The previous owner (the patenter) paid little more per acre than the cost of a latte. In return, he was granted title to 45.1 acres of National Forest Wilderness, plus title to the mineral estate on 14.88 acres—and the river that runs through it all. But the travesty didn’t stop with the transfer of land’s ownership—from public to private—for $2.50 per acre.

Forest Service map showing area of patented Little Chetco claims—now known as Emily Camp—including the 14.88 acres where the federal government retained ownership of the surface estate.

When a courageous District Ranger tried to bring two decades of non-conforming use in the West Coast’s most rugged Wilderness under control, there was defiance, not compliance.  Not proficient in map reading, the Josephine County Commissioners were convinced by the owner of the now private property to pass a resolution saying the county owned the old user created mining track that ran through the Kalmiopsis Wilderness and down to the Little Chetco River. The intent of the road-grab was to open the Kalmiopsis to unrestricted public motorized travel, despite it’s Wilderness designation. However, the resolution didn’t have the desired effect because the route turned out to be entirely in Curry County.

Other schemes came and went—a resort, a mine and logging the inholding. However, one fact kept getting in the way. The property was surrounded by Wilderness and the Wilderness predated the private property.

Little Chetco River Watershed in the Kalmiopsis Wilderness. The red dot shows approximate location of Emily Camp and its isolation, with no road access and iffy trail access. Google Earth Image.

In the late 1990′s/early 2000′s, there was a bit peace. The attacks on the Wilderness became a thing of the past and a deal between the Forest Service and the original owner to purchase the property was almost completed. In anticipation of the purchase agreement going through and a show of good will, the owner relinquished his rights to 5 mining claims he held in the same area of Wilderness on the little Chetco.

Then the Biscuit Fire burned almost every live tree in the area. The Forest Service reneged on the agreement to purchase the inholding at the agreed on price. Soon a new owner arrived on the scene and tried to up the anti with his own brand of shenanigans.  See the Oregonian March 13, 2010. But this is all history, the big question is what to do now?

The 2002 Biscuit Fire burned hot across this part of the Kalmiopsis Wilderness and the Little Chetco River Watershed. The Emily Camp inholding is clearly visible. (Forest Service photo).

The Emily Camp inholding is currently only accesible by helicopter or an arduous hike in on foot and an even harder one out. The absence of overland motorized access is not likely to change given narrow a court ruling specific  to the area and when the inholding was established. The Biscuit Fire burned hot through this part of the Kalmiopsis Wilderness leaving few trees alive. Dead trees continue to fall across the trail, which are only maintained by volunteers.

While the 45 acres is surrounded by 179,000 acres of Wilderness, commercial activities are not allowed in Wilderness Areas, so the lands adjacent to the inholding can only be used for recreation. Activities like commercially guided trips or other similar activities requires a special use permit from the Forest Serive and while the Little Chetco River runs through the property, we could find no water rights for the inholding.

Those interested in purchasing the Emily Camp inholding should examine access restrictions, court records, zoning. water rights and Wilderness rules and regulations. Hopefully, a buyer will come forward that will return the area to the Wilderness.

Here’s a few things to take into consideration:

• The property is technically 45.1 acres, not 60 as stated originally in the listing, and there’s two public trail rights of way running through the inholding..

Explanation: The 1988 patent granting private ownership to the Little Chetco mining claims (now known as Emily Camp) was for 45.1 acres with surface and mineral estate. On the 14.88 acre balance, the federal government still owns the surface estate. In essence this 14.88 acres is still designated Wilderness and any activities on these National Forest Wilderness lands must comply with the Wilderness Act.

While the mineral estate on the 14.88 acres is in private ownership and could be mined, getting approval may prove difficult because of the Wilderness Act’s requirement that the surface estate be protected.

• Subject to valid existing rights or emergencies, there is no motorized travel allowed in designated Wilderness Ares. The roads named in the real estate listing for Emily Camp are Wilderness “trails.”

Explanation: The original listing says “Emily Camp USFS Rd #1121 and 1131.” These are Forest Service Wilderness trail number. Trail #1131 intersects trail #1109 (Bailey Mountain Trail), which goes down to the Little Chetco River and meets trail #1121 (the Madstone Cabin Trail.)

The previous owner tried to get unlimited motorized access to the inholding but the District Court Judge didn’t agree any of his arguments. The federal government is required to provide reasonable access to private inholdings, including in Wilderness Areas if there’s a valid existing right. However, The Kalmiopsis Wilderness predates the Emily Camp inholding by 24 years so there was no established motorized access to private property when the Kalmiopsis was made Wilderness.

• Our search found no surface water rights with the property.

• The current owner has been notified Curry County that he does not have the proper permits to conduct a commercial operation.   See this in depth Oregonian article. 

• The federal government can only pay the fair market value for the inholding and that’s not likely to be $599,000. The fair market value also applies to land exchanges. See High Country News

Emily Camp on the Little Chetco River, Kalmiopsis Wilderness (USDA Forest Service photo0

A little Background—When the Kalmiopsis was first designated Wilderness in 1964, there was no private land in the Wilderness. There were lots of mining claims, however. Now after almost a half century, this rugged, ultra wild Wilderness is finally free of federal mining claims and all the threats to Wilderness integrity associated with them. It’s been a long long struggle for some of us, but the last three claims went rather painlessly in 2010 (after some harrowing previous years).

What happened in September of 2010, was that the Chetco River Mining and Exploration forfeited ~ 20 miles of federal mining claims, which covered almost half the length of the National Wild and Scenic Chetco River.

The mining claim on this part of the  Wild  Chetco River was forfeited in 2010 (USDA FS Photo)

Three of the claims were in the Kalmiopsis Wilderness. We believe these to be the last of the federal mining claims in the Wilderness. In other words, they’re gone. Extinguished forever—at no cost to the taxpayer—because the mining company rather than paying the minimal maintenance fee, used the small miner exemption, when their claim holdings did not meet the criteria for the exemption.

How Wilderness became private property — Because valid mining claims (remember the word “valid”) on National Forest and BLM lands constitute a property right, any withdrawal of lands from operation of the 1872 Mining Law is “subject to valid existing rights.” When the Kalmiopsis Wild Area became congressionally designated Wilderness in 1964, it was withdrawn from the mining law in the legislation .” This then required the submission of a mining plan and a “valid existing rights determination” before any mining activities could occur on existing mining claims.

Mining claims holders had long been using the remote Kalmiopsis Wilderness to live out their version of the wild west. Claim holders grew pot, had stills, held road hunting parties for friends, bulldozed the old mining tracks at will and sold claims as vacation spots. One man even started to clear a strip to land airplanes. You can still see the scars of this.  Another (the year before wilderness designation) miner bulldozed about 15 miles of road and began mining along the crystal clear wild Chetco River, causing it to run red for days. This was the general setting for the granting of an application to purchase the three Little Chetco mining claims under the patenting provision of the 1872 Mining Law.

A valid existing rights determination (VER) was done. The claims were found valid and as such the claim holder was allowed to purchase the land encompassed by them in 1988 for the 1872 price of $2.50 per acre. Title to the land was granted, subject to the restrictions discussed above, and that’s how 45 acres in the heart of the Kalmiopsis Wilderness because private property 24 years after the area had been designated Wilderness with no private property. This is why we have what’s known as Emily Camp with an asking price of $599,000.

