PORT ANGELES — Clearcuts should be allowed in Olympic National Forest in return for establishing a 134,000-acre wilderness area, a forestry industry representative said Tuesday.
Carol Johnson, executive director of the North Olympic Timber Action Committee, made the suggestion — part of an alternative to a proposal being offered by the Wild Olympics Campaign — to a Port Angeles Business Association breakfast audience of about 30.
Quilcene-based Wild Olympics, a coalition of environmental groups mostly in Puget Sound, has proposed designating 134,000 acres in Olympic National Forest as wilderness area and adding 37,000 acres of state trust lands and private timber company land — much of it on the West End — to Olympic National Park as wilderness area if the owners agree to sell.
The additions to the park would include land mostly at Lake Ozette but also at Lake Crescent, the South Fork Hoh River and the Queets River.
Recreational activities
The wilderness designation prohibits motorized and mechanized uses, logging and mining but does allow hunting, fishing, camping and other recreational activities.
Wild Olympics also proposes adding 450 miles of rivers in the national park and national forest as “wild and scenic,” a designation that prohibits dams “and other harmful water projects,” according to the group’s website, www.wildolympics.org.
Wild Olympics presented its own arguments for the proposal at the business associations’s Sept. 13 meeting.
Bob Lynette of Sequim, co-chair of the North Olympic Group of the Sierra Club, said Tuesday he was “absolutely not in favor” of the trade-off.
“They can always propose their own proposal for their own goals in life, but it has nothing to do with the Wild Olympics Campaign, and I don’t believe the two should be mixed,” he said late Tuesday.
On Tuesday, it was the forestry industry’s turn.
Congressional lawmakers are not working on legislation required to designate the land as wilderness area, Judith Morris, U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks’ representative in Port Angeles, told business association members.
Dicks’ 6th Congressional District includes Clallam and Jefferson counties.
In addition, there’s no requirement that companies sell any acreage, as the park has said land will only be purchased from “willing sellers.”
Johnson also noted the park is proceeding with its own management plan — one that does not include the Wild Olympics proposal.
Park spokeswoman Barb Maynes said the management plan includes the addition of more than 17,000 acres of additions to the park in boundary line adjustments, mostly at Lake Ozette but also at Lake Crescent and the Queets that may overlap with the Wild Olympics proposal.
“What we support is what has already been done through public process in the general management plan,” Maynes said.
Job loss cited
But none of those caveats kept Johnson from vigorously objecting to the Wild Olympics proposal before a sympathetic audience, saying it would cost 72 family-wage jobs on federal land that in turn create other jobs when those wages pay for goods and services.
Wild Olympics’ proposal would take 10 million board feet out of production, she said.
In addition, the wilderness designation would create more regulations for foresters when they did want to harvest their land even if that land is not now being harvested, she said.
As part of her presentation, she made available 8½-inch-by-11-inch signs — 500 were printed — with the declaration: “No New Wilderness. No National Park Expansion/Working Forests = Working Families.”
“No net loss of working forests is what we are looking for,” Johnson said.
“We are just trying to maintain family-wage jobs and not turn this into a totally tourism area.
“Tourism jobs do not make the types of jobs that people can afford to live in the area and raise their family.”
Johnson criticized “staunch environmentalists,” who she said use the Endangered Species Act as a weapon to stop logging and were not willing to negotiate beyond their cause.
“They don’t want trees cut; they want everything left pristine and turned back to a natural state,” Johnson said.
“With the environmental movement, there isn’t a lot of middle ground.”
Land that could be eligible for clearcutting would be taken from 522,000 acres of partially cut areas where selective thinning now is allowed.
The Timber Action Committee proposed 133,000 acres of clearcut-eligible area, 276,000 acres for partial-cut areas and the 133,000 acres for wilderness.
An additional 87,000 acres of old-growth and other sensitive areas in Olympic National Forest would continue as no-harvest zones, Johnson said.
“We are looking for more harvest volume, which is readily available,” Johnson said.
80-year lifespan
Partial-cut areas have an 80-year lifespan, Johnson said.
“Once it reaches 80 years, it can no longer be touched, in perpetuity.”
Wild Olympics Campaign’s website says none of the 134,000 acres of land that would be added to Olympic National Park is in production and would be difficult to log because of lack of suitable road access, steep slopes and proximity to the Humptulips River.
“We are disputing that,” Johnson said in a later interview.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
