FORKS — A new analysis has been done on the impacts of the Olympic Experimental State Forest, a long-proposed land plan with the goal of melding timber production with environmental protection across 250,000 acres of the most northwestern forest in the continental United States.
The state Department of Natural Resources released a revised Environmental Impact Statement for the foresting plan.
The public will be able to hear about the new statement and comment on it during a meeting in Forks from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday in the DNR Region Office Conference Room, 411 Tillicum Lane.
The experimental forest has been in the works since 1989, explained Susan Trettevik, DNR’s Olympic region manager.
As environmental protection measures were implemented, they blocked off large swaths of land for logging and others for ecological preservation. Industry, government and private officials developed the plan as an alternative to see if commercial forest lands could continue to produce timber in a manner that could sustain the forest’s diversity of habitat.
“The questions is how can we manage for both across the entire set of lands in a dynamically changing forest,” Trettevik said.
The experimental forest involves state lands west of Lake Crescent and north of the Queets Corridor.
The plan represents a new approach to silviculture, said Rod Fleck, city planner and attorney at Forks.
Fleck said the experimental forest should provide Forks with a steady employment boost, as thousands of acres now blocked by conservation are opened to sustainable foresting.
“This is a hugely important thing for us,” Fleck said. “Not only do we bolster the local economy, but all these little taxing districts could have a steady stream of revenue from the timber sales.”
The first draft of the impact statement was issued in 2010.
After receiving tremendous input on the plan, DNR officials took it back and reworked it, Trettevik said. Those changes are what will be discussed at Tuesday’s meeting.
The plan’s treatment for northern spotted owl habitat does not change much, Trettevik said. The major change revolves around how riparian areas are managed as part of the whole forest.
Under standard silviculture, forests have been thinned in large blocks. Trettevik said the experimental forest would use more scattered foresting, leaving more trees behind to allow more natural variation of species and to allow old-forest habitats to develop as sections of forest regenerate after logging.
A complex set of modeling tools has allowed the DNR to project data about how implementation will work. The new impact statement also allows the agency and other forest agencies to change the plan as real results come in.
Forests are broken down around 11 watersheds in the West End.
The revised draft statement can be viewed at http://1.usa.gov/16OUua5.
Another meeting is planned in Olympia on Thursday.
To make comments, email SEPAcenter@dnr.wa.gov; mail Department of Natural Resources, SEPA Center, 1111 Washington St. S.E., MS: 47015, Olympia, WA 98504-7015; phone 360-902-1739; or fax 360-902-1789.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Joe Smillie can be reached at 360-681-2390, ext. 5052, or at jsmillie@peninsuladailynews.com.