Daily News Photo/Jamie Gentner - Mike Duguay, a professional forester with Roseburg, shows tour participants an area in Schulmeyer Gulch that was previously logged and replenished with pine and fir trees.
Posted on 07/31/2007 9:10:04 PM PDT by forester
Schulmeyer Gulch residents get inside look at Roseburg logging plan
By JAMIE GENTNER Daily News Staff Writer Published: Tuesday, July 31, 2007 10:42 AM CDT
YREKA – Staff members of Roseburg Resources Co. gathered with residents of Schulmeyer Gulch and members of the Chamber of Commerce on Sunday morning for a tour of the Schulmeyer Gulch woods where logging operations will begin in the next few years.
“We want to show everyone what we’re doing and explain why we do what we do,” Mike Duguay, a professional forester with Roseburg said at the beginning of the tour.
According to a letter that was sent out to Schulmeyer Gulch property owners and Chamber members in mid-July, the objective of the tour was to see the area that will be harvested in the coming years and review areas that were harvested in 1999-2001.
Topics covered during the tour were forest health, forest fuel reduction, wildlife habitat and watershed protection.
To start the tour, Duguay showed participants a map of the area that highlighted where logging operations would take place and what kind of operations they would be.
Of the 1,100 acres that will be logged, only 200 acres will be clearcut, Duguay stressed. About 600 acres will be thinned, and the rest will be sanitation/salvage logging, that will primarily remove diseased trees from the area.
“About 90 percent of what we’ll be cutting are trees that are infected with mistletoe,” Duguay said.
Mistletoe is a parasite that infects and eventually kills trees. Infected trees grow slower and are more susceptible to drought and insect attack.
But mistletoe affects more than just the tree it is on, because the parasite can drop from an older, taller tree to a younger tree beneath it. Thus, Roseburg must make sure they get all the diseased trees out of the area.
Jason Warshawer, a Roseburg reforestation expert, explained further why the logging project is necessary.
“You have to look at the stands that are here. If there's too many trees, it's not good for their health,” he said. “You have to look at how they're doing and ask, 'Can we do better than that?' When many of these trees are only growing a quarter of an inch in the last 10 years, we're a long way off from the healthy conditions we want.”
Once the logging is done and the brush is cleared away, foresters will go back into the area and plant new trees from local seed - seed that has been taken from the best existing trees and is used to reforest the area.
Pine, Douglas fir, white fir and incense cedar trees will be replanted.
Warshawer told tour participants that the cost of such replanting could reach up to $500 an acre for preparing the site and replanting.
That shows, Duguay said, that Roseburg isn't just going in and clearcutting everything without thinking of the financial implications involved.
“We have to look 10 or 20 years into the future to see how we can best replenish the woods,” Arnie Hultgren, Roseburg head forester, said. “It's a natural process that takes decades to pay off, but it's worth the investment to us.”
It is also important that the company use existing infrastructure, Duguay explained. Old bulldozer work is still present along roads and access points, and those will be used to avoid constructing more than they need to, he said.
In order to be more efficient, feller buncher machines will be used instead of bulldozers this time around as well.
After the logs are taken to the veneer mill, the treetops and small unmerchantable trees will be taken to a power plant in order to reduce fuels, Hultgren told participants on the tour.
That plant the wood chips and wood waste will be taken to is the new 15-megawatt plant Roseburg is constructing to provide renewable energy to Redding. It is scheduled to go online in May 2008.
The ash that results from some burning the process will be sold to farmers as an alternative to lime for soil conditioning.
During the tour, participants were also shown the nesting site of goshawks that live in the area, and were told about restrictions Roseburg has in place to protect them and the spotted owls that are known to be in the area.
Rich Klug, a wildlife biologist with Roseburg, told those on the tour that Habitat Retention Areas are left to protect the two species and others in the forest. Nesting areas are given buffers, where a “no-cut zone” is in place around the nest.
About 2 percent of the harvest acres will be left in tact for wildlife, Klug said.
“That's in stark contrast to the public conception that loggers just run amock and do whatever they want,” Duguay said.
The earliest logging will begin is next year, after a permit from the California Department of Forestry hopefully comes through in mid- to late October.
Duguay submitted the application for the permit - a 200-page Timber Harvesting Plan - on Friday, July 27, and many other permits will still be required after the initial logging permit. Thus, Roseburg is expecting operations to begin in 2009 or 2010.
“That just gives you an idea of how far ahead we have to plan and how much work goes into this,” Duguay said.
At the end of the tour, as participants stood atop the Schulmeyer Gulch mountain, Duguay encouraged landowners to tell anyone else that Roseburg would take them on the tour as well.
