Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
A cluster of trees being thinned.
COLFAX – To lower the risk and effects of wildland fire, Whitman County Parks may execute a forest management plan this year.
The effort is to reduce fuel load and improve fire resiliency at Elberton, Klemgard Park and Kamiak Butte by thinning, pruning and chipping on dozens of acres of timberland.
A joint project with the Whitman Conservation District, county parks worked with consultants Northwest Management in 2018-19 to create a plan for forested areas in each park.
Aside from density of tree stands, consultants evaluated factors such as wildlife habitat, soils, noxious weeds, sensitive species and cultural aspects.
"Dead, dying, diseased or dangerous are the first (trees) to get taken out," said Dave Mahan, county parks superintendent.
Mahan is now gathering a list of potential loggers.
"If the stars align, we'll knock it out this year," said Bill Tensfeld, county parks director.
Each park would be a separate job, but it would probably not go through a formal bid process, he said.
"It's just a management practice. The time and effort and the money hasn't been put out to have a management plan."
The process started with a Washington State Department of Natural Resources cost-sharing grant from 2018 to split the $6,700 cost for the consultants' plan.
Some thinning work has already been done at Kamiak and Klemgard.
Last year, Mahan, Kamiak Ranger Laura Bloomfield and temporary county staff thinned around both parking lots and the road between and around the ranger's residence.
At Klemgard, Mahan and staff started to thin a 2-acre area of young trees less than a foot in diameter. It would reduce trees from an estimated 1,000 per acre to 400.
"Anybody hiking the trail can see the work being done," said Mahan.
At Elberton the scope of the park and the size of trees will make it different.
"We need to hire out," Mahan said.
The consultants recommend a commercial thinning project, with revenue from the sale of the logs to go to fund more forest management work.
For the county-owned 45 acres on the Elberton hill, the estimate is that about half could be commercially thinned to generate 150 million board feet of lumber.
First, a decision needs to be made whether a county employee will act as project coordinator or someone will be hired. Tensfeld is considering the question now, regarding the park and former town lots Whitman County has owned since 1970.
Mahan and representatives of Northwest Management walked the hill in the spring of 2019 and even located an old logging road.
"Nobody here (at the parks) has done anything like this before," said Mahan. "All of this work is being done for forest health with the utmost discretion. This is public land. We're changing the landscape of the park. We want to make sure it's done correctly."
There's no cost estimate yet for the projects.
Kamiak Butte has 221 forested acres of its 298. Klemgard has 23 of its 59 acres forested. Elberton is a 91-acre park with 49 acres in timber. Within the Elberton forest is a ropes course administered by Palouse River Counseling.
Elberton had a sawmill in the late 1800s. The park includes the closed United Brethren Church and a railroad trestle.
"In the big scheme of things, it's just a start," Tensfeld said. "If there is a fire, we want to preserve as much of it as we can. We've seen what happened in the north part of the county. We want to take care of what we have left in the county."
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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