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| October 15, 2020 Shelton Mason County Journal |  |
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Page A-26 Shelton-Mason Journal Thursday, Oct. 15, 2020
Cushman road reopens, Seasonal gates close
By Kirk Boxleilner
kbox/eitnei@masoncounty. com
US. Forest Service Roads 24 and
2451 to Lake Cushman and the Stair-
case entrance of the Olympic Na-
tional Park were closed Aug. 22, but
while road 24 has reopened, the sea-
sonal gate to road 2451 will be closed
until spring.
Roads 24 and 2451 closed to ve- . 1'
hicles and pedestrians over concerns
for the health and safety of the pub-
lic, employees, volunteers and emer-
gency crews.
In a news release, the Forest Ser-
vice said increased traffic along the
narrow road had far exceeded capac-
ity and led to gridlock, resulting in
hazardous conditions for visitors and
Park and Forest Service staff.
The overflow of vehicles prevented
emergency personnel from respond-
ing to requests for help and the over—
use of the area led to resource dam-
age along the corridor, according to
the release.
“The extreme numbers of people.
recreating at Lake Cushman are cre-
ating unsafe conditions and degrad-
ing the experience for everyone,”
District Ranger Yewah .Lau' stated
Aug. 20. “No one wants to be stuck
in a 6-mile long traffic jam on a nar—
row gravel road with no way to turn
around.”
Ryan Spurling,
deputy of patrol operations for the
Mason County Sheriff’s Office, cited
a number of incidents over the sum—
mer, from assaults to rescues of chil—
dren and divers jumping off Party
Rock, during which deputies’ re-
sponses were complicated by a crush
of crowds. During the closure, access ,
to the area was still allowed for resi-
dents who lived beyond the road clo-*
sure and emergency response person-
nel and administrative staff.
When the roads, associated day~
chief Criminal.
The sun sets behind the hills last week next to Lake Cushman. After a
monthlong closure, the road along Lake
Cushman to Olympic National Park and Staircase is open again. Journal photo
by Gordon Weeks
use sites and trailheads were closed,
Lau said the closure would continue
until the weather cooled, and visita-
tion returned to a more manageable
level.
For Road 24, this translated to a
planned reopening date of Oct. 1,
which has been met, but Road 2451
is among those affected by the seven
seasonal gate closures in the south-
ern part of the Olympic National For—
est from Oct. 1 through April 30.
These closures include not only
Road 2451 in the North Fork Skokom-
ish River watershed, but also Forest
Service Roads 2354, 2353 and 2361 in
the South Fork Skokomish River wa—
tershed, and the two gates on Forest
Service Road 2294, and the remain-
ing Forest Service Road. 2270 in the
Wynoochee River watershed.
These closures, which happen each
winter, are part of a memorandum of
understanding between the Olympic
National Forest and the Washington
Department of Fish and Wildlife, and
are designed to:
I Increase wildlife use of habitat.
I Reduce the siltation of lakes and
streams, and protect road systems.
I Provide diverse recreational hunt-
ing opportunities.
I Reduce harassment- levels on deer
and elk.
I Increase the escapement rate of
buck deer and bull elk. M
Road systems behind these gates
will be closed to vehicles until May 1.
The closures extend only to the use of
motorized vehicles. Entering the road
systems behind the gates on foot or
mountain bikes is permissible. ‘ ,
For questions, call Betsy Howell at
the Olympic National Forest at 360-
765-2230.
DNR sets out plans for forest health, climate resilience
By kirk Boxleitner
kbox/eitner@masoncounty com
This is the third of a three-
part series on a presentation
from the Washington Depart-
ment of Natural Resources to
the League of Women Voters of
Mason County.
Although Commission-
er of Public Lands Hilary
Franz pledged to the League
of Women Voters of Mason
County last month that the
state Department of Natural
Resources intends to spend
the next 10 years becoming “a
21st century wildfire fighting
force, not one from the 1970s
and ’803,” she also under-
scored the importance of pre-
ventative maintenance in our
state’s forests.
“We owe it to our communi-
ties, and we owe it to our fire-
fighters,” Franz said Sept 15
inShelton. “Many of them are
the same age as my oldest son,
who’s 21 years old. They’re
putting their lives on the line
with limited resources to help
these communities.”
