College of Forestry - Oregon State University

Features
We All Live Downstream
The connection between forests and rivers is like that between father and son. —Gifford Pinchot, The Fight for
Conservation
Oregon’s forests are threaded with streams
flowing from headwaters, joining to form
larger branches and, finally, rivers. The
connections are indeed close, but there is
much to learn about what they are, how
they function, and how streamdependent
organisms respond
to water conditions, especially
in intensively managed forests
and headwater (nonfishbearing)
streams.
Scientists in the Watersheds
Research Cooperative (WRC)
have set up three long-term
projects—the Hinkle Creek, the
Alsea, and the Trask Paired Watershed
Studies—to determine
how to maintain healthy streams
under contemporary forest
management. “We have common
aims in all three studies,”
explains Arne Skaugset, Director
of the WRC and associate
professor of Forest Engineering.
“We already know a lot about
managing fishbearing reaches
and have used that knowledge to
formulate forest practice rules.
Now, we need to determine the
environmental consequences of
managing headwater streams—onsite, and also offsite, in
the fishbearing channels into which they flow. We also are
generating contemporary data sets with current equipment,
stand types, and forest practice rules.”
The most mature is the Hinkle Creek study, situated
on 5000 acres of Roseburg Forest Products lands near
Sutherlin. “Hinkle Creek is really a forestry and stream
biology project,” observes Skaugset. “Three-quarters of
the budget supports biological studies of aquatic indicator
organisms. Those organisms live in water, so there’s also a
water quality component.” Calibration has been completed
and harvest treatments have been installed, providing
3,900 loads of logs for local mills. Post-treatment data
collection has begun and will continue for five years. The
Hinkle Creek study also serves as a demonstration area
that is frequently visited by the public, policymakers,
and scientists to learn about the interactions of modern
intensive forest management with watershed health.
The Alsea study, set up almost entirely on Plum
Creek Timber land, has a historical component. The scientists
are repeating part of a study that ran from 1966 to
1973; the historical data will allow comparison of results
under earlier and current practices and conditions. Lead
scientists on this study are George Ice (National Council
for Air and Stream Improvement) and Jeff Light (Plum
Creek). One year of calibration data has been gathered,
and harvest will occur after another one or two years of
calibration.
The Trask study, northwest of McMinnville, is a joint
venture with Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF)
and the Weyerhaeuser Company. Lead scientists are Bob
Bilby (Weyerhaeuser), Liz Dent (ODF), and Sherri Johnson
(USDA Forest Service). “This is the most ambitious
and the largest of the projects,” Skaugset notes. “It’s a very
unusual opportunity to compare industrial forest practices
with the ODF structure-based management.” The
Trask scientists are now describing the watershed—determining
such things as where to put gauging stations,
what fish are there and how many, and what the harvest
plans will be.
“The scientific information and technology developed
by the WRC will help policymakers formulate
practice rules that will protect the streams and their
inhabitants, especially fish,” says Skaugset. “At the same
time, we can avoid making unnecessary forest rules that
could have high economic costs.”
For more information about the WRC, visit http://
watershedsresearch.org/.
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