The Grants Pass District BLM has released an Environmental Assessment (EA) for the Picket West Timber Sale and will be accepting public comment until June 29, 2017.
The Pickett West Timber Sale is huge, with units extending across southwestern Oregon, from Merlin and Galice on the Rogue River, to Selma in the Illinois River watershed, and in the Lower Applegate River watershed around Wilderville, Murphy and North Applegate Road.
The project proposes to commercially log over 6,000 acres of BLM land and build 14 miles of new road. 48% of the units proposed for logging are between 150 and 240 years old, making them old-growth by any credible definition. The BLM is proposing to log these old-growth stands to as low as 30% canopy cover with no upper diameter limit, meaning any size tree can be logged.
The Siskiyou Crest Blog has published a new blog post on the Pickett West Timber Sale: Pickett West Timber Sale: Old-Growth Logging and the Restoration Facade in the Trump Era.