THE JET BOAT EXPERIENCE

 This story was told to me by a contract timber faller by the name of Lester (Les) Olson.   Les had been a contract faller for South Coast Lumber Company (SCL) out of Brookings that purchased many timber sales on the Gold Beach Ranger District.    Les and his crew had been responsible for cutting many of the clearcut units on the District over many years from the 1970's through the 80's that had been sold to SCL.

As a timber sale contract administrator on the District from 1979-88, I got to know Les and his crew.  While inspecting his operation for required fire equipment and falling practices Les told me about his recent jet boat trip up the Rogue River with his elderly parents.   He said his dad had a hard time of hearing and spoke loudly, especially in the jet boat with the roar of the engine.    There were very few visible clear cut units from the river, except in certain side drainages where you could look up and see a distant unit ranging in size from 20 to 40 acres.    The jet boats could carry up 20 to 30 people, mostly tourists that had very little knowledge of clearcutting on National Forests at the time.    In one of these side drainages Lester's dad yelled out, "Les did you cut that unit!?" pointing up the hill.    Les looked at his dad in shock placing his index finger over his mouth in hopes his dad would be quiet as many of the people on the boat turned to look at Les in disbelief.    Les said his dad got the message after that, seeing all the heads turning.  

COTTAGE GROVE RD

                                             Cottage Grove Ranger District

                                                  Umpqua National Forest

                                                               1988-1995

In the spring of 1988 I took a transfer to Cottage Grove to be closer to my children, who were living with their mother in University of Oregon housing in Eugene.   This transfer came about by an agreement between the District Ranger of Gold Beach and the District Ranger of the Cottage Grove District.  It is a transfer I will always be grateful for.   The previous sale administrator was burned out on doing sale administration work and was given a job in silviculture doing mapping under the geographic information system (GIS) and his position of lead sale administrator was given to me.  

During the first month I lived in motels until a lady in the office informed me of a small house for rent on Lynx Hollow Road, north of Cottage Grove.   I lived there for three years until I bought a house in Eugene, where my children could live with me part-time.    In some ways I was hoping to get back together with my wife after moving to Cottage Grove, but it did not happen and we mutually agreed to divorce in 1990.  

All District personnel were in one big office building east of Cottage Grove, whereas in Gold Beach people were in four different buildings.  It was the smallest District I had worked on and seem to have the most people, maybe 30 to 40 permanent positions.   It was one big happy family under one roof.   There were seven or eight permanent people in the timber department and all under the supervision of Wayne, the Timber Management Assistant (TMA),  he was also the Forest Service Representative (FSR) for timber sale contracts.   We had the biggest room on the south end of the building with its own door by my desk, where loggers could enter the building without going through the front office.   The annual timber cut (ASQ) was about 40 million board feet, I think, much smaller than other Districts I had worked on.   There was another contract administrator, by the name of Jerry, who was financed part-time in sale administration and sale planning.    The District takes in the Layng Creek and Brice Creek watersheds that are part of the Coast Fork of the Willamette River system.    The south end of the District includes the Bohemia Mining District, where much mining took place in the 1860's to the early 1900's.   The only access was by trail to the mining town of Bohemia City at over 5000 feet in elevation, where an estimated 10,000 people lived at one time, and survive the cold winters.   

For the most part timber operations functioned like a well-oiled machine with presale and sale administration in the same department.    There were more commercial thinning sales here than what I experienced on other Districts.   A portion of the north end of the District had been logged in the early 1900's using a railroad system up Prather Creek and much of this area was ready for thinning.   Now roads replaced the the old train system.  When I arrived on the District there were three commercial thinning sales in progress up Prather Creek.   Much of my time was spent on these sales agreeing to tractor skid trails, skyline corridors, landings and spur roads.   Most logging south of Prather Creek was clearcut logging.  The biggest clearcut sale I remember was the Jumbo Sale with an estimated 12 million board feet of timber on the Noon Day Road in the Brice Creek drainage.    The Noon Day Road is located near what was the trail to Bohemia City.   The Jumbo Sale was purchased by the Bohemia Lumber Company, that had a large mill at Culp Creek, a saw mill at Saginaw with a laminated beam plant adjacent to it.   Bohemia was sold to Willamette Industries, which was bought out by the Weyerhaeuser Company.   The Bohemia mills are gone now.  The only remaining mills are the Starfire Mill in Cottage Grove and the large Weyerhaeuser Mill south of Cottage Grove.  

The listing of the Northern Spotted Owl in 1990 put the brakes on future timber sale planning on National Forests in the Pacific Northwest, especially west of the Cascades.   By 1994 the Forest Service started offering buy-outs in order to downsize personnel, especially road engineers, foresters and technicians that were working in the timber management program.   In March of 1995 I took a buyout after 27 years with the Forest Service.

Today the Cottage Grove District office is located in the Dorena Tree Improvement Center with a skeleton crew compared to what it used to be..   There is no longer any timber people on the District

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.  

Poor Man Logging Operation

 Eighty feet of cable out from the truck on the road above to log below where this picture was taken.   Now to see of we can post it.    

