Washington Hunter
Well-known member
Published Feb. 20, 2006
Road rules benefit forests, foresters alike
By John Dodge
The Olympian
Heavy winter rains like the ones experienced this year historically took a heavy toll on the thousands of miles of logging roads that cover 9 million acres of public and private forestlands across the state.
Floodwaters and debris can blow out road culverts and wash out roadways, triggering expensive repairs and sending sediment into streams that degrades water quality and smothers spawning and rearing habitat for fish.
But foresters and biologists alike agree that new state rules governing logging roads are paying dividends for fish and reducing road maintenance costs at the same time.
“Where we’ve done the road work, we’ve done really well this winter,” said Gary Graves, an assistant division manager for the forest practices division of the state Department of Natural Resources.
Since 2001, a logging road improvement program, which is part of the state Forests & Fish law regulated by DNR, has required forestland owners to inventory their roads and repair the ones that are prone to failure and send sediment into streams. They have until mid-2006 to complete the inventories and until 2016 to finish the work.
Green Diamond, formerly known as Simpson Timber Co., has completed an inventory of its 3,000 miles of logging roads and made significant progress in remedying its worst roads across its 320,000 acres in Thurston, Mason, Grays Harbor, Lewis and Pacific counties.
“Green Diamond’s right up there, going the extra mile,” said Don Nauer, a biologist working on Forests & Fish for the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Overall, the inventory of private industry and DNR logging roads is nearly complete, and the 2016 deadline could be reached, Graves said.
What happened this winter is a case in point of progress on the ground.
Over a 35-day period spanning December and January, 36 inches to 45 inches of rain dumped on Green Diamond forestlands, noted Keith Simmons, Green Diamond manager of harvest planning and engineering.
“We could have seen $200,000 of damage to logging roads,” he said of the onslaught of rain.
Due largely to the road upgrades, the damage was limited to $30,000, and most of that was from two landslides that had nothing to do with old road construction, he said.
A few hours driving around the Green Diamond tree farm illustrated many of the changes in road construction and maintenance.
Green Diamond road builder Frank Schmidt uses an excavator, rather than a bulldozer, these days to carve new roads out of the forest. It means less disturbance of the soil and a construction path than follows the natural terrain.
“We’re moving the minimum amount of material as possible,” Simmons said. “Our job is to minimize the human footprint.”
Schmidt uses the excavator bucket to pluck stumps out of the 12-foot-wide path of the road and smooth the roadway of mounded dirt and woody debris.
A major change is the elimination of road ditches that often carried stormwater and sediment to the nearest stream, Simmons said.
Now runoff is funneled off the roadway onto the forest floor through rolling breaks in the grade that is built into the roads.
On older, steeper roads where ditches can’t be removed, crews install cross drains below the road surface every 200 feet or small cross trenches called “water bars” across the top of the road to disperse stormwater runoff onto the forest ground, rather than letting it build up and flow downhill to the nearest stream.
“We’re trying to disconnect the road network from the water channels and streams,” Simmons said.
In places where logging roads cross streams, the old method of placing a culvert to pass water — surrounded by road bed fill material — is being replaced with bridges that span the stream and open it back up to fish.
In some cases, larger culverts are installed so fish can pass through.
“We’ve replaced 20 to 25 old fill culverts with either bridges or oversized culverts,” Simmons said.
The net result of all the road improvement projects on Western Washington forestland is twofold:
• Fish have more and cleaner habitat for spawning and spending the winter.
• The timber companies see a return on their investment — $2 million in road improvement costs in the past five years by Green Diamond alone — in reduced road maintenance costs, especially after major winter storms.
“Oftentimes, the conservation values of the road improvement work have maintenance benefits, too,” Simmons said.
The Road Maintenance and Abandonment Program called for in Forests & Fish is paying off in water quality and fish habitat benefits almost overnight, Nauer said.
“It’s been the number one success story of Forests & Fish,” he said.
Conservation groups, many of which don’t believe Forests & Fish went far enough to protect streamside habitat, are generally pleased with the road improvement portion of the 1999 state law.
“It’s a pretty good step forward,” said Becky Kelley, campaign director for the Washington Environmental Council. “Roads are one of the biggest environmental problems out there in the woods.”
