Olympia area residents worry about state’s plans to cut trees above Summit Lake

JC Davis’ connection to Summit Lake, west of Olympia, runs deeper than the years he’s been on this earth.

His grandfather built a cabin on the lake in the 1950s, where Davis’ mom grew to love the natural landscape. Davis was raised on the lake and much of his life happens there now.

But he’s worried that planned tree cuts for timber sales by the state Department of Natural Resources will harm the beauty and resiliency of the lake and surrounding hills, leaving little for future generations to enjoy.

Davis and other lake residents were told last spring that DNR had plans to cut 25 acres of trees above the lake, bordering Davis’ hillside property. And though some area residents have expressed support for the cut, Davis and several dozen others can’t help but worry what might happen once the moist soil loses its protective layer of trees, permanently altering the sought out countryside.

“There’s still some of this left, but it’s going fast,” Davis said.

More than 70 people attended a Summit Lake Community Association meeting on Nov. 4 to hear from DNR about why this small number of acres near a residential area and above the lake needed to be cut and sold and how they’re going to do it.

Davis said many residents have concerns about the water quality in Summit Lake once the cut is completed, as the majority of houses use the lake as their water supply. Since the cut is on a hill above the lake, residents worry that chemicals used to treat the cut trees will run into streams and down into the lake, harming the drinking water, making the lake dangerous to use and potentially hurting fish such as Kokanee salmon.

The area also is prone to landslides and has seen them in the recent past. Buildings and houses have been swept off their foundation. Streams and culverts have blown, dumping thousands of pounds of rocks and sediment into Summit Lake. And some believe previous DNR cuts are to blame.

During the Nov. 4 meeting, representatives from DNR told Summit Lake residents that they closely follow strict habitat conservation plans to protect land and species of animals, including the salmon that call the lake and its streams home.

Andrew Reed with DNR said to protect the streams, there are established equipment limitation zones that bar equipment from being brought or used within 30 feet of streams that don’t have fish. The boundary is 100 feet on either side of a stream with fish. He told the residents the streams in this cut, known as the Delica Hardwood sale, have a 165-foot buffer on either side because of how rich the soil is.

He said most of the sale focuses on hardwood trees such as maple, which there are fewer of than conifers. The conifers are being left behind to help sustain the insect and bird populations in the area, as well as continue the spread of lichen in the forest, he said. The timber is sold at auction before it’s cut. DNR uses revenue generated from sales to help construct and maintain public buildings, schools, jails and more.

The risk for landslides

Susie Wisehart, a Washington State Lands Geologist, conducted geographical research on landslides and landslide potential for the proposed cut. She said she understands the concerns residents have about the cut being near residences and a protected body of water. She said all harvests DNR does are designed to avoid delivering sediment to public resources like streams and lakes.

Wisehart attributed her joining DNR to the devastation seen after the Oso mudslide in 2014. According to articles in the Seattle Times, there was controversy surrounding the cause of the mudslide. Some attributed it to past DNR timber cuts and a lack of in-depth research since the area had been deemed unsafe in geologic studies not long before the mudslide happened.

Forty-three people were killed and almost 50 homes and other structures were destroyed.

“I’ve seen the devastation that landslides can cause,” Wisehart said. “We place a lot of importance on this, and I do personally.”

Wisehart said DNR understands that forest practice activities can result in landslides and other issues, but that there’s a very low risk of any bad outcomes in this specific cut.

Tom Anderson owns a cabin that sits on the banks of Summit Lake, flanked by two streams that on a typical year see hundreds, maybe thousands, of salmon swimming up them.

A couple years after the DNR made cuts to undeveloped land near the Delica sale to put in an access road and sell off more timber in 2005, a culvert blew. A stream that started further up near the cut was taking on more water and the culvert that ran under the access road couldn’t handle the pressure anymore, sending roughly 120 yards of rock and gravel down Anderson’s yard and into Summit Lake. One of his neighbors almost lost their house due to the force of the stream before Anderson could divert it through his property.

Anderson told Wisehart at the Nov. 4 meeting that the responsibility of cleanup was left to him. He had been in contact with FEMA and officials with Thurston County, but he never heard from DNR. The flood was labeled a 100-year flood, though Anderson questions the validity of that as the region experienced two similar rain events within a few years.

Wisehart told Anderson that her reports are still in draft mode and that she hasn’t made anything official. She said she’d like to learn more about the situation Anderson was in, as well as where exactly it happened.

