Sean C. Morgan
The U.S. Forest Service Sweet Home Ranger’s District is planning two to three timber sales for next year.
The Ranger’s District has started work on the first two.
The first of the sales is a commercial thin in the Quartzville Corridor, the Quartzville LSR Thin Timber Sale. The second is a commercial thin in the Calapooia River area, the Lower Cala Thin Sale. This year, the district is selling South Pyramid and Gordon Three.
In 2003, the Ranger District awarded three sales totaling just more than 10 million board feet, District Ranger Mike Rassbach said. “This year our plan is two to three sales at 7 to 10 million board feet.”
About half the volume from the 2003 sales have been harvested, and a number of previous sales, approximately 20 million board feet, remain under contract.
Rassbach anticipates about three sales at 7 to 10 million board feet again next year.
The exact amount depends on targets and budgeting, he said. Each year, each district in the Willamette National Forest negotiates with the National Forest for its budget and timber target.
The district is completing environmental assessments on Quartzville and Upper Cala sales. When the environmental assessments are complete, the district will offer the sales in fiscal 2005, probably within 12 to 15 months.
The Quartzville Thin is a project on a managed plantation in a late successional reserve (LSR) area. The Lower Cala is in an adaptive management area.
As trees grow, they begin to close in, Rassbach said. A plantation is usually pre-commercially thinned at age 15 then commercially thinned between 35 and 50 years old.
The Quartzville Thin will include about 1,000 acres off Road 11 past Green Peter Reservoir. Some of the work will be adjacent to the roadway. The sale will include some 4 to 9 million board feet. It was previously harvested between 1950 and 1969.
The Lower Cala includes about 220 acres, 95 of which are in a fire regenerated stand. It will yield between 1 and 1.5 million board feet. These stands were previously harvested between 1957 and 1966.
Within the Quartzville LSR, the district could go back in with another thin at around 80 years old to help develop late successional characteristics, which include large-diameter trees, woody debris, old stumps and snags.
The Lower Cala, under adaptive management, is hard to predict, Rassbach said. The Forest Service could provide a variety of different prescriptions to deal with habitat improvement or other goals. Lands designated for adaptive management serve as sort of a reserve for experimentation in forest management.
The two sales will most likely use a cable-skyline system with some ground-based logging and a little helicopter logging, Rassbach said. Generally, that’s what the Sweet Home District has been offering.
“We do have quite a few managed stands, and it looks like over the next few years this’ll be the types of sales we’ll have,” Rassbach said. Approximately 1,000 acres of managed stands will grow into the 30-year-old category each year for the next 20 years.