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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2016
Stream rules: Vote on new rules set for April
Continued from Page 1A
fish-bearing streams on private
land allowed water to increase
in temperature well beyond the
0.3 degrees Celsius allowed
under the Protecting Cold
Water Protocol, the tempera-
ture standard adopted by the
Department of Environmental
Quality. By law, Oregon’s for-
estry practices must not impair
water-quality standards set
by DEQ. In 2012, stakehold-
ers and the state started craft-
ing new rules to further pro-
tect small and medium streams
containing salmon, steelhead
and bull trout.
Stream buffers under cur-
rent rules are 20 feet on either
side. The state Department of
Forestry’s proposed rules call
for 60 feet on either side of
smaller streams and 80 feet
around medium streams.
Brad Knotts, a field coor-
dinator for state foresters on
the Forest Practices Act who
explained the rules Wednes-
day, said the rules will result
in the basal area — the
amount of trees left behind in
stream side management areas
— doubling.
The Board of Forestry,
which is taking public com-
ment until March 1, is set to
vote on the new rules in April.
The rules would become effec-
tive in July.
Too little
Pam Birmingham, who tes-
tified at the hearing Wednes-
day, lives on 20 acres of for-
estland above Humbug Creek
near Elsie.
“I live next door to a 136-
acre clearcut,” Birmingham
said of a parcel uphill to the
east of her house.
She said the land was
logged in 2011 and 2012, fol-
lowing current forest practices,
but led to torrents of mud ruin-
ing the gravel in her driveway
and silted in her well, leav-
ing her without running water.
The smaller, seasonal streams
above her property were not
considered fish-bearing.
“True watershed protec-
tion must take into account the
turbidity and temperature of
upstream tributary,” Birming-
ham said Wednesday, adding
Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
Pam Birmingham shows a map of the streams that surround her residence on Thursday at her home near Elsie. She said a
clearcut logging operation in 2011 adjacent to her home removed many trees and caused sediment runoff that ruined her well.
that the current rules fall short
by stopping “where the fish
stop. Water and temperature
don’t care where the fish stop.”
Arguments at Wednesday’s
hearing were that the increased
buffers still fall short of laws in
neighboring states and what is
necessary to protect cold, clear
water.
Joyce Hunt, chairwoman
of the Necanicum Watershed
Council, echoed a common sen-
timent that the buffers around
such fish-bearing streams
should be at least 100 feet.
Mary Scurlock, a coordi-
nator for the Oregon Stream
Protection Coalition, said her
organization, scientific find-
ings and at least 12 scientists
from Oregon State University
support buffers of 100 feet or
better.
Carolyn Eady, who became
involved in forestry in the
1990s and has served on sev-
eral advisory committees, said
the state’s new rules are “the
least the state can do to get the
feds (and) environmentalists
off their back.”
icy manager for trade group
Associated Oregon Loggers.
Storm said the rules are
unnecessarily complex, don’t
give landowners enough time
to adapt, are too stringent and
don’t provide enough relief
for forestland owners.
Science or politics?
Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
A stream that provides water to the well at Pam Birming-
ham’s home in Elsie does not fall under the state’s pro-
posed stream buffer rules.
Economic impact
The Department of For-
estry estimates the new rules
will lead to a 0.3 to 0.4 percent
decrease in the 20-year annual
average private softwood har-
vest and cost between 62 and
87 jobs, along with $3.8 mil-
lion to $5.5 million less in
compensation.
The rules are estimated to
affect 10 percent of forestland
owners and about 1,500 for-
estry-related businesses. Rep-
resenting more than 1,000 of
those businesses Wednesday
was Rex Storm, the forest pol-
One of the largest for-
estlands affected by the
changed rules would be the
Lewis & Clark Timberlands,
a 140,000-acre tree farm in
the hills between the Clatsop
Plains and the Clatsop State
Forest. The land is managed
by Portland-based Green-
wood Resources Capital Man-
agement. It rivals the 153,000
acres of Clatsop State Forest.
Jim Hunt, a production
manager for Greenwood,
has worked on the property
for more than 20 years and
through multiple ownerships,
much of it as an engineer. One
of his major contributions has
been designing better roads,
bridges and culverts, increas-
ing fish passage throughout
the property. Hunt also serves
on a committee advising the
state on forest practices.
Hunt said there has been a
lot of work done voluntarily
by landowners over the years
to protect water quality and
fish. He pointed to the Oregon
Plan for Salmon and Water-
sheds, a voluntary, public-pri-
vate partnership started in the
late 1990s to improve prac-
tices and avoid coho and other
salmon species joining the
endangered species list.
The Lewis & Clark Tim-
berlands have been a part of
the Sustainable Forestry Ini-
tiative, a voluntary forest-cer-
tification program involving
third-party audits to prove
land is meeting sustainability
standards, since 1999.
“What most people want to
see is a thorough examination
of all the science,” Hunt said.
He said research pointing
toward sunlight as improving
conditions for fish and their
food sources may not have not
been given enough credence
in the rule-making process.
Mark Morgans, the man-
ager of the Lewis & Clark
Timberlands for Greenwood,
has worked on the prop-
erty since 1999 and said his
employer is dedicated to envi-
ronmental stewardship, going
beyond the minimum.
“If the data shows there’s
a better way to manage
resources, great,” Morgans
said. “But if the rules are
changing because of a percep-
tion, then that seems unfair.”
Some of the sites in the Rip-
Stream Study were on Green-
wood’s land, he said, but those
studies used the minimal forest
practices required, which he
added are not representative of
the more robust environmen-
tal protection measures Green-
wood takes.
“This property is going to
be influenced by these new
rules,” Morgans said. “We’ve
taken that into consideration.
We’ve provided the com-
ments we think are prudent.”
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