FEBRUARY 2008: AROUND THE STATE
Storm nails private
timber land
ASTORIA
The hurricane-force winds that hit coastal Oregon and
Washington in December have long since dissipated, but damage
estimates to private and state-owned forests are just now being
calculated.
In Clatsop, Tillamook and Columbia counties, 360 million board
feet of lumber covering 15,300 acres were knocked down; of
that, 100 million board feet in Clatsop County alone is
unsalvageable.
Private forestland, including those owned by Weyerhaeuser
— the largest private landowner in Clatsop County —
took the brunt of the storm: 10,700 estimated acres of blowdown
versus 5,200 acres on state and federal lands. Company
spokesperson Frank Mendizaba declined to provide numbers. But
he did describe the damage, which was also due to heavy
flooding, as “significant.”
By mid-January, salvage operations on Weyerhaeuser forestland
had begun on a limited basis. In southern Washington, the
company was removing fallen trees from agriculture fields and
supplying farmers with chipping machines to help with further
debris cleanup.
Plan to salvage timber on state lands have yet to be
announced. Because of the regional economic benefits and the
revenue derived from state timber sales, local governments in
Clatsop and Tillamook counties are particularly concerned about
whether salvage work will increase or decrease the number of
sales in 2008.
A December 2006 storm knocked down about 20 million board feet
of timber — $17 million worth of which was salvageable
— in the Clatsop County Forest. However, since then the
price for softwood framing lumber has fallen more than 7%, a
drop that pulls log prices down as well.
ABRAHAM HYATT
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