[EF!] Weyerhaeuser: skinning a burn patient (2 articles)

Weyerhaeuser harvests first timber in Mount St. Helens blast zone
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/aplocal_story.asp?category=6420&slug=WA%20Mount%20St.%20Helens%20Timber

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

LONGVIEW, Wash. -- Weyerhaeuser Co. has begun harvesting trees that were
planted 25 years ago in the ashes of the Mount St. Helens blast zone.

In January, contract loggers began thinning stands of Douglas Fir from
land that once looked like it might never produce another tree.

In the Green River Valley, near the outer fringe of the blast zone,
there are now no obvious signs of the volcano's May 18, 1980,
catastrophic eruption. The forest floor is shaded under a canopy of
green. Ash that once blanketed the ground has long since mixed into the
soil.

"It's a time of immense pride for all of us at Weyerhaeuser,"
spokeswoman Jackie Lang said. "By all definitions (the blast zone) was a
wasteland 25 years ago. It's a complex and healthy forest today because
of our active forest management."

Logging trucks are scheduled to transport timber to lumber and pulp
mills three times this year, thinning out the new forest to give the
remaining trees more room to grow and thrive, so they can be harvested
in another 15 years or so.

"This is a pretty exciting time to be a forester," said Dick Ford, who
in 1980 was in charge of Weyerhaeuser's large Camp Baker District, which
contained all 68,000 acres of company timberland within the blast zone.
Ford was charged with leading the return of Weyerhaeuser's timberlands.

His work started just 30 days after the eruption, when Ford and other
Weyerhaeuser employees dug through a thick layer of ash to plant the
first trees inside the blast zone.

Foresters quickly learned how to replant more than 45,000 acres that
Weyerhaeuser retained within the blast zone. Contractors eventually
replanted 18.4 million trees over seven years, beginning in early 1981.

The rest of the company's blast zone timber land was traded with the
U.S. Forest Service to be preserved as part of the Mount St. Helens
National Volcanic Monument. The Coldwater and Johnston Ridge visitors
centers are now located on land formerly owned by Weyerhaeuser.

During the next several years, Weyerhaeuser plans to thin Douglas fir
forests on about half of the replanted blast zone, said Bob Keller,
harvest manager for the company's St. Helens Tree Farm. The rest of the
replanted land won't be commercially thinned due to steep terrain or the
type of tree species.

Inside the national monument, where logging is prohibited, the landscape
remains starker as nature is allowed to take its slower road toward
recovery.

Today Ford, 57, is director of the nearby Forest Learning Center along
Spirit Lake Memorial Highway, a visitor center that Weyerhaeuser and the
state Department of Transportation opened 10 years ago to help tell the
story of how forests are recovering from the devastation.

---

Information from: The Daily News, http://www.tdn.com

88888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888
http://www.tdn.com/articles/2005/01/30/top_story/news01.txt
First Harvest: Volcano-scorched land back in business
By Eric Apalategui
Jan 29, 2005 - 11:47:18 pm PST

GREEN RIVER VALLEY — Weyerhaeuser Co. is harvesting the first timber in
Mount St. Helens' blast zone since the volcano's catastrophic eruption a
quarter century ago.

Earlier this month, contract loggers began thinning verdant stands of
Douglas fir trees in the Green River Valley and trucking the logs to
lumber and pulp mills.

This is the first of three thinning operations the company plans in the
blast zone this year.

The logging marks a return to timber production of land that initially
looked like it might never produce a stick of timber in anyone's
lifetime.

Close to the mountain, the eruption flattened every tree. But on this
gentle slope, near the outer fringe of the blast zone, a furnace-like
heat swept across the forest, killing trees where they stood but leaving
them standing.

By now there are no obvious signs of the eruption -- the forest floor is
shaded under a canopy of green. Ash that once blanketed the ground has
long since mixed into the soil.

That management started just 30 days after the eruption, when Ford and
other Weyerhaeuser employees dug through a thick layer of ash to plant
the first trees inside the blast zone.

With those early experiments, foresters quickly learned how to replant
more than 45,000 acres that Weyerhaeuser retained within the blast zone.
Contractors eventually replanted 18.4 million trees over seven years,
beginning in early 1981.

"That wasn't ordinary work to get the blast zone planted. That was very
difficult work," said Ford, who returned to walk through the first
harvest area last week. "This is the first place we went (to plant). It
was the farthest from the mountain and had the least ash. So it was the
safest and easiest."

In the next several years Weyerhaeuser will commercially thin Douglas
fir forests on about half of the replanted blast zone, said Bob Keller,
harvest manager for the company's St. Helens Tree Farm. The rest of the
replanted land there won't be commercially thinned due to steep terrain
or the type of tree species.

After the blast, Weyerhaeuser traded away a large amount of its land
within the blast zone -- including land that now holds the Coldwater and
Johnston Ridge visitors centers -- that became part of the Mount St.
Helens National Volcanic Monument. In exchange, the company received a
far smaller, but forested, amount of land with living trees.

The private and public lands stand in stark contrast today.
Weyerhaeuser's commercial forests were completely replanted and is now
carpeted in the deep green hues of Douglas fir and the bluer tints of
noble fir. Across the monument line, where logging will never occur, the
landscape remains starker as nature is allowed to take its slower road
toward recovery.

Walking across some of the world's best timber-growing land, Ford said
the landscape of forest practices has changed nearly as dramatically as
Mount St. Helens altered the physical landscape.

For one, Weyerhaeuser and other companies must follow far stricter
environmental practices, including leaving buffers of uncut trees along
stream corridors to protect fish habitat. The company also started
getting certification that all of its operations employ sustainable
forestry practices.

For another, the very method of harvesting has vastly improved. Last
week, contractor Moore Tech Inc.'s harvesters rolled through the forest.
The harvesters grasp, cut and limb the trees in one nearly continuous
motion -- often taking less than 30 seconds to transform a standing tree
into ready-to-load logs cut to the buyer's specifications.

A skilled harvester operator can cut and limb 1,000 of these smaller
trees in a single day, contractor Dave Moore said. Before the mountain
blew, it would have required a dozen good loggers to produce so many
logs so fast, Keller added.

The harvester operators also drop limbs in their pathway, further
cushioning the machine's big rubber tires so they don't scour or compact
the earth as much as old logging machinery, Keller said.

In this forest, the contractor is thinning more than half the trees to
end up with about 160 of the best specimens standing on each acre. The
trees thinned out are still large enough for use as saw or pulp logs.

Thinning allows the remaining trees to soak up more sun and nutrients,
including fertilizer that Weyerhaeuser applies from the air, resulting
in more vigorous growth. The thinning is carefully timed -- after the
trees are big enough to sell and growing close enough for lower limbs to
die off (resulting in fewer knots in the wood) but before crowded
conditions slow growth.

While Weyerhaeuser often makes money on commercial thinning, the main
objective is to improve the value of the timber left standing, Keller
said. The saws will return in another 15 years or so, when the forest is
due for its final harvest -- followed by yet another replanting.