Second picture of the tree top pulled up to the road.   First log already cut up for firewood.

Killing Hardwoods

Back in my early days with the Forest Service on the Orleans District of the Six Rivers National Forest we had to go through a chainsaw certification class in order to fall any standing hardwood trees remaining on the clear-cut units before burning the slash.   Most these trees were tan oak, madrone, alders or maples ranging in size from 6 to 24+ inches in diameter and 10 to 40 feet in height that survived the logging operation without getting knocked down.   The first day of training was spent on safety, saw maintenance and operations.   Then we had to go out in the woods and fall hardwood trees on a logged clear-cut unit before getting our certification card.    The Forest Service had Homelite and McCulloch saws with 24 inch bars.   They were nothing like the modern lightweight saws of today and after a few hours they seem to get heavier as the day went on.  

Back in those days hardwoods were looked upon as an undesirable species.   After the clear-cut units were planted, mostly with Douglas-fir seedlings, the competing hardwood vegetation had to be eradicated within the first 5 years.  This was primarily done by aerial spraying a defoliant chemical (2-4-5-T) over a 5 year period.   In the Vietnam War this was called Agent Orange which was an orange dye put in a mixture of 2-4-5-T and 2-4-D to show the pilots where they had sprayed the jungle vegetation below.   If I remember correctly this management practice came to an end on the National Forests in 1979 due to contamination of streams and the general outrage of the public living downstream.    Shortly thereafter the forest products industry found a use for these trees as pulp for paper products, hog fuel for their cogeneration plants and other specialty wood products.    In the 1980’s when the lumber market crashed the chip market for pulp went up because the mills were not producing enough wood chips as a by-product from milling lumber.   It was these hardwoods trees that saved some mills from going under.  I can remember South Coast Lumber in Brookings throwing finished lumber into their chipper along with hardwoods to make ends meet by selling wood chips to the Menasha Pulp mill in North Bend.     

Log Scaling

 Log scaling was not one of our primary jobs working on the timber sale preparation crew, but we could be called upon to fill-in if one of the 3 full-time scalers assigned to the District called in sick.   In 1971 when I went to work on the Orleans District of the Six Rivers National Forest we were required to go through both the timber cruising and log scaling certification program.   

Our instructor was the Forest Check Scaler, named Leonard Shamburger, nicknamed Sham.   He was a big man in his 50's and looked like he enjoyed his food and maybe a beer or two.   After Sham and a little help from Ron, the lead presale technician, and a few visits to the various test plots we became certified timber cruisers.   Ron was also a certified log scaler and was called upon to fill-in whenever one of the full-time scalers at Hoopa called in sick (usually hung over from the night before).   Ron eventually transferred to the Tahoe Forest two years later.   Log scalers made more money than the District Ranger based on all the overtime they put in, usually 10 to 12 hours/day.  

About a month later Sham took us to Hoopa to show us how to do production scaling on the two truck ramps at the Humboldt Fir mill.   First thing he told us was to forget all that stuff we saw on the training slide picture program.   He said you don't have that kind of time here with log trucks lined up waiting to be scaled.   In addition to the Forest Service scaler there was also a company scaler on the ramps.  Together we would measure log lengths, then separately measured small end diameters and deduct any defect.   For defect deductions Sham told us to take an inch or two off the diameters for any sap rot or a foot or two from the length for any conk rot, excessive checking or just cull the entire log in it looks bad from end to end.  The big thing he told us was not to make mistakes identifying species, especially with Incense cedar, Red cedar and Port Orford cedar, since there was a big difference in their value.    For example, Incense cedar might have a value of $50/thousand board feet (MBF) while Port Orford could be $500/MBF or more.  If you wanted to get the attention of the mill owner or Forest Service fast, misidentifying these species was the way to do it.   There was a trainee scaler by the name of Don, who had a hard time with determining cedar species and more than once had people from both parties checking on him when he became the scaler on the Orleans truck ramp.   He later transferred to a forest in Washington and we learned he had a hard time telling the difference between Douglas-fir and Larch.   

In 1977 I transferred to the Greenville District of the Plumas National Forest doing sale administration work and had to get recertified.   Most scaling on the Plumas was mill deck scaling and some ground scaling in the woods on small sales where portable saw mills were utilized.   We, along with others from adjacent Forests, including Ron from the Tahoe were sent to the Diamond International Mill in Red Bluff, where they had pulled logs from the mill pond for us to scale, many were as black as coal and hard to identify the species.   There was one log nobody seemed to be able to identify, not even the check scalers that were there.   Ron called it a Port Orford cedar and all the check scalers finally agreed.   How it ended up in that pond was a mystery since most Port Orford cedar was exported to Asia because there was not much of a domestic market for it at the time.  

After transferring to Gold Beach in 1979 most scaling was being done by third party scaling organizations, such as scaling bureaus.  There still remains Forest Service and company check scalers to check on the third party scalers.    

Forest Roads and Trails

 This is a brief history on the development of forest roads and trails on the National Forests for your reference as we burrow in for the winter. 

