Informational meeting was held Monday; council was to vote Tuesday on funding helicopter logging

By Morgan Rothborne, Ashland.news

Wildfire Division Chief Chris Chambers presented a case for a far reaching and expensive helicopter logging project in the Ashland watershed to the Ashland City Council during its study session Monday. 

Chambers sketched a series of grim predictions for the forest and big numbers for the scale of the project. 

“Forests are vanishing all across the west,” he said. 

Throughout drought stricken western states such as California, climate change is transforming forests into grassland. The rapid die-off of Douglas fir trees in the Ashland watershed in recent years has reached a level that requires action to preserve the forests, he said. The helicopter logging project would remove a carefully chosen number of dead or dying trees to give the remaining healthy trees a better chance at survival. 

Leaving high numbers of dead trees in the watershed increases the fuel load and wildfire risk for the city of Ashland. The fuel load around the water treatment plant is currently high. The dead trees also present a risk for popular recreation sites, Chambers said. Dead trees fall unexpectedly. 

The Ashland watershed is also a critical area of habitat for threatened species such as the spotted owl, said Marko Bey, executive director of nonprofit Lomakatsi Restoration Project. The organization has secured $150,000 to assist in clean-up and replanting after the project’s completion, he said.

The project could begin by Tuesday, March 26. The helicopter would arrive by mid-April, potentially earlier depending on cutting progress. Trail closures will be coordinated to try to prioritize the busiest trails in the lower watershed first so they are reopened first. During the project period the trails would be completely closed. 

“We really cannot have people going into the area at all. … You just can’t be in there at all, because trees can fall even in the middle of the night,” Chambers said. 

The City Council was given options of varied scale and accompanying cost for the project. A project area encompassing the city’s entire lower watershed area and Siskiyou Mountain Park would amount to around $700,000 in city funds to “fill a gap,” after accounting for an estimated $686,000 in revenue from selling the thinned trees to Timber Products in Yreka and about $150,000 in grants through Lomakatsi. 

City funds available for the project amount to $406,000, he said. Some trees may be too dead to be salable, potentially lowering the funds from selling the logs. Which logs can be sent to the mill will be determined in the cutting process. The cost for the contract with Timberline Helicopters will be $1.3 million, plus additional costs for hauling the logs to Yreka. 

A second option presented a “minimum investment” in eliminating fire danger for Ashland. By leaving off a section from Reeder reservoir to the water treatment plant, the city would need to fund only $488,000 for the project. This area has the lowest area of tree mortality currently but needs the highest thinning to try to keep the forest healthy. It would be challenging to address the area later if it is eliminated from the project. By itself, the area wouldn’t yield enough trees to “get a helicopter company interested,” he said. 

In a third option, the city could try to thin the trees without the use of helicopters, but the net cost would be over $600,000. 

The city’s finance director will expand on the city’s financial burden and capacity during Tuesday evening’s meeting, he said. 

The logging trucks would be moving down Granite Street, making a right on North Main, and move along Siskiyou Boulevard to Interstate 5. Previous Ashland Forest Resiliency projects have moved logs in the same route effectively, Chambers said. 

In other council business Monday, councilors heard a brief presentation of an update to the city’s fire code and the new community connect software from Fire Marshal Mike Shay. Over 150 Ashland residents have already signed up for the software to help first responders better share information with each other and arrive on scene with information about an individual household’s needs. Shay said he will continue driving public awareness to sign up and put information about any special needs or pets into the system so emergency responders will have it available. 

Email Ashland.news reporter Morgan Rothborne at [email protected].

March 20: Updated to clarify and make uniform option cost comparisons.