Santiam timber sold

The Santiam corridor salvage timber sale was auctioned at $3,158,787 to Bugaboo Timber Co. of Mill City last Tuesday, September 17.

A total of 1,022 acres in the Santiam corridor are slated for logging in this sale. Seven hundred acres will be tractor-logged while 322 acres in sensitive or steep areas will be hauled out by helicopter.

Two timber companies bid for the salvage sale, which is intended to reduce fire fuels and improve scenic quality in the Santiam corridor.

Bugaboo outbid D.R. Johnson and laid down $128.50 per 100 cubic feet of wood for the rights to the timber, a considerably higher price than the $25.13 per 100 cubic feet the Sisters Ranger District appraised for the dead and dying sale area.

Sale appraiser Alan Heath attributed the strong bid to the competitive timber market.

"There are quite a few loggers out there that are looking for work, so anything that comes up they're interested in if they can make a buck at it," Heath said.

The Santiam timber sold relatively quickly, especially considering that the timber quality is declining. Lumber companies wanted to clear the deteriorating trees while they still had market value.

Some 13,800,000 board feet are to be harvested. Fifty-three percent of the total volume sold is dead timber. The other 47 percent is considered live, but Heath said some of what was considered live is barely hanging on. An estimated 20 percent of the sale was considered suitable for chips, while 80 percent went for saw timber.

Douglas fir, which make good saw logs, made up over half the volume of the sale contributing to the high ratio of saw timber versus chipwood. According to the Forest Service, much of it was dead or dying.

"The dead stuff in there held up a lot better than we expected," Heath said.

Heath insisted there will be no clear-cutting involved and that measures will be taken to protect resources that could be impacted by logging.

Dead trees around 30 inches in diameter near bald eagle habitat around Suttle Lake were protected. Tractors will only be used in less sensitive areas while helicopters will be brought in to extract timber on erosion-prone slopes and sensitive soils. Logging around the Suttle Lake recreation area will be done during the winter to avoid traffic.

The logging is scheduled to begin this fall and Bugaboo must be out of the site by March 31, 2000.