Franz spoke not only of a
“wildfire crisis over the past
decade,” but also of a “forest
health crisis” that’s contrib—
uting to increasingly cata-
strophic Wildfires.
“In Eastern Washington,
we have 2.7 million acres of
V forests that are already dead
and dying,” Franz said. “Half
of that is federal land.”
Just as significant are the
properties of small forest
landowners, although Franz
noted that tribes such as the
Confederated Tribes of the
Colville Reservation have
been especially hard-hit.
Rather than waiting “un-
til the crisis is' well upon us”
and spending “an enormous
amount of money just react-
ing,” Franz called for getting
to the root of the problem.
Franz pointed out that the
first forest health strategic
plan for the state, which was
first published in 2010, was
revised and updated when
she came into office in 2017.
Under Franz’s leadership, '
more than 33 organizations
and agencies have joined to
address forest health through
this 20-year science-based
plan, which set a goal of re—
storing 1.25 million acres of
forest to healthy conditions in
Central and Eastern Wash-
ington,- thereby increasing
their fire resilience.
“I brought in the pre-em-
inent forest health scientist
from Conservation North—
west,” Franz said. “He’s set-
ting out the specific treat-
ments that need to happen
in the watersheds in Central
and Eastern Washington that
are most at risk, not only from
the relative health of the for-
ests,-but also from their prox-
imity to population centers.”
Washington’s forests have
changed over the hundreds of
years of population growth on
these lands, leaving many for-
ests unable to defend them-
selves from fires. ‘
“You’ve got too many trees
competing for soil nutrients,
water and sunlight, so they’re
all weakened by disease, re-
duced nutrients and water
resources,” Franz said. “The
dead and diseased trees are
like kindling in your'fireplace.
Give it a match, and it can’t
even fight that fire by itself,
whereas a healthy stand of
trees can.”
Other solutions include re-
moving smaller trees compet-
ing with larger trees and are
thus unable to grow stronger
and healthier, and using pre-
scribed fires.
“Fire is natural, as long as
its fuel level isn’t so intense
that it wipes out everything
in its way,” Franz said.
DNR is developing a simi-
lar forest plan for Western
Washington, which Franz
noted has seen disease and
insect infestation and fires in
Whatcom, Skagit, Island, Kit-
sap, Pacific and Grays Harbor
counties. Fires have even bro-
ken out in the Olympic rain
forest.
Franz reported that Wash—
ington has already seen “an
unbelievable pace of conver-
sion in our forests,” with sub-
divisions and commercial and
industrial developments en-
tering and removing a num-
ber of “critical working forest-
lands,” a trend she predicted
would be exaCerbated as CO-
VID-.19 encourages Washing-
toniansf to live and work in
more remote rural areas. as
part of their social distancing.
“That not only loses our
critical evergreen forests, but
also makes it harder for us
.to fight wildfires, because we
have what’s called the wild-
land urban interface, which
makes it very difficult for our
firefighters to fight in those
situations,” Franz said.
Franz deemed such forests
“our most critical resources
for fighting fires,” because
of how much carbon they se-
quester. DNR has a carbon
sequestration map of Wash-
ington forests, not only those
' owned by the state, but also
the federal government’s
6 million acres, for a total of
13 million acres.
This year, DNR launched
the first-ever climate resil-
ience plan for Washington
after four years of identifying
how its climate has changed.
.“On agricultural lands,
we’re seeing increasing
drought and soil depletion,”
Franz said. “We see more
dust storms happening than
ever before. It’s not enough to.
take care of 6’ million acres of
land. We have a responsibil-
ity to our communities to help
them set up fer climate resil-
ience.”
DNR’s outreach includes
going into those communities
and identifying the risks they
face and how they might part—
ner with DNR on infrastruc-
ture investments, she said.
“We’re net just picking
communities that believe in
climate change,” Franz said.
“We’re going to communities
that may not be comfortable
talking about climate change,
but are on the front lines of
it, with increasing floods and
drought, loss of agriculture
production and opportunities,
and increasing wildfires and '
losses of forests.” .
To expand Washingtbn’s
clean energy, Franz said DNR
has signed the two largest so-
lar farm leases in the state,
with 33 in the pipeline, which
she expects will generate
$1,100 to $1,400 an acre for
the state’s schools and coun-
ties.
“That’s about a 9,800%
increase in revenue,” Franz
said. “Before, it was zero to
$1.43 per acre.” .
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