Suttle Lake timber salvage planned

The Forest Service plans to fast track two salvage operations in the area of last summer's B & B Complex Fire in the Metolius Basin near Suttle Lake and Jack Creek.

Both projects are in areas of existing timber sales and had been partially logged before last summer's devastating fires.

According to Marcy Boehme of the Forest Service, each sale had been previously approved under Environmental Assessments "over the last 10 years or so."

The B & B Fire burned up all markings on the trees yet to be logged, Boehme said.

Originally, the sales were to be thinned from below, but the fires killed most of the trees, and the original "prescriptions" are "no longer feasible," according to the Forest Service.

Now the Forest Service is proposing "modification to existing contracts to allow the purchaser to still get some value out of the timber sales they have purchased," Boehme said. "We have proposed to allow them to do a limited salvage in the units that had not been logged."

The terms of such salvage efforts must be agreeable to both the contractor and the Forest Service in order to move forward. The Forset Service can't act unilaterally.

The agency seeks "rapid implementation of this salvage project ... since delay into next summer will increase decay and loss of merchantable timber volume."

The modification on the Coil Fiber Timber Sale would allow logging on approximately 170 acres. The sale would involve four units near Suttle Lake in Sections 24, 25 and 30.

The Lower Jack Reoffer Timber sale is approximately 225 acres near Roaring Springs and Jack Creek.

In each sale, "only dead and dying trees excess to what is necessary for long-term wildlife habitat and soil protection would be salvaged," according to letters sent out on each of the sales.

"Dying trees are defined as trees with less than 20 percent remaining green needles or greater than 50 percent bole scorch (the latter applies to white fir only)."

The sales will be authorized by a "decision memo" and they are categorically excluded from documentation in an environmental impact statement or an environmental assessment, according to the Forest Service.

Boehme confirmed that the decisions may not be appealed.

For more information call 383-5572.