Operation to fell about 900 Douglas firs may begin this week

The days of informational meetings, public walk-throughs and gathering input are over.

Possibly as early as this week, logging trucks will move into Kopachuck State Park to begin the process of removing about 900 Douglas fir trees from a 25-acre portion of the park.

State parks officials explained the process during a public meeting last Thursday at Kopachuck Middle School.

Steve Brand, southwest region director for the state Parks and Recreation Commission, reiterated what parks officials have been telling people since last spring: A majority of the Douglas fir trees were discovered to be infected with a pathogen known as laminated root rot.

The disease attacks conifers at their base and creates a risk of trees falling without warning. In response, the campground portion of the park was closed to the public.

“We have made the decision to remove the diseased trees and make the park safe,” Brand said.

Robert Fimbel, chief of resources stewardship for the park, said one of the biggest problems with laminated root rot is that, while a tree could be infected, it could appear to be healthy.

“We could have dead standing, declining trees that fail at the base,” he said. “They fall over because they have no roots left, even if the top of the tree looks green. We cannot ID which ones will fall over, so we can’t have people camping and staff living underneath them.

“Nothing we have in our toolbox will stop the pathogen if it’s already entrenched.”

The first area to be treated will be the area where the park rangers live, and that will be implemented in the first phase immediately. The second phase, the campground and day-use portion of the park, is expected to be completed by Memorial Day.

Fimbel said the Department of Natural Resources will serve as the agent on the timber sale and will help with the implementation of the treatment. The timber will be sold to Sustainable Forestry Services, Inc.

Once the lumber is cleared, the area will be replanted with hardwoods and big leaf maples, hemlocks and cedar trees that resist the root rot, Fimbel said.

They will work with schools to help care for the seedlings.

Mark Thibo, assistant region manager for the DNR’s South Puget Sound area, said once the trees are felled, they will be cut into lengths according to what the purchaser prefers.

An audience member expressed concern over loggers taking out trees that are not infected.

Fimbel said there is almost a 100 percent certainty that any tree within a 50- foot radius of a diseased tree would be infected in one form or another, because root systems are connected underground. Therefore, any tree within 50 feet of a diseased tree would be cut down.

An audience member said park rangers informed him the trees that were marked in the park were trees to be saved, not trees to be cut down, and that’s typical with clear-cut logging operations.

Other residents feared healthy trees would be destroyed by the operation itself. Residents also were concerned that loggers in the forest would not pay heed to the safety of healthy trees.

Fimbel said some damage is expected, but the company hired to perform the work has professionals who have 30 years of tree-felling experience. He said the contract for the project carries a $1,500-per-tree penalty for trees cut down that were not supposed to be. He also assured residents that parks officials and the DNR would supervise the logging operations.

Parks Commissioner Pat Lantz said the logging contract maintained that revenue generated from the sale of the timber would be put back into the parks system.

“A portion of the revenue for this goes into efforts to do some enhancements,” Brand said. “We will set aside trees to accomplish projects, like building an interpretive center.”

Lantz said the contract spelled out very clearly that reforesting the area would be costly.

“It was very important to me that, at the very least, we had to make sure the revenue from the trees would stay at Kopachuck,” she said. “We could extend the stewardship money for projects at the beach, or help out some sister park that had equal problems, but not the value of the timber at Kopachuck.”

The logging project will include road construction to enable the trucks to enter the park, Thibo said.

The sale from the lumber is expected to generate $66,000 in revenue for the park.