Clearcutting

[Tillaway]

Paul,
The key to harvesting Shelterwood overstory is to get back in there early.  What you are trying to do is get your seedling established only.  If your seedlings are only a few years old and you are fully stocked or preferrably overstocked you can fall the trees on them and there will be little damage, the trees just spring back.  If you wait too long, sapling, pole size then you will break them and cause more damage .  A shelterwood removal will look like a clearcut that has just greened up immediately after harvest. Also any damage will be thinned out during spacing (precommercial thinning) in the future.  
This works best on flat ground with designated skid trails and ground based equipment.  You would have to skyline (full suspension if you can) or helicopter on the steep ground.  I DonT think highlead would be appropriate exept for a more concave slope where you could get a little suspension.

We "Shelterwood remove" here all the time in stands that could use a good commercial thin but then we do almost all ground based logging even on the cable ground.
 : :(

[D._Frederick]

Paul-H
The slides that I referred to happened in the mid ninetys on the southern coast range. They have a soil with a lot of rock and sand, it slides easily when wet. The state and the feds did a lot of evaluation of the slides. If I remember correctly, more clear cuts had bad slides that took out road and filled up streams than the forests that did not have logging.
It always make the papers here when somebody gets there house destroyed or killed by a slide coming out of a clear cut on a steep mountain side. On hiway 101 on the coast this past winter, the road slid into the ocean because of water coming out of a clear-cut. The road was closed for months with long detours.
Frank Pender is going to talk to the State Forester and see what regs came out of Salem.

[Paul_H]

D._Frederick,
Thanks,that's a good start.I'll try to find it on the web,or check with the BC Forest Service.If you can tell me which news paper,it could help for us to go that route.

[Tillaway]

I was living on the coast just North of one of the slides with the fatalities mentioned.  It occurred on the Umpqua River between Scottsburg and Reedsport.  I drove by the spot just after it happened since I traveled that road allot.  That cut was helicopter logged and a buffer was left above the highway.  The slopes on that hill had numerous rock bluffs and were average over 70%..  The soils on the central Oregon coast are very shallow often only a two feet to soil bedrock.  It grows trees like mad right on top that rock but the hills slip no matter if you log or not.  The soil just slips right off.

Changing silviculture to address the slide problems is a feel good measure.  Partial cutting in that area particularly only leads to a clearcut because after the next winter you salvage your crop trees after they blow down.  If you break up the stand continuity with any kind of partial cut, the first winter storm combined with the shallow water saturated soils leads to the entire stand blowing down.  This is simply ground you can't effectively partial cut.

The average winter in that area would make National news if hit Florida.  Basically wind gusts over 60 MPH, in fact that isn't much of a blow.  At 85 MPH they used to have to use a log loader to hold the roof over the Texaco station in Florence's gas pumps.  My windows would bow in at 90MPH and the anemometer at Sea Lion caves blow off at 102 MPH. (I lived there eleven years).

[DanG]

I'm sorry, but I have little sympathy for people who will build their houses in the paths of mudslides, avalanches, or tidal storm surges. These people should be left uninsured, and should take the risk themselves. As it is, I, along with the rest of you, and most of the other landowners in the country, end up paying for those people's luxury. I think that if you can't afford to replace, then you shouldn't build in a hazardous zone. If your finance company won't loan without insurance, then pay cash, or do without. I realize that this seems a little hard-hearted, but I'm growing a little tired of paying ridiculous insurance rates, just so the fat cats can have their house on the beach without any risk. I'd much rather see a society that has no insurance, no regulation, and no mortgage. There would be a lot of people living in shanties, but very few living in a washing machine carton in the public park. >:(

Sorry if this sounded like a rant, but that's what it was. :D

[Tillaway]

DanG, The problem with the fatalities that got it all started was that the slide hit a couple of cars on the highway killing the occupants.  

I do agree with your rant though, but it is kind of funny, these storms in this area do little property damage.  The houses are built to withstand them, in fact in town we often barley had the lights flicker during a normal storm.  The mountains bare the brunt of the damage.

[Frank_Pender]

The Oregon Dept. of Forestry did make  a decision on July 19 this year.  What that decision was/is I have yet to  find out.  I will try again tomorrow. :P ;D

[Ron Wenrich]

Tillway

I lived in that same area back in '72.  I was a choker setter for Elkside, but it was in the spring.  I don't recall weather as severe as you mentioned.  I stayed at a motel in Florence, and had to run to Reedsport for my mail.  I hated the fog, which was always there.  

If I recall, we did a lot of clearcutting up in the mountains.  We could see the ocean, but it was a good shot away.  I don't recall anyone talking about mudslides back then.  We also did partial cuts on ridge tops, for some reason.  Could have been aesthetics.

It seems to me that there are just some areas that shouldn't be managed for timber.  Maybe those steep slopes would qualify.  

Farmers have learned to work with the contours of the hills to reduce erosion.  Is there anything like that being done with timber harvesting?

[D._Frederick]

DanG,
You are 100% correct on the above posting. If my memory is correct, there was a case about 5 years ago were a slide took out a house that was built at the base of a known slide. The timber company clearcut there timber again, and the slide took out the house and covered the road. There was a big suit over it, but the county approved the building permit and the state approved the logging. The lawyers where the winners. It doesn't take much mental power to tell that slides had occured here before. The realitors and developers will sell anything to make a buck then run,  the elected county people are put in office by the money from the realitors and developers.  Even are retired Senator Hatfield bought himself a house built on a sand dune that the ocean is washing away!

[Tillaway]

eeewww, I'm sorry Ron, that's some nasty, brushy, steep country.  I once went a measured 150' in two steps in that country... step ssssllllliiiddddeeeee, step sssssllllliiidddddeeeee.  The Spring is the nicest time of the year along with Fall in that area.  Winter it's either really nice or blowing 60 MPH and the rain drops feel like bullets.

All that land on those slopes is some of, or the most productive timberlands in the state.  It is common to have between 40MBF to 60MBF to the acre in second growth (50 year old) Doug Fir.  There is little chance this will be set aside to prevent slides.  The thing is that the slides only get peoples attention when they come from a recently logged area.  All the hills slide like this even with timber on them.  All the steep draws or V notches on the hills are bare solid bedrock from the constant sliding even in the timbered areas.  The trees slide or fall down into these draws and eventually enough debris accumulates and a heavy rain acts almost like a slash dam sending the debris down into the rivers.  That sounds bad with all that hitting Salmon streams but the fisheries biologists in the area love these slides.  The rivers, Siuslaw system, Alsea System and lower Umpqua (Smith river) drainage are solid bedrock rivers just like the upper draws.  They have little spawning gravel and lack complexity needed to produce as many Salmon as they could.  These slides add complexity and gravel.  Other coastal systems would not benefit from this but this area does, it's kind of unique.