There were a lot of mistakes made. The patent for the surface estate should never have been granted for any of the land and the mineral exam would never pass muster today. The task now is to see there are no more mistakes and for the Kalmiopsis Wilderness to be made whole again.

The post Emily Camp in Kalmiopsis Wilderness for sale—again appeared first on KalmiopsisWild.Org.

Listen to the March 25th Jefferson Exchange and visit The Great Shasta Rail Trail website to learn about this proposed 80 mile trail between McCloud and Burney, California. Read this report on the Economic Importance of National Monuments to Local Communities and read the new National Park Service report about the jobs and dollars contributed to local economies by the Oregon Caves National Monument and Crater Lake National Park.

In the East, despite hard economic times, business and communities along the Great Allegheny Passage (GAP), a rail trail running between Pittsburg and Washington D.C., are doing well and adding small businesses. See the USDA’s press release about the trail and the agency’s Business and Cooperative Programs. Constructed mostly on an old railroad bed, the GAP is relatively level and motor vehicle free. When completed it will be 150 miles in length and will eventually connect with an even longer trail further east.

Oregon’s National Wild and Scenic Illinois River. America’s great outdoors doesn’t get any better than this but we have to take care of it.

Would something like this work to connect Grants Pass, the Illinois River Valley and/or the coast? Would people, for example, be willing to leave their cars and bike and hike to camp along the beautiful Illinois River (if it was safe for families and individuals)? There’s studies showing that communities which provide unique recreation opportunities like the GAP or are near protected federal lands are the ones that flourish over time. But there’s some work that needs to be done first.

Which do you think would be in the long term interest of our communities—both for our own use and enjoyment and to bring in tourism dollars? This (Day’s Gulch Botanical Area after rogue 4-wheel drive users forever impacted this lovely wet meadow as a race/mudding track)?

Day’s Gulch Botanical Area after 4-wheel drive group used it as a race track during a mudding party.

Or this (Eight Dollar Mountain Area of Critical Environmental Concern, Darlingtonia fen interpretive board walk)?

Eight Dollar Mountain Area of Critical Environmental Concern interpretive boardwalk.

Nothing good will happen without good planning and the acquisition of funding needed to create a system of accessible trails connecting communities and appropriate natural heritage and historic sites.  However, local citizens also need to address the escalating vandalism and destruction of public lands in the Illinois Valley to demonstrate the area is worth investing in.

Despite its beauty and high recreation value, the Illinois Scenic River Area Illinois was for many years subject to neglect and lawlessness. It’s slipping that way again. Pictured: Historic Store Gulch Guard Station.

Here’s an example of one visitor’s recent experience:

We’ve been camping on the [Wild and Scenic Illinois]  River for over two decades and my daughter and her girlfriends, who live in Portland now, are ‘done’ with the Illinois after last year’s experience. Dealing will all the crime, trash, and undesireable people over the years has just become too much.

And the unfortunate experience is not uncommon or limited to visitors. Cave Junction’s struggle to keep the Illinois River Forks State Park open is another example of the problems responsible citizens face. Read about this effort at the Illinois Valley Daily View.

The falls on the Illinois River. The Takelma called them Ti-wi-kh.

There’s so much potential in the Illinois Valley to build a clean green sustainable economy but we have to look for new models and learn to take care of the irreplaceable national treasure that’s our home ground.

The post An economic model for Oregon’s beautiful Illinois River Valley? appeared first on KalmiopsisWild.Org.

Kathie Durbin with her beloved golden retriever Feona resting under a giant Brewer spruce after scrambling through a clearcut at the Babyfoot Lake Botanical Area in 2006. See botanical note below.

My words are poor beside theirs. I just know we’re all the richer for her  journalism, dedication and passion for the truth. Here’s why Kathie mattered to the wild places of the Siskiyou National Forest and to the Kalmiopsis Wildlands.

When she was at the Oregonian Kathie came to the Siskiyou to write about the many thousands of acres of clearcuts that were included in the Northwest Forest Plan’s Late-Successional (aka old growth) Forest Reserve System and the thousands of acres of old growth forests that were slated for commercial logging. First Dave Willis, Steve Marsden and myself took her to a veritable moonscape on BLM land—a watershed high above the Wild Rogue River, which was riddled with roads and logged, with not a large tree left standing. We had maps show that it was designated an old growth forest reserve under the draft Northwest Forest Plan.

Then we drove to Shasta Costa, a long narrow gem of a watershed on the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest that also flows into the Wild and Scenic Rogue River.  The heart of Shasta Costa is a 14,000 acre Inventoried Roadless Area. A wide swath across the middle of the watershed was to be a commercial logging zone (aka Matrix) under the draft forest plan. Again we had the maps to prove it.

The old growth grove in Shasta Costa that was slated for logging

With the Oregonian photographer, we scrambled down into a beautiful old growth grove at the edge of the to-be-logged area. Blue paint still marked the trees slated for cutting in the Shasta Costa timber sale. The forest floor was thick with duff. It was like walking on a sponge, one of the essential ecological services old growth forests provide (absorbing precipitation, holding moisture and slowing runoff).

Shasta Costa Inventoried Roadless Area and old growth forest reserve from the Shasta Costa overlook

Kathie wrote a front page story for the Oregonian. Her facts were unassailable. Now when you stop at the Shasta Costa overlook on Siskiyou National Forest road 23 (aka Bear Camp Road) and look out over the unbroken native forests of the Shasta Costa Roadless Area, take a moment and remember Kathie Durbin.

As a result of fire, forest age at Shasta Costa is complex and diverse. The slight bend to the trunk of some of the trees is known as pistol butt and can denote slope movement.

It’s impossible to know all the causal factors that led to the Shasta Costa watershed being designated a Late-Successional Forest Reserve in the final Northwest Forest Plan. I like to think it’s because someone wrote the truth and it mattered. What we do know is the roadless native forests of Shasta Costa were at a crossroad in the early 1990s. Because people cared enough and fought for it, it mostly remains intact today and primarily affected by the forces of nature.

Past logging in the headwaters of Shasta Costa Creek fragmented forest habitat and left deep skid trails on steep slopes. The logging and associated roads still deliver sediment to Shasta Costa Creek today.

In 2005 for High Country News, Kathie wrote the only balanced and comprehensive account of the epic struggle over the Bush Administration’s post-fire logging of the Biscuit Fire Area.  It’s a critical part of the history of the Kalmiopsis Wildlands. As usual Kathie dug deep into facts not reported by others. Unfortunately, on last years 10th Anniversary of the Biscuit Fire no one revisited Kathie’s article  ”Unsalvageable.”

Through interviews with key player she points out that the story of the Biscuit Fire could have been more positive if the model developed by Forest Service planner Rich Fairbanks and his 39 member team of scientists and Forest Service employees had prevailed:

This story almost had a different ending. In early 2003, as the ashes of the Biscuit Fire cooled, forest planner and fire specialist Rich Fairbanks led the Forest Service interdisciplinary team that developed a plan to address the aftermath of the fire. As part of a draft environmental impact statement, the team created a range of alternatives for using a light touch on these charred forests and staying out of old-growth reserves and roadless areas. The team focused instead on rehabilitating roads and streams, replanting scorched forests and meadows, and thinning and underburning to reduce future fire risks to populated areas.

