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The sound of saws at the Berry Patch timber sale 20 miles east of Eugene are the
opening shots in this summer's ancient forest wars. Berry Patch is the first old-growth
timber sale to be logged on the Willamette National Forest in more than three years.
The purchaser of Berry Patch -- D.R. Johnson of Riddle -- bought the sale in 1996.
They logged most of it before the bottom fell out of the market for large diameter
old growth logs. After receiving market related contract extensions for years, the
Forest Service is forcing the company to complete logging on the 30 or so acres that
remain.
The Willamette National Forest has a dozen other timber sales that would clearcut
more than 2,000 acres of ancient forest ready to go this summer. Last year the Willamette
lost $30 million selling old-growth below cost. The company is logging the last ten
percent of old-growth left in Oregon, trees twice as old as the United States at
a loss to the taxpayers AND to the company itself. To call the situation absurd would
be too kind.
Almost all of what's left of the sale was felled the week of June 23rd.
I've been watching old-growth logging in Oregon for more than a decade, and this
is some of the worst logging I've ever seen. On a recent trip to Berry Patch I saw
fields of one and two log loads stripped of branches and bucked out to 30-foot lengths.
Most of the logs I saw were more than 250 years old and 4 feet in diameter. The largest
log I saw on the ground was 6 feet 8 inches in diameter and 478 years old, born in
1524, 30 years after Columbus stumbled on the New World. The entire 5-acre stand
was probably logged in about two hours.
I spoke briefly with the night watchmen, a nice enough guy with a totally demented
view of National Forest management.
"These trees are totally rotten. I doubt they can even make any lumber out of
'em anyway, but if you don't cut 'em the bugs'll just eat 'em," he said. When
I asked him if I could take some pictures he said no, that the Forest Service had
given the purchaser permission to close the area to the public if they liked (the
Forest Service denies this, and I took a number of pictures anyway).
There were several Forest Service law enforcement agents at the site, presumably
there to arrest anyone who objects to spending the tax payers money to in order to
make a timber company lose money to log 400 year old trees to starve out the local
insect population. The North Winberry timber sale, which has been the site of a three-year
tree-sit by the Cascadia Forest Defenders is two miles further up the road. I checked
in with CFD before I split.
"This is public land and the public is pissed," said CFD's Rachel Kingston.
"We're not going to just sit around as the Forest Service logs the last ten
percent of Oregon's old-growth in our own backyard."
Get out to Berry Patch and check it out. Don't let it happen to your forest.
James
What you can do: The only thing that'll stop sales like Berry Patch is increased grassroots pressure on policy makers. Letters and phone calls to your Congresscritter, letters to the editor all help. Call early, call often.
Senator Ron Wyden 516 Hart Senate Office Building Washington, D.C. 20510-3703 503-326-7525 202-224-5244
Senator Gordon Smith 404 Russell Senate Office Building Washington, D.C. 20510-3704 503-326-3386 202-224-3753
Representative Peter DeFazio 2134 Rayburn House Office Building Washington DC, 20515 541-465-6732 202-225-6416
Mail Bag, Register Guard P.O. Box 10188 Eugene, OR 97440-2188 RGLetters@guardnet.com
Oregonian Letters to the Editor 1320 SW Broadway Portland, OR 97201 letters@news.oregonian.com
*Unit maps, photographs and more information available from the Cascadia Wildlands Project ( jdj@efn.org or 541.434.1463).
See www.cascwild.org and www.nwoldgrowth.org for more info.
Directions to Berry Patch: Take I-5 south from Eugene for approximately 3 miles. Take the Oakridge/Klamath Falls exit (Exit 188A). Stay to the left onto Hwy. 58. Take 58 for approximately 13 miles and take a left at the Lowell exit (next to a white covered bridge). Drive through Lowell, take a left on W. Boundary (sign for Lowell/Fall Creek) and a right on Moss Ave (sign for Jasper-Lowell Rd.). Stay on this road for 2 miles to a four-way intersection (another covered bridge ahead and Fall Creek Tavern to the right). Take a right onto Big Fall Creek Road. In less than a half-mile, stay to the right onto Winberry Creek Road. Stay on Winberry Creek Road for 9 miles to the National Forest boundary (stay to the right at the one intersection). In 6 miles Winberry Creek Road crosses a cattle guard and turns into a windy one-lane paved road. At the National Forest boundary, take a right onto FS 1802-150 (across from a large gravel parking lot). 1802-150 turns to gravel in 5 miles. Unit 3 of Berry Patch is located on the right 1.3 miles from where 150 turns to gravel. Unit 4 is another mile up the road on the right.
Maps: Middle Fork Ranger District map, Lowell Ranger District map, Willamette National Forest map.
Berry Patch unit status (7/1/02): Unit 3 (22 acres): Felled and unyarded. Located off 1802-150. Unit 4 (19 acres): Felled, partially unyarded. Located off 1802-150. Unit 6 (25 acres): Completed. Located off 1802-150. Unit 7 (11 acres): Completed. Located off 1802-150. Unit 11 (4 acres): Completed. Located off 1824-140. Unit 12 (7 acres): Completed. Located off 1912. Unit 13 (11 acres): Completed. Located off 1912.
Berry Patch facts: The Berry Patch timber sale is 99 acres in size, producing
approximately 5.8 million board feet. More than two-thirds of the Winberry Creek
watershed where Berry Patch is located has already been logged and converted to even-aged
tree plantations. There are almost 5 miles of road per square mile. The Berry Patch
timber sale involves 30 miles of road reconstruction and approximately a mile of
"temporary" (temporary use, permanent impact) road construction.
Related News: The Seattle Times -- Battle
over old growth looms in Gifford Pinchot National Forest.