Federal timber to be sold in Sisters area

The rumble of log trucks may be heard again in Sisters after a hiatus of nearly three years. The Forest Service hopes to put the 3.58 million board foot Big Bear Timber Sale on the block by the end of December.

The Big Bear sale is located on 1,500 acres (with 578 acres actually scheduled for harvest) on Green Ridge just past Bear Spring. It will be the first timber sale of over 1 million board feet on the Sisters Ranger District since the 4.2 million board foot Twin Swamp sale in 1992, according to Alan Heath, Timber Appraiser with the Sisters Ranger District.

A log truck holds between 4,000 and 5,000 board feet, Heath said.

But not all of the Big Bear sale will be saw logs. Nearly 1.6 million feet, or 45 percent of the sale will be chip material. A buyer will be permitted to chip on site.

"We have not had any of that up here as far as I know, but it is fairly common on the lodgepole forests in the south county," said Heath. The large quantity of chip material may induce a buyer to bring a chipper to the sale, he said.

"A large portion of the volume comes from dead trees," said Heath. These trees died due to the spruce budworm infestation that devastated the Metolius Basin, the affects of drought and stress due to dense stocking levels.

"We are leaving all healthy pine, Douglas fir and Western larch unless they are in thickets where they need thinning. We are mostly removing white fir to alter species composition back to a more natural condition," Heath said.

The stands were converted to white fir because of fire suppression and selective logging methods, he said. White fir would have been naturally eliminated by the frequent fires that historically swept through the area. Pine, with its thicker bark, would have survived such fires.

Selective logging of the pine was also common during earlier generations of logging.

No down material will be removed. It will be left for soil replenishment and wildlife. Seventeen percent of the harvest units are in no-treatment areas, left as wildlife clumps or as old-growth "refugia." Very few trees larger than 25 inches will be removed.

Nine of the 29 units will be off-limits for logging from March 1 to August 31 to protect nesting raptors, primarily goshawk.

When logging is completed, some harvest units will be shelterwood-like with a scattered overstory. Others, where there was more of the desired species to begin with, "will resemble more of a commercial thin," said Heath.

Underburning will be used in some areas to restore fire to the environment.

Where there are not any trees, the Forest Service will replant pine at a cost Heath believed would be about $350,000.

The planned sale date is December 19. Heath was unable to give an appraisal of the sale, but thought it would bring in the neighborhood of $300 per thousand board feet.

"But bidding will tell us what it's worth," he concluded.