Most of the LOGGING Starts this year, summer 2006 on Warm Springs projects: • Jigsaw Regeneration (clearcut and shelterwood) logging on 148 acres and thinning on 210 acres of native forests, removing 2000 log truck loads (10 mmbf) and building 4 miles of new roads. Download map ONE of Jigsaw here Download map TWO of Jigsaw here • Whitebird — Warm Springs Project Regeneration (clearcut and shelterwood) logging on 163 acres, removing over 1,000 log truck loads (5.5 mmbf), and building 1.7 miles of new roads. Download map ONE of Whitebird here Download map TWO of Whitebird here

Unit 5 of Jigsaw.

Through a law suit we won some sales back in the Warm Springs and the adjoining Upper North EA proposals, but we lost the biggest of the old-growth logging. Roseburg Forest Products started felling these high-elevation forests on July 8, 2004.

Old growth trees slated for cutting in 2004 in the Jigsaw Timber Sale. Upper Left, unit 2. Upper Right, road to unit 7.

Above and below: Roseburg Forest Products pushing the road into unit 7.





Logging the new road right-of-way into unit 7 through old-growth over 300 years old.
This facilitates Roseburg Forest Product's goal of converting public old-growth into managed tree-farms.

Bottom, unit 5, not yet cut.

Unit 40 of Jigsaw logs within Critical Habitat Unit (CHU) for the Northern Spotted Owl. The Watershed Analysis recommended no CHU be logged, but when we appealed this logging, the Forest Service responded they don't have to follow their own recommendations. These sales will also degrade habitat for the American Martin and Pileated Woodpeckers, indicator species of Ancient Forest habitat, as well as log Wolverine and Lynx habitat. The entire sales are within the home range of the wolverine suspected denning on the flanks of Mt. Thielsen. (Home range of wolverines is about 99,000 acres).

Some of Whitebird will be logged in fragile high-elevation Mountain Hemlock forests, in spite of the Forest Service's watershed recommendation to NOT clearcut (not do any "even age" management) in the Mountain Hemlock Zone. But again, when we appealed the logging in Mountain Hemlock forests the Forest Service responded they did not have to follow their own watershed recommendations.

Above: Shasta red firs cut down by Roseburg Forest Products about July 10, 2004 for the new road into Whitebird. The red fir in the foreground is 350 years old, and only 32" in Diameter.




Above: Old growth Western White Pine in the Whitebird road right-of-way. It was likely cut down on July 12, 2004.

If you have anything to say to the Forest Service, send your comments to Jim Caplan, Forest Supervisor, Umpqua National Forest. CALL 541-672-6601 or FAX to 541-957-3495, or mail to: 2900 Stewart Parkway, Roseburg, OR 97470.

More Background Than You Ever Wanted To Know:

In 1997, the Umpqua National Forest proposed the Upper North and Warm Springs timber sales, neighbors on the upper North Umpqua River. We sued, and won some (mostly Upper North), but lost some (mostly Warm Springs, including Jigsaw and Whitebird).

10/09/03

Some Units Withdrawn in 2003: A partial victory, Jigsaw and Whitebird still slated for logging.

Represented by Western Environmental Law Center from Eugene, Oregon, Umpqua Watersheds and Oregon Natural Resources Council's court challenge to protect old growth and native forests in the Upper North and Warm Springs Projects has come to an end due to the Umpqua National Forest's decision to withdraw the 7 unsold sales from these projects. Three sales, including Jigsaw and Whitebird old-growth from the Warm Springs project, remain threatened.

Upper North and Warm Springs proposals would have logged thousands of acres of mature and old growth forests including hundreds of acres of clearcuts within four roadless areas, built over 20 miles of new roads and road reconstruction, and helicopter landings. Now only three of the sales, sold and ready to cut, remain.

The Forest Service should give the money back to Roseburg Forest Products, the purchasers of the Jigsaw and White Bird timber sales, to keep the Umpqua's dwindling islands of old growth as whole as possible and to halt the building of more roads into the heart of these un-entered wildlands. This summer's Kelsey fire has already diminished the habitat within this project area."

We sued on these two sales originally in 1998. The federal government was required to evaluate the cumulative effects of both logging proposals on the Upper Umpqua Watershed. Since units from both sales are so close, the combined effect should have been looked at.

But in June of 2003, Judge Hogan's ruling is official. Since these sales had been included in a region-wide law suit that required all FS and BLM managers to do surveys for rare species, Judge Hogan ruled we can not go to court a second time for individual sale illegalities. Even though this sale breaks the laws in a number of ways, a technicality stops us from having the court hear the merits of our case.

The two timber sale decisions, Upper North and Warm Springs, are broken down into 10 separate sale auctions. Three of those ten are sold and the remaining 7 can get sold sometime this summer.

Fragile, high elevation units with Mountain Hemlock will be logged by virtual clearcuts, even though the Forest Service's own Watershed Analysis recommended against this in Mountain Hemlock forests. When we appealed, the Forest Service found that even though they must do an analysis of the watershed and make recommendations on how best to manage it, they are not required to follow their own recommendations, or even address them.

Upper North and Warm Springs timber sales seriously degrade the watershed, but the appeal says there are "beneficial effects of the proposed action on water quality."