Tree Doctor Selective Logging Keeps The Forest Healthy - And Makes A Profit - In City’S Natural Areas

Logger Chuck Taggart looks at a stand of conifers and sees more than board feet.

He sees problems with overcrowded trees, storm damage and disease.

He says the damaged trees need to be removed to enhance the vigor of the healthy ones.

The fact that the logs have monetary value doesn’t hurt. Taggart believes he can remove the unhealthy trees and make a living. He splits the profits with the landowners. In this case, it’s the city of Spokane Parks Department.

Last month, he put his ideas to work on a five-acre parcel of city-owned conservation land at Indian Canyon west of downtown.

He logged about three dozen trees and removed piles of timber that had been felled or had fallen since the ice storm in 1996.

The trees that were cut had been marked earlier by a consultant hired by the city.

“In five or six years you won’t even know I was here,” said Taggart, of St. Maries, Idaho.

Not everyone appreciates logging on city-owned land. The Parks Department routinely gets complaints when it tries to thin or remove trees.

Taggart said several neighbors complained about the logging when he was on the job in Indian Canyon, but a neighborhood group has supported the project.

The Indian Canyon logs were valued at about $2,000, and Taggart’s contract allowed him to take half of the profit. Smaller pieces of wood will be chipped for hog fuel, which will bring additional revenue later, he said.

City parks officials are using the five-acre tract as a demonstration project to show how selective logging can work.

If the project is deemed successful, the city may expand the tree removal to much of the 600 acres of conservation land in Indian Canyon and Palisades parks along the west rim of the Spokane River gorge.

Jim Flott, the city’s arborist and horticulture supervisor at Manito Park, said the selective logging is needed to keep the forests healthy.

Too many pine trees are growing too close together on land that has limited amounts of nutrients and moisture.

“A piece of land can’t support every tree that pops up on it,” Flott said.

When ice coated the trees during a memorable storm in November 1996, many of the trees, especially the weak ones, were killed or severely damaged.

Bark beetles, which prey on weakened trees, subsequently invaded the forest and are still attacking many of the ponderosa pines and some of the Douglas firs.

Selective logging would take out a large share of the beetle infestation.

There’s one hitch. Much of the timber has been dead long enough that its value for saw logs will soon be lost. Once the bark falls off the tree, sawmills won’t pay as much for the logs even if they take them.

The beetle damage has reached epidemic stages and is not confined to city land. Beetles have attacked trees on private forest land in west Spokane.

The problem is apparent by the number of dead trees, particularly in the vicinity of the cemeteries along Government Way.

“It’s at an epidemic stage,” Flott said.

If the Park Board agrees, Flott plans to seek bids in coming months from small logging operators, including Taggart, for a wider logging operation this winter.

Wintertime logging is advantageous because it minimizes the disruption of the forest floor.

“The objective is to create a healthy forest,” Flott said.

“All of our conservation lands need that kind of treatment to them.”

Removing the dead and dying trees would generate thousands of dollars in revenue.

“This is one great opportunity to do that (raise money) and also solve a problem with the site,” Flott said.

Park Board member Carol Barber said she supports the logging.

She said parks officials have been approached by neighboring property owners who are concerned about the spreading infestation of beetles.

Vic and Robbi Castleberry, who live near Indian Canyon, hired Taggart last year to remove dying trees from their property. The Castleberrys have a reputation as conservationists in Spokane and have set aside part of their land in a conservation easement.

Robbi Castleberry said she strongly supports selective logging on the city’s forest land.

Nearby residents also said the operation would reduce available fuel in case of wildfire.

Park Board member Barber said the neighborhood support is another reason to go ahead with selective logging.

“The people who live there are very, very concerned,” she said. “We do have to maintain those areas.”

Barber also said she has a great deal of confidence in Flott’s recommendation to clear the dead and dying timber from the city’s forest lands.

Terry Nevins of the West Spokane Neighborhood Council said she is concerned that the city not cut down good trees or damage the forest.

She said the neighborhood council will probably discuss the logging at one of its upcoming meetings.

The council’s next meeting is Saturday at 10 a.m. at Finch Arboretum.

“I have mixed feelings about those kinds of things,” she said of selective logging.

In Taggart’s demonstration project, he said he was careful to leave seedlings and underbrush so that the forest would retain its native character.

He uses a 9-ton loader that’s lighter than other logging equipment, so it damages soil less.

Even so, his equipment left gouges that Taggart covered with chunks of turf and logging slash. He said he was going to sow native grass seed to help heal the scars and prevent weeds from invading the area.

He said wintertime logging would eliminate the disruption of the soil.

While he was working, Taggart said some residents told him a controlled fire would be a better way to improve the forest’s health.

Fire, Taggart said, would be too dangerous because of the nearby homes, and besides, the logs would be lost as an economic resource.

“We’re not out in the Mallard-Larkins wilderness,” he said.

“The parks here could actually make some money.”