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PRINCESS SARAWilsonr■iillk OP'

Princess SaraWood, who turned 18Wednesday, joined theRose Festival Court onThursday.

As her name wascalled in the Trojans'auditorium, a group ofabout 30 students,mostly girls, shot totheir feet shrieking.

Born in Modesto,

The legacy of clear-cutting and road-building

Swollen streams tied to loggingBy PETER D. SLEETHand HAL BERNTONof The Oregonian staff

The effects of past logging practiceson mountain streams are far more ex-tensive and enduring than previouslythought, federal researchers have de-clared in a study that reviews morethan four decades' worth of data gath-ered in the Willamette National For-est.

Clear-cutting forests and buildingroads were found to increase peakflows in mountain streams by asmuch as 50 percent, a finding that es-tablishes a long-disputed link between

logging and swollen streams.While the findings might seem

trussed in common sense, the bulk ofpast studies has not supported such aconclusion. Extensive clear-cuttingand road-building have been a stapleof timber harvests in the Northwestfor 50 years.

Should the research be widely ac-cepted, it could accelerate a movementin place within the U.S. Forest Servicethat calls for the obliteration of manyold logging roads and a move awayfrom clear-cutting.

The researchers' work found that insome cases streamflows increased by

as much as 20 percent to 50 percentafter a watershed was logged. The ef-fects diminished gradually but wereapparent 25 years after clear-cutting.

Perhaps the most significant findingis the apparent synergy between log-ging roads and clear-cutting. The log-ging roads appear to act somethinglike a pipeline — rapidly injectingflows of rain and snowmelt runningoff clear-cuts into streams.

The study by Gordon E. Grant, aForest Service hydrologist at the Pa-cific Northwest Research Station, andJulia A. Jones of Oregon State Univer-sity is to be published in the April

issue of Water Resources Research,the journal of the American Geo-physical Union.

The study does not speak to whathappens in major events such asthe February floods, because of alack of sufficient records on largefloods to allow a valid study.

"What we're looking at is a lega-cy of clear-cutting and roads overthe past 40 years," Grant said."There is a strong component ofhistory here, and we are notingthere are long-term legacies from

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■ A studybased on 40years of dataconcludes thatpast harvestingpracticesmarkedlyincreasedstreamflows

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FESTIVAL PRINCESSHer voice quavering slightly, Wilson High

School's smiling new Rose Festival princesstold her still-cheering fellow students, "I reallydidn't think I would win. Everybody else uphere is so good."

SECTION

FRIDAY,MARCH 8, 1996

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THE OREGONIAN, FRIDAY, MARCH 8, 1996 •

dy: Findings contradict earlier works Expo building■Continued from Page Clpast practices that continue into thefuture."

The authors work at two of the na-tion's most prestigious centers offorestry research. They have com-piled one of the most exhaustivestudies on the subject yet, taking inmore than 40 years of data. It hasbeen "extensively" reviewed byother scientists who checked forflaws in methodology, Grant said.

But it already is proving contro-versial.

Its findings contradict some previ-ous studies that showed logging androad-building had little or no effecton peak flood flows in large drain-ages. And critics, both from indus-try and the Oregon Department ofForestry, say that the new study isbadly flawed.

"I felt that the conclusions in thisstudy far overreach the data that ispresented," said Kate Sullivan, a hy-drologist with Weyerhaeuser.

Sullivan said that none of herstudies of about 60 drainages show-ed that logging had any major ef-fects in big floods. She said shethought that the information citedin the new report did not show sig-nificant effects in big floods.

"She has never published any of

her data," Grant said of Sullivan's What the study showed was thatcomment. "So it is impossible for for five years after clear-cutting,me to react." peak flows in streams in the basins

The question of the relationship were 50 percent higher than beforebetween logging and major floods logging. Twenty-five years after thebecame a political hot potato after logging, the flows are 25 percentFebruary's high waters. Environ- higher than they were before log-mentalists tried to condemn all log- ging took place.ging because of its contribution to In the larger valleys, Jones andthe floods, while the timber indus- Grant relied on records of past tim-try pooh-poohed those claims. ber harvesting and streamflows to

"We don't know," Grant said. "I do their study. But the results weredon't know of anyone that can an- virtually the same as in small ba-swer that question, no matter what sins. Past studies found that largethey're political persuasion is." basins didn't have the same impacts

Increasingly, scientists and others from logging.are pointing to land management "Previously, we had thought thepractices in forests as the culprit for effects of small basins would canceldamage to stream beds and fish hab- out downstream" as they floweditat, as well as increased runoff and into large basins, Jones said.flooding. But little definitive science But large basins showed the samehas been available. effects from logging, the study show-

To get at the question, Grant and ed.Jones studied stream-flow data from Clear-cut logging is down to athree small basins — those less than fraction of post-World War II levels250 acres — and three large basins in federal forests in the Pacificup to 250 square miles in size. Northwest. Road-building also has

The three small basins were moni- declined as environmental restric-tored beginning in the 194s, before tions have eased the pressure to logany logging was done, and then forests.afterward. One valley was left alone, But extensive networks of olda second was 25 percent clear-cut roads and clear-cuts may pose prob-with roads and a third was logged lems for flood management in thecompletely with no roads in it. future.

Commissioners approved mea-sures that bring the county closer toMetro on several issues related tothe transfer of county properties tothe regional government. But it willtake at least two weeks for Metroand the county to work out terms ofthe transfer, which will include theExpo Center.

If new snags arise to delay thetransfer, they could jeopardize thewide-ranging "America's Smithsoni-an" exhibit, which is on a two-year,12-city tour. County and Metro offi-cials said Thursday they expect towork out a deal that will permit thestructure to be built in time for theexhibit's opening.

funds near OKMultnomah County commission-

ers took a half-step Thursday to-ward shifting $9 million in hotel taxrevenues to a fund to pay for a newbuilding at the Multnomah CountyExposition Center.

Government officials hope to havethe building finished in time for ascheduled March 28, 1997, opening ofa touring Smithsonian Institutionexhibit. •

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