The team’s original “preferred alternative” would have produced about 90 million board-feet of timber, most from “matrix” lands dedicated to multiple-use management, including timber harvest. (It takes about 5,000 board-feet to fill a log truck, and 10,000 board-feet to build an average-sized home.) It was a true stewardship plan that recognized the fragility of the burned landscape and the importance of the wild salmon streams that thread the Siskiyous’ V-shaped valleys. “I wanted to respect the values that were out there,” says Fairbanks, a 30-year Forest Service veteran. (emphasis added)

One needs to read the whole article to understand where things went wrong but this explains a little. Note – Scott Conroy, was the Forest Supervisor for the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest.

At a meeting of the team on Sept. 30, Conroy called for a vote on the six action alternatives. Twenty-six of the 39 members present favored an alternative that salvaged just 96 million board-feet of timber, stayed out of roadless areas, and placed a high priority on watershed and wildlife habitat rehabilitation.

That wasn’t the answer Conroy was looking for. When the draft environmental impact statement finally came out, the preferred alternative called for selling 518 million board-feet of timber — more than five times what the planning team had recommended — by entering roadless areas and old-growth reserves. (emphasis added)

The Babyfoot Lake Botanical Area trailhead in the wake of the Fiddler timber sale. The area logged is either Forest Service Botanical Area or Northwest Forest Plan Late-Successional Reserve.

And they did but even by logging Late-Successional Reserves and Inventoried Roadless Areas, the volume was never there. It was a fiction created by people with the Forest Service. One of the results was the 2005 Fiddler timber sale , the worst of the many bad timber sales logged in the wake of the Biscuit Fire. More important perhaps were the opportunities that were lost:

Fairbanks also recognized the opportunity to experiment with fire in a remote, sparsely populated forest. “This could have been a laboratory,” he says, with forest thinning and prescribed burns in the “wildland-urban interface” to protect communities, and a more natural role for fire in remote roadless areas. “With a large area like this, we could have learned how a large-scale fire works without endangering local communities.”

Read Kathie Durbin’s full article here.

In 2006,Kathie came south again working on a spec piece about the Forest Service’s clearcutting of 17 acres of the Babyfoot Lake Botanical Area and the Fiddler timber sale after the agency told a Federal District Court Judge they would not log Botanical Areas.  That story never got written. These are some photos from the trip.

Kathie and Feona in the unlogged Babyfoot Lake Botanical Area

Kathie in the logged Babyfoot Lake Botanical Area with biologist Richard Nawa

Kathie looking at all the old growth snags that should have been left standing as wildlife habitat in the Fiddler Late-Successional Reserve timber sale but were cut, dragged to a landing and then left by the logging company because they were defective for milling.

Oregon grape and vanilla leaf in the naturally recovering Babyfoot Lake Botanical Area

Botanical note: The Babyfoot Lake Botanical Area was set aside to protect pure stands of Brewer spruce. Learn more about this amazing ancient tree species at Michael Kauffman’s Conifer County Blog.

During the Biscuit Fire, many of the Brewer spruce in the Botanical Area were killed as was a possibly record Brewer spruce and a primordial pure stand on Fiddler Mountain. In addition, the Fiddler timber sale and the logging of parts of the Botanical Area likely impacted the species. For example, we found tiny Brewer spruce seedlings next to slash piles scheduled for burning. Additional areas need to be set aside on the Siskiyou National Forest for the protection of this globally rare trees species.

Thank you Kathie Durbin. All photos by Barbara Ullian. Only non-commercial use is allowed without permission.

The post People who matter – Remembering Kathie Durbin appeared first on KalmiopsisWild.Org.

 Source Headwaters Economics. Click here for larger graph. 

Second, the federal lands of Josephine and Curry counties are National Forest and Bureau of Land Management land and held in trust for all Americans in much the same way our National Parks are.

Wild azalea at the Eight Dollar Mountain Area of Critical Environmental Concern. This beautiful botanical area and outdoor classroom is not protected from nickel strip mining (Barbara Ullian photo).

They’re host to one of the highest concentrations of rare plants in North America and some of the most beautiful wild, free flowing rivers and valuable salmon and steelhead habitat in the United States. However, these special places and rivers are vulnerable to commercial logging, mining and off-highway vehicle abuse. It’s time to change this.

As many as 2,000 people can crowd onto the beautiful National Wild and Scenic Illinois River’s  ”Scenic” section on a single hot summer day (Barbara Ullian Photo)

When looking at the amount of federal protected lands in Oregon and California within the Klamath-Siskiyou Region, the disparity is even greater—with 40.7% of the federal lands protected in California and only 13% in Oregon. It’s time to change this too.

Is lack of protected federal lands in Oregon because the values are higher in California. No! For example, all of the National Wild and Scenic Smith River Watershed in California is protected in the Smith River National Recreation Area. But some of the most important fish producing streams in the watershed of this world class salmon and steelhead river are in Oregon and they’re  unprotected and subject to nickel strip mining by a foreign owned corporation.

Does protecting federal lands bring economic benefits to the local communities near them? Yes! According to the National Park Service:

A new National Park Service (NPS) report for 2011 shows that the 76,194 visitors to Oregon Caves National Monument spent $3,848,000 in communities surrounding the park.This spending supported 59 jobs in the local area.The report also shows that the 423,551 visitors to Crater Lake National Park spent $34,688,000 in communities surrounding the park, supporting 565 jobs (emphasis added).

Click here to read more.

Advocating for single use resource exploitation (e.g. mining and commercial logging) of special places on federal lands at the expense of all other uses is as outdated today as the horse and buggy. Please write a letter to the editor of the Grants Pass Courier, Medford Mail Tribune or Illinois Valley Views in support Oregon Caves Revitalization Act and Oregon Treasures Act  and send a personal email thanking Senators Wyden and Merkley here.

Click here to read Headwaters Economics Siskiyou Report.

The post Josephine County lags in percent of federal lands protected appeared first on KalmiopsisWild.Org.

The hearing will be webcast on the committee’s website. Senator Ron Wyden, the new committee chair, announced a policy of webcasting hearings and creating a library of committee documents for public viewing. Read more here.

On February 14th, Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley reintroduced the Oregon Caves Revitalization Act and introduced the Oregon Treasures Act of 2013. The Oregon Treasures Act is a suite of previously introduced bills. It includes what was the Chetco River Protection Act S. 764 and the expansion of the Wild Rogue Wilderness. See the press release here and download the accompanying fact sheet here (301.7 KB).  Please go to their websites and write brief note of thanks. Senator Wyden here and Senator Merkley here.

Looking west from Mt. Elijah across the Bigelow Lake Botanical Area (Barbara Ullian photo).

In an editorial entitled “Wilderness bills — again,” the Eugene Register Guard writes that conservatives will complain that we have too much Wilderness but only 4 percent of Oregon is protected as Wilderness, while 15 percent is protected in California:

The measures would give some of Oregon’s wildest and most beautiful forests and rivers permanent wilderness status ­— the highest layer of protection the law can confer.

Read the full editorial.

Bigelow Lake Botanical Area, Oregon Caves Revitalization Act (Photo Barbara Ullian)

National Wild and Scenic Chetco River

To learn about the National Wild and Scenic Chetco River and the legislation which would provide this world class salmon and steelhead river needed additional protection from large-scale instream gold mining go to Save Our Chetco River.

