Timber sale is on despite conservationists’ concern for this storm-damaged legacy forest
The Box of Rain timber vote to sell is going ahead as scheduled, despite work from conservationists and support from Whatcom County Council members Kaylee Galloway and Barry Buchanan.
Box of Rain is a section of forest, near the middle fork of the Nooksack River, just past the city of Bellingham Diversion Dam. There is about 40 acres of forest, with trees aged 80-109 years old. This is what conservation organizations such as Center for Responsible Forestry consider a legacy forest that has only been logged once and has regrown naturally.
However, this specific section of forest was hit hard by a windstorm in 2019-2020 that, according to the Washington Department of Natural Resources, knocked down 30%-40% of the trees.
The blowdown is a significant reason DNR decided to move ahead with the vote to sell on Tuesday, Nov. 1. In the email reply to council members Galloway and Buchanan on Oct. 22, Duane Emmons, acting deputy supervisor for state uplands at DNR wrote, “The timber is beginning to degrade and will soon lose its value as insect and rot take hold. It’s further at risk from theft and wildfire because the terrain is relatively flat and is easily accessible by a mainline forest road.”
The blowdown was also cited as a reason to go ahead with the sale in a letter to DNR from the Whatcom County Forestry Advisory Committee.
“The sale comprises 29.7 acres of variable retention harvesting and 2.4 acres of variable density thinning and is located at the confluence of Clearwater Creek and the Middle Fork Nooksack River. Approximately 1/3 of the trees in the sale area are dead and downed... There is a short window to salvage these logs, allowing carbon contained in them to be turned into stored carbon in wood products. Alternatively, this uncaptured carbon will be left to emit into the atmosphere,” the advisory committee wrote.
Galloway and Buchanan had asked to pause the sale while they engaged with DNR and local stakeholders and partners, according to an email they sent to DNR on Oct. 21.
Two years ago the Middle Fork Nooksack dam was removed just downstream of the forest. The dam was removed to provide salmon with safe passage up the stream, however salmon have not been using the steam.
Conservationists say the old-growth trees being near the river “is a critical area for the recovery of numerous salmon populations,” Galloway and Buchanan wrote.
Last year, thousands of Chinook salmon were killed when the temperature of the river got too high. Older forests, such as the legacy forest in the Box of Rain can actually contribute to cooling down the temperature of the river, according to Brel Froebe, media and communications coordinator with the Center for Responsible Forestry.
Younger trees require more water than older ones, so if the forest was to be cut down and replanted, the trees would use more water. This leads to less water in the rivers, and thus, warmer waters that can endanger the salmon. The amount of impact the older trees have on the river temperatures is unclear, especially in a 40-acre forest.
“We definitely feel that this forest is still worth protecting,” Frobe said.
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