They’re cutting down trees to save this forest. This 548-acre logging project on the Naches Ranger District is removing trees that are unnaturally dense and at risk of catastrophic fire. By doing so, it’s employing people and providing valuable timber.

It’s not a clear-cut. Lots of small trees and some larger ones are being removed to create “a well-balanced forest ecosystem,” said Bret Daugherty, the owner of Timbered Rangeland, the Ellensburg-based logging company conducting the work.

The timber is headed to the Yakama Nation’s sawmill in White Swan. But that small mill is one of just two mills remaining in the Eastern Cascades from Yakima County to the Canadian border. The other is in Oroville near the Canadian border. That means while more than a million acres need thinning, there’s no place else buying the wood.

That lack of mills means that despite a growing chorus of foresters and environmentalists calling for sustainable harvests to reduce fires and restore forest health, no one can afford to do it on the scale that’s needed. “As soon as you lose the mill infrastructure, the industry starts failing,” Daugherty said, adding there aren’t enough timber sales like this one in the area to keep his company in business. “We’re still alive, but barely.”

Experts say the solution is to rebuild the timber industry, but by focusing on small logs now in abundance and encouraging innovative companies that use waste wood for manufactured products or biomass energy to invest here.

From the Yakima Herald: https://www.yakimaherald.com/news/local/future-full-of-doubt-for-central-washington-timber-industry/article_28f74f22-ac93-11e6-a2ee-67aef0626395.html