Editor:
I had to laugh when reading the article about the Forest Service having someone fall trees into streams to enhance fish habitat (July 23).
I was a logger in the Sweet Home area from 1951 to 1966 when the company I worked for moved to Alaska and I and my family moved with them. I spent many hours wading and sometimes swimming in icy streams removing not only green tops and fresh limbs but also old logs which had been in the streams for years and built up gravel beds.
We tried to tell the Forest Service guys the old wood was better left in the stream but guys with degrees don’t listen very well to sweaty guys with dirty hands.
Now I see they have finally caught on. New dogs can be taught old tricks if one waits long enough.
In Alaska we were required to leave seventy foot wide strips of timber on each side of fish streams.
We suggested to the degree guys that winter winds blow pretty hard here in the Panhandle and since the leaf strips were no longer wind firm they would probably blow down.
The wind blew and they did. The streams were now so choked with downed timber fish would have to grow legs and portage around the tangle to get upstream. Not having a degree I still have not figured out why this was a good idea.
Bud Stewart
Palmer, Alaska