Local Forest Service Team Earns Award for Careful Logging in Wetlands Areas
By Paul Gingras

Three local foresters pose with the Eastern Region Riparian/Wetlands Award, granted by the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service. The team planned and managed the harvesting of jack pine trees while avoiding excessive damage to the sensitive ecosystems they inhabited. Pictured here (from left) are Joe Carrick, Martha Sjogren, and Dan Range. Not pictured is team member Stephen Wherritt.

When most people think of wetlands, they imagine still pools of water and lush plant life, but a specific type of wetland, called riparian areas, contain slowly flowing water, which create different ecosystems. Harvesting trees growing in patches of high ground in these areas, without damaging ecosystems, is no easy task, and logging planned in riparian areas of the Hiawatha National Forest was challenged by environmental groups in 2000. In response, a team of four foresters from the Eastern Unit of the Hiawatha National Forest put together an elaborate plan to minimize the impact of logging operations near Trout Lake, and they earned national recognition for their efforts.

They created a plan to avoid disturbing the soil, and used innovative techniques to keep from cutting off flowing water. As a result, they have successfully managed five of six timber sales, and the last one is pending. Their efforts have earned them recognition by a member of the Sierra Club, and this fall the team was awarded the Eastern Riparian/Wetlands Award by the U.S. Forest Service.

Foresters Martha Sjogren, Dan Range, Allen Carrick, and Stephen Wherrit comprised the team that created the harvesting plan, monitored the logging, and followed-up to determine how much impact harvesting had on the sensitive riparian environment.

Logging took place in a 32,000 acre area, a landscape of forested sand ridges interspersed with wetlands, where water flows so slowly that its movement is nearly imperceptible, said Ms. Sjogren, a timber sale manager. In the midst of the wetlands, 2,000 acres of jack pine had been devastated by the jack pine budworm, creating a need to harvest the trees, said Steve Christiansen, the ranger for the Hiawatha National Forest St. Ignace district.

In 2000, the Forest Service set up a plan to harvest the damaged trees. They made an Environmental Assessment (EA) of the area prior to the sale, but a coalition of environmental groups called it “one of the 10 worst timber sale EAs in the country,” Mr. Christiansen reported in a memo to his staff.

The Forest Service went back to the drawing board and created a detailed Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), which required careful analysis of how the timber sale could affect the area, and a plan for utilizing the most innovative techniques to minimize damage to the wetlands.

Mr. Wherritt, head forestry technician, set up the boundaries for the sale and developed access routes to the ridges. Carefully laying out where each sale would take place was critical, Ms. Sjogren said. It was up to him to establish the smartest places to cut trees.

Hydrologist Dan Range analyzed the water, and armed with precise knowledge of the water’s pH, a measure of water’s acidity, he was able to determine what areas would freeze soonest, helping the team determine where to create the wetland crossings they needed to access the trees.

Joe Carrick, timber sale administrator, worked directly with logging companies, ensuring that they stuck to the details of their contracts. One of Mr. Carrick’s jobs was to determine when the ground froze solidly enough to move in heavy logging equipment with minimal disturbance to the soil. Minimally impacting soil is a key ingredient to wetland preservation, Ms. Sjogren explained.

Mr. Carrick also provided ecofriendly roadways for equipment. One method the Forest Service used for wetland crossings was to place large rubber mats on sensitive ground, such as areas that would not freeze solidly enough to drive on. They also placed culverts in certain areas, or covered the ground with snow and then compacted it, creating natural buffers between their equipment and the soil.

“Stay out of the soil,” was a requirement they followed throughout the course of the project, Ms. Sjogren said.

In some cases, the team had to build roads over the wetlands, but this did not mean that sensitive areas had to be destroyed. To keep riparian areas healthy, they could not block the flow of water, so sand was not used because it compacts tightly. Instead, porous road beds were constructed out of large cobblestones. The subtle, sub-surface flow was able to pass through these beds, Ms. Sjogren said.

All told, the timber sales required fewer roads and wetland crossings than predicted in the EIS, but success required cooperation.

“We are fortunate,” Ms. Sjogren said. “We have good loggers.”

As harvesting proceeded, the foresters kept track of snow depth and assessed the routes used by logging equipment. Mr. Range assessed the pH of the water on either side of the porous road beds, making sure they were not blocking water flow and making it more acidic.

Stagnant water is highly acidic, but flowing water, such as that in riparian wetlands, is less acidic, allowing different species to colonize an area. If the balance had shifted, patches of existing vegetation would have died, leading to a dramatic change in the vegetative community, Ms. Sjogren said.

In September 2005, the Forest Service held a project monitoring trip with members of the public. In a memo to his staff, Mr. Christiansen reported that a member of the Sierra Club who attended, who had objected to the original Environmental Assessment of the project in 2000 “remarked that this was the best implemented timber sale she had seen, and that she was pleased with the mitigation measures limiting effects to wetlands and sensitive soils that the Sierra club had been concerned about.”

The Forest Service will continue monitoring the harvested areas and help reforest them. Some reseeding of jack pine will be done with a broadcast seeder, and the loggers left many cones on harvest sites to help regenerate the ridgestands. Foresters will also count the number of miles needed and the numbers of acres harvested to learn how best to meet management goals in the future.

Although her team received the award, Ms. Sjogren added that everyone in her unit contributed to the success of the project.