Santa Cruz Sentinel

November 27, 2005

Logging helps keep salmon runs healthy

By Carlton Yee

Many Californians will take time out this fall to witness an annual event — the running of salmon in our state's rivers.

The run will go on for weeks. But efforts to make those runs successful, and provide clean water for humans, go on year-round.

At the front lines of clean water in California are our forests and the men and women who manage them. Since about 75 percent of California's drinking and irrigation water comes from Northern California forests, they play a big part in determining whether our water is clean or not.

Two myths, unfortunately, have pervaded many people's views of water and forestry. One is that managing our forests harms California's waterways. The other is that the condition of inland watersheds is the primary factor affecting salmon.

Neither is true.

Responsible forest management is the reason why much of our state's water is clean and safe for both people and fish. California forestry companies spend millions of dollars on research and meticulously monitor activities that are critical to the state's watersheds and fish habitats.

Forested lands help absorb rain, reduce flooding and slow stormwater runoff so that underground aquifers refill. They also cool and cleanse water and provide critical habitat for fish and wildlife.

It is unmanaged forests that often pose the greatest harm to fish and clean water. When we fail to take care of our forests, we increase the risk of catastrophic fire that often leads to great landslide occurrence and other forms of erosion.

Water, itself, can be a casualty of catastrophic natural disturbances, such as wildfires that leave soil exposed to severe erosion. Sediment in streams skyrockets after wildfires eliminate vegetation from the landscape polluting drinking water and killing fish. After the Sequoia Fire in 2002, sediment increased more than 500 percent in the Kern River. A recent U.S. Forest Service study concluded that logging isn't as detrimental as natural causes. The study equated erosion from one acre of fire-killed western forest land to that coming from about 70 acres of commercial thinning. California enacted rules in 1972 to control logging-related erosion. And while California's North Coast, in particular, is home to some of the most naturally erosive landscape in the world, erosion from logging now accounts for less than 2 to 3 percent of the estimated total sediment yield in streams.

In fact, a 1998 study by The Forest Foundation cites locations in which coho salmon fared better in watersheds near managed forests than they did in unmanaged watersheds. During the past decade, studies of California's logged watersheds show comparable densities of salmon in both logged and unlogged areas. Part of the reason for this is that the professionals who care for California's forests continually perform at the highest environmental levels in the world.

While forest management positively impacts the cleanliness of water and our fish population, it is, however, a mistake to believe that careful forest management alone is enough to ensure healthy salmon populations. Salmon survival and return rates are more dependent on ocean conditions than forestry practices. Ocean phenomena like the El Nino effect are major factors in California's salmon health and numbers. When offshore ocean temperatures are cool, salmon thrive. When ocean temperatures rise, salmon survival rates decline.

Even discussions that focus on inland watersheds tend to be easily skewed. Erosion is part of a natural process.

Things as simple as heavy rains or changes in streamside vegetation can influence erosion. Unfortunately, people are too quick to blame tree harvesting for erosion instead of looking at the other variables often in play. Recent studies tend to dispel unfounded allegations concerning watershed damage due to forest practices.

When regulations and policies fail to recognize the important connection between forest management, water and health fish populations, we often put our water and the fish that depend on it at risk.

Carlton Yee holds a doctorate in forest engineering and hydrology, is former chairman of the California State Board of Forestry, professor emeritus of forestry at Humboldt State University and a registered professional forester. He serves on the Oregon Independent Multidisciplinary Science Team Oregon Plan for Salmon and Watersheds appointed by Gov. Ted Kulongoski.