Letter: Fire or flood

Published 12:15 am Tuesday, November 26, 2024

Oregon continues to struggle with a timber industry that seemingly cannot change with the times. The proposal to increase logging on federal lands, reported on the Nov. 21 front page of The Astorian, “Logging proposed to cure wildfires,” merely substitutes the climate risk of fire by a certainty of flooding.

The forest is a giant sponge, and denuding of the slopes, as currently practiced, will bring a torrent of muddy runoff all the way to Astoria with every bomb cyclone event, and do nothing to solve the drought conditions in the south.

The proposal might be acceptable if conditions were added: (a) Ninth-year seedlings of native ponderosa pine and associated biome species are to be replanted in areas that have Norway spruce or Douglas fir; and (b), provided no clearing is done of the biomass that is not harvested for lumber; and finally (c), a provision that only employee-owned logging companies can do the logging — as would be more effective and direct in boosting rural economies.

According to government statistics, Oregon currently produces about 1.3 billion board feet of lumber from ponderosa pine. Oregon total production is 6 billion board feet.

KAL K. LAMBERT

Hammond