Joel Branch Timber Sale, January 2010 

 

On Wednesday, January 27, 2010, several members of The Clinch Coalition made a site visit to the Joel Branch timber sale, now called the Batman Ground timber sale.  What they found was the logging operator working, in spite of very wet conditions, and creating unacceptable rutting in the work area. (Look at more photos)  TCC members were joined by Forest Service employees Tyler Williamson and Greg Powers.  District Ranger Jorge Hersel reported the following action was taken:

• The operator on the Batman Ground Timber Sale was asked to voluntarily suspend operations a couple of weeks ago due to thawing conditions.  The operator did so.
• This morning the operator started operations on the sale thinking the ground had frozen hard enough not to cause rutting.  He did not stop operations when deep rutting occurred.
• Greg Powers as Sale Administrator came to check the sale and found him operating and creating unacceptable rutting.  He formally suspended all operations until such time as the weather conditions would permit operations.  If the contractor continues or starts operations without informing us of the work he can be held in breach of contract and the sale shut down.
• The operator has been directed to blade the rutted skid roads, spread straw and seed over today's distrubed routes, and pull in the berms on the side of the routes to restore soil moved to the side of the routes by his operations.  At this time he has back bladed the skid routes, and is scheduled to bring straw and seed tomorrow to prevent erosion.  The berms will have to wait until the soil forms up enough that he can get in there to pull them back into the routes without doing any more soil disturbance than he has to.
• I have directed Tyler and Greg to document soil erosion control work and take photos to ensure the operator is in compliance with direction he has received.

District Ranger Hersel made these comments about what happened, "We have timber sale contracts with some strict clauses in order that the operator performs operations in a manner that has the least impact on the resources.  In this case, this was the operators first timer sale on National Forests and we have tried to educate him on why we insist on certain conditions of operations.  I am glad to see that in this case we were able to stop the operator before he did too much soil disturbance, and he is willing to do the work needed to prevent future erosion."  He also added, "We will be keeping a closer watch on this sale in the future."

Go to our Forest Watch page to read about other timber sales on the Clinch Ranger District.