Some of the first roads and trails on the National Forests were constructed by homesteaders, trespassers doing illegal logging, mining and ranchers grazing their livestock.    In the 1930’s some of these roads and trails were improved upon and new ones constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC).   Most of these served for access between fire lookouts and remote camps used by early fire and trail crews on horseback.    In 1964 Congress enacted the Forest Roads and Trails Act (FR&T Funds) which appropriated money for the development of roads and trails for recreation, fire protection and to access forest resources.    

With the increase in timber harvest after WWII roads were being constructed by timber purchasers to access timber sale areas.   They were originally located by the purchaser or logger and approved by the Forest Service with some changes to location to avoid damage to other forest resources prior to construction.   Most of these roads were not rocked and only used during the dry season.   As the timber on the easy ground was being harvested sometime in the 1960’s the Forest Service took over location and design of specified roads for timber sales that were on steeper slopes and harder to access.    These roads were located and designed by Forest Service engineers with cost estimates and were paid by the timber sale.    The purchaser of the timber sale was given credit for constructing and reconstruction of roads.  This credit was applied as payment for timber removed.    Specifications required disposal of slash by removal, burying or piling for burning from the top of the cut slope to bottom of the fill slope, known as the road prism.   All the trees within this prism are considered right of way timber included in the timber sale as a separate subdivision and usually was the first timber to be removed from the sale.  Culverts were required and installed with proper compaction.  A base course of rock was applied with four to six inches of crushed rock for the surface.    It was expensive, making some sales deficit and subsidized by the tax payers, especially in Alaska where much rock was required.    Road maintenance was performed by purchasers and/or by deposits made by the purchaser based on the amount of timber hauled per mile over a road system.  This collected money was used by the Forest Service to perform maintenance either by using contractors or by Forest Service road crews. 

According to the Forest Service Road Management website as of March 1, 2000 there were 380,000 miles of roads on the National Forests and used by 15,000 log trucks per day, down by 27,000 from 1990 when there were 42,000 log trucks per day.   

Today there is a small fraction of log hauling compared to the past, and therefore much less money is collected for road maintenance and most of that is for the maintenance of primary forest roads.   Some of the secondary roads have fallen to disrepair, closed to the public for resources protection or slowly being overgrown by encroaching vegetation.   Most trail maintenance work now is done by volunteers.  

SHUTDOWN

Most contract loggers did a good job complying with the Forest Service Timber sale contract.   Now and then there was always the temptation to cut some corners and save time as time was money.    During the peak logging season Forest Service contract administrators could be stretched thin depending on their work load.   Some loggers knew this based on how many visits the administrator made to their operation during a week.   Some timber sales required more of our time than others depending on how complex the sale was.   For example, a thinning sale could take much of the administrator’s time with approving tractor skid trails or skyline corridor layout, landing locations and marking additional trees to be cut for these authorized clearings.   Sometimes an entire day could be spent on a thinning sale.    On the other hand a large clear cut unit might only be visited once a week just to check on progress or meet with the logging supervisor or contract logger to agree on a new landing location or spur road for the next unit to be logged.  

One such case happened on the Orleans Ranger District in the summer of 1975 when I approved a landing location and a 200 foot spur road to access a clear-cut unit on a sale purchased by Sierra Pacific Industries out of Arcata, California.   The contract logger was V & K Logging from Happy Camp.    The next day I returned to this sale unexpected to see what progress had been made.  To my amazement the spur road and landing had been constructed as agreed to and yarding was in progress.     Being in fire season I got suspicious that all the required fire equipment may not have been in its proper place.   In addition to having a 500 gallon fire truck, this contract had a requirement for 300 gallon water tank with pump and hose line to be attached to the skyline carriage in the event of a fire in the unit.   To move this tank from one unit to the next they usually drained it to make it easy to transport.   I wondered if it had been filled with water during this move, so I made my way across the busy landing to where the tank had been placed out of the way of the operation.   As I made my way toward the tank all eyes of the landing crew watched me, including the loader operator and yarder engineer.   Sure enough the tank was empty.   I made eye contact with the yarder engineer and ran my index finger across my throat informing him to shut it down.    He blew a long whistle to inform the rigging crew that operations were shutdown.   After shutting down the yarder and loader they told me they were going to fill it at the end of the day after getting the daily quota of log trucks loaded.   They knew from experience that once they were shut down only the Forest Supervisor could permit operations to resume, so they all got in their vehicles and returned to Happy Camp.  By the time I got back to the office the entire world knew of the shutdown, including the District Ranger, Sierra Pacific Industries (SPI) and the Forest Supervisor.    After a meeting of upper management of both parties with insurances by SPI that there would be full compliance with the all fire precautionary provisions of the contract operations were allowed to resume.

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. 

Mountain Fir Lumber Company

 This story deals with log utilization standards of what the Forest Service required and what the Purchaser wanted.  It may be a little technical to some readers.   It also shows that those of us on the ground did get some support by those in management at the forest level instead of the usual chewy out.

