MTJP CORPS · MORE THAN JUST PARKS ·MTJP Corps
← Mission 06 · Cala-Wiley
MTJP CORPS · MORE THAN JUST PARKS ·06
Mission 06 · Willamette National Forest, OR

Cala-Wiley

Willamette National Forest

Timing

The agency stopped taking comments on September 10. What you find still counts: it backs the formal objections from people who did comment, it goes to the lawyers on the fight, and it is the story.

The sentence we think is wrong

“We are proposing to treat about 899 acres of plantations less than 80 years old using thinning, dominant tree release, gap creation, and skips.”

The agency wrote that in its own document, under Introduction. Nobody has been out to check it. A dated photograph either backs it up or ends it.

How you settle it

Walk into the marked thinning units in the Calapooia and Wiley Creek parts of the project and photograph the trees: trunk size, big old stumps, snags, and whether the canopy looks like an even-aged planting. Photos of large old trees, wide trunks or big snags mixed into a unit would undercut the claim that it is all young planted forest.

The decision

The Willamette National Forest's Sweet Home Ranger District wants to thin nearly 900 acres of young plantations using timber harvesting, gap creation, and fuels treatments. The Environmental Assessment is finalized and a draft Decision Notice is ready, so we're now in the formal 45-day pre-decisional objection period under 36 CFR 218. Only people or organizations who submitted specific written com

Read the whole thing, and write to the agency about it

How to record it so it counts

  1. 01Stand in the patch of forest the document names. Agencies mark these with a numbered tag, a sign or colored flagging tied to a tree; photograph it if you find one, and don’t touch it.
  2. 02Pick the five largest trees within about 20 meters of where you stand. Photograph each with a person, a trekking pole or a tape in the frame for scale.
  3. 03If you have a tape, measure each trunk around at chest height and write the number down. Circumference in inches is fine; we convert.
  4. 04Photograph the canopy straight up, and any standing dead trees (snags) and big downed logs.
  5. 05Turn slowly and take a photo every quarter turn: four photos, one 360.
  6. 06Write one paragraph: what the stand looks like to you, in your own words.
What would count
  • A scale reference in the frame. A wide shot of big trees proves little; a tape does.
  • The measurement, written down, beside the photo it belongs to.
  • That marker somewhere in your set of photos, so nobody can argue you were in the wrong patch of woods.
All of it, with the phone settings, in the field guide
Are you going?

Say yes or no. It tells the next person whether anyone has this ground covered, and it is the only way we know a request was answered rather than just read. You can change your mind any time, and nobody follows up.

Join, then say you’re going

Nobody has answered yet

Before you go
  1. Public land only. Plenty of land inside a national forest or park boundary is privately owned, and that is not yours to walk on. A gate or a closure sign means stop. Check the rules for the specific place you are going, because they differ.
  2. Don’t touch survey stakes, flagging, equipment or anything a crew left. Photograph it; leave it.
  3. Don’t approach crews, contractors or agency staff about the project. Don’t interfere with any operation.
  4. Wildlife at a distance. No drones in wilderness or anywhere they’re prohibited. Stay off closed roads and trails.
  5. If you’re not sure, don’t. Weather, terrain, water, fire and people are your call, and yours alone.

More Than Just Parks doesn’t direct where you go or what you do. Terms.