A4 The BulleTin • Friday, January 22, 2021
STATE & REGION
State weighed slide risk before logging above highway
BY KATIE FRANKOWICZ
The Astorian
Rain is considered the pri-
mary trigger for a landslide
that shut down U.S. Highway
30 east of Astoria this month
and sent a pile of debris onto
the road and trapped a passing
truck.
But some people in the com-
munity, including neighboring
property owners, point to log-
ging activities they believe left
the area vulnerable when win-
ter hit.
A harvest in 2018 cleared
trees from the top of the slope
down to the road. The area had
just been replanted with Sitka
spruce, Douglas fir and west-
ern hemlock in 2020 — most of
them small plugs or 12-inch tall
seedlings.
The parcel is one of a dozen
units that make up a large piece
of property off the highway
owned and managed by the
Oregon Department of For-
estry. In 2017, it was a part of
the Boiler Fleet timber sale.
In a report the state made
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Today’s Highlights in History:
On Jan. 22, 1973, the U.S. Supreme
Court, in its Roe v. Wade decision,
declared a nationwide constitutional
right to abortion. Former President
Lyndon B. Johnson died at his Texas
ranch at age 64.
In 1901, Britain’s Queen Victoria died
at age 81 after a reign of 63 years; she
was succeeded by her eldest son,
Edward VII.
In 1907, the Richard Strauss opera
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In 1944, during World War II, Allied
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In 1970, the first regularly scheduled
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In 1973, George Foreman upset
reigning heavyweight champion Joe
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In 1987, Pennsylvania treasurer R.
Budd Dwyer, convicted of defraud-
ing the state, proclaimed his inno-
cence at a news conference before
pulling out a gun, placing the barrel
in his mouth and shooting himself to
death in front of horrified onlookers.
Hailey Hoffman/The Astorian
A landslide closed U.S. Highway 30 east of Astoria this month. The state weighed the risk of landslides before
logging at Area 11 in 2018.
ahead of the harvest, the par-
cel — Area 11 — was identified
as a “high hazard landslide lo-
cation” for shallow but rapidly
moving slides with a risk to the
public. The state required for-
esters to consult with the state’s
geotechnical specialist before
logging began.
The specialist determined
that the slope above the high-
way should be a “leave area,”
with trees left standing to keep
the soil stable, but there was
another risk to consider, said
Ty Williams, the Astoria-based
district operations coordinator
for the Department of Forestry.
“Do you leave a tree that may
stabilize soil or do you cut it if
it might fall on the highway?”
Williams said.
When these questions arise,
the state defers to the owner at
risk, the person whose prop-
erty might bear the brunt of ei-
ther scenario. In this case, that
owner was also the state — the
Oregon Department of Trans-
portation. The property was
Highway 30.
Normally, when there is log-
ging along a highway, foresters
In 1995, Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy
died at the Kennedy compound at
Hyannis Port, Mass., at age 104.
In 1997, the Senate confirmed Mad-
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female secretary of state.
In 1998, Theodore Kaczynski plead-
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Iran announced it had barred 38 nu-
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imposed the previous month.
In 2009, President Barack Obama
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within a year.
Ten years ago: Drawing inspiration
from a revolt in Tunisia, thousands
of Yemenis demanded the ouster
of President Ali Abdullah Saleh in a
noisy demonstration that appeared
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lenge to the strongman.
Five years ago: North Korea said
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university student from Ohio, for
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One year ago: Chinese health au-
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viral illness that had infected hun-
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nine deaths could spread further.
Health officials in Washington state
said they were actively monitoring 16
people who’d come in close contact
with a traveler to China, the first U.S.
resident known to be infected with
the virus. In opening arguments
at President Donald Trump’s im-
peachment trial, House Democrats
appealed to skeptical Republican
senators to oust Trump from office to
“protect our democracy.”
Today’s Birthdays: Actor Piper
Laurie is 89. Celebrity chef Graham
Kerr (TV: “The Galloping Gourmet”) is
87. Author Joseph Wambaugh is 84.
Singer Steve Perry is 72. Country sing-
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is 69. Movie director Jim Jarmusch
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Kevin Sheridan is 39. Actor-singer
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Actor Sami Gayle is 25.
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leave a scenic buffer strip along
the side of the road. This time,
though, the two state depart-
ments agreed that due to the
orientation of the slope there
could be a danger of buffer
trees falling across highway
lanes during coastal wind-
storms. Some of the trees were
large enough to potentially fall
across both lanes of traffic, the
state reported. This possibility
outweighed the risk of a slide.
The primary tree species that
would have been left behind
in the buffer corridor were big
leaf maple and red alder, “nei-
ther of which are strongly de-
sired along highways due to
their tendency for failure on
the highway during wind, snow
(and) ice events,” stated a No-
vember 2017 letter from the
Department of Transportation’s
forester to the Department of
Forestry.
Hard to pin down
For decades, researchers
have looked at the correlation
between clear-cut logging and
shallow landslides. But it can
be hard to pin down one main
cause for any landslide, partic-
ularly in historically unstable
landscapes, said Lou Torres, a
spokesman for the Department
of Transportation.
“We know the human factor
can complicate things, but it’s
really difficult to make a de-
termination unless you study
a particular site,” he said. “We
typically don’t do a very in-
depth study (afterward).”
The department’s respon-
sibility is the road, he added.
“There’s so many uses of land
around our roads and we only
have so much say in what peo-
ple do on these properties,” he
said.
Area 11 included a small
stream, and several springs
run through the property. The
parcel is in a general area al-
ready known to be prone to
landslides, Torres said. Also, he
added, “we had 3 to 4 inches
of rain in about 24 hours …
Whenever you have that, you
have a tendency to see slides.”
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