Bid to rejuvenate salmon will protect trees near streams
By Matt Weiser
Sacramento Bee
BROWNSVILLE – Little-known Honcut Creek is the one place where imperiled California salmon might be able to make a comeback.
It's also where new logging rules soon will restrict how many trees can be cut on private land along this Feather River tributary, even though there aren't any salmon in its forested reaches.
The goal is to protect potential salmon habitat by preserving shade along the creek – to keep the water cool – and to prevent erosion that could destroy spawning gravels downstream.
The new logging rules were approved last month by the California Board of Forestry in a rare unanimous vote.
The rules are full of new language asserting the duty of landowners to protect salmon and their habitat at all times – a major difference from old rules in which lumber production was the primary concern.
"This is a sea change," said George Gentry, executive officer of the Board of Forestry. "We are absolutely putting forward stewardship as a primary principle."
Starting Jan. 1, private landowners in the Sierra Nevada will not be allowed to cut down trees within 30 feet of streams known to provide habitat for salmon and steelhead.
In a second zone, 30 to 70 feet from streams, only 30 percent of the tree canopy can be removed. The seven largest trees on every acre must also be left standing. Slightly different buffer zones apply in coastal forests.
It's a major change from old rules, which allowed landowners to remove half the tree canopy right to the waterline.
The Soper-Wheeler Co. owns about 320 acres bracketing Honcut Creek near the town of Brownsville in Yuba County. On a recent visit, company forester Paul Violett stood beside the creek and contemplated the rules.
Violett estimates his company will be unable to harvest about 10 percent of the trees on this property because of the new rules. The company planted many of the conifers along the creek years ago as seedlings specifically to cut them down later to sell as lumber.
In other words, he said, the new salmon protections cost the company at least 10 percent of its investment.
"That cedar is a very valuable tree, and it's not available for harvest under these rules," Violett said, noting a 5-foot thick tree within 30 feet of the creek. Then he pointed out five more big trees nearby that also must be left standing. "Taken in its total, there's going to be an impact on our long-term yield. It's not insignificant by any stretch."
A similar assessment comes from Sierra Pacific Industries, considered the largest private forest owner in California. Spokesman Mark Pawlicki estimates the salmon protections will restrict logging on 8,000 acres of company land in the Sierra Nevada, plus an additional 20,000 acres on its coastal properties.
"We don't think our forest practices have any limiting effect at all on salmon," Pawlicki said. "But since the rules are now going into effect, we will comply with them."
Honcut Creek, small enough to jump across, is clear and deeply shaded at midday by a canopy of trees on its banks. This is what the rules are designed to preserve: cold water, free of erosion.
Small changes in small watersheds like this could help bring back Central Valley salmon, which are so depleted that commercial salmon fishing is banned for a second straight year in California and most of Oregon.
Salmon are known to use Honcut Creek downstream near its confluence with the Feather River. Boosting that spawning run by improving water quality in the creek could help the entire state.
Brian Williams, a downstream resident, is glad to see the new rules.
A consulting biologist who works with a number of logging companies, Williams bought a home along the creek eight years ago and began researching its history. He said the creek is named after an Indian tribe that had a large camp on its banks – probably because a vigorous salmon run provided food.
Williams said local residents report having seen salmon in the 1970s as far upstream as his property, near Honcut Road, even though there are two small dams in between.
"We bought this place because of the creek, because it had outstanding spawning gravels," Williams said. "One of the first things I wanted to do was to try to restore salmon to the creek."
Logging isn't the only cause for the decline of salmon in California. Factors such as urbanization, water diversions, dam construction and pollution are also at work.
But tree removal along streams has compromised salmon habitat, said Peter Moyle, a professor of fish biology at UC Davis. He said he likes the new rules, but believes they don't go far enough.
For instance, buffers are not required on every stream in a watershed, mostly just those with year-round water flow. Moyle said even seasonal streams need protection, especially as climate change takes hold.
"You really need to protect streams from removal of big trees anywhere near the streams," Moyle said. "The forestry rules just are not big enough or strong enough to really make a difference."
The National Marine Fisheries Service, charged with protecting salmon, believes the rule package, as a whole, is an improvement. But it has concerns.
The agency objects to a process that allows foresters working for property owners to decide whether certain classes of small streams get protective buffers, said Charlotte Ambrose, California salmon recovery coordinator at the fisheries service.
It also opposes provisions that allow landowners, in certain cases, to design their own salmon protections based on unique conditions on their property, rather than following standard rules. And it opposes the state's decision to apply different protections in southern coastal forests.
These problems, Ambrose said, "bring into question the overall adequacy of the rules."
Gentry acknowledged the rules aren't perfect. He said the Board of Forestry will continue to monitor logging plans closely.
"We're not trying to say that everything will go to some mythical point of pristineness," he said. "But we can commit to one thing, and that is that we can make things better."