                                           Gold Beach Ranger District

                                           Siskiyou National Forest

 

Mountain Fir Lumber Company had purchased the West Indigo Timber Sale on the eastern portion of the District, off the Burnt Ridge Road.    Their mill was located in Williams, south of Grants Pass, and their specialty was long dimensional Douglas-fir lumber, normally 20 feet in length.   Utilization standards in all Forest Service timber sale contracts are the same; minimum diameter of 6 inches, minimum length of 8 feet and all logs with at least one-third net scale had to be removed from the sale and presented for scaling to determine how much the purchaser would pay the Forest Service based on their bid value.   There was a flat per acre rate charge for special cull logs and utility cull logs.   These were logs that could be utilized as cull peelers or utilized for chips.   A provision in the contract did allow these logs to remain on the landings if no market was available in the vicinity of the Purchaser’s mill.  

There were two contract loggers operating on this sale.   Sherman Brothers from Nesika Beach was logging on one road system and Warren Cook from Grants Pass was operating on a separate road system.   Loggers and truckers are paid by the Purchaser based on gross volume as determined by a third party scaling organization that also determines how much the Forest Service would receive based on net scale.    As each unit was completed it was my responsibility to check if all logs meeting utilization standards were removed.   As work progressed during the summer I noticed the loggers were leaving special cull and utility logs decked on the landings.    The loggers told me that Mountain Fir had instructed them to leave these logs on the landings as there was no market for them.   This was documented on a timber sale inspection report with a copy that went to the Forest Supervisor’s Office in Grants Pass.   Soon thereafter I received a phone call from Don, the assistant forest timber staff in charge of contract administration.   He informed me there was a market for those cull logs at the Medford Corporation (Medco) cull log processing facility south of Grants Pass.   I informed Mountain Fir of this and they told me they could not afford to pay their loggers to remove this material.    I relayed that to Don, who said Mountain Fir had a reputation for doing this and only wanted logs that met their product specifications.   A meeting on the sale area was scheduled with Don, Pete the District Ranger, Dwight the acting District Timber management assistant and myself to see how much of this material was being left.    The day we drove up to the sale from Gold Beach it was an Industrial Fire Precautionary Level 3, which means all logging operations must shut down by 1:00 pm.     We arrived on the sale after 1:00 pm, driving out the road system that Sherman Brothers operated from.  They had shut down and were gone, except for their fire watchman.   As we got out of the vehicle we could hear logging equipment operating across the canyon where Warren Cook was working.   We immediately got back in the vehicle and drove over to the other road system where yarding and loading of trucks was still in progress.    Everybody in the Forest Service was shocked as I approached the loader operator asking why they were still operating.   He said they did not know it was a level 3 closure.  They stopped operations and were given a notice of non-compliance.   Back in the office a phone call was made to Mountain Fir of this serious breach of contract, which states the Purchaser cannot resume work until authorized by the Contracting Officer.    This time another meeting was held on the sale with all parties involved, including the Purchaser’s representative, Warren Cook, the logger, Don, the timber staff assistant, the District Ranger and myself.    The purchaser’s representative (don’t remember his name) said they do not condone any violations of the fire precautionary provisions of the contract.   Warren Cook said it was his fault for not paying attention to what the fire precaution level was, even though it is broadcast over most two-way radio systems the day before and posted on road signs leading onto the National Forest.    Don told the representative from Mountain Fir to send the Forest Service a letter ensuring this would not happen again and by the way get these special cull and utility logs out of here since there is a market at the Medco plant.   A letter from Mountain Fir was received by the Contracting Officer addressing their intent not to violate the fire precautionary requirements and under protest would remove the cull logs in question.   A few years later Mountain Fir closed their mill at Williams.   

Don, the timber staff assistant from the Supervisor’s office was one of those people in management that would stand up for us grunts on the ground.  He retired after I transferred to Cottage Grove in 1988 and shortly thereafter died of brain cancer. 

Paper Work

 A little humor in this story which some of you retired FS and BLM folks might understand.  If you want to read a good book with all kinds of stories of being a young forester, staff assistant and District Ranger I recommend Forest Trails and Tales by Joel Frandsen, who worked in four different states on six National Forests.

Hopefully one day I complete my memoirs of the Sixes National Forest I worked on from 1969-95.  Preface attached.  

Preface

                                  MY CAREER WITH THE FOREST SERVICE

                     A Ground View of the Forest Service from Days Gone By

 

This is a collection of memoirs from my career with the Forest Service starting in 1969 until 1995, after working on six National Forests, including the Modoc, Stanislaus, Six Rivers, Plumas, Siskiyou and Umpqua.     It started out with a few short stories about different events then grew into expanded stories of each Ranger District that I worked on with some separate events thrown in.  It probably could be revised again, including more details on outstanding issues, co-workers, forest contractors and more, but probably would never get completed.  

