The McKenzie Ranger District of the Willamette National Forest is in the planning stages of creating the Green Mountain Project which includes more than 700 acres of ancient forest timber sale units in the South Fork McKenzie River watershed south of the Cougar Dam adjacent to Forest Road 19 which borders the Three Sisters Wilderness Area.

The South Fork McKenzie River still supports threatened Bull trout as well as other ESA listed threatened species like the American Bald Eagle, the Peregrine Falcon and the Northern Spotted owl.

Pictured below is a small sample of some of the ancient forest (some trees estimated to be well over 500 years old and forest soils that are thousands of years old) proposed to be logged as part of the Green Mountain project.

We contend that the Forest Service is being pushed by Congressman Peter DeFazio and Senator Ron Wyden among other lessor politicans to increase cut levels to inject extraction jobs into an anemic economy before the elections in 2012.

We are hearing from our friends with the Blue Mountains Biodiversity Project that the Forest Service Districts east of the Cascade Crest are also proposing timber sales in ancient forest to increase the cut levels.

In essence these new logging projects in ancient forest across Oregon are acts of desperation by politicans and agencies to create jobs in a failing economic system that is based on destructive extraction and fossil fuel dependence.

It is sad to note that Oregon's mainstream environmental groups seem to be asleep at the helm to head off these ancient forest timber sales. They are seemingly too fat with salaries and benefits from "collarborating" supporting foundations to take notice.

 

What Can You Do about this?

 

Please Contact the Forest Service Personnel below and let them know you are opposed to such plans to log these areas.

 

Meg Mitchell, Forest Supervisor

 

3106 Pierce Parkway Suite D
Springfield OR 97477
541-225-6300
E-mail: Supervisor's Office

 

Terry Baker, District Ranger

57600 McKenzie Hwy
McKenzie Bridge, OR 97413
541-822-3381
FAX 541-822-7254
E-mail: McKenzie River Ranger District

 

Write a letter to the editor showing your dipleasure with the idea that politicans, agencies (and Oregon's environmental groups) would allow a return to the good old days of ancient forest logging with impunity.

 

Here is a sample of some of the ancient trees within another Green Mountain unit.

 

Below is a sample of a recent (2010) Northwest Forest Plan regeneration harvest (a clearcut with a smiley face) near the Green Mountain project and the Chucksney Mountain roadless area.

Many of the Green Mountain Project's logging units could look like this below if allowed to proceed.