Documenting the beauty of the Wild and Scenic Chetco River (Zach Collier photo, NWRafting)

Oregon Caves National Monument Expansion

The Oregon Caves Revitalization Act would expand the tiny Oregon Caves National Monument by a little over 4,000 acres and would add Cave Creek and Lake Creek to the National Wild and Scenic River System. The expansion would help the Park Service provide a high level of protection for the domestic water source of the tiny postage stamp Monument’s visitors and administrative services. The watershed is currently managed by the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest. You can download the Government Printing Office report of the legislation here and read the text of the 2013 Oregon Caves Revitalization Act here.

Craggy Mt. as seen from Mt. Elijah (Oregon Caves Revitalization Act) (Barbara Ullian photo).

It also includes the beautiful Bigelow Lake Botanical Area (~1,000 acres) and Mt. Elijah (6,668 ft.). Mt. Elijah provides grand 360 degree views that include the Siskiyou Crest, the South Kalmiopsis and the High Siskiyous in California. The Bigelow Lakes Botanical Area forms the headwaters basin of Lake Creek. It’s one of the few glaciated areas in the Siskiyou Mountains where cirque lakes are still present.

How to get there

When the snow’s melted, there’s a scenic trail through the Botanical Area and to the top of Mt. Elijah. Here’s the Native Plant Society of Oregon’s instructions for getting there:

Turn left (east) in Cave Junction and travel 18 miles on Hwy 46. Drive into the parking lot at Oregon Caves, turn around, head back down hill and immediately turn right on gravel road FS-960 and head uphill (steep at first) 2.7 miles, then right on FS-074 0.5 mile, and right on FS-079 (on the maps the road # is 070) 0.8 mile to the trailhead parking area. Two choices to reach the old trailhead 0.6 miles from the present trailhead: walk the old road, or take the new trail segment upslope from the old roadbed, under the forest canopy. RT Mileage: 62 miles (drive time one way: 1 hr 15 minutes). 1 mile hike into the large lake, the last part off trail. 1.4 miles from the large lake to the top of Mt. Elijah

The post Oregon Caves and Chetco River legislation re-introduced appeared first on KalmiopsisWild.Org.

In 2004, Fortune magazine named Grants Pass one of 5 dream towns to retire in. The Grants Pass Courier was full reports of rising property values, new construction and designer homes. Real estate developers and the paper boosted about the “gentrification” of Grants Pass and number of custom homes for sale between a half million and $7 million.

Six years after implementation of the Northwest Forest Plan and dramatically reduced cuts in the board feet coming off the Siskiyou National Forest, Josephine County experienced its lowest unemployment in a decade and in April of that year, the lowest since 1958.

In May, the Oregonian reprinted it’s “9 states of Oregon” series. In the Southern Oregon installment they write:

Michael Burrill, once one of Southern Oregon’s biggest timber barons, expresses few regrets about closing his family-owned mill five years ago.

Instead, as the summer sun streams through the windows of his office behind a massive strip mall on the outskirts of Medford, Burrill folds his arms across his burly chest and describes how much fun he’s having in his successful move into property development.

Now he’s supplying land for the Rogue Valley’s insatiable developers — and he allows with a smile that he owns both of the local parcels identified by a governor’s task force seeking to increase the supply of “shovel-ready” industrial land.

Yet Burrill, an avid long-distance motorcyclist, says he doesn’t always see similar vigor as he tours the state’s back roads through towns with abandoned mills and little economic activity.

In some communities, he growls, “There is a major part of their population that doesn’t want to change.”

Burrill is symbolic, not only of the change sweeping across Southern Oregon, but also of the willingness of this region’s influential business community to embrace such a transformation.

Southern Oregon business leaders have shown a high degree of pragmatism, shifting their fortunes from a timber-based economy to one that is increasingly diverse.

But all during the decades of the housing/retirement boom, county officials and those driving local politics failed to plan for the future. It was almost like the crazed days of the gold rush. The gold ran out and the real estate bubble burst. When the mines at Waldo (the first seat of government in Josephine County) were exhausted, the miners washed away the foundations of the few remaining building to get at any remaining gold. The only thing left standing at Waldo were the grave stones.

County governments have been receiving payments from a program where the federal government shares with them a percentage of revenue received from National Forest and BLM lands. The payments had been set to expire several times but were extended each time to avert a crisis. It would have been a much less painful to address the need for fiscal responsibility and find ways to make up the lost revenues when the economy of Oregon and Josephine County was booming but there wasn’t the political will.

So now with the Secure Rural Schools Act extended for only one year, county governments are facing a funding crisis brought on, not by the Northwest Forest Plan, but by the burst in the real estate bubble and the financial crisis of the great recesssion. Rather than looking at the real economy of these counties and what cause the current crisis, state, federal and local officials are blaming the Northwest Forest Plan and looking for solutions that include partially or solely increase logging on National Forest and BLM lands.

“It’s almost impossible for these communities to not use their natural resources,” said Simon Hare, a commissioner in Josephine, a county of roughly 80,000 built during the gold rush and later sustained by logging. “It’s like telling an Iowa community they cannot grow corn or wheat or soybeans anymore.”

Counties say much of their fiscal pain can be traced to the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan, which halted rampant old-growth logging that threatened the survival of the northern spotted owl and other forest species. (Emphasis added)

From More timber, more taxes or bust for Ore. counties, Greenwire, August 20, 2012.

Commissioner Hare’s choice of metaphor may be more apt than intended. Forests are seem by many as crops, like corn and soy beans, to be artificially grown solely for the production of fiber and profit. But the “natural resources” certain factions in Josephine County believe are “theirs” are not found on privately owned, relatively flat agricultural lands like those in Iowa.

There’s thousands of acres of botanically rich serpentine terrain on the Siskiyou National Forest. These lands are “unsuitable” for timber production but they’re host to one of the highest concentrations of rare and endemic plants in North America—some found no where else in the world.  Steve Marsden Photo, Biscuit Hill, June 2012.

The forests and minerals they believe are theirs are found on some of the steepest, ruggedest, most biologically and botanically diverse, river and salmon-rich National Forest and BLM land in the nation.[1] These heritage lands belong to all Americans, to be held in trust for current and future generations and for much more than just timber production. If these public lands and their Wild and Scenic Rivers were in Iowa, they’d surely be preserved in perpetuity as a National Park.

Five Congressionally designated National Wild and Scenic Rivers and six  Forest Service Eligible Wild and Scenic Rivers flow though the Siskiyou National Forest in Josephine and Curry counties. Barbara Ullian Photo, National Wild and Scenic Illinois River.

But that aside, the county government’s financial woes are real and there’s serious poverty in the area. To find solutions, rather than look to the past, with expectations of an unending mythical supply of timber and wildly exaggerated mineral wealth,  let’s look at the real socioeconomics and ecology of the region. For example, this graph shows that the current high unemployment is tied to the overall financial crisis and the recession of 2008, not to the reduction in timber harvest on federal lands.[2]

Even during the years when logging on federal lands was at its lowest, unemployment in Josephine County remained low until the 2008 recession hit. Headwaters Economics.

Headwaters Economics provides us with tools to examine the local economy and demographics. Below are a few facts from the profile they ran for Josephine County. You can download the full socioeconomic report here (451 kbs).

• From 1970 to 2010, personal income in Josephine County grew by 256% compared to 201% for Oregon as a whole.