This is a story of a Forest Service that in many ways no longer exists.   Just like the early days when a forest ranger traveled on horseback covering hundreds of square miles doing trail work, looking for fires, or packing supplies to some remote camp, the era of the Forest Service I was part of is becoming part of history also.   The days when we drove green trucks on dusty forest roads to survey a new logging road, cruise or inspect a timber sale have almost disappeared.   Today some of these roads can longer be found, most Forest Service trucks are white, there are fewer of them, and if you come across a dusty logging road you might be on private timber lands.   Timber management, or as we called it, “get the cut out” was the primary focus in the last half of the last century on many National Forests of the west, especially the Pacific Northwest.  Ecosystem management is the name of the game today and most foresters and engineers have been replaced with biologists specializing in specific fields of science.   There are still Forest Service fire crews and field technicians doing an assortment of jobs, including recreation, wildlife habitat or restoration projects, but very little of that work deals with timber removal, except for some thinning or salvage sales.   If you see a logging truck today on a National Forest road it might be a shock, but compared to the log traffic of the last half of the last century it is hardly a fraction of what it used to be.   The spotted owl has received much blame for the decline of timber cutting on National Forests of the west.   In fact it was getting harder and harder to find the timber to cut or come up with a five to ten year timber sale plan on many Ranger Districts to keep up or maintain what was called the “Allowable Annual Cut” or the Allowable Sale Quantity (ASQ).   For funding purposes timber harvest plans were needed to appease Congress in hopes of getting the funds to keep people employed and the wheels moving to produce timber sales.  

In addition, public sentiment was against the status quo, especially the practice of clearcutting on National Forests.   With the declining timber harvest under the Northwest Forest Plan it was hard to justify and get Congress to finance the many foresters, road engineers and technicians associated with the timber management program of yesterday.  By the mid 1990’s the Forest Service was offering buy-outs and early retirements in order to downsize this personnel.   I was one that took a buy-out in March of 1995, mostly to save my sanity and do something else.

The focus of my writings is centered on the different communities, local issues, housing situations and job activities that I was involved with during my years working as a forestry technician.  At times it might get too technical with terminology and forestry practices that some might not understand.   Except for using a few first names of key individuals I was involved with, the names of most co-workers and supervisors are not mentioned, and of course no last names.    We had a job to perform, sometimes under difficult circumstances, adverse weather conditions and at times there was internal conflict about the best ways to achieve management goals, which led to heated discussions.   In my later years there was always a meeting to try to resolve the issue of the day, which usually led to another meeting.   In the early years I don’t remember any meetings, except an occasional safety or project assignment meeting before leaving the station in the morning.  

On a positive side there was a sense of family with co-workers.  It was hard not to be emotionally connected and share personal problems since much time was spent together traveling in a crew truck, doing field work, at social gatherings, or many days on a fire line and confined to a fire camp with each other.    For better or worse there were relationships with timber purchasers, road builders, loggers and other contractors while dealing with the timber sale contract.   Most of these people wanted to do a good job, but there was always some that wanted to cut corners.  In short it was the highest bidder that got the timber and the lowest bidder that got the job of removing that timber.  As one logging supervisor told me once, “If you were not here we would tear this place down”.   That justified my existence. 

With all the planning efforts, including watershed analysis, environmental assessments, and logging feasibility reports, there was always something that fell through the cracks, mistakes were made and finger pointing was common.  A combination of unrealistic deadlines, workloads and politics was the culprit of many management problems in my opinion.   In many ways there were too many cooks in the kitchen at times without adequate supervision and we were always at the mercy of the political climate, which was usually under the influence of the timber industry that always wanted more timber.   

Today many problems still exist with management of our National Forests.  Rural communities have suffered economic hardships from the decline of timber harvesting, many forest roads are not adequately maintained, and the threat of wildfires has increased due to dense timber stands in need of thinning and climate change.   There is insufficient personnel to perform the many jobs that need to be done these days.   In order to save money some Forests have combined under one Supervisor's office and some District Rangers oversee two or even three Districts.  Today there is too few employees to maintain all the National Forest infrastructure, including roads, trails, campgrounds and other improvements.   The greatest challenge of today is finding the right balance between resource management activities and maintaining an ecosystem that will provide forest products, clean air, clean water, wildlife habitat and recreation opportunities for a growing population.   

PAPER WORK

 

Working for the Forest Service had its fair share of paper work to keep up with.   In the early days working in the field doing silviculture and timber sale preparation work we had plantation survey reports, timber stand analysis reports, timber cruise data cards and harvest unit traverse maps to turn in.   We did not have individual decks, but there was a long wall mounted table where the field crew had their own inboxes.  Here we received memos and directives from the upper echelon to read, initial and pass on.   The most important piece of paper was our bi-weekly time sheet to turn in every other week in order to get paid.  

When I went to work in timber sale administration I had my first deck and the paper work increased.    There were the daily timber sale inspection reports, fire inspection reports, monthly financial reports, audit follow-up reports and all the management directives to keep up with.   Whenever it was necessary to write letters to a timber purchaser I was the one to draft it up for the District Ranger to sign as he was the Forest Service representative for the contract.   In later years this authority was delegated to the District Timber Management staff assistant or lead administrator better known as the Forest Service Representative or FSR. 

