News From Your Friends

Call-to-Action on the Dabbler Timber Sale of 156 acres of Clark County Old Growth Forest: Read our Letter and SEND YOUR OWN!

Email the Board of Natural Resources (BNR) at BNR@wa.gov. Although the official comment period is over for their Determination of Nonsignificance (DNS) on Dabbler, they can still see comments generally before the next board meeting on November 5th where they will determine Dabbler’s fate. You can also provide spoken public testimony in person (in Olympia at 9am) or remotely. Details here.
The most salient point you can make is that there was no climate change assessment done as part of the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) checklist for Dabbler. Email us at info@friendsofclarkcounty.org or DM us on social media for help crafting your talking points—we have droves of information on hand to help you!

Email the Clark County Council. The Clark County Councilors could change their mind and send a letter to the DNR if a majority of them chose to represent the will of their constituents. You can email them or speak at any Open Public Comment period, and we recommend that you remind them of the climate impacts of clearcutting legacy forest and their obligations to act on the climate crisis. 

Send in comment to the Clark County Climate Advisory Group saying that county officials need to collaborate with DNR to prioritize conserving structurally complex mature forest lands and manage our oldest forests for carbon sequestration and environmental benefits. You can send in a written comment here. You can also plan to speak at an upcoming Climate CAG meeting. View that information here.

Read our letter to the Board of Natural Resources (BNR) below to find out why FOCC wants a halt of the sale and to help you craft your own commentary. We need to generate as many letters as possible from Clark County residents!

Friends of Clark County (FOCC) is a local non-profit environmental advocacy organization representing its thousands of supporters who are residents of Clark County, Washington.

FOCC opposes the proposed “Dabbler” timber sale #106156 (SEPA File No. 24-073002, Forest Practice Application #2942570) located in Clark County, and we strongly support the Center for Responsible Forestry’s statement, the letter from Stephen Kropp of the Legacy Forest Defense Coalition, and  the countless other pieces of correspondence written to the DNR and Clark County raising the alarm about this timber sale’s impacts to the environment, especially regarding its effect on climate change.

Clearcutting approximately 140 acres of mature, structurally complex forest that is located next to a rare 30-acre patch of verified old growth forest flies in the face of DNR’s commitment to restore old growth forests to Western Washington and ignores the state legislature’s landmark climate legislation. Washington must do its part in addressing the global climate emergency, and such a sale is a betrayal to us, our children, and our grandchildren who will inherit the devastating consequences of these actions. Moving forward with the Dabbler sale of Legacy Forest would actively take Washington backwards in meeting its climate mitigation and resilience goals. 

Friends of Clark County participates on the Clark County Climate Community Advisory Group, which is working diligently to draw productive climate change mitigation recommendations for Clark County to include in its 2025 Comprehensive Plan Update, as prescribed by state law. We view this action by the DNR to be a complete disregard of all we are assigned to accomplish.

SB 1181 was passed in the legislature, requiring Clark County to develop a plan for reducing and preparing for the effects of climate change. Old growth timber is an important carbon sink. By leaving the Dabbler units intact, we can reduce the effect of increasing CO2 levels for many years to come and continue storing carbon. This will help the County to meet its mandated climate change goals. 

Additionally, we echo these important points made by the Center for Responsible Forestry and others:

• Dabbler is located near Yale Lake, and the Siouxon Creek area. The Siouxon is the ONLY place in Clark County that has large amounts of mature forest.
• Recently, a court ruled that the DNR did not adequately consider the climate impacts of other timber sales. We need to address this issue now, as the current evaluation for the “Dabbler” forest is insufficient.
• The claims made in the environmental checklist do not consider all carbon emissions from clearcutting. Clearcutting the Dabbler Timber sale would release a large amount of greenhouse gasses from the decay and combustion of logging residuals, carbon released from the degraded soil, and fossil fuels burned by logging machinery and transport vehicles—not to mention the creation of new roads that will alter the landscape and take away future carbon sequestration potential in those areas. A study from Hudiburg et al. (2019) highlights that from 2001 to 2016, timber harvest activity was the second-largest greenhouse gas emitter in Washington State.
  
