By Pepper Fisher
PORT ANGELES – The Port Angeles City Council officially asked the State Department of Natural Resources to delay Thursday’s auction to log off a 166 acre portion of land in the Elwha River watershed until they had time for further study of the potential impacts to the City’s water supply. The DNR has declined, and the timber sale is expected to go forward.
City Councilmember LaTrisha Suggs says the council unanimously signed a letter to the DNR requesting more time to study just a 98 acre portion of the Aldwell timber sale above the Little River, a tributary of the Elwha River, which supplies the City’s municipal and industrial water.
“You know, you also have the other issues. You have the federal government that has spent over $327 million into restoring the Elwha watershed, and it just doesn’t make sense that this 98 acres, which is on a tributary that just recently has been opened up to salmon coming up to spawn.”
In the DNR’s rejection letter, Duane Emmons reminds the Council that the DNR is required to manage state trust lands to generate revenues, in this particular case, for Clallam County and the junior taxing districts. He says the revenue generated from the sale will directly fund critical public services and infrastructure.
Emmons went on to say the Aldwell timber sale was thoroughly vetted by a team of scientists and was designed to protect critical habitat and minimize risk to human health and safety.
Suggs says they’re still hopeful they can get a reversal of the decision before logging starts at what she and others describe as a local legacy forest. The Council also wants time to petition the state to make Clallam County a participating county in the DNR’s Carbon Offset Project, which has already set aside thousands of acres of forest in western Washington.
“DNR is starting off with a Call Phase 2 of the Carbon Offset Program, and that phase two is identifying additional counties and additional legacy forests. That carbon offset program provides funding to those taxing districts that would have received taxes if the timber had been harvested.”
Whether that can happen remains to be seen. In the meantime, the Center for Responsible Forestry and the Earth Law Center are holding an event this Sunday, Oct. 23, from 11-2pm, to visit an area of the Aldwell forest site in the Elwha River Watershed, at the Madison Falls Trailhead.
For hike details and to register click HERE!
(Photo provided by Earth Law Center)