• From 1970 to 2010, population in Josephine County grew by 128% compared to 83% for State of Oregon.

• From 1970 to 2010, personal income in Josephine County grew by 256% compared to 201% for Oregon.

• From 1970 to 2010, labor income grew from $460.7 million to $1,102.1 million (in real terms), a 139% increase.

• From 1970 to 2010, non-labor income grew from $248.5 million to $1,425.7 million (in real terms), a 474% increase.[3]

• In 1970, non-labor income represented 35% of total personal income. By 2010 non-labor income represented 56% of total personal income.

• Between 1990 and 2011 unemployment remained relatively low until the 2008 recession (see graph above).[4]

• From 2001 to 2010, the three industry sectors that added the most new jobs were health care/social assistance (1,590 new jobs), finance, insurance (531 new jobs), and real estate, rental, leasing (412 new jobs).

• In 2010 the three industry sectors with the largest number of jobs were health care/social assistance (5,537 jobs), retail trade (5,145 jobs), and manufact. (incl. forest products) (3,767 jobs).

Protecting the exceptional place where we live and developing a sustainable future should not just be based on economics and jobs. However, a better understanding of the local economy and the past will help us work toward these goals.

Non-labor personal income in Josephine County.

[2] Timber production on National Forest and BLM lands in the Pacific Northwest slowed dramatically at the beginning of the 1990′s due to the spotted owl lawsuits. Many timber sales were enjoined because they were in old-growth forest habitat. The Northwest Forest Plan was developed under the Clinton Administration to lift the injunctions and comply with the laws the previous administrations had broken. It was designed to provide for timber harvest on some lands and to protect the habitat of the owl and other old-growth related species—including salmon, steelhead, cutthroat trout and other aquatic species— on others. The plan was implemented in 1994. The low unemployment numbers from 1990 and 2007 are one economic indicator that Josephine County’s economy boomed during this period despite the Northwest Forest Plan and the reduction in federal land logging.

[3] Non-Labor Income is defined as: Dividends, interest, and rent (money earned from investments), and transfer payments (includes government retirement and disability insurance benefits, medical payments such as mainly Medicare and Medicaid, income maintenance benefits, unemployment insurance benefits, etc.) make up non-labor income.

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The National Wild and Scenic Illinois River at Sixmile Creek Recreation Area.

A precious river—The Wild and Scenic Illinois River is a national treasure—the epitome of America’s Great Outdoors. It’s waters, wild fishery, scenery, botanical and recreation values are nationally outstanding. On a hot summer day, as many as 2,000 people crowd into a few miles of river.

The Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest recently invested well over $1 million to develop recreation sites, provide for public safety, protect the river and to attempt to rein-in the over-use. If the existing withdrawal expires, 14 miles (4300) acres of the Scenic Illinois will be claimed and opened to mining, including popular developed sites like Sixmile Creek, River Bench and Store Gulch.[1]

Sixmile Creek Recreation Site on the Scenic Section of the Wild and Scenic Illinois River.

Why withdrawal is critical—Withdrawing areas from the 1872 Mining Law prevents the location of new mining claims and mining on invalid ones.[2]  Without a withdrawal, mining become the dominant use on all National Forests open to mineral entry—even on National Wild and Scenic Rivers like the Illinois. As we recently experienced on the Wild and Scenic Chetco River, the Forest Service’s position is that they simply don’t have the authority to deny mining unless an area is withdrawn.  Forest Service mining mining regulations say if the “mine operator reasonably conclues the impacts of their mining is notlikely to be significant” they don’t even have to contact the agency—a little like letting the proverbial fox guard the henhouse.{3]

November on the Illinois Scenic Corridor at the Store Gulch day-use area.

How you can help—Please write a letter asking the Secretary of Interior to extend the existing mineral withdrawal for the Wild and Scenic Illinois River for 20 years and mail it by Thursday, October 25, 2012. Mail your letter to: BLM Oregon/Washington State Director, BLM, P.O. Box 2965, Portland, Oregon 97208–2965. Here’s sample text that you can copy and paste and personalize with your experience of the Scenic Illinois River.

Dear Oregon/Washington State Director:

I support the 20 year extension of the existing mineral withdrawal on 14 miles (4300 acres) of the National Wild and Scenic Illinois River (from Deer Creek downstream to Briggs Creek) and ask the State Director to promptly recommend the extension to the Secretary of Interior.

The reasons for the withdrawal of this section of the Scenic River in 1993 remain the same. However, there is even greater need and urgency now to extend the withdrawal in order to protect the public’s investment in and their use and enjoyment of this beautiful and cherished river. As many as 2,000 people can visit it on a single summer day. The Forest Service recently invested over $1 million to develop recreation sites, provide for public safety, protect the river and rein-in the over-use,.

Mining is simply not appropriate on the National Wild and Scenic Illinois River, would waste taxpayer money and violate the law requiring that the river’s nationally outstanding values be “protected and enhanced.” Please act quickly to implement the extension and thank you for considering my comments and concerns.

Sincerely,

An individual comment letter from you about why you want this popular segment of the Illinois River protected from mining is the strongest message you can send.

• Federal Register: Notice of application for proposed withdrawal extension and opportunity for public comment

Background—All National Forest and BLM lands along Illinois River were withdrawn from the 1872 Mining Law because it was named as one of the original Study Rivers in the 1968 Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.[4]  In 1984, Congress added 50.4 miles of the Illinois—from the Forest Boundary to it’s confluence with the National Wild and Scenic Rogue River—to the National Wild and Scenic River System. Under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, river areas classified as “Wild” are automatically withdrawn from the 1872 Mining Law.

The Swinging Bridge across the Scenic Illinois River provides year-round hiking to the Illinois River Falls , up Rancherie Creek to Pearsoll Peak , and to the rim of the Kalmiopsis Wilderness and Daily Creek.

It’s been illogically left for individual actions to be taken to protect river areas classified as ‘Scenic” and “Recreational” from mining.[5] The Secretary of Interior, at the recommendation of the Forest Service, withdrew 13 of 17 miles of the Illinois classified as a “Scenic” River Area in 1993.[6] Unlike congressional withdrawals, which are essentially permanent, withdrawals by the Secretary of Interior expire in 20 years and have to be extended through an administrative process like the current one for the 13 miles of the Illinois River’s Scenic River Area.[7]

Enjoying a rainy Memorial Day at the River Bench Recreation Site on the Scenic Illinois River.

Learning from past mistakes—In 1991, the Forest Service allowed the upper 4 miles of the Scenic Illinois River to be opened to mineral entry by not seeking to renew the existing withdrawal on this part of the river but recommending the withdrawal of the 13 miles below it. The agency soon realized this was a mistake, resulting in a mini gold rush with the 4 miles of river claimed in a hour.

Today, with the increase in the price of gold and the advent of so-called recreational mining, the mistakes of the past are evident on the upper 4 miles of Scenic section (between the Forest Boundary and Deer Creek) where suction dredge mining is unregulated by the Forest Service and citizens have spent years fighting strip mining proposals that could be revived despite their significant impacts. Read more about the impacts of the mining on the upper Scenic River Area of the Illinois.

The epic swimming hole at the Store Gulch Recreation Site on the Scenic Illinois River.

Please take action by October 19th to prevent 13 miles and 4300 acres of the Wild and Scenic Illinois River from being blanketed with new mining claims and mined.