She said that large floods and storms happen either way, and that it’s not impossible for harvests to affect how strong those become. From her knowledge, they aren’t harvesting in an area that would cause any of these problems, but she said there’s more work to do to mitigate any future issues.

DNR’s responsibility

The debate around sustainable forest management has been circling for years. Kenny Ocker with DNR said the department manages more than 61,000 acres of trust land in Thurston County alone, with 58,000 acres designated forestlands. He said the county is seen as a beneficiary of the work DNR is doing. Under the partnership the county typically sees benefits of the cuts through new public buildings and renovations.

Ocker said the landscape has been managed very closely by DNR for decades to prevent the effects of overharvesting. The majority of the land owned by DNR in Thurston County is located in Capitol State Forest, and Ocker said that land was in much worse shape before DNR took control of it.

“The prior slash-and-burn forestry of lands in this area before they entered state ownership left the forests completely devoid of trees, and incredibly fire-prone,” he said. “The Black Hills — today’s Capitol State Forest — got their moniker from how often they burned.”

Now, he said this area has some of the strongest environmental protections around. The lands around Summit Lake have been independently certified sustainable by the Sustainable Forestry Initiative and the Forest Stewardship Council, he said.

Ocker said forested state trust lands including those surrounding Summit Lake are managed sustainably across generations to avoid having to import timber from outside the country.

He said DNR works with the state to establish rules and regulations regarding “greenup,” or the idea that replanted trees have to grow for a certain amount of time before they can be harvested. He said doing this ensures that the hydrology, or movement and distribution of water, of the forest remains intact and unchanging.

“To do that, DNR manages these forested lands on a landscape level and put them onto a rotation — this moves harvests around the landscape to allow harvested areas to regenerate and mature, again providing clean water and clean air while sequestering carbon, ensuring that no one area is overharvested,” Ocker said.

This means that timber harvests are moved throughout the state to allow for other areas to continue growing before being harvested themselves. Even if a piece of land DNR owns has sat untouched for decades, it’s likely to be cut down at some point or another, no matter what, unless it’s land chosen for conservation by the DNR.

A love for the land

JC Davis walks with his neighbors Sharon Prager and Iris Shanklin alongside a stream that trickles down the side of Davis’ driveway. The stream starts further up the hill in the proposed cut area, travels down alongside the driveway, then dips under the access road and gushes out of a culvert on the other side. The stream then runs right next to Tom Anderson’s cabin, where dozens of red Kokanee salmon are attempting to swim upstream.

There are fewer fish in the stream that blew out on Anderson’s property now, but some can still be seen trying to brave the rougher current. Prager said she hadn’t seen salmon swimming like that anywhere but on tours in Alaska.

“This is pretty special, this is pretty rare,” Davis said. “They’re protected fish. But all that silt is going to come here and affect their spawning grounds.”

The neighbors joke about having a Kokanee camp for children to come learn about fertile grounds, the salmon population and forests. Davis said he’s proposed using the area for educational purposes to DNR, but to no avail.

Davis said they’ve also tried offering to buy the timber outright, before it’s cut and taken to auction. That’s not an option.

Walking down the path at the back of the proposed cut site, Davis noticed a few new conifers have fallen, blocking access. He said the soil on the hills is so rich and moist that many of the conifers have root rot and don’t last long. Once the hardwood trees are cut and only weak conifers remain, he worries the lack of protection will lead to increased winds, causing some — if not all — the trees to fall, eventually leading to increased landslide potential.

Davis remembers when residents and visitors to Summit Lake would picnic on the hilltop above the lake, surrounded by trees with views of the water down below and Mount Rainier in the distance. Those lands are now swept clean by the DNR.

He recalled being a problem child, escaping to the woods around his family’s homes to escape judgment and find solace. He loved the connection he had with his mom and the connection she had with the land. He thinks of the land as a piece of his mom, who he lost recently to ALS. Much of his passion to preserve the trees derives from her.

With more than 2 million acres of land managed by the DNR throughout the state of Washington, Davis doesn’t understand why this small amount of deeply cherished land needs to be cut. Through conversations with DNR officials, he sees no other explanation but for the money that will come out of the sale. He’s already been told he should go ahead and build new culverts under his driveway to divert the water that’s bound to overflow.

Davis said he recognizes that Washington state has more progressive laws when it comes to conservation than other areas. He said he hopes this will at least spark a conversation in other communities, even if they don’t win the battle in the end.

“As much as we don’t want it to happen here, we believe we can use this as a blueprint for other communities to not allow this to happen in their backyard, too,” he said. “If we can prove enough data and keep this momentum going, this could shift policy across the globe.”