Timber is state windfall

SULTAN – A tornado didn’t strike here, but one might as well have.

The evidence is in the hundreds of poplar trees bowled over at a tree farm on U.S. 2 between Snohomish and Monroe.

And in the vast swaths of trees strewn across the landscape in the hills above Sultan, the aftermath of a January wind and ice storm that blew down 300 acres of trees on state Department of Natural Resources land.

The trees fell over like dominos in the storm, which knocked out power to as many as 70,000 homes in Snohomish County.

The state is now attempting to sell the trees that fell on its land above Sultan before they start to deteriorate. Such a sale would be a windfall for logging companies and for schools and other public agencies that benefit when DNR sells timber.

“It’s so important that they do it before it starts rotting,” said Barry Miller, vice president of Granite Falls-based Miller Shingle Co.

Miller Shingle is among the companies that have been asked to bid on one of two timber sales.

The biggest chunk of forest that will be salvaged – a 195-acre network of parcels called the Rumbleseat Blowdown – will go to public auction on May 25.

The minimum bid is $1.4 million, but a final bid about 15 percent higher is expected, said Nick Mickel, a forester for DNR’s Northwest region.

The revenue will go to schools, universities, counties, prisons and other state services.

This month’s sale is expected to generate 7.8 million board feet of lumber, enough to build about 600 homes.

The timber on the last 92 acres will be sold in September.

Salvaging the fallen trees keeps the state from wasting a valuable resource, but it doesn’t mean that the number of DNR trees cut this year will go up.

“This will be figured into our normal total for the year,” said Laurie Bergvall, DNR’s district manager for Snohomish County.

Salvaging 300 acres of downed timber is unusual, Bergvall said, adding that there have been bigger blowdowns in the state’s history, but not here.

Longtime Darrington logger Buster Meece said the large salvage sale is good news for a local logging industry, which has struggled with low prices and few trees to cut in recent years.

“It’s put some of the little guys to work,” Meece said.

Mike Smith of Bellingham’s Nielson Brothers Inc. said his company will likely submit a bid.

“It all depends on how high the prices go up,” he said.

DNR will leave some trees on each acre of salvaged forest for wildlife habitat, but environmentalists contend the agency doesn’t do enough for wildlife.

“I don’t think they use the care that should be used to get those trees out,” said Sally van Niel, president of the Pilchuck Audubon Society. “Their goal is to get as much money as they can. I would like them to take the wildlife more into consideration.”

Reporter Lukas Velush: 425-339-3449 or lvelush@heraldnet.com.

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