• The DNR must consider the cumulative effects of these activities on our area’s climate change resilience. Clearcutting the remaining mature forests statewide to make plantation forests increases the risk of severe wildfires, floods, droughts, and landslides. Coastal temperate rainforests are among the rarest ecosystems on Earth, with more than a third of the remaining area located here, in a narrow band in the U.S. and Canadian Pacific Northwest. These are some of the most biodiverse, carbon-dense forests outside the tropics, thus crucial to carbon sequestration. Each forest contributes a difference in a warming climate. The DNR must seriously consider the impacts of losing a mature and complex forest ecosystem in the Dabbler timber sale.
• The Legacy Forest Defense Coalition has determined, through DNR information and their own research, including viewing area photos taken in 1952 that these trees are closer to 122 years old. Recently, the Columbian ran several articles about Dabbler, and the loss of legacy forests in Washington. The independent research non-profit Resources for the Future is quoted as having found that mature forests sequester more carbon than younger trees. Their study showed that “…avoided deforestation provides up to twice as much carbon removal (CDR) benefit as increased afforestation.” (Columbian, Nick Engelfried, Columbia Insight, September 16, 2024.)
• On July 13, 2022, Chris Reykdal, Washington State Superintendent of Public Education commented on the state of the CST (Common School Trust) specifically about the forest revenues. He wrote, “Timber harvests are not a driving force for school construction. Timber harvests have become an almost insignificant share of total school construction, and timber counties are primarily shipping their wood products, and the tax revenues derived from those products to the benefit of urban counties…Its time to make a basic education commitment to school construction with more reliable sources of revenue than timber harvests.” In short, “Finally sever urban school construction from timber harvests.”
• The environmental checklist recognizes that the “Dabbler” forest is entirely within a Northern Spotted Owl Management Unit (SOMU) and owls have been observed on or near the site. The Northern Spotted owl is identified as a Species of Greatest Conservation Need under the State Wildlife Action Plan (SWAP) and is identified as a Priority Species under WDFW’s Priority Habitat and Species Program. Priority species require protective measures for their survival and the DNR should be protecting this habitat for this important species, not clearcutting it.
• Other species utilize the varied biodiversity of the area, including woodpeckers, bats, fishers, land snails and springtails, voles, shrews, squirrels, elk and deer – to name a few as well as several varieties of edible and nonedible mushrooms, lichen and mosses – and some of these species only survive under these forest conditions. Clearing cutting Dabbler would remove the opportunity for these animals and plants to survive.
• The DNR is required under its Habitat Conservation Plan as well as the Intra-Service Biological Opinion for the HCP, PR-004-046, and the policy for Sustainable Forests to restore “fully functional” or “old growth-like” forests across 10 to 15 percent of state forestlands. The Dabbler timber sale would be an excellent candidate to meet these old forest targets.

In 2019, the DNR and Clark County negotiated a reconveyance of the Michigan-Trotter timber sale. This was done to preserve the County’s Hantwick Trail along the East Fork Lewis River. We considered it to be a win-win situation. It could be relatively easy to negotiate a new reconveyance as one alternative to clearcutting the timber. Although the Dabbler area is currently not as recreationally popular as Hantwick, the old roads are beautiful, offering rare hiking opportunities, views of Mt. St. Helens and the historical significance of immersion in a regenerated forest after the Yacolt burn.  

In conclusion, FOCC encourages the DNR to halt the “Dabbler” timber sale. FOCC urges the DNR to develop sound working policies to protect these structurally complex mature forests and transition them out of trust status entirely.

Thank you for your consideration of this most important decision,

Ann Foster, President

Friends of Clark County