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Road rules benefit forests, foresters alike
By John Dodge
The Olympian
Heavy winter rains like the ones experienced this year historically took a heavy toll on the thousands of miles of logging roads that cover 9 million acres of public and private forestlands across the state.
Floodwaters and debris can blow out road culverts and wash out roadways, triggering expensive repairs and sending sediment into streams that degrades water quality and smothers spawning and rearing habitat for fish.
But foresters and biologists alike agree that new state rules governing logging roads are paying dividends for fish and reducing road maintenance costs at the same time.
“Where we’ve done the road work, we’ve done really well this winter,” said Gary Graves, an assistant division manager for the forest practices division of the state Department of Natural Resources.
Since 2001, a logging road improvement program, which is part of the state Forests & Fish law regulated by DNR, has required forestland owners to inventory their roads and repair the ones that are prone to failure and send sediment into streams. They have until mid-2006 to complete the inventories and until 2016 to finish the work.
Green Diamond, formerly known as Simpson Timber Co., has completed an inventory of its 3,000 miles of logging roads and made significant progress in remedying its worst roads across its 320,000 acres in Thurston, Mason, Grays Harbor, Lewis and Pacific counties.
“Green Diamond’s right up there, going the extra mile,” said Don Nauer, a biologist working on Forests & Fish for the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Overall, the inventory of private industry and DNR logging roads is nearly complete, and the 2016 deadline could be reached, Graves said.
What happened this winter is a case in point of progress on the ground.
Over a 35-day period spanning December and January, 36 inches to 45 inches of rain dumped on Green Diamond forestlands, noted Keith Simmons, Green Diamond manager of harvest planning and engineering.
“We could have seen $200,000 of damage to logging roads,” he said of the onslaught of rain.
Due largely to the road upgrades, the damage was limited to $30,000, and most of that was from two landslides that had nothing to do with old road construction, he said.
A few hours driving around the Green Diamond tree farm illustrated many of the changes in road construction and maintenance.
Green Diamond road builder Frank Schmidt uses an excavator, rather than a bulldozer, these days to carve new roads out of the forest. It means less disturbance of the soil and a construction path than follows the natural terrain.
“We’re moving the minimum amount of material as possible,” Simmons said. “Our job is to minimize the human footprint.”
Schmidt uses the excavator bucket to pluck stumps out of the 12-foot-wide path of the road and smooth the roadway of mounded dirt and woody debris.
A major change is the elimination of road ditches that often carried stormwater and sediment to the nearest stream, Simmons said.
Now runoff is funneled off the roadway onto the forest floor through rolling breaks in the grade that is built into the roads.
On older, steeper roads where ditches can’t be removed, crews install cross drains below the road surface every 200 feet or small cross trenches called “water bars” across the top of the road to disperse stormwater runoff onto the forest ground, rather than letting it build up and flow downhill to the nearest stream.
“We’re trying to disconnect the road network from the water channels and streams,” Simmons said.
In places where logging roads cross streams, the old method of placing a culvert to pass water — surrounded by road bed fill material — is being replaced with bridges that span the stream and open it back up to fish.
In some cases, larger culverts are installed so fish can pass through.
“We’ve replaced 20 to 25 old fill culverts with either bridges or oversized culverts,” Simmons said.
The net result of all the road improvement projects on Western Washington forestland is twofold:
• Fish have more and cleaner habitat for spawning and spending the winter.
• The timber companies see a return on their investment — $2 million in road improvement costs in the past five years by Green Diamond alone — in reduced road maintenance costs, especially after major winter storms.
“Oftentimes, the conservation values of the road improvement work have maintenance benefits, too,” Simmons said.
The Road Maintenance and Abandonment Program called for in Forests & Fish is paying off in water quality and fish habitat benefits almost overnight, Nauer said.
“It’s been the number one success story of Forests & Fish,” he said.
Conservation groups, many of which don’t believe Forests & Fish went far enough to protect streamside habitat, are generally pleased with the road improvement portion of the 1999 state law.
“It’s a pretty good step forward,” said Becky Kelley, campaign director for the Washington Environmental Council. “Roads are one of the biggest environmental problems out there in the woods.”
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