For Immediate Release



August 12, 2009



New rules to protect fish and water quality on over 10 million acres of working forestlands
State Forest Practices Board agrees to expand buffer zones around streams in forests


OLYMPIA – In a landmark decision today, the Washington Forest Practices Board adopted new rules to better protect endangered salmon, riparian habitat, and water quality from logging activities adjacent to Washington’s streams and rivers.



The rule essentially requires larger buffer zones and more trees to be left alongside forested streams and rivers in the state during timber harvests and other activities.



“After years of debate, we have finally followed the science, achieved increased protections for the environment, and consideration for the economic impacts to the timber industry,” Commissioner of Public Lands Peter Goldmark said. “Based on a scientific analysis of how best to keep working forestland healthy, it was clear that the rules had to be amended, that we had to adapt our management.”



After a protracted debate between various interests, including the timber industry, environmentalists, tribes and the state, Goldmark helped usher in the rule change today by proposing a streamlined permit renewal process for landowners who voluntarily comply with the new rules. The proposal affects landowners whose forest practices applications were going to expire in the next 60 days but had not yet begun logging. Those landowners will be allowed a streamlined route to application renewal ­– if they can show compliance with the new rules – instead of having to re-survey their entire proposed logging area again.



Logging activities on over 10 million acres of private and state forest lands are regulated by the state’s Forest and Fish Law. The state’s Forest Practices Board, chaired by Commissioner of Public Lands Peter Goldmark, adopts rules to implement the Forest and Fish law and DNR administers the regulations.



The Forest and Fish law and its rules recognize that clean water and healthy fish runs depend on healthy and highly functioning riparian areas – the forested habitat alongside streams and rivers. The rules aim to achieve a “desired future condition” on working forestland for riparian forests at 140 years of age that are functionally the same as native forest stands of the same age. Materials reviewed by the board today in considering the new rule are on the DNR website at: http://www.dnr.wa.gov/BusinessPermits/Topics/ForestPracticesRules/Pages/fp_rules_activity.aspx





Passed in 2001, the Forest and Fish Law also created a strong Adaptive Management Program. The law’s adaptive management program uses science to evaluate areas of uncertainty in the rules and to develop recommendations for adapting the state’s forest practices rules to meet the environmental objectives of the Forest and Fish Law.



The “desired future condition” rules were prioritized for review by the adaptive management program because the board was uncertain whether the metrics in the future condition rule were adequate to protect salmon and clean water. In 2004, the Cooperative Monitoring Evaluation and Research committee, the scientific arm of the Adaptive Management Program, evaluated the “desired future condition” rule and determined that that it was inadequate.



Media Contact: Aaron Toso, Director of Communications and Outreach, 360-902-1023, aaron.toso@dnr.wa.gov

Sound like a good deal. I am not sure what the RMZ buffers were before but I know that many times those exposed trees would be laying in/over the creeks after the next big windstorm. Larger buffers should help with that if nothing else.

Loggers probably won't be estatic to hear it as tough as it has been for them lately.

Most positive news Iv'e heard in awhile. Thanks for posting.

I agree with castingpearls. This all sounds great. Now lets see how and if the new regulations are enforcced. I was told the old buffer was supposed to be 100 feet, but I've also seen recent logged areas where only a few alders were left right along side the bank, only to be knocked down in the first good wind storm. Then you're faced with the dilemma of trying to decid whether or not to report the buggers. If you report then you know the timber company will just close off all of the access roads, but if you don't then what's to keep them from not doing it on the next cut, and the next.

Sounds good but,Who's gonna enforce the new buffer zones????.Always killed me to see such little buffers then the tree's laying across the creek/stream after a wind storm.I'd say there needs to be @ least 200' buffer.Good step in the right direction.Good luck,
STRIKE ZONE

I think that most logging outfits tend to adhere to the buffers, I am not sure that enforcement is as much of an issue as the fact that the old buffers were just not very wide and didn't really do that much good. I am not sure how this gets enforced but I know that the RMZ line was marked before the cutters came in and the general attitude was that there would be huge fines if we disturbed/damaged the RMZ while logging.

I am hopeful that with the larger buffers, we will see a noticeable difference and this could only be a positive for fish & wildlife. I am far from a tree hugger or fish hugger for that matter (although I have become more conservation minded in the last few years) but the narrow strip of exposed trees left along streams in the past were mostly ineffective. They didn't protect the streams and they were left to the elements.

If there was a nice log truck load of cedar in the buffer and it was easy pickins and just a couple large cedars were cut down in the buffer.Who would enforce the greed for the last load hauled out??????.Good luck,
STRIKE ZONE

My guess is it would be nobody!!!!!.Where's TIMBER when ya need'em??.

Here's a rule change that timber companies actively participated in that led to a science-based adjustment requiring more trees to be left. Seems to me the process worked in this case. So lets give everyone some credit here.

One of the reasons buffers are left is to provide wood to streams, many of which were "cleaned out" under old rules requireing landowners to remove all wood from streams after timber harvest. Much of that wood was piled and burned under those rules, which we now know was a huge mistake by the regulators. So having a portion of a buffer blow down is not necesarily a tragedy or failure. Might actually be the best thing for the fish. Buffers are there to provide wood to streams, as well as provide other ecological functions.

I agree with most here, that the loggers do a pretty good job of their own enforcement. Milt roe has pretty much nailed the point, which is that the logging companies have a pretty big role in creating these rules. IMO, I have seen less attention paid to RMZ rules on DNR timber sales, than on private forest sales (Weyco, PortB, Green D, Hancock, Etc).

I have seen a gyppo timber crew's foreman come absolutely unhinged on one of his cutters for taking a tree that was obviously within the RMZ. I seriously thought he was going to punch the poor guy.

Providing a bigger RMZ can only help, but the difference in stormwater quantity delivered to a stream from a completely forested hillside, and one that is denuded with seedlings planted on it is exponentially different. I think that the forest companies and DNR realize that they need to give incremental environmental cookies out (like the one you see here), to keep more stringent environmental agencies (DOE) from trying to enact storm and erosion controls that will significantly drive their infrastructure costs.

To me this is just another political feel good story, Mr. Goldmarks first bean in the jar so to speak. I doubt that in 10 or 20 years this change alone will have any positive impact on wild and native fish populations, or hell even keep our favorite rivers from blowing out that often.

Timber, Fish, & Wildlife; the Fish & Forest Agreement; they're all incremental improvements that are resulting in small and gradual improvements in riparian zones. Will this lead to 1850 levels of fish abundance? Hell no! No way it can do that, and it's not intended to. It's intended to improve stream habitat quality so that our streams are capable of producing anadromous fish, as in SOME, instead of NONE, while maintaining a viable forest products industry. If you think these conditions are bad, you obviously haven't seen the pre-1973 first Forest Practices Act (first in the nation) conditions.

As for enforcement, DNR enforces forest practices in WA state except on federal lands. Except that enforcement isn't something that DNR actually likes to do. They're all foresters, and it's an unwritten code violation to rat out your fraternity brother. Fortunately, like with most things relating to enforcement, most of the logger comply with most of the regulations most of the time. And that's about the same level of compliance you get when enforcement of anything is strictly enforced. Ergo, why I'm not an enforcement junkie.

Sg