Author: Luke Ruediger

This photograph shows the first Nedsbar field trip with the BLM and the public in November, 2014. Many local residents worked to have their voice heard and their values respected by the BLM in the Nedsbar Planning Process. Interest in the Nedsbar Timber Sale in the Applegate Valley community has been high due to the diverse and important resource values present in the planning area. BLM Releases the  Nedsbar Timber Sale Decision Record After two years of effort and thousands of volunteer hours invested by the Applegate Valley community, the BLM has chosen to disregard the community’s comments and concerns about the Nedsbar Forest Management Project (i.e. Nedsbar Timber Sale), as well as the Community Alternative, Alternative 5. The Community Alternative was widely supported in the Applegate Valley where 330 people signed on in support.  The BLM released its Decision Record (DR) for the Nedsbar Timber Sale on Thursday, September 1, 2016, and...

The Wellington Butte Roadless Area and LWC along with many other special places in the Applegate Valley would be open to logging, road building and motorized recreation in the new Resource Management Plan (RMP). The BLM has released a new Resource Management Plan (RMP), intended to direct management activities throughout western Oregon, including the Applegate Valley. The implications of this new plan for our forests, rivers, wildlife, wildands and communities are concerning to say the least. The plan will turn back many important environmental protections and eliminate land management designations that promote community-based collaboration in the Applegate Valley. The new RMP would eliminate or reduce many of the environmental protections of the Northwest Forest Plan. The plan would reduce streamside logging buffers by half, impacting 300,000 acres currently protected as Riparian Reserves. Commercial logging in Riparian Reserves will not only harm water quality and...

Nedsbar Timber Sale: Public Comment Guide Unit 28-10B in the Bald Mountain Roadless Area. Trees up to 42″ in diameter are marked for removal. The stand is naturally fire resistant with large well spaced trees, tall canopies, and minimal understory fuels. Logging will remove late seral characteristics while increasing understory fuel loads and fire hazards. On July 2, 2016, the Medford District BLM released the Nedsbar Forest Management Environmental Assessment (EA). The EA analyzes the predicted environmental impacts of various action alternatives. The primary alternative proposed by the BLM is Alternative 4, which would target some of the most intact, fire resistant forests in our region. The alternative would include 1,500 acres of commercial logging in the Little Applegate and Upper Applegate Valleys.  If implemented, Alternative 4 will increase fire hazards by removing excessive levels of forest canopy and large, fire resistant trees.   The...

The closure posted on China Gulch restricts OHV use in the area to reduce disturbance to wildlife, reduce risk of forest fire, and minimize soil erosion. The Applegate Valley OHV Monitoring Project is a grassroots public lands monitoring project focused on documenting the impact of OHV use in the Siskiyou Mountains. We are a project of the Applegate Neighborhood Network (ANN), Klamath Forest Alliance and the Siskiyou Crest Blog. Last summer we published a detailed Monitoring Report documenting OHV impacts throughout the Applegate River watershed. We monitored both Forest Service and BLM lands, documenting unauthorized, user-created routes that were impacting riparian areas, botanical resources, wildlife, roadless areas, monarch butterfly habitat and other important resource values.  One of the most egregious OHV issues in the Applegate Valley was documented to have been expanding out from the proposed, but still unapproved, John’s Peak OHV Emphasis Area. The...

The view west from the summit of Observation Peak Recently my wife and I took a backpacking trip across the eastern Siskiyou Crest for summer solstice and a spectacular full moon. This was the first full moon to land on summer solstice since 1948, and it was perhaps the only time in my lifetime that I will experience the longest summer day and a big, round, full moon. From the summit of Observation Peak, in a windswept clearing of paintbrush, buckwheat and low, creeping sage, we watched the sun sink to the west, into the rugged blue ridges of the Siskiyou Mountains, casting long shadows into the deep canyons below. Simultaneously, the low and massive full moon rose to the east over the broad ridges of the southern Cascade Mountains, reflecting moonlight on the snow-capped summit of Mt. Shasta — white glaciers were bathed in the light of the full moon and the final fleeting streaks of summer solstice sunlight. The rare and endemic Jaynes Canyon Buckwheat (Eriogonum...