05/01 Update: Ruling by 9th Circuit Court halts this sale and upholds Rothstein ruling of 2000.
04/00 Update: Hike to Diamondback article by Christine Masters
09/99 Update: Another Court Win. 9th Circuit Court rules sale is illegal, again!
08/99 Update: Court WIN. Judge Dwyer rules sale is illegal.
03/99 Update: We WIN another injunction against Diamondback.
12/98 Update: Court WIN. Judge Rothstein rules sale illegal. BLM takes sale back and tries again, but changes nothing.
02/98 Update: Injunction ("Stay") Won on Diamond Back.
Read about the only permanent solution).

Roseburg BLM is proposing to strip 105 acres of more than 900 logging trucks of the public's old-growth ancient forests (4.5 mmbf) in the Diamondback timber sale.

Remember the Yellow Creek timber sale? It was an ancient forest reserve (LSR) that was clearcut last year under the Salvage Logging Rider. Immediately south of this LSR, within one mile of the Yellow Creek sale, is Diamondback. BLM was able to log the Reserve last year under the rider, and now they are going to take the rest of the ancient forests in Yellow Creek in the matrix.

Diamondback timber sale contains many groves of very old, fire scarred, but healthy Douglas Fir and Incense Cedar trees. Some trees measure over 8 feet across. Many trees are over 5 feet in diameter. This proposed timber sale is 11 road miles west of Sutherlin, Oregon, in the landslide-prone Coastal Mountain Range. In fact, the Yellow Creek timber sale had massive landslides within the clearcut - just months after it was logged. (See pictures of Yellow Creek land slide, or Yellow Creek sale after cutting.)

Diamondback timber sale is within the habitat of the northern spotted owl, marbled murrelets, bald eagle, coho salmon and the Umpqua cutthroat trout, all endangered or threatened species. BLM has received an "incidental take permit" for permission to destroy all these species' habitat, except for the fish. Permission to destroy coho habitat is not needed because of Oregon's Coho Restoration Initiative, which only requires voluntary protection measures. (BLM is volunteering to log). The Umpqua cutthroat trout requires consultation from the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), which is expected soon. NMFS routinely gives "incidental take permits" for logging in the Umpqua basin.

However, NMFS has hesitated to give permission for logging that involves new road building. Because of this, Roseburg BLM now proposes only "temporary" roads on most of their timber sales. But if an old road can be found and "improved", that's even better. The road can be graded, rocked, made permanent, and not be considered a new road.

This is what is happening on the Diamondback timber sale. Several temporary roads will be built, and one old skid trail "improved." The skid trail is about 1400 feet running sidehill through an old clearcut, and ending in one of the beautiful groves of ancient forests that is proposed to be sold. The trail was never previously graded - no logging trucks have ever used this "road." There is no road embankment on the uphill side, no drop-off on the down hillside. The skid trail slants with the slope of the mountain and has not interrupted the flow of water. There are no ditches and no culverts. There are many 13"+ diameter trees growing within the proposed right-of-way. This trail is not even included in BLM's road inventory.

Yet BLM is calling this a "road" that needs improving, and claims the timber sale will do fish a favor by upgrading the trail for log truck use. They will flatten it, widen it, remove countless trees, grade it, rock it, and do everything necessary to build a new road. It will be added to the 5 miles of logging roads that currently exist for every one square mile in the watershed.

Besides building new permanent roads and calling it "road improvement," BLM is going to decommission a road in order to gain the favor of NMFS and help fish. Decommissioning roads is a good thing, but unfortunately, the road BLM proposes to decommission is also a non-road, not showing on road inventories or maps. This very short segment, maybe 200 feet, is an old spur that is now covered in Alder trees, some over 10" in diameter. BLM will also have to crash through a large Neotoma cinerea (bushy-tailed woodrat) nest, built against the alder trees, right in the middle of the decommissioning. The real question here is priorities - why were these 200 feet chosen over all the miles of really bad roads in the watershed?

One of the units can not be accessed even with so called 'temporary roads' or 'improving' skid trails. They will have to helicopter log it. The new helicopter landing they have to build appears to be in the exact same location as the non-road to be decommissioned! (The landing and the decommissioning are on two different maps, and never appear together on one map). The BLM did not mention this coincidence in their Environmental Analysis.

This is our new ecosystem management for public forests: clearcutting ancient forests adjoining ancient forest reserves that were clearcut last year, and deceitfully building and decommissioning roads. This is the logging of some of the last of our biggest and oldest trees. We call it clearcutting, but BLM calls it regeneration harvests (or even-age management, or modified shelterwood) because they will leave as little as 6 trees per acre standing.

