Mercury News
September 5, 2006

YMCA logging proposal decried

Residents, activists who fear erosion, trucks, fight plan

By Janice Rombeck

La Honda residents and local environmentalists are teaming up to fight a timber-harvesting plan at a popular YMCA camp nestled in 900 acres of woodland.

The YMCA of San Francisco submitted a plan last year to the California Department of Forestry asking that it be allowed to cut trees at its Camp Jones Gulch nature camp about five miles south of La Honda.

Calling it a “long-term maintenance plan” and a way to reduce fire hazards, YMCA Vice President Bill Worthington said the organization’s intent is to make the forest healthier by thinning trees and creating a forest of “uneven” ages and sizes.

“Those trees get very dry in the summer and create a fire hazard in the underbrush,” he said.

Acknowledging that some of the redwoods and Douglas firs targeted in the plan would have commercial value, Worthington said the harvest would generate money to help maintain the year-round camp, which provides 150 spots for children, families and adults. But he said commercial interests are secondary.

La Honda residents and representatives of two environmental groups, however, say the plan is open-ended, has too many loopholes and would allow “inappropriate” practices such as herbicide spraying.

As written, opponents say, the plan would let the YMCA cut 60 percent of redwood and fir trees 18 inches in diameter or larger on very steep slopes, which could cause erosion.

Though old-growth trees would be excluded in the first round of cutting, loopholes in the plan would allow the harvesting of old-growth trees that represent a “hazard,” said Jodi Frediani, head of the Sierra Club’s Forestry Task Force, who reviews plans submitted to the Department of Forestry for her organization.

Lenny Roberts, legislative advocate for the Committee for Green Foothills, said she would like to see the YMCA take another approach. “We’d really like them to withdraw the plan and work with the community to come up with a more sustainable plan for the property,” she said.

Worthington said the YMCA's intent is to cut “15 to 20 percent of trees over a period of years” in an area of 300 acres. He said the 60 percent that opponents cite is simply a maximum allowed by the Department of Forestry and was included in the proposal prepared by a forester. But the plan would allow the organization to log in an area of up to 733 of the camp's 907 acres.

Worthington said misunderstandings of the plan have emerged as a “byproduct of how the document has to be written.”

The complicated 168-page proposal is part of the problem, both sides agree.

Representatives of the Sierra Club and the Committee for Green Foothills are to meet this week with YMCA officials to clarify aspects of the proposal.

But opponents say it's a bad plan.

“If you really want to reduce fire hazards, you don't do it this way,” said Roberts of the Committee for Green Foothills. The non-profit was formed in 1962 to slow sprawling development on the Peninsula.

She said cutting tall trees opens the forest to sunlight that can dry out other plant life, making it tinder for a fire. “It's almost a formula that invites fire rather than prevents fire hazards.”

Patty Mayall, a La Honda resident who visited the camp as a child and later as a counselor, has joined the opposition, circulating a petition that asks the YMCA to withdraw the plan because it “will severely impact surrounding properties, public roads and the local watershed.”

She and other residents fear removal of trees from hillsides could cause erosion resulting in mudslides and sediment in streams. She also worries about a steady troop of logging trucks on rural roads.

Mayall and the environmental groups object as well to the lack of a public process in the debate. The Department of Forestry conducted one public hearing with short notice given to residents, she said. The department could make its decision in October, Worthington said.

Opponents say a better plan would be to create a ”conservation easement” in which a government agency or non-profit group could buy part of the land from the YMCA to protect trees from commercial timber harvests, while addressing concerns of fire risk. Worthington said the YMCA would be interested in looking into that kind of arrangement but is wary of losing control of the site.

In any event, he said, “the YMCA prides itself from being a steward of the environment. We’re not going to set out to do anything that’s going to cause an environmental disaster.”

Page last updated September 5, 2006.