actually ended up trading Trillium unlogged land outside of the watershed in exchange for partially logged land in the watershed just to get Trillium out of the area and protect the water supply from sedimentation. Numerous DNR stop work orders and notices to comply scolded Trillium for not doing mitigation work that had been called for weeks, and sometimes months, beforehand.

"[Trillium is] basically one of the worst operators, as far as I'm concerned," says one member of Forest Concerns of the Upper Skagit, who preferred to remain anonymous. "They're basically out there taking as much as they can as fast as they can."

Marianne Edain of the Whidbey Environmental Action Network shares that assessment. Referring to the company's real-estate development and logging operations, she says "they specialize in browbeating municipalities" until the company is allowed to do what it wants.

Trillium so flagrantly flouted DNR rules while logging on Whidbey Island in 1989 that then-Commissioner of Public Lands Brian Boyle wrote a personal letter to Trillium President David Syre, chastising him for his company's continued violations of forest practices rules.

Trillium had come to an agreement with the state on a variety of provisions for protecting wetlands in the area to be logged. However, wrote Boyle, "the Trillium operation violated the spirit and perhaps the letter" of the plan for protecting Whidbey Island's Bush Point wetlands.

Boyle even saw fit to tell Syre the state now felt compelled to keep a close eye on any of Trillium logging operations: "In light of recent events on the island, I am directing my Northwest Regional staff to carefully monitor all present and future Trillium Corporation operations and to assume that any permit issued to the corporation will require the highest degree of attention to assure compliance with regulatory requirements."

Watershed Analysis
The Tolt watershed, on the west side of the Cascades northeast of Seattle, includes the Tolt reservoir which supplies Seattle with much of its drinking water. The area is also intensively logged by Weyerhaeuser, which owns about 40,000 acres in the 63,000-acre watershed.

Years of road building and logging have caused major sedimentation problems in the Tolt River and its tributaries, as well as in the reservoir itself, raising concerns at the Seattle Water Department that the reservoir was becoming so turbid (with suspended sediment and organic debris) that it could foresee having problems making the water fit to drink. In addition, fisheries resources in the watershed declined rapidly in the last decade.

When the state Forest Practices Board mandated in 1992 a study of harvest practices in more than 400 watersheds in Washington, the Tolt was a prime candidate to be looked at first. DNR is required to do the analysis throughout the state, but because of the financially strapped status of the agency, it welcomes private landowners to help sponsor the efforts.

Weyerhaeuser volunteered to sponsor the first full analysis in the state on the Tolt watershed, one of the most controversial and complex in the state. Working with a study group of 47 people representing 10 agencies (including DNR), Weyerhaeuser, Washington Trout Inc., environmentalists and the Tulalip Tribes, the 1993 analysis process culminated in a set of "prescriptions," or new forest practices, aimed at eliminating some of the worst problems caused by logging in the area. These included larger stream-side buffers and "fish enhancement" projects.

The efforts were widely praised by the timber industry, environmentalists, tribes and the media as bold steps to forge compromises and adapt forestry practices that allow a sustainable timber industry, while having minimal impacts on fish and wildlife.

As part of the analysis, Weyerhaeuser inventoried every mile of every road on its property in the watershed, categorizing and prioritizing problems with culverts, ditches and drainage.

The company also found areas where the downstream sides of culverts had eroded so much that fish could not jump high enough to make the passage under the road. Those stream crossings were rebuilt to lower the culvert to allow fish to pass through.

Weyerhaeuser forester Larkoski, who coordinated the watershed analysis effort, says the Tolt watershed gets three times more precipitation than Seattle. He says the company has taken care of every problem with roads and drainage in the Tolt that posed an imminent danger to public resources. He says Weyerhaeuser foresters now know from experience where the "hot spots" are when storms hit. "It does not take long to mobilize and get on a problem," says Larkoski.

And unlike some companies or small private logging operations that may "cut and run," letting logging roads deteriorate because they know they aren't coming back, says Larkoski, Weyerhaeuser is in the Tolt watershed for the long haul and has a vested interest in maintaining its roads.

"We have no incentive to let these roads go to hell," he says. "They are a huge capital investment." He said Weyerhaeuser has budgeted over $750,000 for road maintenance in the Snoqualmie Tree Farm (which includes the Tolt) for 1994.

Historically, Larkoski says, the timber industry has been way behind the curve on the need for changing some of its practices, and has dragged its feet (wrongly he believes), on many issues. He believes that cooperative efforts such as this watershed analysis point the way toward a future of sustainable forestry on private lands that also allows for thriving fish and wildlife resources.

In the end, he says, he would much rather see the Weyerhaeuser land near Seattle being used for forestry, than sold off to the developers that are now pushing up against Weyerhaeuser property. Once you cut the trees and build houses or pave it over, he says, trees just don't grow back.

"I'm about as much an environmentalist as anybody," Larkoski concludes. "I've dedicated my life to this tree farm."

Perhaps the timber industry is beginning to see the forest for the trees. Alan Copsey of the Washington Environmental Council says the public needs to keep in mind the long-term picture when weighing arguments over how to best utilize forest resources.

"Environmentalists aren't as successful as people portray us to be," he says. "We've won a few rounds, but it's very important to keep in mind what an environmental battle is: We never win. We only avoid losing. Any victory that we make today is threatened again tomorrow."

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Contents on this page were published in the April/May, 1994 edition of the Washington Free Press.
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