Defending Eugene's Drinking Water: the McKenzie River Watershed
The Trapper Sale is Back! As of May 2015 the Willamette Nat'l Forest has offered Seneca Lumber the biggest and best as well as most fragile areas of Trapper to be logged.
In 2013 a huge landslide occurred literally in between and a just a few hundred feet away from the two remaining Trapper timber sale units. The image below only shows a small portion of the landslide. If you look at the top of the image one can see it is a tree plantation with a road above it.
The remaining units all show evidence of numerous landslides such as the one pictured below that have occurred over thousands of years without the aid of clear cuts and roads. What will be the result to the rest of the top of the mountain when most of it is literally stripped of its largest trees?
For more details on Trapper including a Map and Record of Decision Finding No Significant Impact by the Willamette Nat'l Forest see attached documents below.
Goose Timber Sales in the McKenzie River Drainage Stirs up Huge Local Opposition
Breaking News! As of May 23rd, 2011 Federal Judge Coffin has ruled that the Trapper timber sale in the headwaters of Blue River, which Eco Advocates NW and NEST has been working to protect for over 7 years, is illegal and a new Environmental Assessment (EA) must be put forth by the Willamette National Forest before it can be reoffered for sale.
Since 2000, Eco Advocates NW has been instrumental in the campaign to protect the forests in Eugene's unparalleled drinking water source, the McKenzie River watershed.
Starting with the first ever 9 day Survey Action Camp in the Spring of 2000, which later evolved into the Northwest Ecosystem Survey Team (NEST) -which to this day is surveying and saving ancient forest in Oregon - the co-directors of Eco Advocates NW have been working to protect the McKenzie River Watershed.
In addition, the directors of Eco Advocates NW have collected thousands of citizen signatures in favor of protecting the McKenzie, helped win the endorsement of a dozen businesses that depend upon a healthy McKenzie, organized public events such as Watershed Action Week in October of 2006, led public hikes, given school presentations, taken part in groundtruthing and assistance with Northwest Ecosystem Survey Team (NEST), along with working to raise and maintain awareness of the need to protect the McKenzie.
Trapper timber sale News from 2008.
The "Trapper" sale created by the Willamette National Forest remains threatened despite NEST surveys discovering dozens of red tree vole nests, supposedly protected under the Northwest Forest Plan's Survey and Manage protocols. However the Forest Service maintains that these voles are unimportant because there are healthy vole populations south of the arbitrary border of Highway 22 (which separates the North Santiam River to the north and the McKenzie drainage to the south).
Several other logging projects encompassing thousands of acres of native forests in Eugene's drinking watershed continue to move forward including, "Two Bee," "Quentin," and the "Bridge Thin Project" in the hammered Quartz Creek Watershed.
"Sten" logging sale, Unit 43. Logged fall 2005.
"Blue River Face" Unit 3. Logged 2004.
In 2006, the Eugene City Council passed a non-binding resolution opposing any and all forms of mature and old growth logging in its municipal watershed, the McKenzie River. However, neither the Willamette National Forest or the Eugene District Bureau of Land Management have taken this resolution seriously and thus are continuing to prepare and propose tens of thousands of acres of logging in Eugene's municipal watershed.