See also Save Our Chetco River for the story of the long and on-going struggle prevent large scale in-river mining of the Scenic and Recreational River Areas of the National Wild and Scenic Chetco River.

All photographs on this page © Barbara Ullian, with permission granted for the non-commerical use to protect the National Wild and Scenic Illinois River from mining.

Read more about the National Wild and Scenic Illinois River.

NOTES

[1] The Scenic Section of the Illinois, between Deer Creek and Briggs Creek, was designated an Oregon State Scenic Waterway in 1970 before it was added to the National Wild and Scenic River System in 1984. Currently, on Oregon State Scenic Waterways motorized recreational suction dredge mining is not allowed, but this was not always the case and could changed again and the state designation only addresses so-called motorized recreational mining.

[2] The effects of a mineral withdrawal are often misunderstood or misrepresented. Withdrawals from the 1872 Mining Law prevent the location of new mining claims and requires the holders of existing claims demonstrate they have discovered a valuable mineral deposit and thus have a right to mine under the Mining Laws. If they have a prior existing right, the withdrawal will not prevent mining. In other words, withdrawals will not affect a mining claim that is valid and complies with the laws of the United States.

One reason that continuing the existing withdrawal is so important for the 13 miles of the Scenic Illinois River, is that it’s been withdrawn for over 4 decades and there are few existing mining claims. Those that do exist have to have been valid in 1968 when gold prices were low.

Until there is meaningful reform of the 1872 Mining Law, mineral withdrawals provide the best avenue to provide greater protection for lands that are valuable for purposes other than mining. Without mineral withdrawal, it’s Forest Service policy to “assume” there’s a right to mine under the archaic Mining Law—even on a National Wild and Scenic River like the Illinois.

[3] See 36 CFR § 228.4(a) of the Forest Service’s surface mining regulations, which were significantly weakened under the Bush Administration.

[4] The intent of the original study river mineral withdrawal was to protect rivers under consideration for addition to the National Wild and Scenic River system.  Secretary Bruce Babbitt’s statement to the House Subcommittee on National Parks and Public Lands on March 23, 1999 explains mineral withdrawals and why they’re in the public interest. Click here to read the testimony.

[5] To address the proposal to mine almost 20 miles of the National Wild and Scenic Chetco River, Senator Ron Wyden, Senator Jeff Merkley and Representative Peter DeFazio have introduced the Chetco River Protection Act, which among other things will withdraw the river’s “Scenic” and “Recreational” segment from the 1872 Mining Law.

[6] While the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act does not withdraw river areas classified as “Scenic” or “Recreational,” it includes a provision intended to regulate mining on designated rivers. Section 9 (a)(i) of the Act requires that  the Secretaries of Interior and Agriculture write regulations that all mining on Wild and Scenic Rivers will be subject to in order to effectuate the purposes of the Act. The Act mandates that the managing agencies protect and enhance the outstandingly remarkable values which caused the river to be added to the Wild and Scenic River System. However, in the 44 years since almost unanimous passage of the 1968 Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, the regulations required by Sec. 9 (a)(i) have never been promulgated by the Secretaries.

[7] The Bureau of Land Management, who manages the minerals on all National Forest land, has received a request from the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest, who manages the Wild and Scenic Illinois River to extend the existing mineral withdrawal for ~ 13 miles (4300 acres) of the Illinois’ Scenic River Area, between Deer Creek and Briggs Creek . However,  the BLM and Forest Service can only recommend continuation of the withdrawal. The ultimate decision for the extension lies with the Secretary of Interior.

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The subject of the interview is Chouinard and Stanley’s book, The Responsible Company, and how Patagonia (the company)  is making every effort to reduce or eliminate its impacts, and those of its products, while continuing to grow and remain profitable. They acknowledge the path is hard, often uncharted and unfinished. As Chouinard puts it:

Living the examined life in business is a pain in the ass but it’s something we have to do.

While not easy, the journey has also been rewarding for Chouinard, Stanley and the Patagonia family. Their story and the practical measures that everyone can take to become more responsible are important and inspiring. However, they begin the book with this caution:

The impoverishment of our world and the devaluing of the priceless undermines our physical and economic well being (emphasis added).

Their experience and example are relevant to place-based conservation efforts like ours, as we see even well-intended local, state and federal politicians look to the old failed economy—logging and mining—for ways to solve the funding woes of rural Oregon counties. See for example, this recent article in the Oregonian.

Instead we need to be looking for solutions that address the excesses and causes of the worst recession since the Great Depression—with changes made there and in ways Patagonia, the responsible company, shows can be done—because as one fisheries scientist put it:

“If there ever was such a thing as a free lunch, we ate it.”

We can no longer afford to ”devalue the priceless” and “undermine” the very things that sustain sustain us and life on earth, our watersheds, forests, grasslands and rivers.

The post Living the examined life in business appeared first on KalmiopsisWild.Org.

While in overall acreage it’s said to be one of the largest fires in Oregon’s history, the Biscuit Fire’s ultimate area was pre-determined by the placement of fire lines along ridges and existing roads and through the agency’s burning of the national forest land between the fireline and the fire. On the east side alone, an independent study estimated 100,000-acres were “blackened” as a fire surpression strategy.

This ASTER satellite image of the east side of the Biscuit Fire shows the abrupt transition along the established fire line—with the unburned landscape on one side and the blackened landscape created by Forest Service burnout operations on the other.

Nor were these deliberately ignited fires designed to mimic natural fires. They often burned hot and in several instances got out of control and required additional surpression activities and more fire lines. In an August 20, 2002 article, AP reported that the Forest Service was using helicopters to drop flammable ping pong balls (essentially napalm) on the scattered unburned islands in a 50,000-acre burnout area on the northeastern flank of the fire. Except for the initial lightning strikes, there was little natural about a significant part of the Biscuit Fire.

Two of the five July 13th fires were in the Kalmiopsis Wilderness. One of those, the Carter Fire, was contained at about 20 acres. The other, the Florence Fire, began in the same section where another lighting caused ignition in the year 2000 (the China Fire) was held to 5.2 acres at a cost of $22,000.[2]

USDA Forest Service photo of the Carter Fire in the Kalmiopsis Wilderness on day two. A decision was made to staff the fire as soon as possible and a fire crew hiked into the fire on July 14th. It was declared contained on July 16th at 15-20 acres.

Another 2000 lightning caused fire, also named Biscuit, began one section over from the 2002 Biscuit Fire. It was held to 4 acres at a cost of $30,550.00. The size of the 2002 Biscuit Fire was not about the inability to access the fires. Fires in almost the same areas had been surpressed two years earlier and held to small acreages at a relatively low cost.  In fact, the most remote one, the Carter Fire, was contained within a few days.

Biscuit Hill, the general location of one of 5 fires that were ignited by a lightning storm on July 13, 2002 and the sparsely vegetated botanically rich serpentine terrain of the Forest Service’s recommended South Kalmiopsis Wilderness Addition. Steve Marsden Photo, June 2012.

The Florence Fire was the most problematic of the 5 Biscuit Complex Fires. On August 7, 2002, before the fires were administratively merged, the Florence Fire had burned through 243,836 acres and the three Biscuit Fires to the south, 41,897 acres.

