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Director
Business and Community Services
Development Services Building 150 Beavercreek Road Oregon City, OR 97045
August 26, 2013
To: Public
Meeting Participants and Other Interested Parties
Re: Timber Sale Planning for the Hoodland Area -
2013 to 2018
County Parks & Forest
Overview
Clackamas County Parks & Forest owns and manages about 4,000 acres
of forestland. About 1,000 acres are in
County parks, special use areas and scenic or environmental protection
areas. The rest are managed to provide revenue
to support the County Parks program.
The County Parks and Forest operating budget is just over $2,000,000
annually. In addition to the timber revenue,
the parks are funded through direct park fees, state RV registration funds and net
income generated from the County Parks owned golf course and marina. There are 11 developed parks in the County,
including the old Dorman Center and Barlow Wayside in the Hoodland area.
Forest Management Plan
A Forest Management Plan, adopted in 2008, guides our forest management
and timber harvesting program management.
It calls for 1/55th of the forest area to be harvest annually
(about 55 acres), averaged over a ten year period. In the last 10 years, that harvest has
returned to the County slightly over $700,000 a year.
In the last year, the County has done an accelerated harvest of 275
acres. These acres came from our
Wildcat, Elwood and Dhooghe properties.
The revenue from those sales will pay off a bond that was taken out when
the County bought the Stone Creek Golf Course and provide a cushion in the
Parks and Forest Trust Fund. Paying off
that bond early will eliminate a $400,000 annual debt payment 10 years early,
saving $1,000,000 in interest and freeing up the $400,000 annually to
contribute to Parks and Forest operations.
The accelerated harvest will cause our annual harvest number to decline
to about 49 acres per year. In the next
three to four years it is anticipated that the harvests will occur on the Cedar
Ridge property and the Boulder property, both in the Hoodland area. The last harvest in this area was on Boulder
in 2006 (Thinmore – 67 acres) and in 2003 (Boulder -- 25 acres).
Cedar Ridge Timber Sale
The first sale is anticipated to be on Cedar Ridge, perhaps as early as
December, 2013. This property is a
tax-foreclosed property in the Brightwood area that is zoned Hoodland
Residential. The eventual plan for the
property is to sell it to a developer and return it to the tax rolls. County planners suggest that it would likely
be developed as a high-density planned community. It is unclear when this might happen. There does not appear to be much interest in
such a property on the current real estate market. Whenever the property should
be sold, the majority of the trees will likely be cut prior to development.
The idea for harvesting on Cedar Ridge is to harvest 80 to 90% of the
conifer (evergreen) trees and leave the hardwood trees. This is similar to what we think a developer
would do. Logging would be done in the
spring or summer of 2014 using ground-based logging equipment. Access would be developed off of Brightwood
Loop. The slash would be piled and,
hopefully, burned. The area would be
replanted with Douglas-fir and with cedar seedlings in March, 2015 at about 400
trees per acre.
The Cedar Ridge property is
about 75 acres, of which about 50 acres are heavily forested with 70-year-old
Douglas-fir. There are about 2 million
board feet of timber worth about $1,000,000 at today’s prices. The ground is flat. There is a small pond on the property that
may be man-made. It does not appear to
be part of a natural drainage system. We will leave extra trees around the pond.
Logged areas will be screened from Hwy 26 by a stand of alder that will
be left. The logged areas will be partly
screened from Brightwood Loop road by the topography next to the western half of
the road. Three neighbors with houses
immediately adjacent to the County property will be most affected as will some
neighbors across Brightwood Loop at the east end of the County property.
Boulder Timber Sale
The Boulder property is a 340-acre property at the end of Country Club
road south of Highway 26. It is a
complicated property with areas that are very steep and areas that are
moderate. A 245-acre portion of the
property was sold to the BLM in 2011.
BLM has just recently indicated an interest in buying a 100-acre portion
on the east side of the parcel. Such
interest is not unusual and often leads nowhere. We have told BLM that we will continue with
our sale plans but will entertain their offer if it comes.
There are at least three possible harvest areas on Boulder. One, for now called the Southwest unit, is
about 40 acres of 110-year-old timber which we think resulted from the Still
Creek fire about 1900. It is very steep
and would require either helicopter logging or multispan skyline logging.
A second unit (the South unit) is about 44 acres along the south
property boundary. The timber is about
70 years old. The ground is steep but
not as difficult to log as the Southwest unit.
It will require downhill skyline logging and a temporary stream crossing
of an unnamed stream.
The North unit is about 100 acres. The timber is scattered, 60 to 70 years old,
with Douglas-fir, alder and maple. The
property is flat in the north where it lies near the Salmon River then rises steeply
for a short stretch before it reaches a flatter area in the middle of the
property. Even the flatter area has
steep portions included. Some of the
area can be logged with ground-based machinery and some will need to be cable
logged. The logging is not complicated. The 100 acres could be logged all in one year
or could be split into two sales. A
temporary stream crossing will need to be re-established and an access road
will need to be extended.
Boulder could be logged in multiple entries over several years or it
could all be done in one summer. If done
in one entry, logging would be cheaper but the harvest would represent 4 years
of our normal cut. The logging area
would not be very visible from Hwy 26.
The logs would be hauled out Country Club Lane.
There are at least two likely public concerns. The County would need to maintain Country
Club Lane and to manage truck traffic so as to minimize the problem for
neighbors. And the area of the harvest
along the Salmon River would need to be protected.
Those interested in discussing these areas in more detail should
contact Dan Green, County Forester, at 503 742 4425 or at dgreen@co.clackamas.or.us. Office hours are Monday through Thursday, 7
AM to 6 PM.
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