On August 11th the Forest Service issued its decision for the Mountain Thin and Fuels Management project, approving treatments on 3,200 acres within a 13,000 acre project area. Treatments involve plantation thinning, fuels management, as well as thinning overly dense mixed conifer stands in mid-successional forests, producing biomass and 5 million board feet of commercial timber in the process.

Objectives of the thinning activities are to protect the Mount Shasta community and national forest lands from catastrophic wildfires; enhance forest health by improving tree growth and resistance to insects, disease and fire; accelerating development of late-successional wildlife habitat, restoring views from the Everitt Vista; and improve long-term access for fire protection and forest management.

Controversial aspects

In spite of the beneficial effects of fuels reduction to reduce the spread of wildfire into the city limits, the project is controversial because it proposes to thin some 800 acres outside the overstocked plantations and fuels management zone on the lower slopes of Mount Shasta, which everyone agrees pose a fire hazard. The disputed units lie at higher elevations up to 6,400 feet, and some are within the Wagon Late Successional Reserve (LSR). There are also units in the forests near McGinnis Springs, which is a proposed Special Interest Area and is one of the most biologically diverse parts of the Mountain.

Our most recent field visit in mid-August with District Ranger Mike Hupp and other agency personnel included some of the most contested units. The trip revealed that overstocked stands are indeed present in the higher elevation units and expose the forest to a risk of stand-destroying crown fires. Even in the units within the LSR, where we would expect to see large old growth trees, we found mainly even-aged stands appearing to be around 80 years old. They were so overcrowded that they contained many dead or dying trees, replete with fuel ladders and high levels of woody debris on the forest floor. The LSR is largely in a mid-successional seral stage and is being managed so that there will be old growth in the future, as the Mountain is deficient in late-seral stages in areas that were heavily logged in the first half of the 20th century. There is no question that the units we saw are a tinder box waiting to happen.

The problem is that fires, which used to be the natural way the forests thinned and cleaned themselves of dead materials, have been suppressed since the large fires of the first half of the 20th century following the heavy logging when most of the old growth forests were cut. The result has been dense even-aged stands with high risk of catastrophic fires that could be ignited by acts of carelessness or lightning. Dense stands are also dangerously prone to beetle infestation and disease, as overcrowding lowers the force with which trees produce sufficient sap to repel the insects.

Another problem has been the late release of the Environmental Assessment, so that it was impossible to tell whether the Forest Service had done the requisite environmental review until the decision came out. As a result, the public was not fully informed about the project when comments were made. Under the new Forest Service regulations ("streamlined" last summer by the Bush administration) the Environmental Assessment is only issued at the time of the decision. While the Forest Service asked for public participation at various stages of proposal development, the only available information was a four-page summary of the project.

Prescriptions don't go far enough

A point of contention about the project is the way the thinning prescriptions are written, or rather, are merely alluded under the general term "thin." These are not stands whose main purpose is timber production; they are contributing features to the Mountain's spiritual, cultural and scenic significance, and are well within the area once designated as a Traditional Cultural District because of its importance to the Native Tribes of the region and beyond.

Given the Mountain's cultural and scenic significance and its importance as wildlife habitat, prescriptions should be more specific. Even though the environmental assessment contains language saying those values will be protected, we do not see this reflected in the actual prescriptions.
At a minimum, the Forest Service should modify the thinning prescription to reflect "wildlife emphasis" and "scenic/cultural emphasis" as these words are defined in the Forest Plan. In particular, Units such as 103, 283 and 290 should not be logged except under the strictest wildlife and scenic/cultural definitions.

This would assure that the following values are retained:

• Nesting, foraging and dispersal habitat for the northern spotted owl and northern goshawk.
• Denning and dispersal habitat for furbearers.
• A minimum of 60% crown canopy throughout the units.
• Uneven tree spacing and clumpiness to avoid a mechanical appearance
• Good snag habitat, and retain large logs and down woody debris for furbearers.
• Upper diameter limit to protect any late successional and/or old-growth trees, including individual trees and groves.

Management Plan needed for the whole Mountain

What is needed in the long-term is a management plan for the Mountain's whole ecosystem. This would have been a result of the designation as Traditional Cultural District that covered Shasta down to the 4,000 foot elevation, accomplished in 1994 in the context of our challenge of the proposed ski/condo resort. However, later that year, special interest pressure reduced the District to the 8,000 foot elevation (with Panther Meadows also included). A cultural management plan would have been needed for the District.

The project area also does not have a Watershed Analysis. While the decision avoids riparian areas, a Watershed Analysis would analyze all components of the ecosystem, so that we would be assured that the interactions between the forest and the riparian areas are taken into account.

Conclusion

We are currently evaluating whether to appeal the decision in order to request specific management emphasis for wildlife, scenic and cultural values. We need to research whether they can be framed in terms of Forest Plan standards that will hold up in an appeal. The project is slated to start in the Spring of 2005, and an appeal could bring about some modifications before the start date. We invite our readers to give us their input on whether to appeal and what issues are important to them. Appeals are due by September 25, 2004.

Many thanks to Kathy Zavada of the Citizens' Alternative and Kyle Haines of the Klamath Forest Alliance for their input to this article.