Turnbull to cut 325 acres of timber land

Cheney is used to the rumble of semi-trucks hauling grain, and for the next several months, logging trucks will be thrown into the mix.

That’s because Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge is undertaking a forest management project through removal of various stands of Ponderosa Pine on three portions of the refuge located southeast of Cheney. The refuge has issued a permit to Bailey Logging of Loon Lake, Wash., to thin these stands, which, according to a Nov. 20 news release, will improve wildlife habitat and reduce fuel loads should wildfire strike somewhere on the approximately 18,217 acres of Channeled Scablands topography consisting of over 130 marshes, wetlands and small lakes nestled around basalt outcroppings.

“We hope to thin it out to make it look like more of a natural forest so it looks like it did back in the day,” refuge manager Alice Hanley said. “It’s purely habitat management, just like (our) burns.”

The work will be done on three “management units” totaling approximately 325 acres. Two units will be located on either side of Cheney-Plaza Road near the refuge entrance while a third is situated between the vehicle loop and Cheney-Spangle Road. Logging began Nov. 26, and will continue through spring, depending upon the weather.

“We’ll be here steady until May,” Bailey Logging owner Ben Newman said. “If it’s too wet, we may shut down a bit.”

Hanley said trees are selected for cutting by looking for clumps and spacing between. It’s not done randomly, but with the intent of making the area look natural. Certain areas near wetlands and other sensitive growths will be excluded in order to keep equipment away.

“Again, we just want it to look natural, but not so heavy,” Hanley said.

Visitors to Turnbull or traveling along Cheney-Plaza Road will see trees marked with one, two or three reddish stripes. Those are the trees that are staying — everything around them will be cut down. Hanley said this will open up the local forest canopy and allow in more light, encouraging growth.

The diameter of trees is also taken in to account, she added. Larger diameter trees for the most part will be retained, but in some instances will be removed in order to vary the size classifications.

Newman said his company will employ 4-5 individuals using chain saws to do the cutting, using a technique he referred to as “hard fell.”

“We’re old school that way,” he said.

Hanley said such forest management work is done periodically, but not regularly, adding that the last project was done in 2013 or 2014. The federal government put the project out to bid in 2017, but had no takers.

Newman said his company does about 95 percent of its work on private forest parcels, but decided to take a shot at the federal contract when it was put up for bid again earlier this year. The company bid on the sale of 1.7 million board feet, with Hanley saying about 10 percent or so coming back to the government, and hopefully to Turnbull.

Newman said the rest would be sold to three different mills in Northeast Washington, with some wood going to use as lumber but the majority being turned into paper.

“It isn’t furniture wood, Ponderosa Pine,” Newman said. “It has a lot of pitch, which mills don’t love.”

Bailey is currently logging a stand of timber about a mile inside the refuge from the entrance road. Hanley said the portion closer to Cheney-Spangle can be logged beginning this month as elk season in the area is wrapping up.

The portion across from the entrance along Cheney-Plaza Road won’t be logged until January as the elk season runs through the end of this month over there.

“It’s weather dependent,” Hanley said. “It it’s too wet and muddy, we won’t do it in order to prevent habitat damage. We’ll do it when the ground is frozen.”

John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].