Forester criticizes Olympic National Forest practices
By Paige Dickerson, Peninsula Daily News
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"The impacts of their restrictions are clear and undeniable, severe and unjustified," Wiggins former mayor of Port Angeles and veteran consulting forester told the Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce audience of about 75 meeting at the Port Angeles CrabHouse Restaurant.
Talking primarily of portions of Olympic National Forest which lie between Port Angeles and Forks, he used photos and observations to discuss his critiques of the current management plan in a speech titled, "The Wrong Road."
"You won't turn around until you realize you are on the wrong road," he said.
"I did have a different title I was going to call it 'An Inconvenient Truth' but then they told me that title was already taken.
"But this is the truth, and it is rather inconvenient."
Management differences
Wiggins said he believes that the current management practices in the national forest equate to no management at all.
Wiggins also discussed practices such as thinning out forests, clearcutting and road management.
He showed a photo of a road under which much of the land had eroded and the culvert had broken in two.
"I wouldn't think you would want to travel over this one," he said.
And responding to another photo:
"Then there are examples like this other culvert, which had no obvious problems and they still replaced it.
"It just seems like there is no planning on the management."
He also pointed out areas of state Department of Natural Resource lands which are thinned, versus areas of Olympic National Forest, not thinned.
"You can see on the forest side that there is no light able to get to the forest floor so nothing grows there that is not good for the critters that live in the forest," he said.
"But on the Department of Natural Resource side, you can see that it is flourishing."
Reasons for thinning
Thinning out and retrieving trees after a storm blowdown as well as practical road management would be helpful in the case of a fire, he said.
"Leaving the logs there is a huge fire hazard," Wiggins added.
"And if a fire did start, there would be no way to reach it to keep it from spreading everywhere."
He suggested that Olympic National Forest begin to take a deeper look at a new methodology.
"A new program might not resemble the programs of the past at all," he said.
He said the major benefit for allowing more logging besides preventing the fire hazard would be to breathe life into the local economies.
"We are still a timber-dependent economy," he said.
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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.
Last modified: June 16. 2008 9:00PM