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The Roseburg BLM is proposing to clearcut 585 acres of mature and old-growth forests, leaving as few as 6 trees per acre, in the South Myrtle Creek watershed between Roseburg and Canyonville.
This is a combination of two older sales that we stopped years ago: Class of '98 and the Upper South Myrtle Regeneration Harvest sales. We stopped these sales because they harmed endangered salmon. Unfortunately, all salmon in the Umpqua Basin have recently lost all of their protections under the Endangered Species Act. As a result, these sales are now being reoffered.
The BLM is asking the public for your opinion on what alternatives they should include in their environmental analysis. The BLM is required to consider alternatives to their proposed action. We want the BLM to consider an alternative that thins instead of "regeneration harvests" (a clearcut with six trees per acre left).
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There are at least eight pairs of northern spotted owls that use these forests for foraging. Logging will occur so close to some owl nests that the BLM thinks there could be an "incidental take" of five pairs of owls. "Incidental take" means these owls might indirectly die, not because their food source on 585 acres will be eliminated.
The BLM claims that the spotted owls that live in these old forests should live in the reserves set aside for them (Late Successional Reserves, LSR). But about half of these reserves were clearcut before they were set aside, and will take another hundred years or more before owls can begin to live there.
There is also countless other wildlife that could be harmed, including salmon in Myrtle Creek. Salmon are harmed because the proposed clearcuts are in an area that receives winter snow. When the snow melts, the creek will rise faster due to the forest clearcut openings (peak flow increases), eroding and washing silt into salmon spawning areas.
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The logging of old-growth forests affects more than just the wild life. People's drinking water supplies can also be degraded when their watershed is clearcut. Many rural residents on South Myrtle Creek get their household drinking water from BLM lands, even from the project area. Fire hazards for South Myrtle Creek families increase as nearby tree plantations increase. Just a few miles away, in the Tiller fires of 2002, the Umpqua National Forest found that "Fire burned most plantation areas with high intensity and spread rapidly through the canopy of these young stands." Mature and old-growth forests slow and cool wildland fires.
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Please write to the BLM as soon as possible. Ask them to consider an alternative that only thins trees in the managed plantations (old clearcuts) of South Myrtle Creek, instead of converting more old-growth forests to new tree plantations. There are thousands of acres of plantations in the Myrtle Creek watershed that need to be thinned. These overly dense tree farms are a fire hazard. Thinning them can provide jobs and wood products. Most of our local mills have modernized so that they solely mill smaller logs.
Ask the BLM to consider an alternative that does no more "regeneration harvest" until the reserves set aside for the spotted owls have "recovered" (We really don't know how long, if ever, it takes an old clearcut to recover).
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Email: or100MB@or.blm.gov. Subject: "South Myrtle Creek Regeneration Harvest Plan" Attention William Haigh.
If you give the BLM your name and street address, your comments will be taken more seriously. Thank you for writing today so that your voice can be heard on BLM's management of your forests.
Or write to:
William Haigh
South River Field Manager, Roseburg BLM
777 NW Garden Valley Blvd., Roseburg, OR 97470
FAX: 541 440-4948. Voice: 440-4930