MY FIRST TIMBER SALE ADMINISTRATION ASSIGNMENT

With all the rainy days ahead I'm planning on working on a few writings that have been in drafts for some time waiting to be revised or condensed.   Many are about my career with the Forest Service, including the years I worked on the Gold Beach Ranger District from 1979-88 and Cottage Grove from 1988-95.    Just revised this one, finally!  With Celia gone, I have to do self editing--Have Mercy!

                        MY FIRST TIMBER SALE ADMINISTRATION ASSIGNMENT

The Maple Timber Sale was a joint sale between the Klamath and Six Rivers National Forests.  It originally included an estimated 50 million board feet of timber on both the Orleans and Ukonom Ranger Districts, and helped finance the construction of the Gasquet-Orleans Road, better known as the G-O Road.   This road was planned to connect the Klamath River to the Smith River drainage on Highway 199, and allow access for a timber supply to mills in Crescent City.   It was designed to be a two lane paved road.   It was never completed due to a law suit by the Indians, who were against the proposed road going through their sacred lands near the summit between both drainages.  

This sale was sold to Fortuna Plywood some time in the 1960's, which had a veneer mill in Orleans, where most the logs were hauled to and scaled by the Forest Service.   Administration of the sale  alternated every year or two between the two Ranger Districts.   In 1974 the Orleans District took over the administration of the Maple Sale.    I was asked if I would want to work in sale administration as a timber sale officer (TSO) at the GS-7 grade, under the supervision of the timber sale administrator, who answered to the District Ranger.   After agreeing to this job transfer from sale preparation, where I was a GS-7 lead forestry technician to sale administration, I was given a Forest Service handbook on the duties of working in sale administration, and asked to take it home and study it.   I don't recall much studying as it was very technical and not the most interesting reading after work hours.   I was assigned a desk next to another TSO in an office, along with the sale administrator and a log accountability clerk.  I was given the field folder for the Maple Sale, which must have been 6 inches thick, containing the contract, contract modifications, inspection reports, minor change agreements and other documentation, much of it was beyond my comprehension at the time.   The sale area map was the most important document, showing the road system, protected stream courses, some 50+ harvest units, and specific requirements for each unit.    Many of the units had been logged, there may have been 10 remaining units to be completed.  In addition, the sale administrator gave me a letter designating me as TSO with one sentence, " you will assist me in obtaining contract compliance."  A copy of this letter was sent to the Purchaser of the sale and the Forest Supervisor.  

The sale administrator drove me up to the Maple Sale where the contract logger, by the name of Johnson was logging with two highlead yarders on clear cut units and some tractors working in a overstory removal unit.  I was introduced to the brother of the contract logger, who was operating one of the yarders and was suppose to be the logging supervisor.   The sale administrator pointed out some uncompleted work that needed to be done and told me to meet a tractor operator with a bull dozer the next day on a completed tractor clearcut unit, where water bars needed to be constructed, and some landings were in need of clean up.    Basically I ended up showing the operator where to construct water bars on skid trails, spur roads and to slope the landings for drainage.  

Once a week the contract logger would meet with me and we would drive around the sale area as he would ask me what was required in the various units where logging had been completed.     He had been working on this sale longer than I had been working for the Forest Service, so I suspected he was testing my knowledge of the contract.   With logging in the overstory unit almost completed he asked what he had to do with the slash.    On the sale area map for this unit, it indicated all slash had to be cut or reduced to 30 inches of the ground, which I pointed out to him.    He had a copy of the map, but would never acknowledge what he knew, which was probably more than what I had knowledge of.  

At times I had approached his brother about some contractual items needing attention, but his usual comment was, "I can't leave the yarder, so can you to take care of it?", which meant me doing his job of supervising their operation.   It was only a 10 mile log haul downhill from the sale area to the mill in Orleans and most the truckers were wrapping their log loads with just one binder.    After bringing this to the attention of the sale administrator, he contacted the mill representative and informed him this was a safety concern to the public and at least two binders needed to be applied to all loads or hauling would be suspended.   This definitely corrected the situation.    As summer progressed, so did the fire danger and a one o'clock shutdown was implemented for all operations where the relative humidity was below 30%.    On one afternoon all logging operations were shutdown by the logger, meeting this contractual requirement, but I could hear chain saws operating off in the distance.   After driving down a road, I met with two timber fallers, who had no idea of the 1 pm closure.    In fact I had no idea anybody was cutting this unit, including the sale administrator, who never pointed it out to me.   There may have been 6 to 8 sales operating on the District at the time.   It was more than this one sale administrator could oversee, plus supervising three log scalers.   A year later the other TSO and I were promoted to sale administrators at the GS-9 grade with full authority as field representatives for the Forest Service.  

 This sale was a learning process for me, and mostly by the trial and error method.   For the next 20 years I worked in sale administration on four National Forests, until I retired from the Forest Service as lead sale administrator at the GS-10 grade on the Cottage Grove Ranger District of the Umpqua National Forest in 1995.