School removes trees

The Sisters school administration ordered 12 trees on the high school grounds--including a few large, old ponderosa pines--to be cut because four posed a safety risk, and eight others needed to make way for a set of visitors' bleachers for the football field.

Although the district's original master plan called for bleachers and parking where the trees were located, the district has no immediate plans to move the bleachers or for parking.

"We're just preparing," said District Maintenance Supervisor Karl Bittler.

Bittler said that some of the trees removed for the bleachers "were not what I'd call huge trees." He said the smallest was only about 12 inches on the stump, but some were about 20 inches in diameter.

Gale Larsen, who drives a bus for the school district, spent 30 years of his life as a silviculturist for the Forest Service. Larsen noticed that some of the larger old pines "on the grassy area of the school grounds had lots of dead limbs, their tops were flattened out and/or their needles were thinning."

Larsen explained, "When a tree loses most of its needles and has a flat top you know it's on its way out. They'll be snags soon."

Larsen mentioned the ailing trees to School Superintendent Steve Swisher. "I told him that he ought to take them before they die while they are still worth something."

He also advised Swisher that the trees might pose a safety risk. "There were several trees near the track and one or two in the grassy area. If the wind blows them down, it could cause damage to the track," not to mention an unlucky student.

Swisher also had a part-time maintenance worker for the district who spent many years cruising timber in the Rainier National Forest examine the trees.

However, at least one professional logger who observed the trees slated to be axed had concerns that there was no need to cut the trees, and suggested that the trees could have been topped.

But Larsen expressed no doubt that the trees were not healthy. "We used to mark timber based on its risk of dying. Ten points would mean it would die in the next three to four years; that's where these trees are."

Swisher said that concerns about safety and liability motivated him to send maintenance supervisor Bittler to the state Department of Forestry, where he "got permits and advice."

Wayne Rowe of the Department of Forestry said, "They came in about two to three weeks ago to get an operating permit. I didn't go out and advise them about anything."

Rowe neither examined the trees nor confirmed that they were in poor health. "If somebody wants to cut one of their trees down and they get a permit, they can cut the tree down as far as we're concerned."

Swisher said that the district would probably not profit from the sale of the trees.

"The contract with the mill (log buyer) is based on the size and quality of the logs, and how they grade out. There are also costs associated with hauling and cutting," he said.

Less than two truckloads of logs were cut, at less than 4,000 board feet per load. According to representatives of the Forest Service, logs greater than 18 inches diameter on the small end can bring about $650 per thousand board feet, with smaller material worth about than $300 per thousand.

That would bring the gross value of the timber to between $2,400 and $5,200.

Swisher said that until the logs were graded and the costs tallied, the district would not know the exact amount of profit, if any.

Bittler agreed. "This was not a money-making proposition."