AUDITS, INSPECTIONS & CERTIFICATION

Being a timber sale contract administrator meant working independently with Purchasers, logging contractors and sub-contractors.   You were always subject to audits and inspections, sometimes scheduled and sometimes when you least expected it.    It was important to have all agreements, minor contract changes, acceptance of work items and notices of non-compliance documented.  Most inspections were performed by my immediate supervisor, who was either the District Timber Management staff assistant or designated Forest Service Representative and sometimes the District Ranger.    They usually rode with me out to whatever sale(s) I was going to that day.    Comments would be made about logging problems, why did I approve this or that and sometimes there were surprises that were beyond my control.   One such case was on a salvage sale on the Cottage Grove District of the Umpqua National Forest.   My supervisor, Wayne, was riding with me on a timber blow down salvage sale, don’t remember the sale name or the number of units.   After visiting a few of the units, some with completed work and a unit where logging was still in progress I turned onto a road to show Wayne one more unit where wind thrown trees had been removed above the road.   Wayne said there should be no units out this road since it was in spotted owl territory.   I showed him the unit on the contract map and he was totally caught off guard.    He said he would to talk to Jim, the presale technician about this.   In reality the mistake was Wayne’s for not reviewing the completed contract package before it went up for bid. 

One of my first inspections by a forest review team under the Region 5 certification program was when I worked on the Orleans District of the Six River National Forest in the 1970’s.  It was a large sale purchased by Sierra Pacific Industries out of Arcata.    It was during fire season and the operators were required to have all the necessary fire tools and equipment in place and in good working order.   While inspecting the fire truck and hand tools on a landing where yarding and loading was in progress the team focused their attention on a D8 Cat that was parked off to the side and used to construct landings.   This piece of equipment was required to have a fire extinguisher, an axe and shovel mounted on it, which it did.    A member of the team tried to pull the shovel from the bracket, but only the wooden handle came out of the shovel blade--not good.    In addition to that the purchaser was hauling logs over a segment of uncompleted road reconstruction which is not allowed under the contract, unless otherwise agreed to, which it wasn’t.   Simply put I failed and had no idea about the road with uncompleted reconstruction requirements.   A letter was sent to the District Ranger by the Forest Timber Staff officer on items in need of improvement.

While working on the Greenville District of the Plumas National Forest the District Ranger would make surprise visits on an active sale to see what was going on.    On one occasion he drove up to the Davis Timber sale where they were hauling 60 loads a day from three tractor sides on a 20 million board foot partial cut sale purchased by Louisiana Pacific.   He came across the logging supervisor and asked if he had seen me lately.   The logging supervisor jokingly replied that he had not seen me in weeks.   The Ranger was not amused. 

Some Forest inspections were made for log accountability.   One such inspection was on a sale being hauled off the east side of the Gold Beach District of the Siskiyou National Forest to a mill in Grants Pass.   The Forest Check Scaler and my supervisor were with me as we were stopping log trucks at a wide turnout along the haul route to inspect load receipts, number of logs on the load, painting of logs for export control and branding of logs.   One truck driver for Ireland Trucking did not stop and yelled out the window he did not have time to f**k with us.    We got the truck number and reported it to the Purchaser.  An apologetic letter was received from the Purchaser and the driver was told to apologize to us, which he did.   We learned he was the son-in-law of the owner.

The forest timber staff assistant for contract administration on the Siskiyou was named Don and he would make early morning visits at the Gold Beach office when we usually came to work at 7 am.   He must have left Grants Pass at 4 am to make the three hour drive.   He showed up one morning asking where I was going that day.  I told him I was planning on staying in the office, just to give him a bad time.  His reply was no, we are going out to look at some of your sales.   Don was an intense character and non-compliance with fire precautionary requirements got his attention.   On one sale we walked down to check the clearing around cable blocks where a 10 foot radius clearing was required in case of sparks flying from the moving cable.   When we got down to the block the hook tender was busy scraping the clearing to achieve 10 feet and we suspected he saw us coming and did not want to get in trouble.   Don got into a rampage, telling the hook tender how important fire prevention is and how it did not matter if they had 1000 men on the landing with the best fire tools that still would not prevent a fire.  The hook tender had dealt with Don before on this subject and quietly listen.

In 1981 I went through the Region 6 certification program, which required passing a written test on the contract and passing a field inspection of an active sale.   The inspection team was made up of a team leader, the Siskiyou Forest Timber Staff Office, who was also the Contracting Officer, a soil scientist, a couple of people from other Districts with a back ground in timber management.   The clear-cut units on this sale were very steep and required full log suspension to reduce soil disturbance.   This required the logger to rig tail trees at the bottom of the units at least 20 feet up the trees and to guy the tail trees back to keep them from being pulled over.    There was no way to obtain the necessary deflection by going to the opposite slope because of the distance and lack of big trees.  Due to the shallow soils and steep angles it was impossible from not pulling over the tail trees, even by guying them back   I had the forest logging engineer come to the sale to verify the impossibility of obtaining full log suspension.    An agreement was written up allowing the operator to yard with only one end suspension.  On some skyline roads they did obtain some full suspension.   Water bars were required to be constructed by hand as designated by myself where needed.  Grass seeding was also required during the fall seeding period in October.   I received a conditional certification pending acceptance of the seeding and fertilization requirements. 

The Purchaser hired a sub-contractor to apply the seed and fertilizer during the seeding period.   This contractor called me to inform me they had completed the seeding and needed my acceptance in order to get paid by the Purchaser.   I went up to inspect their work and noticed seed and fertilizer on the cut and fill slopes of all the landings.   When I walked down into two of the steep units I saw no seed where it was needed.    I inform the sub-contractor of this and he replied that they thought I would not go down there to look and said they would go back and do those disturbed areas.   A week later it was inspected again and accepted.  I became the first certified sale administrator on the Siskiyou.