Cowlitz conservation leaders urge county to comment on proposed 50-foot buffers for nonfish streams

John Keithley, an elected supervisor of the Cowlitz Conservation District, urged the Cowlitz County Board of Commissioners to review and comment on a proposed Forest Practices Board rule that would require 50-foot buffer strips on each side of certain nonfish-bearing perennial streams.

The rule package, Keithley said during public comment, would apply only to Western Washington counties and “only applies to Western Washington Counties for nonfish bearing streams that are perennial in nature.” He and Darren Haupp, manager of the Cowlitz Conservation District, urged county officials to submit written comments before a public hearing the district expects to be held next Tuesday.

The proposed rule, Keithley said, is part of a larger Forest Practices Board amendment under the Revised Code of Washington. He and Haupp presented a cost estimate compiled by the University of Washington and circulated by the Washington Farm Forestry organization that shows private merchantable timber values tied up if the rule is implemented. “Cowlitz County is the third most impacted county on the West Side Of Washington with economic impact that you can see in the first column under Cowlitz County of $3,597,000,000 of merchantable timber in a county,” Keithley said, and he said the analysis estimates about $245,000,000 of private timber value would be left standing and unharvestable under the proposal.

Haupp said the science behind the rule is uncertain. “The purported rationale is there is a thought that leaving buffers on these little small headwater streams is going to decrease temperature in fish bearing water downstream,” he said, but added that detailed studies find numerous factors affect stream temperature and that retained buffers on small headwater streams can blow down and—he argued—could sometimes increase temperature rather than lower it. Haupp also said a University of Washington study cited in the packets called for further research on surface versus subsurface (hyporheic) flows and did not conclusively resolve the temperature link.

Keithley and Haupp asked the county to engage in the rulemaking. They noted the Forest Practices Board vote to begin rulemaking was narrow: of 13 members the board has 11 present at the June meeting, two agencies abstained, and of the nine voting members five supported beginning formal rulemaking and four opposed. Keithley said the package, as circulated, would put roughly 200,000 acres into 50-foot-per-side buffer strips on small streams in western Washington and estimated an aggregate West-side impact of $1.8 billion of timber value that would be constrained. He also told commissioners the Washington Forest Protection Association and the Industrial Forestry Association submitted materials showing larger impacts to industrial timber owners.

The presenters requested that commissioners review the materials provided, consider filing a comment letter, and press the governor’s office and the Association of Counties to fill a counties’ seat on the Forest Practices Board that they said remains unfilled. No formal county action was recorded during the meeting; the presenters said they would deliver the comment drafts and supporting documents to county staff.

The county clerk confirms a public hearing on the proposed Forest Practices Board rule is scheduled by others for next week, and commissioners were advised to act quickly if they wish to submit written comments to the board.