FEATURED STORY: Is it logging or restoration? Take a trip into Mount Hood National Forest.
'Stay within the parameters'
An email sent from the U.S. Forest Service in November 2013 to Canadian-based timber giant Interfor Corp. is telling.
“This is a very, very high profile sale at this time,” wrote Dale Phelps, U.S. Forest Service sale administrator.
“We must be careful to stay within the parameters set forth.”
The high-profile sale he was referring to was the Jazz Thin, and Bark had sued the Forest Service and Interfor to stop the project because most of it lay within northern spotted owl critical habitat and along protected areas of watersheds.
Estacada-based logging operator Jon Greenup Logging was working with Interfor, the winner of the contract to log the Jazz Thin section of the Mount Hood National Forest.
The companies had obtained a waiver to cut during wet season, but under the terms of that waiver, they were implicitly required to allow the Forest Service to check soil conditions and give them the green light before they could move any equipment into the forest.
But emails and inspection reports obtained by Bark show Greenup moved in and began logging in the rain, without notifying the Forest Service.
There are many stipulations around logging in wet conditions because it can cause deep ruts in the ground and create erosion channels. Most logging in the Mount Hood National Forest happens August through early October, when it’s drier.
Emails between the Forest Service and Interfor indicate operators were made aware of the inspection requirements necessary before they could begin logging.
Phelps, who was overseeing the contract on behalf of the Forest Service, told Interfor Timber Sale Manager Jay Sandmann in an email Nov. 5: “Just a reminder to you and Chad Wheeler of Greenup, Inc. The (Forest Service) must authorize cutting to begin under this waiver … . Because we had cool rainy weather it may be that soils are too wet right now. If so, then no equipment in the woods until we are within the guides set forth in the waiver.”
According to an email among Forest Service employees, later on that day Phelps spoke with Greenup’s Wheeler on the phone. Wheeler told him that Greenup planned to start logging the following day and that some equipment had already been moved. In. Phelps told him to hold off on logging.
A hand-written note attached to an inspection report written by Phelps on Nov. 6 stated, “I found out late last night that Greenup Logging moved into the Bass Sale yesterday … they cut timber for ‘a couple of hours.’”
Roy Shelby, who oversees sale administrators in the Mount Hood National Forest, said that when operators fail to follow the rules, shutting down operations for a few days usually “gets their attention pretty fast,” which is what Phelps did when he discovered logging had begun in the rain.
Shelby said the Forest Service shuts down operators about two or three times a season, and in extreme cases, it will terminate the contract. He said fines are not typically issued.