The timber sale inspection report was utilized on a daily basis for each timber sale visited.  There were four copies to this report.   The front page went to the office file folder for that contract, one went to the timber sale purchaser, one went to the logging supervisor on the job and one went to the Forest Supervisor’s office.    The timber sale inspection report documented any mutual agreements, acceptance of work, minor contract change agreements and notices of non-compliance with the contract.   The copy of this report that was sent to the Forest Supervisor’s office went to the timber staff assistant in charge of contract administration.   In most cases we never heard back on our reports and while working in Gold Beach I thought I would see if anybody was reading them.    I filled out a fictitious report describing a breach of contract of the worst kind, tractor logging in a stream.   A few days later the timber staff assistant called me and asked what the hell is going on.   I replied that I was just checking to see if he was reading my reports. 

 

Sometime in the 1980’s the Forest Service went to computers and we were assigned an electronic inbox to receive emails of all kinds dealing with management letters, documents and directives from the Chief of the Forest Service, the Regional Forester down to the Forest Supervisor.    Over time more and more stuff accumulated in this electronic inbox and it could take an hour a day to go through it all.  Sometimes a report requiring some kind of reply was overlooked and there would be a phone call from somebody in management wanting to know if I had read whatever or how I was going to resolve some contractual issue.   The delete button got a lot of use. 

While working on the Cottage Grove Ranger District I went out to the fire warehouse one day to replenish my supply of timber sale inspection report forms from the storage room where all kinds of forms were stored.   After looking at all the different forms I came across one called the Negative Report.   This report actually had instructions that said, “Use this Report if you have nothing to Report.”   It was an obsolete form, but I sure had a good time with it.  

Clearcutting

 With family here this last week took a break from writing.  This story is about clear cutting on National Forests during my career with the Forest Service.

Forest roads constructed to access these clear-cuts is a separate story.  Then comes the economics of it all, the speculative bidding in the 1980's, followed by the government buyout of timber sales, the bottom dropping out of the lumber market, the rise of the chip market, the export market and much more.   

Its hot this afternoon--104

Comments always welcome

HISTORY of CLEARCUTTING

 

The practice of clearcutting or the text book name of regeneration cut has been around for a long time.   Back in the glory days of logging it was all clearcutting and high grading of logs.   Logs showing any defect or undesirable species were left in the woods.   Logging fires were common with the use of steam donkeys and very little regards for fire prevention during the dry season.   Most reforestation was from natural regeneration.     

Over the last 70 years there have been different versions of clearcutting.    This included the leaving of shelter wood and seed trees, which all ended up being clear-cut over time.  After WWII, clearcutting increased on National Forests of the Pacific Northwest.   It involved cutting native forests or what is called old growth today.   The larger coniferous trees, with average diameter of 40 to 50 inches were cut leaving smaller trees under 12 inches in diameter standing and all hardwood trees.   Many of the standing trees were damaged during the falling of the larger trees and most were completely destroyed during skidding or yarding operations.   After logging was completed most units were covered with cull logs, slash two to six deep and an occasional standing tree that survived the carnage.    To add insult to injury, any remaining trees between 12 to 4 inches in diameter that might hinder the planting of new trees were required to be cut and left.  This was called “whip falling.”

Slash burning was the common method to treat the slash, usually after the fall rains arrived.    On some units the top soil was destroyed from the extreme heat due to the large amount of fuel and intensity of the burn.    In the 1970’s the Forest Service required the removal of all unutilized material over 10 inches in diameter and 10 feet in length to lessen the damage to soils from slash burns.    Originally two logging operations took place, the first to remove the merchantable material and the second to remove the unmerchantable stuff, which was decked or piled on the landing for a separate sale to commercial wood cutters or made available to the public for firewood by permit.   These decks consisted of large coniferous cull logs and hardwoods, mostly madrone and tan oaks.    Better utilization of all wood fiber improved with the timber industry.   They removed coniferous cull logs that could be peeled and used for filler material in plywood and other cull logs were chipped for pulp and paper production.   Tan oak was also utilized for pulp, and madrone, along with wood waste was used as hog fuel used to operate cogeneration plants that most mills have to generate steam and electrical power.   

By the 1980’s soil scientists with the Forest Service were finding that too much removal of woody debris on clear-cut units was not beneficial to the soil over the long-term.   They wrote up contractual requirements for a certain amount of woody debris be left per acre on clear-cut units based on so much cubic feet.    This material consisted of cull logs and where not a safety concern standing snags were left standing.   By the late 1980’s 8 to 12 wildlife trees per acre were required to be left scattered over the clear-cut units.  These trees could be snags, cull trees or green trees and had to be at least a certain size such as 30 inches in diameter and 60 feet in height.   During winter storms some of the wildlife trees were blown down to add to the woody debris.     

Streams and riparian areas were protected according to their classifications.   Class 1 streams, mostly domestic water supplies received full protection with 100 to 200 foot buffers.  Class 2 streams were fish bearing streams requiring 100 foot buffers.  Class 3 streams contributed to fish bearing streams and had 50 foot buffers.  Class 4 streams were seasonal streams with no buffers.  Some of these buffers varied in width based on slope and topography.   On steep clear-cut units some of these buffers were destroyed from logs rolling downhill.   Some units were so steep that directional falling was required by jacking or lining trees uphill.  This was expensive doubling the failing costs from $12 per thousand board feet (MBF) to $25/MBF.  Not sure if these stream classifications are still in use today. 

