Malcolm Anderson testimony to Corvallis Forest Stewardship Plan Update Task Force 09/25/24

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"While I have tried to closely follow this process, I have come to realize that the whole thing (city’s appointment of a task force to update the Corvallis Forest Stewardship Plan) is political theater on the part of Public Works and that the outcome of the “stewardship plan” was decided behind closed doors before this even started.

While there are a few of you have total faith in Public Works to manage the Corvallis Forest as they see fit, I know most of you on this task force are well-intentioned and I have seen you push back against certain aspects of the plan they are writing with Trout Mountain in their private meetings.

Unfortunately, I haven’t seen any concrete changes at all to the updated stewardship plan that would restrict their industrial forestry approach. No restrictions on harvest age or size of trees, no restrictions on road building, no mandate to maintain certain levels of water quality against run off created by continued logging, no rules about preventing the introduction and spread of invasive species that logging has brought to the watershed.  No amount of public testimony or peer reviewed scientific evidence against this continued resource extraction has seemed to make any impact on the process.

Just yesterday I ran into Dr. Bev Law (An OSU College of Forestry Professor who is a nationally recognized authority in her research areas of Science of Conservation, Restoration and Sustainable Management, Integrated Social and Ecological Systems Forest, Wildlife and Landscape Ecology and one of the top 1% most cited authors in her field) while working and had a long discussion with her where she expounded on the many negative impacts of harvests in forests like these (recently conducted and currently being planned by Public works and Trout Mountain). Briefly: Extensive thinning and patch cuts proposed by public works merely open up the stands increasing the temperature, drying out the forest floor and increasing drought stress on the remaining trees.  They make the forest less resilient to climate change and once these naturally regenerated closed canopy stands are opened up the resulting understory growth actually increases fuel loading, ladder fuels and likelihood of catastrophic wildfires. These are conclusions that most researchers not funded by industry groups now support but are continually ignored by the harvest plans that Trout Mountain writes over and over.
While all the language in the stewardship plan has improved and the aspirations sound very noble, they still give Public Works extreme latitude in the management of all the stands including the old growth reserves and are based on total faith that Public Works will prioritize these values over continued timber harvests, something that the history of the watershed calls into question.

I unfortunately do not share this faith, as a city contractor myself I have seen Public Works condemn many perfectly healthy large canopy trees around town, because of minor infrastructure conflicts without any effort to mitigate them whatsoever.  For example, the heaving of a sidewalk panel of even an inch has led to the death of many beloved neighborhood trees, without any effort to pursue the many other options that exist and are successfully used by other cities.

I used to do an extensive amount of emergency work for Public Works before they stopped calling me after I engaged in this process (though I can’t actually prove causation and have only heard second hand that this may be the cause), but I now work only for Parks and Rec where they actually have an urban forester making these decisions.  Now they (Public Works) hire companies from outside of Portland and Eugene instead (of local companies like mine). While unfortunate, I am ultimately OK with this as I don’t want to be complicit with this Public Works department’s lack of regard for our urban canopy and the Corvallis Forest they are tasked with protecting.

I would encourage you to reexamine your own role in this process and whether you can better serve the health of the forest by engaging with Public Works to make a better plan with more concrete protections for the older stands in the Corvallis Forest than has been possible so far—or if you should step down and avoid having your name attached to a plan that is sure to change little in the trajectory of logging more 100+ year old naturally regenerated stands with little scientific support of stewardship.

Thank you for your consideration and your desire to do the best thing for the forest.

Malcolm Anderson
Philomath