The Cost of a Forest
Blanchard Mountain, with its maturing forests and views of the San Juan and Gulf islands, divides the urban areas of Bellingham from the farmland of the Skagit Valley. As well as being the natural boundary between Whatcom and Skagit counties, Blanchard Mountain is the only place where the Cascade mountain range reaches the sea. It is also a haven for approximately 45,000 hikers, climbers, bikers, horseback riders, hang gliders and campers seeking nature and recreation each year, said Brad Wellman, co-founder of Skagit County grassroots organization The Friends of Blanchard Mountain.
But those are not the only aspects of Blanchard Mountain that make it an important part of the surrounding communities. Since the early 1900s, the Washington State Department of Natural Resources has managed the area as a Forest Board State Trust Land to generate revenues for Skagit County, specifically the school districts, and is creating a plan for future timber cuts on Blanchard Mountain.
"We have a legal obligation to generate revenue for the trust and that’s why we’re managing Blanchard as a timber area," said Jim Cahill, planning coordinator for the Blanchard Forest Management Project of the DNR.
The DNR has managed timber sales around the perimeter of Blanchard Mountain below roads B-1000 and B-2000. Above these roads, logging has not occurred since the early 1920s. In the past three years, timber sales on lower Blanchard Mountain generated an average of $178,000 for Skagit County schools, said Dr. Rick Jones, Burlington-Edison School District superintendent.
Jones said the school district uses timber revenue in two ways. The first is through the general fund, which is used for operational costs such as textbooks. The second, Jones said, is through a state tax. The state receives a value estimate on the timber harvest. The state then gives the money to the school district, repaying the tax debt of school levees and bonds, Jones said. The tax debt comes from school bonds that residents vote to pay, he said.
The DNR has proposed more timber sales on Blanchard Mountain, but has postponed logging indefinitely, Cahill said.
The Friends of Blanchard Mountain is an organization working to prevent logging on the highest 2,500 acres of the mountain. Cris Feringer, who co-founded the organization in 2004, said the upper region of the mountain, known to many as "the core," offers recreational opportunities as well as providing habitat for countless species.
Feringer lives on the south side of Blanchard Mountain and said he believes preservation is necessary. He said he has tried to stop DNR logging on the mountain for the past 10 years.
The DNR’s proposed logging plan would undoubtedly ruin the trail system because of the construction of permanent and temporary access roads that would cross over a majority of the existing trails, Feringer said.
"I don’t know any hikers who like to hike through dirt and debris and logging slash," Feringer said.
From the mid 1800s to the early 1920s, extensive logging took place on Blanchard Mountain. But in 1925, the owners abandoned the land after a devastating fire. The areas of Blanchard Mountain previously cleared from timber harvests were not replanted and the forest regenerated naturally. The area has grown into maturing second growth forest, which occurs when a forest undergoes natural succession after environmental disturbances such as clear cutting or fire damage. This process increases species diversity and decreases forest vulnerability to disease and other disturbances.
"Intact lowland forests are essential to wildlife and are becoming more and more rare," said Rose Oliver, a Blanchard Mountain coordinator for Conservation Northwest. "Most other lowland forests have been replanted with monoculture Douglas fir plantations."
Oliver said that because Blanchard Mountain regenerated naturally, the area has high biological diversity and an increasing number of native plant and animal species.
"The creeks that flow off of Blanchard are important for salmon and clean water, including water quality in Oyster Creek and Lake Samish," Oliver said. "Blanchard Mountain is also a historic nesting area for [marbled] murrelets and bald eagles, and it is home to the endemic Townsend’s big eared bat."
In 2001, Conservation Northwest (formerly Northwest Ecosystem Alliance) conducted a study to evaluate what attributes of Blanchard Mountain the public thought were important. When Skagit and Whatcom County residents were asked, "How important to you are forest lands?" 87 percent and 90 percent of the respondents said they were important, respectively. When asked, "How important to you is harvestable timber, that is, trees that can be logged to produce income for local services?" 48 percent and 42 percent of the respondents said that was important respectively.
"Blanchard Mountain is sandwiched between I-5 and the ocean and between two growing populations," Oliver said. "Pressure from development and overpopulation make places like Blanchard Mountain even more important as a place of refuge, a source of clean water and unique recreational opportunities."
Oliver coordinates weekly hikes on Blanchard Mountain that vary in difficulty and focus on different environmental aspects of the area, including wild flowers, mushrooms and herpetology — the study of amphibians and reptiles.
"I grew up in Skagit County and have been hiking on Blanchard Mountain since my early teens," Oliver said. "It is definitely in my heart."
The DNR has organized a strategy group of nine stakeholders to collaborate on future management strategies of Blanchard Mountain. Cahill said the Blanchard Mountain Strategies Group includes representatives from Conservation Northwest, The Friends of Blanchard Mountain, the timber industry, the DNR, Skagit County Land Trust and Skagit county citizens.
"The task of the strategy group is to try to find a balance between needed revenues and recreational benefits," Cahill said.
The strategy group plans to hold the first of six to eight meetings on May 22, Cahill said. After the conclusion of the strategy group meetings, the DNR will analyze the resultant management concepts and form a management plan, which the DNR will present for comment by the strategy group and the general public, he said.
"I hope that [the strategy group] comes to a conclusion that everyone can agree on, that the beneficiaries are to be compensated and that it runs quickly and smoothly," Oliver said.
Oliver said the goal of Conservation Northwest is not to oppose logging in the area, but to protect the upper 2,000 acres and promote sustainable logging. This practice involves protecting ecological processes and biological diversity while maintaining community benefits from forest resources.
Randy Walcott, conservation chair of the Bellingham Mountaineers, said any amount of logging on Blanchard Mountain is unacceptable. Walcott said he has worked on conservation efforts involving Blanchard Mountain since 1998 but has failed to see any progress.
"The important thing to understand about Blanchard Mountain is that it is probably the largest acreage on the west side of the freeway that is still wild," Walcott said. "With development, I think it is really important that we set aside an area like this—otherwise we’re not going to have room like this for people to use for recreation."
Jones said he is interested in finding other sources of revenue to supplement the revenues lost to the school district if logging is stopped on Blanchard Mountain.
"The annual budget (of the school district) is around $24 million," Jones said. "Timber revenues, at around $200,000, are a small percent."
Ken Wilcox, an environmental planning consultant for Osprey Environmental Services, Inc., said using revenues from timber harvests to support schools is an archaic system that needs changing.
"As far as school funding, that system’s broken," Wilcox said. "One hundred years ago that system worked, when there were more forests and smaller schools — now that’s reversed."
Wilcox said society should pay for schools through taxes because the benefits of generating a small amount of revenue do not outweigh the destruction by timber harvest on the ecologically unique area that is Blanchard Mountain.
"It’s a local issue but also a state issue because there’s not another Blanchard Mountain in Washington," Wilcox said. "I haven’t heard of anything else in the state that’s been such a prominent thorn in the DNR for so long."
A plan to achieve balance between environmental integrity and timber harvest interests is what Cahill said the DNR hopes to get from the Blanchard Mountain Strategies Group.
"We are looking for a durable set of strategies that has broad community support," Cahill said.
Cahill said the legal obligations of the DNR will influence the management plan for Blanchard Mountain, but room for creativity lies in the collaboration of the DNR with the strategies group. He said the management planning process will conclude in late summer or early fall.
"Ideally, (Blanchard Mountain) would be transferred into a National Conservation Area," Wilcox said. "My preference would be to stop all logging, but certainly I want to preserve the core and the area that connects it to other public lands. Blanchard is just starting to feel like a forest."