Today clearcutting is not practiced on National Forests.   With many second growth plantations there are thinning sales where the average log is 12 inches in diameter and very few trees over 20 inches are cut.    Clearcutting on industrial forests is widespread, even on second growth plantations where trees range between 12 to 20 inches in diameter after 40 years of growth, depending on the site conditions.    Many small log mills cannot handle logs greater than 20 inches.

Clearcutting results in even-age forests of a monoculture of mostly Douglas-fir better known as tree farms.    Logging costs are lower and production is higher than with select logging or thinning where costs can double with less production of loads per day.    The demand for forest products is only going to increase, especially when the average American uses 700 pounds of paper products per year.

Chaos in the Woods

 In the winter of 1983-84 there was a big wind storm on the Gold Beach Ranger District of the Siskiyou National Forest.   Many leave strips and isolated timber stands were blown down.   There was a big push to get all this timber designated for salvage harvest and made available for sale by the spring of 1984 in order to get it removed before the bugs would start doing damage.   It was done quickly under a Categorical Exclusion that exempted the need for an environmental analysis. 

Most of the small sales were set aside for bidding by small loggers only, a few of the larger areas were made available for the large mills to bid on.    The pre-sale crew ran around the woods like mad men marking trees, posting unit boundaries, cruising and getting the timber appraised for the auction block.   Mistakes were made.   If I remember correctly there was a total of 13 sales put up for bid with units ranging in size from less than 1 acre up to 30 acres with one year contracts to remove the timber.   Depending on the extent of blow down trees, some units had clear-cut boundary posters, other had partial cut boundary posters where trees within the boundary were marked for removal.    These posters had a space where the sale name and unit number could be written in, but usually only the posters near the road or corners of the unit had the sale name and unit number filled in.  Each sale had its own sale area map showing each unit, road system and contractual requirements for each unit.   Sales were sold based on their geographical locations to avoid any overlapping of sale area boundaries.   Number of units per sale ranged from 10 to 20 units, mostly accessible by existing roads.  

The District had three contract administrators to oversee the logging on these sales, plus their assigned standing green sales that were being logged.    At the time I had two large green sales operating and was assigned four of the salvage sales.   I don’t remember the sale names, but do remember the names of the loggers since I had dealt with them before on other sales.   There was Zuber Logging from Port Orford, Ellis Logging from Powers, Keith Smith from Brookings and Westbrook from Coos Bay.   As soon as these sales were awarded cutting started immediately because of the one year contracts.    As soon as units were cut tractors or small yarders were moved in to get the logs to the roads for loading onto to trucks.   Many units required slash cleanup either by machine piling or hand piling, plus erosion control requirements.   Loggers did not want to move equipment, including fire equipment from one unit to the next without getting Forest Service acceptance of work to avoid moving equipment back to complete whatever was not found to be acceptable.   Loggers would call me at home in the evenings, asking if I could be at a unit in the morning to accept cleanup work as they wanted to move to the next unit.   One morning as I was driving from Zuber’s sale to Ellis’s sale when I noticed Zuber’s cutting crew bucking logs in a unit that was part of the sale belonging to Ellis.  I stopped and informed the cutters that was not their unit.  They did not have a sale map and saw no writing on the boundary posters and assumed it was Zuber’s unit.   I drove back to where Zuber was loading logs to inform him.   It was a breach of contract due to poor supervision by Zuber for not directing his cutters to his units or providing them a map.   A meeting took place in the office with the District Ranger to allow his operations to continue.   It was like misbehaving in school and going to the principal’s office.   Ellis had no problem with it and paid Zuber for the cutting expenses. 

In the meantime Westbrook had hauled out more logs than what was covered by his payment bond for that 30 day period and he was late paying for his scaled volume removed from the last 30 days which was another breach of contract, resulting in their shut down until payment was received and payment bond increased.   They hand carried a check to the Supervisor’s Office in Grants Pass and operations were allowed to resume. 

Keith Smith called me at home one evening to see if I could make it the next day to his sale and my wife had answered the phone to tell him I was not available.  Afterwards she told me enough is enough, you have a family to spend time with.  I did make it to his sale a day or two later and he did understand my wife’s concern, enough was enough!

Understanding Logging & Timber Practices across Oregon

 This is a follow up on the question of what timber companies I interacted with during my career with the Forest Service in timber sale contract administration.

I interacted with 17 mills on four National Forests (Six Rivers, Plumas, Siskiyou & Umpqua) from 1974-95.   Out of those 17 mills only 3 are still in business today.   Some of these mills went out of business due to labor union disputes, bought out by larger mills, a declining lumber market during the 1980's and a decreasing supply of logs.    

