San Mateo County Times
August 17, 2006

Environmentalists, YMCA at odds

by Julia Scott

LA HONDA — Residents and environmental advocates have come together to oppose a 100-year timber-harvesting plan that would cut up to 60 percent of redwood and Douglas fir trees on a private site in the Pescadero watershed.

Under a logging plan the YMCA of San Francisco submitted to the California Department of Forestry, 360 acres of its 907-acre Camp Jones Gulch site west of La Honda would be selectively logged over the next century. The logging permit plan, which the CDF will consider at a public hearing Thursday was created partly to generate income for the camp and partly to reduce a major potential fire hazard in the dense woods that surround the year-round nature camp for children and adults.

"They're proposing to cut the trees to the maximum allowable limit in our district — it's not sustainable in the long term," said Lennie Roberts, legislative advocate with the Committee for Green Foot hills. Roberts and several local residents have lobbied the YMCA to withdraw its plan, which was submitted to the CDF in June, and they intend to make their voices heard at the only public hearing the issue will likely receive.

They are concerned that the use of heavy machinery to transport lumber and equipment and maintain logging roads, especially in the rainy season, will create landslides and disturb animal habitat on the forest floor. The harvester also plans to apply pesticides to tanoaks and other, smaller trees.

Cutting of old-growth trees is prohibited under the proposal, but environmentalists worry that the permit, which would be issued in perpetuity, would allow the YMCA to amend the plan anytime in the future.

Bill Worthington, a vice president with the YMCA of San Francisco, said the plan's opponents had misconstrued his group's intent.

"The forest in its current condition creates a hazard of a catastrophic fire and needs to be thinned," he said. "We're trying to make the forest sustainable in the future."

He added that in most places, the actual number of trees to be felled would be "closer to 20 percent, when all is said and done."

The trees on the Jones Gulch property are Douglas fir, redwood, live oak and tanoaks from 30 to 100 years of age, and include two small stands of protected old-growth trees on the eastern side of the property.

The camp was established in the 1930s after a series of clear cuts left the area bare of mature trees. Over time, a dense new canopy of trees stunted younger generations and caused dry, brittle brush to proliferate, creating a fire hazard.

The logging plan's environmental protections include a 300-foot buffer zone around four redwood stands where the marbled murrelet, an endangered species, is known to nest. The property may also contain California red-legged frog habitat, a federally threatened species, and the San Francisco dusky-footed woodrat, a species of concern to the state.

Roberts is especially concerned about soil erosion resulting from work on steeply angled slopes, particularly in winter.

"You're disturbing the soil, and it washes away downstream and affects the fish in Pescadero Creek and Pescadero Marsh," she said, echoing the findings of a California Department of Fish and Game biologist who reported on past causes of erosion in the watershed. More surveys will be conducted prior to the beginning of the harvest.

Forestry officials said a second review of the logging plan would occur following the public hearing Thursday night, scheduled for 7 p.m. at the La Honda Fire Station, 8945 Highway 84, La Honda.

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