November 23, 2021--Jackson Demonstration State Forest is roughly 50,000 acres of public land in the heart of Mendocino County, managed by CalFire. Although these state-owned woods are enjoyed by hikers, mountain bikers, equestrians and foragers, JDSF is not a park. It was once industrial timber land, and continues to be logged by CalFire.
A coalition of groups, including the Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians and the Mendocino Trail Stewards, have called for a different plan for Jackson State. This summer, direct action protests including tree sits effectively shut down logging. And last week, the Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to ask the governor to review the JDSF management plan in light of the most current science on climate change.
Although Mendocino County has been drenched by winter storms in recent weeks, the start of the rainy season does not mean the end of the conflict in the woods. From November 15th to April 1st, winter restrictions are in place to limit, but not stop, the work Calfire can do Jackson State. Crews are not allowed to use ‘ground based equipment’ like tractors or yarders, anywhere but on surfaced roads while soils are saturated from winter rains.
Kevin Conway is the Demonstration State Forest Program Manager for CalFire, and Erik Wahl is the Road Manager at JDSF. Part of their plan for winter operations in to install a multi-use foot bridge over Blue Gum Creek, a small watercourse in the heart of the Caspar 500 that flows into Caspar Creek. Last week they took KZYX News on a tour of the site, to clarify when and how the new bridge would be installed.
The Blue Gum Trail follows Road 669, and abandoned logging road that was built by CalFire around 50 years ago. The challenge for CalFire is how to deliver the two-ton new bridge to the Blue Gum Creek Crossing. Conway explained that crews can cut down trees and cable yard them under winter operations, and deliver the bridge to the crossing site at Blue Gum Creek. They can’t, however, install the bridge until Winter Ops ends on April 1st, due to winter restrictions on work close to waterways meant to prevent erosion into the creek.
It is also unclear how logging crews will move the cable yarder into place this winter, since the landing area where they intend to locate the machine is covered with down trees, and they aren’t allowed to take tractors into the area to clear the site during the winter.
Wahl and Conway hope that if the community understands more about their recreational work, such as the Blue Gum Creek pedestrian bridge and other trail improvements, that are part of the Caspar 500 timber harvest plan, they might be more supportive of the overall logging plans and less likely to try to slow things down. That was the big message Kevin Conway took away from last Monday’s Board of Supervisors vote for a scientific review of the Jackson Management plan. He looks forward to "re-educating" the Board of Supervisors in a future workshop about Jackson.