USDA Forest Service photo of one of two fires in the Biscuit Hill Area of the South Kalmiopsis Roadless Area on day two of what because the 500,000-acre Biscuit Fire.

Unlike in Colorado, the weather, is seldom raised as a major driver of big wildfires in Southwest Oregon. Instead, the “two many trees” syndrom is seen as the as the primary culprit. But can we learn from the case studies of recent big Colorado fires?

What we do about the Biscuit Fire is that between July 9 and 13 there were record high temperatures and that the Siskiyou National Forest was experiencing uncharacteristically high fire danger indices. On July 12 through 15 there were 1200 lightning strikes in Oregon resulting in 375 fires, with 245 on federal lands in southwest Oregon. The first set of lightning storms on July 12th missed Josephine and Curry Counties but not on July 13th.[3]

At a Cave Junction public meeting the Forest Service’s fire behavior specialist said the Florence Fire’s “huge run on July 28th and 29th was caused by a weather anomaly that created strong northwesterly winds with low humidity.” He said weather events like that rarely happened before fall or winter. Another Forest Service official explained that the Florence Fire was a terrain driven event, with the fire seeking narrow places as it made a 2 1/2 mile run up the Illinois River Canyon from Oak Flat.  But these accounts are considered anecdotal because the behavior of the two fires (still Florence and Biscuit at that time) and the terrain they encountered were never analyzed.

According to the Forest Service’s Biscuit Fire Chronology, on July 26th the Florence Fire was estimated at around 16,000-acres and the Sour Biscuit Fire at 3,700-acres. On July 30th the fires had grown to an estimated 141,650-acres and 33, 287-acres respectively. During that period one Forest Service official described the Florence Fire as sending huge smoke plumes thousands of feet into the air, which then collapsed in on themselves, exploding and sending flames as much a mile ahead of the fire itself.

Why does all this matter? In Colorado they’re working toward answering that question. In 2002, then Representative Mark Udall immediately called for an inquiry into the Hayman Fire and as a Senator in 2010, for the Fourmile Canyon Fire. Those two case studies provide an important body of knowledge about weather driven fire behavior and the efficacy of fuels treatment . See 2002 Hayman Fire Case Study and Preliminary Findings Fourmile Canyon Assessment Team. Here are some key findings of the latter:

Large fires burn under high winds and low relative humidity … when suppression efforts are ineffective.

The changes in fire activity in this area were primarily a result of changing weather (increases in humidity and decreases in wind, see figure 28) and topography (northerly aspect) rather than because of changes in forest structure and composition as a result of a fuel treatment.

Given the inevitability of future wildfires and thus wildfires with extreme burning conditions that overwhelm fire protection, focusing on reducing home ignition potential is the key to preventing WUI fire disasters.

In some cases, treated stands appeared to burn more intensely than adjacent untreated stands, perhaps because of additional surface fuels present as a result of the thinning.

83% of home destruction was associated with surface fire and consistent with other WUI fire disasters. This indicates survival or loss of homes exposed to wildfire flames and firebrands (lofted burning embers) is not determined by the overall fire behavior or distance of firebrand lofting but rather, the condition of the Home Ignition Zone (HIZ) – the design, materials and maintenance of the home in relation to its immediate surroundings within 100 feet.

A critical finding was that most landowners surveyed prior to the fire did not believe that characteristics of their home and immediate surroundings were significant factors influencing the likelihood of a wildfire damaging their property within the next five years. These perceptions are refuted in the scientific literature and the home ignition assessment within this report.

Southwest Oregon escaped the tragedies experienced in Colorado—the significant loss of homes and life—but can we learn from case studies done in Colorado.

Long after the ground cooled and most of the controversial Biscuit Fire post-fire logging timber sales were done deasl, those promoting post-fire logging as necessary for forest recovery fanned the flames again when in 2006 a research team published their myth busting findings in the prestigious journal Science. The short report generated a political and scientific firestorm including two congressional hearings, countless academic freedom discussions and a government investigation. The controversy even has it’s own Wikipedia entry  Lead author Dan Donato to High Country News in 2006:

We wrote a paper. We challenged some widespread assumptions, specifically that there’s a lack of natural regeneration after a big fire. The Biscuit Fire was actually being put up as the poster child, and we were sitting on two full years of data that showed not only were seedlings establishing, they were surviving. So we felt like if we were going to have a fully informed public dialogue, it was our responsibility to get those numbers out. And it wasn’t well received by everybody.

Nonetheless their research has stood the test of time and been confirmed by other scientists.

Dispelling the myths surrounding the Biscuit fire isn’t about finding blame but about trying to gain a better understanding—of the fire, of the botanically rich landscape, with its hauntingly beautiful rivers, that it burned through and of the effect of the changing climate and future fires—or at least  to deepen the discussion. That discussion should have started a decade ago but it didn’t.

Instead almost before the fire was out the Biscuit Fire was made into a media circus and feeding frenzy through the gross exaggerations of potential post-fire timber volume. Anyone that knew the land, knew it wasn’t there. But the Bush Administration was very good at spinning something out of nothing—as with the weapons of mass destruction that never were.

In early July of 2002 there was record breaking heat. According to the Forest Service fire danger indices on the Siskiyou National Forest were uncharacteristically high. On July 12 through 15 there were 12,000 lightning strikes in Oregon, resulting in 375 fires, 240 of which were on federal lands in southwest Oregon.Some of the initial fires from a July 13, 2002  thunderstorm in southwestern Oregon were extinguished or died out on their own. The Sour Biscuit and Florence Fires, however grew—driven by extreme weather conditions. With Forest Service burnout operations, which by one account resulted in the “blackening” of about 1/3 of the 500,000 acre fire area, became known simply as the “Biscuit Fire.” It’s ultimate size was predetermined by the Forest Service’s fire surpression strategy and the location of fire lines. While the ignition was natural, much about the Biscuit Fire after that was not, but sorting out the facts was—unlike with the 138,000 acre Hayman Fire in Colorado that just prior to the Biscuit Fires in 2002 destroyed 132 homes and resulted in the loss of 6 lives—never done.

The ignitions and the early days may be the only thing that we can know for sure was natural about the fires. At a certain point, information became heavily managed as high level incident teams took over from the local Forest Service. For their safety, reporters were essentially embeded with fire crews, but the results also were that they were shown and told what the agency wanted them to see and hear.

The relatively few residents within the fire area were told to leave for their own safety. Again for safety, guards were placed at the perimeter roads. The one civilian witness, who chose to stay and defend his home, tells a different story from the official one about the fire at Oak Flat that blew-up and burned up the Illinois River Canyon toward Cave Junction. This is an excerpt from his eye witness chronology of events as published in Forest Voice:

July 25: … At this point in our story, we believed Oak Flat had survived the Florence Fire with little loss. Total damage from the wildfire itself was limited to water lines that serve the Quintaro and Maynard properties and our home, plus a few small structures at Golda’s property. I also lost my lumber, but that was from a government-ignited fire. We got on the radiophone to tell our neighbors that the worst was behind us: the fire had come, gone and done little damage; mopping up was all that was left to do.

Firefighters returned to Oak Flat at about 10A.M. They resumed cutting brush near the river. That afternoon, a real hot scorcher, firefighters set backfires behind our property and burned up the rest of our water line over to No Name Creek.

