Tracy Press
December 27, 2006

YMCA considers logging on science camp acreage

By Janet Somers / For the Tracy Press

Science camp at Jones Gulch is a tradition for hundreds of local sixth-grade students. But the YMCA, which owns the camp, has made overtures to allow limited logging on the property.

As a Tracy sixth-grader, Courtney LeBoeuf enjoyed the shady redwood forest of Camp Jones Gulch in La Honda, near Half Moon Bay. For half a century, schools in San Joaquin County have sent hundreds of kids each year to the woodsy camp to attend a weeklong Outdoor Education Program, where they learn about nature while breathing in the air of majestic conifers.

Now LeBoeuf, a San Francisco environmental lawyer, has joined hundreds of environmentalists, La Honda residents and others in protesting a plan by the San Francisco YMCA, which owns the camp, to log timber there.

The Y applied for a nonindustrial timber management plan in June. The plan would allow harvesting of redwoods and Douglas fir trees on 733 acres of the 927-acre property every 15 years, although the Y says it plans to log only 366 acres. It also calls for new access roads, replacement of dying Monterrey pines with redwoods and Douglas firs, and removal of some flammable brush.

The permit would remain in effect indefinitely, barring a change in ownership. That bothers critics, including LeBoeuf, who also worry about federally listed species in the forest, the potential for erosion, the atmosphere of the camp and the safety of kids while loggers are working.

“The goals of logging are completely incompatible with the goal of the land use there, which is environmental education,” LeBoeuf said.

Bill Worthington, the Y’s vice president for property development, said logging will occur only during three years out of every 15 and that logged areas would be closed off.

He says the main reason for the plan is fire safety and a “sustainably” managed forest, and that logging income is a secondary goal. Logging revenue — an estimated $2 million over 15 years, a figure supplied by Worthington and borne out by timber values set by the California State Board of Equalization, assuming the plan’s timber yield estimates are correct — would, he said, be earmarked for renovation of the dilapidated camp, which needs everything from new sewers to updated buildings at an estimated cost of between $15 million and $20 million.

But critics say the Y is less interested in forest green and more interested in the color of money.

“They need millions to upgrade their property,” said Lennie Roberts, legislative advocate for the Committee for Green Foothills. “Once the public started raising a fuss, they decided to emphasize fire safety.”

On its original permit application (the application has since been revised in other aspects after a public meeting, making concessions to critics), the Y listed timber value, economic return, minimizing damage to smaller trees and reducing fire hazard, in that order, as “purposes in undertaking the project.” Under “needs for the project,” the Y listed “meeting fixed costs of ownership” and “maintaining the high quality of timber products to the economy.”

Opponents also say the plan would increase, not reduce, fire risk. It calls for trees of all sizes to be harvested. No old-growth trees would be cut unless they are deemed hazardous, and felling of trees of more than 18 inches in diameter would be limited to 40 percent. Felled foliage, called “slash,” would be carted away only from the perimeter of the forest. Deeper in, very large branches would be chopped up and left as mulch; fallen branches sticking up 2 feet or less from the forest floor would be left alone.

“We’re thinning the trees to space them wider apart, creating some gaps in the forest,” said Nicholas Kent, the registered professional forester hired by the Y to write the application and oversee the project, if approved. He explained that the canopy — the highest branches of the tallest trees — is too dense and needs to be opened up.

“You want a certain amount of light so trees will grow better,” he said.

But Jeff Kennedy, a vegetation ecologist who is unfamiliar with the plan, said there is no reason to remove large trees at all because it’s the smaller trees that create a “ladder” for fires to reach the canopy, where they can become devastating. The bigger a redwood tree gets in diameter, he said, the more resistant to fire it is.

“There’s a tension between doing what is best from an ecological perspective and doing what’s economically optimal,” said Kennedy, who works at the Information Center for the Environment at the University of California, Davis.

Kennedy said he agrees with plan opponents who say a closed canopy is the natural state of a redwood forest. Creating gaps in it, he said, would only increase sunlight and heat to the forest floor, causing the flammable logging slash to present an even greater risk.

Others also cite a degraded camp experience as one of the costs of allowing logging in the area.

“We chose that area because it gives some kids their only chance to see a redwood tree or the ocean,” said Dan Randrup, coordinator for San Joaquin County’s Outdoor Education Program. “With areas closed off, it changes the whole experience. Our trails will be messed up, logging trucks will be coming in and out, and we’re out there trying to talk about the environment with chain saws going in the background.

“This is an environmental program, to teach the children to become good stewards of the outdoors. We teach kids that it all starts with the sun making the plants grow — the grasses, seeds and grains. The little mice eat the grasses, and the snake eats the mice. Maybe you kill some grasses, and the mice go down, and then there’s not enough food for the snakes, and then pretty soon, the snakes are gone.

“So now you’re building roads to get logs out, damaging the forest. You’re cutting trees down, affecting the animal species. The trees are shelter for the different animals.

“The forest in its natural state is a very beautiful place. Maybe everything they do will not even be visible to the kids; I have no idea. I try not to get too emotional about the whole thing.”

The public comment period has been extended until the California Department of Fish and Game and the Regional Water Quality Board file their reports, probably within one or two months.

To leave a message for Janet Somers at the Tracy Press, call 830-4201.

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