OLYMPIA — Those seeking to log in landslide-prone areas may soon need to provide the state with even more scientific data to prove the safety of people living nearby is adequately protected.
The state Department of Natural Resources revised its timber harvest application form after the deadly Oso mudslide to ensure additional geologic reports can be demanded if a proposal on or near an unstable slope could put public safety at risk.
Now the state Forest Practices Board, an independent agency which regulates logging on public and private lands, is looking to adopt a new rule to cement the change into law.
Board members discussed the rule at their Thursday meeting and are on target to formally initiate it in November with adoption early next year.
“We’re making good progress toward increasing our management scrutiny,” said Dave Somers, Snohomish County Council Chairman and a board member. “I think there are still questions about what we do with this information particularly where the public and public resources are at risk.”
The new rule is emerging from the effort launched by the board in May to figure out how well existing policies and practices for logging protect people and public resources from the risk of damaging landslides.
At the time, the board ordered a review of the science behind current landslide protection regulations and an inventory of the tools Department of Natural Resource staff use to evaluate logging proposals.
The board is focused on how these are applied in areas with deposits of glacial sediment where deep-seated landslides have occurred in the past and are at risk of recurring. In other words, geology similar to the Oso area, where 43 people died in a massive mudslide March 22.
Special attention is getting paid when such soils are associated with groundwater-recharge zones, areas where water soaks into the ground and recharges aquifers.
Studies show when logging is done in recharge zones, more water is absorbed into the soil. Soggier soil is less stable. Some believe that increases the risk of a landslide.
On Thursday, the board learned 45 applications issued since 2003 for timber harvests in locations with evidence of deep-seated landslides and in recharge zones are under review. By November, they should learn what types of conditions were imposed for each application.
“Not all glacial deep-seated landslides are equal” so mitigation approaches will vary, said Adrian Miller representing the Timber, Fish and Wildlife Policy Committee that is overseeing the research on behalf of the board. This panel has representatives of local and state government, tribes, environmental groups and logging companies.
Also Thursday, a Department of Natural Resources forester described the array of tools now used to screen applications for logging on unstable slopes such as aerial photos, topographic maps, hydrology reports and remote-sensing images gained through Lidar.
But Jack Shambo, a forest practices division manager, told the board that putting “boots on the ground and eyes on the site” with a visit is “our best tool in assessing slope stability.”
And he sought to assure board members that the safety of the public has “always been a high concern for us” as they review and decide the fate of applications.
Somers expressed concern that under current rules the evaluation of logging proposals on or near unstable slopes is the same whether people are living nearby or not.
After the board meeting he said, there needs to be “a greater safety factor if people are present.”
He used the example of buffer zones around streams — they are drawn larger around those known to be inhabited by fish than those that are not.
Meanwhile, Attorney General Bob Ferguson still is exploring whether the state panel legally can halt timber harvests in landslide-prone areas by enacting a moratorium or adoption of an emergency rule.
Commissioner of Public Lands Peter Goldmark asked Ferguson for advice May 22 and it is not known when the attorney general will provide it.
And Goldmark is continuing his investigation into logging that occurred a decade ago above the Oso slide area. That probe may provide a better picture of what influence, if any, the harvest had in the March slide.
Jerry Cornfield: 360-352-8623; jcornfield@heraldnet.com.
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