PORT ANGELES — The state Department of Natural Resources auctioned off the 75 acres contained in the Doc Holliday timber sale despite protesters’ claims that at least 29 of those acres deserve protection.
This site is located about 21 miles west of Port Angeles, according to the Department of Natural Resources (DNR).
Protester Peter Stedman said there are a variety of reasons the 29 acres in Unit 5 of the sale should be protected, including its age, its biodiversity and the impact logging will have on nearby marbled murrelet nesting sites.
The trees in Unit 5 constitute an old-growth-like forest that is “a hair away from [official DNR] old-growth status,” Stedman said.
DNR’s old-growth deferral policy requires, among other things, that the stand is structurally complex and has a contiguous area of trees that originated prior to 1850. The oldest of Unit 5’s trees likely originated about 1905, Stedman said.
“[Originating prior to 1850] is a threshold so high that it’s almost impossible to reach,” Stedman said.
Ryan Rodruck, a communications manager for DNR, said DNR’s assessment of Unit 5 found it is not in the structurally complex developmental stage.
“Isolated remnant older trees, although impressive, do not automatically mean an area is structurally complex,” he wrote in an email interview.
Stedman said the DNR should revise its policy to protect forests like Unit 5.
In addition, he said the DNR should listen to community input regarding what forest parcels should be logged.
Rodruck said the DNR provides several opportunities for the community to provide input on timber sales, largely through public comment processes.
To protest the sale, about 10 individuals stripped the boundary markers and placards from Unit 5 on Aug. 24.
Two days later, the group took those markings to the DNR headquarters in Olympia and read a statement regarding their opposition to the timber sale.
Stedman said staff was “cordial and bureaucratic.” Afterward, the group never heard a word, he said.
On Aug. 28, the entire nine units of the Doc Holliday site was sold to Webster Logging, the sole bidder, for $623,700.
Stedman said Unit 5 is likely one of the last remaining temperate rainforest micro environments within 1 mile of the North Olympic Coast. Once it is cut, he said “it will never be what it is now.”
Unit 5 contains large Western Red cedars, Douglas firs, Sitka spruces and Western hemlocks, Stedman said.
“It’s incredibly biodiverse, and that’s rare,” he said.
The DNR disagreed. It classified Unit 5 as in the biomass accumulation/stem exclusion developmental stage, which Rodruck said “is generally a period of low biodiversity.”
Once Unit 5 is cut, Stedman said the logging company will replant it with one species of fast-growing conifer tree, likely Douglas firs.
“They will look like plantation forests,” Stedman said. “They will be a mono culture, and there will be absolutely no life in them.”
The logging industry will likely then continue to profit off this parcel by cutting it every 30 to 40 years, he said.
“They’re in the business to make money,” Stedman said. “That’s the only thing.”
Logging this stand will also negatively impact marbled murrelet nesting sites that are within 1 mile on either side of the stand, Stedman said. The population of these birds is low and declining, largely due to the loss of mature and old forest habitats, according to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.
The DNR had previously classified Unit 5 as a “higher quality” murrelet habitat, according to Elwha Legacy Forests.
These birds, and other wildlife, have a better chance of survival if the forest stands are contiguous, Stedman said. Cutting Unit 5 will drive a geographical wedge through the existing nesting sites.
Rodruck said the DNR follows scientific recommendations to conserve structurally complex units for threatened and endangered species, including marbled murrelets, where it’s most needed while continuing to provide revenue to beneficiaries.
“Areas of mature forest that were not needed to achieve those habitat objectives were released for harvest,” Rodruck said.
Stedman said the logging will decrease carbon sequestration from current trees and release carbon from the soil.
“Once they log this, that’s all gone forever,” Stedman said. “By logging it, [the DNR is] certainly saying there’s commercial interest over environmental.”
Stedman also said logging Unit 5 is violating the DNR’s policies in the 1997 State Trust Lands Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP).
The HCP sets strategies for the DNR that, if followed, will likely preserve 10 percent to 15 percent of the land in the planning units as older forests, Rodruck said.
Currently, about 2 percent of the land in the Straits planning unit, where the Doc Holliday timber sale is located, are older forests, Rodruck said. By 2090, that unit should achieve 12.6 percent under current practices.
The Straits planning unit generally runs the eastern half of Clallam/Jefferson counties to the Puget Sound and down the east side of the Olympic Peninsula to Lake Cushman.
However, Stedman said cutting Unit 5 is going to negatively impact the HCP’s goals.
Advocacy around Unit 5 is part of a larger effort to protect forests that groups believe are more mature and biodiverse. That effort includes groups like Elwha Legacy Forests, Olympic Climate Action, Legacy Forest Defense Coalition, the Center for Responsible Forestry, Troublemakers and more.
Many of these groups successfully joined together to cancel and permanently conserve 126 acres of the Power Plant timber area last year.
These groups plan to continue their efforts by building community awareness and implementing political pressure to protect forests they consider important, Stedman said.
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Reporter Emma Maple can be reached by email at emma.maple@peninsuladailynews.com.