The Oregon Forest Resources Institute shows some interesting data in their 2019-20 edition of Oregon Forest Facts.  What they don't address is the number of logs that are exported to Asia from private timber lands, which has been as high as 1 in 3 logs and mostly from larger timber companies, such as Weyerhaeuser (Weyco).  Logs from public forests are restricted from being exported.    When Weyco did a hostile takeover of Willamette Industries  between 2000-2006 they liquidated much of the private timber holdings that they acquired from Willamette Industries and exported that timber to help pay for the takeover.   Other large timber companies have done the same.  

The Logging Fire

                                         Gold Beach Ranger District

                                            Siskiyou National Forest

 

South Coast Lumber Company had been given a deadline to start road preparation work for dust abatement along their haul route from the North Lobster Timber Sale.   This work consisted of watering and grading Forest Service gravel roads prior to the application of dust oil.   On the deadline date in the summer of 1979, I drove up to the sale area to see if they were in compliance with this contract requirement.    As I drove the haul route there was a grader and water truck working on the roads.   I drove into the unit where they were yarding and loading trucks, parked and began filling out a Timber Sale Inspection Report to document that the Purchaser was in compliance with the dust abatement provision of the contract.    As I was writing a log truck driver came up to my truck saying” You better come and take a look at this.”   We walked to the edge of the road where we could look downhill into the clear-cut unit that was being yarded.    There was smoke coming from the bottom of the ravine in this V shape unit with a road around two sides of it.   Soon after that the rigging crew blew one long whistle to shut down the operation as the fire was spreading uphill through down logs toward the landing.   The landing crew took down the two guy lines anchoring the mobile yarder and drove it along with the loader out of harm’s way.   The rigging crew took fire tools from the fire truck and pulled hose from the reel in an attempt to extinguish the fire, but it was moving fast up both slopes.   I called in the fire over the radio to the District fire management people and a few minutes later they called back informing me that an air tanker had been dispatched from Medford and would arrive in 20 minutes.   The next radio call I received was from a local logger, Shirley Laird, asking if I wanted his helicopter to dump water on the fire and I replied,” Yes”.  Later I was reprimanded by the District Administrative Assistant for this as there was no pre-rental agreement between Laird and the Forest Service.   Since I verbally hired Laird as an authorized Forest Officer the Forest Service was obliged to pay at $600/hour (don’t remember the final billing).   My reply to the Administrative Assistant was “I would do it all again under the circumstances”.   He was not pleased with my reply.

After I drove my truck away to a safe distance, I looked back to see the fuel truck was still parked by the unit.  With all personnel busy moving equipment and trying to fight the fire I ran back and drove the truck to a safer location.   The air tanker arrived and dumped the fire retardant, which only slowed the advanced of the fire as it was now spreading spot fires in the adjacent standing forest.   Laird’s helicopter was unable to suppress the fire either, as it was consuming all the down timber in the 20 acre unit.   The logging crew had to leave the unit for their own safety.  Their 500 gallon fire truck parked along the road on the back side of the unit was destroyed by the fire.  Within an hour the Forest Service fire crew arrived and took over management of the fire.  I was told to return to the station. 

Over the next few days the Forest Service assembled an investigative team, made up of management people from adjacent Forests (Rogue River and Umpqua Forests) and was headed up by the Siskiyou Forest Timber Staff Officer.  This team was to determine if the Purchaser was negligent in starting this fire.    If they were found to be negligent South Coast Lumber would have to pay 100% of the fire suppression costs.   The logging crew and I were the primary subjects of this investigation.   A week before the fire I performed a fire inspection of this operation and all fire precautionary requirements were in compliance with the contract.   This was all documented on a Fire Inspection form, including an agreement that any smoking by the logging crew was only allowed in vehicles.  This form was signed by me and the logging supervisor, who happened to be a son of the owner of South Coast Lumber.    One requirement of the fire precautionary provisions of the contract is that any moving cable blocks on the ground had to have a 10 foot radius clearing of all vegetative debris along with a shovel and 5 gallon water pump can nearby.  These can emit sparks when cable in going through them at a high rate of speed.    Since the tail block on this operation was just below the road on the back side of the unit it was easy to inspect and was found to be in compliance.   During my interview with the investigative team I was questioned twice on the logger’s compliance with clearing around the tail block.   As documented I repeated they had been in compliance and that the fire had started at the bottom of the unit, not at the tail block.   They started to question me a third time on this subject, and my patience was becoming thin.  I replied.” I am tired of repeating myself” and got up and left the building before doing something foolish.   The team leader told the interviewer questioning me enough had been said.   It was learned later that one of the choker setters had been smoking in the unit, but said he made sure he had extinguished his cigarette in the dirt.  Others on the rigging crew said they had seen sparks coming from the carriage when the yarding cable was moving through it.  In the end there was no definite proof of what started the fire and it could have been sparks or hot metal coming off a frozen sheave in the carriage.    

The fire was contained in a few days after consuming 40 acres, including the 20 acre clear cut unit and 20 acres of adjacent forest.   Since it was considered an operational fire South Coast Lumber and the Forest Service split the suppression costs and I still had a job.