A New Horizon For Tolt-Basin Logging -- `Watershed Analysis' Helps Teams See Forest For The Trees

CARNATION - Ten miles east of here, deep in the forested basin of the Tolt River in the Cascade foothills, a Weyerhaeuser Co. crew is logging 35 acres of second-growth hemlock near Crazy Creek.

But it's what the loggers are leaving behind that makes this operation exceptional.

They're leaving almost all the trees in a swath at least 70 feet wide along the creek - a buffer nearly three times as wide and much more heavily forested than state forest-practices regulations require.

On Crazy Creek and in the rest of the Tolt basin, different rules apply, rules that supersede the state regulations. They were tailor-made to the Tolt, developed by Weyerhaeuser and state agencies in conjunction with environmentalists, Native American tribes and the Seattle Water Department, among others.

The rules were hammered out over five months this year through a new process known as "watershed analysis."

The state Forest Practices Board decreed a year ago that one be done for state and private timberlands in each of 400-plus basins in the state.

The Tolt was the first big one.

Watershed analysis is part of a new wave in forestry, an effort to follow nature's boundaries rather than the straight lines humans impose.

President Clinton's draft Northwest forest plan proposes something similar for federal forests in 162 basins, citing Washington's approach as an influence.

The outcome of each watershed analysis is bound to be different.

But in the Tolt, where Weyerhaeuser owns nearly two-thirds of the land, company forester Tim Larkoski says 8 percent to 15 percent of Weyerhaeuser's 40,000 acres won't be logged as a result.

That's two or three times more than the timber giant figured it would need to set aside before the process began, Larkoski estimates.

No participant is completely satisfied. "But I'm pretty pleased with the outcome and the working relationship we had with Weyerhaeuser," says Dave Somers, a fisheries biologist for the Tulalip Tribes, who had a seat at the table when the Tolt rules were written.

"The protections we got for fish are quite a bit better than we had in the past."

Another participant, Kurt Beardslee of Washington Trout, agrees. "It's a great step forward," he says.

When the Forest Practices Board voted last year to require watershed analyses, it was trying to do two things:

-- Get away from one-size-fits-all rules governing logging statewide.

-- Come to grips with the cumulative effects of logging on the environment, a subject the board's regulations hadn't addressed before. The state Department of Natural Resources (DNR), which issues permits for logging, road building and other forest practices, considers each application separately.

Watershed analysis involves a detailed assessment of each basin's condition by foresters, fisheries biologists, hydrologists and other scientists. After that's completed, another team writes logging rules aimed at correcting past mistakes and protecting fish, water and such public improvements as bridges and roads, then submits the rules for the DNR's approval.

The DNR is supposed to initiate watershed analyses. But the regulations allow any owner of at least 10 percent of the private forest land in a basin to take the lead.

Weyerhaeuser picked that path for the Tolt last January. The 63,000-acre basin was both a logical and a curious choice for guinea pig.

It made sense because there's more background information available for the Tolt than for most other rivers, in large part because of the Seattle Water Department's involvement. The city draws about one-third of its supply from a reservoir on the South Fork. It's considering tapping the North Fork as well.

Another plus: There aren't many landowners to deal with on the Tolt. Most of what Weyerhaeuser doesn't own is managed by Seattle, the DNR or the U.S. Forest Service.

The Tolt's problems, however, are far from simple.

-- At times the Seattle Water Department must stop pumping water from the Tolt because it's too turbid. Department officials say past logging is partly to blame.

It also has been linked to higher levels of dissolved organic carbon, which can combine with the chlorine the department adds to form carcinogens.

-- The lower Tolt near Carnation floods regularly, undermining houses and inundating roads. That's partly because two feet of sediment - much of it the byproduct of logging - has accumulated on the bottom since 1975, reducing the channel's capacity.

-- The river still supports steelhead, chinook- and coho-salmon runs, but their numbers are declining. A 1991 report concluded the Tolt's summer steelhead are at a high risk of extinction.

Larkoski, the Weyerhaeuser forester who headed the watershed analysis team, says the prospect of managing around an endangered species helped motivate the company to move quickly on the Tolt.

"We need to get out in front of these issues," he says. "If you wait (for the Endangered Species Act), it's nothing but a dogfight then."

If successful, the process also meant Weyerhaeuser was likely to encounter fewer delays for logging-permit applications and fewer appeals. The Forest Practices Board's regulations encourage landowners who take the lead in watershed analysis to involve qualified experts from government agencies, tribes and the public, and to seek consensus. Weyerhaeuser took that advice to heart.

OPEN-DOOR POLICY

Larkoski says involving outsiders in management decisions was "a little scary" for the company. But Weyerhaeuser's open-door policy wins high marks from other participants.

"Weyerhaeuser's attitude was, `Y'all come,' " remembers Judy Turpin of the Washington Environmental Council.

In the end, it paid off for the company.

When a watershed analysis is finished, disgruntled participants can propose alternative logging rules for the DNR's consideration. And anyone can ask the agency to conduct a time-consuming environmental-impact statement on the proposed rules package.

Neither happened on the Tolt.

Participants met regularly in a big room in Weyerhaeuser's office in Snoqualmie, a chamber some dubbed the "War Room." The first phase of the analysis, the detailed assessment of the basin's condition, produced enough paper to fill nine thick notebooks and 31 detailed maps.

It also led to the unmistakable conclusion that logging had caused or exacerbated many of the Tolt's problems. Somers, the Tulalip fisheries biologist, says it may take the basin 100 years to recover.

"We made a lot of mistakes . . ." Larkoski admits. "We logged in places where we shouldn't have logged. We took the trees right down to the creek. That was standard practice until about six years ago."

The team that wrote the Tolt's new rules tailored them to the problems the assessment identified. One example: Scientists found that decades of clear-cutting had left miles of stream, including Crazy Creek, without enough big logs to form the quiet pools and provide the nutrients fish need.

For those stretches, the rule-writers decided the best solution was to allow trees along the banks to grow old and perhaps one day fall into the creek. They settled on 70-foot buffers because a study showed trees beyond that line weren't as likely to end up in the water.

WIDER BUFFER WILL PROVIDE SHADE

Along Crazy Creek, the wider buffer also will provide shade, keeping the stream cool for cutthroat trout in the summer.

"I think Weyerhaeuser really gave on that one," says Katherine Lynch, who coordinated the Seattle Water Department's involvement.

Another new rule requires landowners to fix drainage and erosion problems on their logging roads. And another requires a detailed analysis whenever logging is proposed in 23 landslide-prone areas.

King County's Surface Water Management Division pushed unsuccessfully for limits on logging in the upper basin, suspecting a link between clear-cutting there and higher peak flows downstream during big storms. A controversial computer study found no link. But Larkoski says it was by far the most contentious issue the rule-writers addressed.

A COMPROMISE SOLUTION

The final product was a compromise. "Weyerhaeuser didn't get everything we wanted," Larkoski says. "The Tulalips didn't get everything they wanted. The Seattle Water Department didn't get everything it wanted."

Altogether, he says, Weyerhaeuser spent about $160,000 on the Tolt analysis. That doesn't include costs to the tribes, environmental groups and government agencies.

But other analyses won't be so costly, Larkoski suspects. The Tolt was the prototype. Participants in many cases were writing the book, going where no scientists had gone before. Those involved agree the watershed analysis process didn't work perfectly on the Tolt but it can be improved.

And no one walked away from the table.

"We're in the ballpark," says Beardslee. "We may not know how to play the game quite right yet, but this is where we need to be."