Public Pressure Ends Medford BLM's Largest Timber Sale In Decades
Update: November 10, 2017.
Most of Pickett West or 1,600 Acres of Ancient Forest Logging Withdrawn! (Although they can include these ancient forests in future timber sales again and again.)
It appears the Medford BLM has withdrawn the 6,000 acre Pickett West timber sales (less the sold Pickett Hog sale) and about 1600 acres of proposed ancient forest logging because of the public pressure they received by hundreds of southern Oregon citizens and local grassroots groups. However, the Medford BLM is still pursuing more than 10,000 acres of so called "fire fuels reduction treatments" throughout Josephine County on top of creating new logging project inside the same planning area. Longterm Solution: All O&C BLM lands need to be transferred to the National Park system...although the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) might be more realistic.
The Wild Rivers of the Siskiyou Mountains, the Rogue-Hellgate Canyon, Applegate and Illinois River drainages, and the "Endangered" Coho salmon that hang on by a thread from the abyss of extinction are under direct assault by the forces of the Medford Bureau of Land Management (BLM).
Under the guise of "forest health" and "fire fuels" prevention they proposed logging up to 6,000 acres and impacting a total of 17,000 acres of some of the most bio-diverse conifer-mixed hardwood ecosystems west of the Mississippi River yet harshest climates on the west coast. Summer temperatures in the shade reach in the triple digits, sometimes for more than a week at a time. Clear cuts done on Siskiyou National Forest and Medford BLM managed lands decades ago still fail to grow trees no matter how many times the agencies replant them.
The Pickett West Project attained front page news in the Grants Pass Daily Courier on July 14th. However that was only 3 days before the public comment deadline to attain legal standing to further object to the Pickett West Project.
Go to http://thesiskiyoucrest.blogspot.com/ to see and read descriptions of the ancient fragile ecosystems that were slated for logging.
Here is the 450 page Pickett West Environmental Analysis released on May 30th 2017. The public had until July 17th to submit comments as well as new data about ESA listed fish, wildlife and plants.
Based on the size, scope, and impacts to human communities intermixed throughout the Pickett West project area many local grassroots groups and citizens urged the Medford BLM to do an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) that would not only disclose the full impacts of this logging but also analyze a local citizen's alternative.
In the end, it seems that Medford BLM took notice of the huge amount of local opposition to the project and withdrew it.
(The author and director of Eco Advocates NW, Shannon Wilson, takes all responsibility for the posting above.)
Above is the headwaters of the Deer Creek Watershed that flows into the Wild and Scenic Illinois River.
Some luminescent pink wild flowers in a Ponderosa Pine - Oregon White Oak -Pacific Madrone savannah in the Pickett West planning area.