“We want everyone to know that this isn't the end of the world - we're not just taking down all the trees,” he said. “Roseburg has nothing to hide; we want the public to know what's going on.”
And participants were glad the company was so forthcoming.
“I thought it was an excellent idea for them to be open and welcome the neighbors and community to take a look and see what they're doing,” said Bill Winterburn, a Chamber member who attended the tour. “I was really surprised to hear about all the processes they have to go through to bring something into fruition on their own land. It was amazing, and I wish more people would have shown up.”
Roseburg has been in Weed for 24 years, producing veneer for plywood and engineered lumber and overseeing 186,000 acres of company timberland in Siskiyou and Shasta counties. The company employs 175 people and dozens of local contractors. In 2006, the operation of the veneer plant and company timberlands added over $58 million to the local economy.
For more information on Roseburg or the logging operations, call 938-5488.
Daily News Photo/Jamie Gentner - Mike Duguay, a professional forester with Roseburg, shows tour participants an area in Schulmeyer Gulch that was previously logged and replenished with pine and fir trees.
Thank you for the ping and for educating the public.
This is in SE Ohio and we've had problems with borers and bag worms.
Do you have knowledge of that?
I lived in Yreka from 1981 - 1985. At that time, I think there were 5 lumber mills, only one of which was operating...thanks to environmental wackos.
Do you have knowledge of that?
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Yes. At that time there was A)High Ridge Lumber Company, b) Timber Products Company, C) Pine Mountain Lumber Company; and D) Klamath Moulding Company....all small, family owned sawmills.
I know that is only four, but Pine Mountain operated two seperate facilities, and would carry the lumber back and forth from the sawmill to the planer mill with large lumber carriers. At that time, they carried the lumber down main street and under the freeway overpass to the other mill....perhaps you remember that?
This is in SE Ohio and we’ve had problems with borers and bag worms.
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LOL. Forestry is such an APPLIED science. I have never heard of bag worms...flat headed wood borers and mountain pine beatles are every day occurrences, but not bag worms. It just goes to show that enviros who blather on that everything is so simple: just do it their way...are so clueless. It is not simple...it is applied science; every place is different.
Here in California, small landowners are forced by law to hire proffesional foresters like me. I like the way things are done in Ohio ....people hire foresters because they make more money...capitalism beats socialism every time - and the forest is better off!
Roseburg has been in Weed for 24 years,
Having driven the I-5 corridor between Seattle and the Bay Area many times, that phrase struck me as mildly humorous: An Oregon town is within a California town.
“Part of my job is to educate the public.”
The way pople are brainwashed by the eco-fascists, your job will be equivalent to climbing a moutain blindfolded while dragging 10 spitting hippies. The kids, especiially, are hopelessly ignorant. If you can reach them you will have performed a valuable service. Good luck...
I own wooded property in Pennsylvania where I have a hunting camp. I've allowed a forester from the local timber company to manage my property for the past 15 years. Every once in awhile, he'll harvest the mature timber before it falls down in the winter.
It's always been very profitable, and he's never done anything to the detriment of my woods.
I also just opened up 6 oil wells on my property, just as the price of oil is reaching an all-time high. The affect on the animal habitat has been nothing at all, and it provides me with free natural gas for my camp as well.
But here's the part you'll like - I decided to open up the woods in front of my camp to allow me to have a million-dollar view of the mountains in the distance. That means clearcutting several acres.
If I'd have done that in the city, I'd have had to pay somebody to come do it, but in the country, the timber company pays me!
Afterwards, I'll plant forage browse as food for the critters.
If you own property, you should be allowed to use it. The income from this property will allow me to pay the taxes and keep it as hunting land in the middle of woods for the remainder of my lifetime.
Does mistletoe grow on pines and firs or are you thinning infected hardwoods?
Does mistletoe grow on pines and firs or are you thinning infected hardwoods?
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Mistletoe also infects conifers. In dry inland areas like ours, it is a nasty parasite, and can kill acres of trees. Whats worse is that the infected older trees infect the younger trees before they die, thus damaging future productivity as well.
Most of these insects are only a problem in overcrowded and stressed stands. A forester on site could ive much more specific information.
All the militating little mental midget envirowhackos are the REAL "bugs" infecting the forest, Mr. Forester!!!
Was up a Sugarpine Reservoir with the children and grandchildren this past weekend watching the raptors (Ospreys) shovin their young kids outta the nest. What a lesson from nature to the grandchildren!!!
I'm surprised the EnvironMentalistas aren't trying to label you all as "tree abortionists!" Or, "Planned Tree Parenthood" operatives, etc... (I know, it's not funny!)
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