July 26: Firefighters resumed work while fallers cut down hazard trees. That evening, I went up the ridge to inspect the area backfired the previous day. A fire commander had told me earlier, before they quit for the day, that the line they were building to stop the backfire from coming back down the ridge to Oak Flat had been lost.

July 27: At 6 A.M., I saw the backfire had exploited the breach in the line and was creeping slowly down the ridge back toward Oak Flat. Had firefighters jumped on the backfire early that morning or the previous night, I believe it could have been controlled. I bulldozed a fire trail along the upper part of our property to try to slow the backfire down. A large crew of government firefighters arrived at 10 A.M. They held their regular safety meeting for about an hour (the normal and most effective time for firefighting is during the night or at first light, when the fire is cool). Our daughter arrived at noon with a new water tank and pipe so we could rebuild our water line. About an hour later, as the afternoon heated up, the backfire came rushing down the hillside. It burned up much of our private timber and destroyed the Huerta, Egan and Lloyd homes, as well as our newly installed water lines and tanks. Firefighters retreated to our property. A helicopter dumped water until propane tanks started exploding. Firefighters retreated along the upper logging road in the evening.

The backfire then ran south and east up the Illinois River and eventually overran the McCaleb Ranch Boy Scout Camp, burning virtually the entire length of the Illinois River from Oak Flat to the national forest boundary north of Selma—a distance of fourteen miles. In addition to the structures destroyed at Oak Flat, the backfire wiped out private timber holdings along the way and thousands of acres of national forest. Emphasis added.

Read Jerry Sorenson’s full account here.[2]

George Sexton, conservation director at the Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center and a friend of the Kalmiopsis, hasn’t been put off by the post-fire landscape, spending many days in the Kalmiopsis backcountry in the last decade. He’s the first to call for a better understanding of what happened in 2002. He writes in the May 6th Medford Mail Tribune:

It’s been nearly 10 years since the July 2002 lightning storm that sparked the 500,000 acre Biscuit fire. For many of us in Southern Oregon, the Biscuit fire was a defining event — beloved forests were drastically altered, the politics of logging and wildlands protection were turned on their heads and the realities of living in a fire-evolved landscape came home to roost.

Read George’s guest opinion here.

Maybe as George writes,

with the passage of time it is now possible to look back more objectively at Biscuit and the political firestorm that followed in its wake.

Because so much of the Kalmiopsis Wildlands was affected by the Biscuit Fire, we want to help with that “objective look back” in the hopes of putting to rest the politically driven myths and gaining a better understanding of a landscape shaped by fire, geology and time.

Additional information:

• Timothy Ingalsbee, PhD – Collateral Damage: The Environmental Effects of Firefighting: The 2002 Biscuit Fire Suppression Actions and Impacts.
• Forest Magazine Fall 2003 – “Who needs help like this?” by Jerry Sorensen.[1]
• High Country News “Weathering the academic storm“ a 2006 interview with lead author of the paper publish in Science that sparked so much controversy “Post-Wildfire Logging Hinders and Increases Wild Fire Risk.”
• High Country News “Study questions value of post-fire logging.”
• The Wilderness Society’s Summary of the Hayman Fire.
• Pacific Biodiversity Institute’s Analysis of the Rodeo-Chediski Fires.
• The USDA’s Hayman Fire Case Study.
• High Country News, “Monster fires have become the new normal” by Roy Keene and Tim Hermach, June 20, 2011
• USDA Forest Service 2011, “Fourmile Canyon: Living with wildfire.”
• USDA Forest Service 2011, “Fourmile Canyon Fire Preliminary Findings. “

[1] The 2002 Hayman Fire  in Colorado was 137,000+ acres. It destroyed 133 homes, 1 commercial building and 466 outbuildings. The area of the Hayman Fire has numerous roads. It’s one example that the presence of roads, when wildland fires are weather driven, provide little help. The 2002 Rodeo-Chedeski Fire in Arizona was 467,000 acres in size. It burned in a heavily logged and roaded landscape (2146 miles of road/3 miles of road per square mile) landscape, with dense tree plantations. The roads were not effective fire breaks but they did provide access to the people who started the fire.

[2] Information on the China Fire is from Forest Service Wildland Fire Reports acquired through the Freedom of Information Act.

[3] Description of fire conditions is from the USDA Forest Service’s 2002 Biscuit Fire Chronology (October 11, 2002).

[4] This is an important read for understanding some of the behavior and impacts of the Biscuit Fire. It’s likely the only candid civilian account of Forest Service firefighting practices during the blow-up of the Florence Fire.  Mr. Sorensen is a logger and fishing guide living on a private inholding within the Siskiyou National Forest at Oak Flat. He’s quiet, practical and self-sufficient.

The post The Biscuit Fire: Time to bury the myths appeared first on KalmiopsisWild.Org.

University of British Columbia researcher, Suzanne Simard, provides a look at how trees communicate and cooperate in creating a healthy resilient forest in this short video. This is not new information but Dr. Simard, who received her PhD at Oregon State University, continues to advance and expand on the research.

Video from KarmaTube

In the abstract for “Response Diversity of Ectomycorrhizas in Forest Succession Following Disturbance,” Dr. Simard writes that :

… severe disturbances, such as clearcutting followed by site preparation that removes living trees, root systems, or forest floor, can reduce [ectomycorrhizal fungal species] diversity on regenerating seedlings, often corresponding with reduced survival, growth rates, and foliar nutrients.

This is exactly what was happening in the 1970s, where “cut, slash and burn” logging practices sometimes converted high elevation forests into permanent clearcuts on the Siskiyou National Forest.

The site pictured below is east of the Oregon Caves National Monument in the Left Fork Sucker Creek Watershed. It was clearcut in the 1970s and planted numerous times. The photo, taken in 1997, shows nothing much grew back and one of the unacknowledged consequences of the deforestation. The result of deforesting deep granitic soils and road construction, combined with the 1997 New Years Day Storm (a rain-on-snow event), are seen on the slope and road below.

A 1970's clearcut on the Siskiyou National Forest photographed after the 1997 New Years Day Storm.

The next photo shows were the debris flow—beginning at the road cut failure on the deforested slope above—resulted in a plugged culvert on FS road 4612-080, above the Left Fork of Sucker Creek, a beautiful steelhead nursery.

Siskiyou National Forest road 4612-080 after the culvert plugged during the 1997 New Years Day rain on snow event as a result of the debris flow emanating from the permanent clear cut above it.

The culverts in the road system were supposed to have been upgraded the year before to handle a 100 year storm event. The road system upgrade was part of the controversial China-Left timber sale, but the timber sale planners didn’t take into consideration the potential for slope/road cut failure from the past management practices in the watershed above.

The next photo shows what happened in between the permanent clearcut and the recently upgraded road system and that not only are forest ecosystems complex but so-called forest management (roads and logging) often results in a cascade of impacts that never seem to be anticipated.

This photo shows what happened in between the two previous photos and the domino effect of past management practices.

There are consequences of seeing trees only as a commodity—to be grown like a crop—instead of one interdependent part of a complex ecosystem that’s watershed to our streams and rivers.

See also:

• Suzanne Simard and Mary Austin, “The role of mycorrhizas in forest soil stability with climate change.“
• D. A. PERRY, J. G. BORCHERS, S. L. BORCHERS, M. P. AMARANTHUS, Species Migrations and Ecosystem Stability During Climate Change: The Belowground Connection -

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