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April 29, 2004
Bush's Idea of a Healthy Forest
Today for the first time I walked the logging done at the Timberline ATV Trailhead and it was outrageous. The soil damage was pervasive everywhere and despite bright sun and a warm afternoon the soils were very soft and there was a lot of standing water in ruts as deep as two feet in places. For those who need a reference this is the same site that USDA Secretary Anne Veneman took a "tour" of last week.
By the end of my hike which started with a visit to the proposed salvage sites for the Forest Road 395 Salvage. I know this area fairly well and almost all of the salvage sites fall within East Side cutting units (which means one more entry by a skidder to rip up the forest soils). The stark contrast between the excessive soil compaction at the salvage site (cut by Collins-Pine by the way) and the soil conditions at the windthrow sites was as expected.
The Forest Service pays no heed to soils in this forest and this is more evidence of this. I'll post more details tomorrow as I pull this stuff together for our comments.
Posted by jkleissler at April 29, 2004 10:24 PM
Comments
It is ironic that they claim to be "restoring" the forest when they are actually causing much more damage than the storm did.
This is just further evidence as to the lure to extract black cherry at the expense of the forests soils.
Posted by: Ryan at April 30, 2004 11:48 AM
Hey Jim, I thought bloggers weren't supposed to do any actual investigative reporting! But I guess you had to, since none of the "real" reporters up there in your area are very likely to do so. (If any of 'em should happen to read this comment and might feel inclined to get mad, hey - I'd love to be proven wrong!)
Anyhow, good work. I put in a link at PA Wildlands blog, and I'll update it tomorrow if you put some more pics up.
Posted by: Dave at April 30, 2004 03:35 PM
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