There are at least five red tree vole nest trees within the timber sale. BLM will preserve each nest tree with one of retention trees required, but will log the rest of their forest home. Even snags (standing dead trees) will be logged, killing 60% of the cavity nesters using this habitat. Most of the trees logged will be drug over the ground by cable logging, and afterward the ravaged units will be burned. This is a violent attack on our watersheds.

This sale has been sold, but if you can tell BLM anything you like about the sale. Roseburg District BLM: (click here now to send them an Email)

Email: OR100MB@or.blm.gov
FAX: 541-440-4948
Address: 777 Garden Valley Blvd., Roseburg, OR 97470

April 2000

Hiking the Old Growth of the Diamondback Timber Sale


The following was written by former Forest Service biologist, Christine Masters, who now volunteers at Umpqua Watersheds' office and is a regular nature columnist for UW's quarterly, "100 Valleys."

It was the second Saturday in April when Patrick Starnes of Umpqua Watersheds led 22 people, including 11 children, on a hike to the Diamondback Timber Sale, land managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). We visited two of the five units of the sale, which is located about 11 miles northwest of Sutherlin. The first unit was small, approximately 27 acres, but included several incense cedar trees and mammoth Douglas-fir trees over 400 years old.

As the group hiked down a steep slope, several hikers noticed the very fertile soil. Someone commented, "I would like to take some of this home and put it in my garden!" The soil was very dark and airy, common in old growth forests, from the busy microbes creating important organic material.

Some of the Douglas-fir trees bore the signs of historic forest fires. The bark had a mosaic effect of black and brown up and down the bottom portion of the trunk. It was a very unique characteristic, one that I have never seen before. I am more familiar with the fire scar located at the bottom of the trunk, in which the new growth surrounds the scar, attempting to cover it up. The very thick bark protects Douglas-fir trees enabling them to survive most forest fires. Apparently, forests in the coastal mountain range receive stand-replacing fires every 300 years, so these 400 year old trees have managed to beat the odds.

Red tree voles make this forest their home. These small mammals are a Survey and Manage species that the BLM is required to do surveys for prior to all projects. The voles live their entire lives in the tops of trees, rarely coming down to the forest floor. The BLM has decided to reserve only ONE large Douglas-fir tree where the volesâ nest was found. A large group of trees surrounding the nest tree should be reserved for this family of voles to survive here.

The streams in this unit have a buffer, called a riparian reserve. The Environmental Assessment says that this riparian reserve is 180 feet, but the Watershed Analysis recommends a distance of 200 feet. As we walked along the boundary of this riparian reserve, we noticed that several nice-sized trees will be cut if the 180 foot buffer, rather than the 200 foot buffer, is used.

In this same unit, we saw an incense cedar tree with more than 20 holes drilled by pileated woodpeckers, in search of insects for food. If the large trees of this unit are cut, the woodpeckers will certainly have to find a new forest with large trees to make their home.

At several points, we came to the edge of the unit and noticed young plantations from previous clear-cutting. The old growth stands in this sale are small islands of refuge for plants and wildlife. If these stands are harvested, most of the plants and wildlife will have a hard time surviving in the surrounding landscape of young tree plantations.

Some beautiful plants we saw included several trilliums in full bloom, sword fern, Oregon grape, yellow violets and snow queen. As is typical in old growth forests, lots of moss was growing on the forest floor, as well as on the trees both live and dead. I felt like I was in a room with wall-to-wall carpeting. Several species of colorful fungi were found on some down logs. Alectoria lichen has attached itself and hangs from the trunks of standing trees like hair on a manâs leg.

The second unit began at the end of a logging road, which served as a log landing in the past. We walked through the unit on another old logging road, which the BLM says is bad for the environment and they are proposing to "improve" it. This old logging road is more like a trail. There are lots of plants and a few trees growing on this road, making it impossible for a car or truck to drive on it. The road did not have any erosion problems, since it is on flat ground. There are no culverts or ditches, which usually define a road. Any sort of "improvement" of this road will certainly cause more problems, while leaving the road alone will not be a problem, since the road is naturally returning to its previous condition.

Patrick found a nice flat area at the edge of this unit for the group to eat lunch. He told us about a rare moss that was found in this unit. The BLM has put a small reserve area around these locations, but if the current Amendment to the Northwest Forest Plan is approved, then the BLM will be able to log right through the places where this rare moss has been discovered.

This sale has been proposed five times and each time the courts have found this sale to be illegal. However, the BLM is very persistent. After each ruling, they produce more paperwork, proposing the same project.