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Wednesday, October 11, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
City, schools working through tree thinning
By Sue Stafford
Correspondent
The Urban Forestry Board
reluctantly reached a consen-
sus at their October 9 meeting,
following a tour of the Sisters
School District property
directly behind Reed Stadium,
where the district wants to
remove more trees.
Following a thinning
project at the middle school
which City staff and the UFB
thought exceeded a verbal
agreement, the City issued a
stop work order to the district
until all parties involved had
a chance to meet and review
proposed further thinning.
At the beginning of the
UFB meeting, Dan Galecki,
City Forester, reported that he
thought too many trees had
been removed.
“I think the trees were
thinned out more aggressively
than my scope and what we
talked about,” he said.
Following Monday’s meet-
ing there is a quantitative
measure that will help deter-
mine the appropriate num-
ber of trees to be removed. A
reloscope is a tool that makes
it possible to survey a stand
of timber to determine a cer-
tain basal area of trees, which
represents the surface area of
trees in an area or square feet
per acre. Industry standard
indicates that a basal area
of 200 would generally be
thinned down to 80.
On the other hand, pre-
scriptive thinning usually
means removing a particular
percentage of trees in a stand,
such as 25 or 30 percent, but
can be more subjective than
using the reloscope.
Trees in the stand currently
at issue fall into two cat-
egories: eight inches or less
in diameter and over eight
inches. Dave Vitelle of Bear
Mountain Fire had already
marked the over-eight inch
trees he planned to remove
with lime-green plastic tape.
During the most recent tour,
Galecki and the UFB surveyed
the designated trees over eight
inches, with Galecki concur-
ring with most of the trees
slated for removal, although
there were some he did not
agree should be removed.
Regarding the smaller
trees, it is up to the school dis-
trict to determine how many
to remove, although Galecki
urged a conservative approach
to guarantee a mixed-age
forest.
Some of the UFB members
were hesitant to approve lift-
ing the stop work order with-
out direct supervision of the
logging process, while oth-
ers didn’t think they had the
jurisdiction to do that. They
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decided that Community
Development Director Patrick
Davenport and Public Works
Director Paul Bertagna would
count the number of larger
trees scheduled for removal
before lifting the stop work
order. During the tree removal
process, Davenport and other
staff will be checking on the
removals on a daily basis.
UFB chairman Dave Moyer
will also be making regular
spot checks. Vitelle told the
UFB that he will video the
tree removals.
The role of the UFB con-
cerning trees on property not
belonging to the City is not
clearly defined. Developers
are required to submit tree
plans for new subdivisions
and the City can urge them
to not remove too many
trees, and developers gener-
ally abide by those recom-
mendations. However, the
UFB doesn’t really have
jurisdiction over the school
district property. The City’s
clear jurisdiction lies with
trees on all City property and
rights-of-way.
Ryan Stock, Operations
Director for the school dis-
trict, told the UFB they plan to
plant fescue, brush, and some
young ponderosa with ample
open space in the areas being
thinned.
Stock said there might be
plans for the school science
club to be involved with an
environmental project in the
thinned tree stands at the mid-
dle school. He would like to
see an arboretum of natural
species at one of the schools.
The logs are currently
decked on high school prop-
erty behind Sisters Park &
Recreation District. Plans
are in the works, according
to Stock, to donate some of
the wood to organizations
like Family Access Network
to provide firewood for low-
income families, although that
plan is not yet in place.
Plans for the juniper timber
include letting it dry out, mill-
ing it, and having it available
for the high school woodshop
students.
Vitelle can chip up some of
the timber for use on school
trails. Various school clubs
and classes will have access
to the timber for possible fun-
draising activities.
Stock expressed concern
that Vitelle is not receiving
recognition for the contribu-
tion he is making to create
safer school environments at
no cost. Stock estimates that
$120,000 worth of work has
been donated to the school
district. Vitelle has provided
$6,500 worth of tree trim-
ming to the City, according to
Stock.
Thinning work will resume
once the stop work order is
lifted by the City.
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