FPA 2813883: logging on Whidbey Island, May 13, 2014
The last piece of equipment left this morning, good riddance.
There is a tremendous amount of fire wood and slash strewn about and piled up for some reason - the piles are much too close to the edges to legally burn.
It's hard to believe that in a rural, but heavily populated area with no fire hydrants and a limited emergency response capability,
that the State of Washington considers this as "state of the art forestry management".
I wonder how the douglas fir replacement planting that is "legally required" to be completed in 36 months, will be done.
Supposedly there was/is a requirement for damage mitigation to the stream and wetland buffer areas that were impacted, but nothing has been done to prevent sediment from running into the stream. Last week's rain started rivulets of mud running down the main road and into the stream, just a taste of what the next few Winters will dump into the class "F" stream.
The one cedar survived the assault, hopefully it will not blow down during the next few winters. I'm sure we will lose many trees the next few years.
The pictures below are of the mess left behind, two with people for a perspective view of just how large the main pile was left.
Logging permits can be browsed or downloaded by searching by FPA number at: https://fortress.wa.gov/dnr/fparssearch
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©2014
