SFAC heads into the forest

Members of the State Forest Advisory Committee joined Oregon Department of Forestry staff for a tour of several sites in the Tillamook and Clatsop State Forests on May 16, ahead of a committee meeting the next day.

The group saw a shooting complex, partial-cut harvest operation and hiked to a future section of the Salmonberry Trail near Reehers Camp.

The tour departed from the Hornshuh Creek Fire Station on Highway 26 in Banks and headed to a first stop at the North Fork Wolf Creek Target Shooting Lanes.

There, an Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF) staff member discussed the department’s target shooting facilities.

In Oregon, shooting on state and federal lands is a legal and common pastime, with the state and federal governments responsible for its regulation. This situation leaves ODF unable to restrict or regulate shooting activities on its lands, which can cause dangerous situations with shooters unwittingly firing at other forest users.

To cut down on these types of incidents, ODF has set up a number of target shooting facilities across state forests, with the goal of encouraging safer shooting.

The facility at Wolf Creek has been open for more than two decades and was funded by a grant from the National Rifle Association. It consists of four shooting lanes cut into a hill and is primarily intended for pistol shooting activities. Shooting facilities also decrease fire risk and make fighting those fires which do occur easier.

Clatsop State Forester Mike Cafferata said that the shooting lanes were not meant to encourage more people to shoot in the forest and that they had been successful in increasing safety.

Next the group made its way to a partial-cut harvest operation in the Astoria District of the Clatsop State Forest, where foresters discussed the details of partial-cut harvests.

The stand the group visited had previously been partially cut in the 1980s to help encourage a healthy forest ecosystem but since that time the volume of wood per acre had quadrupled. Over time the large volume increases would put the stand at risk of simplification and negatively impact the health of trees as their crowns became overcrowded.

The thinning operation will remove between one third and one half of the trees, or a quarter of the volume, and future foresters will need to evaluate whether further thinning operations are needed in another 30 to 40 years.

Finally, the group made its way to Reehers Camp, where they had lunch before hiking to a nearby section of rail line that will be part of the Salmonberry Trail.

The Salmonberry Trail is an envisioned 82-mile trail that would convert the abandoned Port of Tillamook Bay rail line between Banks and Tillamook into a hiker and biker trail. The rail line was abandoned after a major winter storm in 2007 caused more than $50 million in damage, with the port electing to use Federal Emergency Management repair funding for other projects.

Two organizations, the Salmonberry Trail Intergovernmental Agency and Salmonberry Trail Foundation, are responsible for stewarding the project, with the agency holding the trail lease and setting standards, while the foundation coordinates construction efforts.

Cafferata said that while ODF did not have resources to lend to the project, they were members of the intergovernmental agency and supportive of the plan as the largest trail-adjoining landowners.

Work is currently underway to remove the rails and clear an eight-mile section of the trail near Banks and Tillamook County applied for a $25 million federal grant to build a three-mile section in Rockaway Beach.