Partly cloudy this evening followed by increasing clouds with showers developing after midnight. Low 57F. WNW winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph. Chance of rain 40%..
Tonight
Partly cloudy this evening followed by increasing clouds with showers developing after midnight. Low 57F. WNW winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph. Chance of rain 40%.
TROUT LAKE — A group of Trout Lake residents are protesting a clear-cut and thinning project on private land scheduled to begin as soon as the ground becomes dry enough for logging.
With approval from the Washington Department of Natural Resources, the parcel’s owner, Twin Creeks Timber, is within its rights to log the 106 acres and thin the remaining 40, but neighbors have spent the past year attempting to sway logging company Green Diamond to change its plan or sell them the property.
“It seems really strange they’re doing this within our town,” said Trout Lake resident Christine Koester. “Everyone is going to see this, and to me, it’s going to be a big, ugly billboard.”
For years, Koester and her husband have been biking along a quiet, paved road that wraps the eastern base of Little Mountain. The nearly 3,000-foot peak is within the city limits of Trout Lake next to a new housing development, half a mile from the White Salmon River and a mile from Trout Lake School, where cross-country teams have trained on its trails. On Koester’s bike rides, she’s noticed wild turkeys inhabiting the area, deer and herds of elk.
When Koester heard the parcel’s owner, Twin Creeks Timber, had hired logging company Green Diamond to submit a proposal that would clear-cut 106 acres directly against that road, she joined the Friends of Little Mountain in protest.
“I personally do not approve of clear-cutting as someone who backpacks and enjoys nature, but our community understands that logging is a necessity,” Koester said.
Timber remains a key industry in the region. Eight hundred forty-two forestry jobs in Klickitat County bring home roughly $51 million in wages annually, according to WorkingForests.org. Little Mountain is part of the former SDS Lumber Company lands sold Nov. 7, 2021, to a group of buyers that included Twin Creeks Timber.
Founded in 2015, Twin Creeks is a joint venture between Silver Creek Capital Management and Plum Creek Timber, both based in Seattle. Lead investors include the Washington State Investment Board, Oregon Public Employees Retirement fund and Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation.
Public affairs specialist for Green Diamond, Jason Callihan, said the logging company has made efforts to appease the public, including delaying the harvest by a year. Ultimately, it sees greater benefit from a business standpoint in clear-cutting the parcel.
“Last March, the commitment we made was to wait till April 1 of 2024. April 1 came, and it’s gone,” Callihan said. “As a company, to be efficient and effective, you have to have this all planned out pretty far in advance. It’s not as easy as pressing pause and waiting a year: Everything gets cascaded backwards. Delays become very expensive and complicated.”
A graphic shows the Little Mountain clear-cut and thinning project area.Contributed graphic
Community proposed alternate management strategy
For the past 18 months Friends of the Little Mountain, with support from the Trout Lake Community Council, has brought alternate proposals to Green Diamond and Twin Creeks. The groups recommended selective thinning instead of clear-cutting, or selling the parcel to a company that would opt to thin it.
In a meeting with the community in March 2023, representatives from Green Diamond said they plan to preserve five trees for every acre harvested, along with three additional trees in compliance with the state’s Spotted Owl Safe Harbor Agreement. Green Diamond Forester Rachel Paxson told residents the company discovered root rot in certain areas of the parcel, necessitating clear-cutting.
For the Friends of Little Mountain’s founder, retired school counselor Kathy Keller Jones, saving a few trees isn’t enough.
“When you look at the logging they’ve done, a lot of [preserved trees] fall over, because the ground has been so disrupted,” she said.
Jones contends that while Little Mountain has been clear-cut in the past by its former owner, SDS, the growth of the Trout Lake community has changed the parcel’s relationship with its surroundings. “All those years ago it was out in the country, but now it’s a sweet little neighborhood.”
Koester thinks even a buffer of trees along the road would improve the community’s overall disposition to the clear-cut, but Callihan argues Green Diamond can’t leave buffers behind for logistical reasons.
“If you leave buffer trees, they end up in the road,” he said. “The wind blows them right over, [because] they don’t have the support that they do now.”
Columbia Gorge News asked Callihan why Green Diamond is choosing to clear-cut instead of thinning the forest. Callihan says it’s both a business and forestry management decision.
“At the end of the day, we’re hiring professional foresters and resource managers to do the job that needs to be done in a way that’s the most efficient and satisfies our fiduciary duty to the people who hired us to manage the property,” he said.
“They own 60,000 acres,” Jones said. “The fact is, they could afford to lose a few cents on Little Mountain, and thin instead of clear-cut, because they have 60,000 other acres in the region.”
An attempt to purchase Little Mountain
Last fall, Friends of Little Mountain collaborated with a sustainable forestry nonprofit with the intent of purchasing Little Mountain outright. According to Jones, a third-party liaison met with representatives of Twin Creeks to negotiate the purchase but found himself stymied.
“They wouldn’t talk to him directly,” Jones said. “Eventually, by the middle of January, it was clear that they will not, they would not sell to him.”
Jones requested the name of the sustainable forestry liaison be kept anonymous.
A letter written March 15 by the Trout Lake Community Council says the nonprofit “was moving forward with arranging for appraisals of the property when they were informed Green Diamond was no longer interested in any further discussion on the parcel.”
The Friends say Green Diamond has ceased all direct communication with their organization.
On April 2, Green Diamond sent a letter to the Trout Lake Community Council saying the conversations to sell Little Mountain “failed to create a path with predictable timelines and appropriate valuation. Therefore, we are proceeding with the approved harvest activity.”
According to Callihan, the negotiations ended when Green Diamond felt the community’s plan to raise the money fell short of its timeline to extract the parcel’s value.
“We work a lot with land trusts,” Callihan said. “We kind of know what their funding formulas look like, we know what their timelines look like, and it just wasn’t gonna fit this project.”
Jones says her last hope for purchasing the land would be a conservation buyer.
“It would have to be someone who could waltz in with $2 million, or something,” she said. “There is one lot on the property for a house.”
When asked about the timeline for the clear-cut, Callihan said it depends on the weather conditions and availability of local logging crews.
“This land has been replanted as a working forest, and everyone knows that’s a working forest,” Callihan said. “It’s part of our portfolio. That’s what we do. We manage forest land, we harvest forest land, we replant forest land.”
Friends of Little Mountain says its members will continue to work to stop the clear-cut every day until the saws fire up.
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Aileen Hymas is a reporter and digital producer based in Southern Oregon. Contact through Instagram @allie.hymas or aileenhymas@gmail.com.
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