DNR allows cutting of old-growth forest
Lack of oversight may be to blame for loss
of 160-year-old cedar grove near Grand Portage
July 9, 2003
Grand Marais--The Department of Natural Resources recently sold a rare old-growth white cedar grove for logging, conservationists discovered Friday. Logging began in the designated old-growth preserve this winter, near Andy Lake in the Grand Portage State Forest north of Grand Marais. Up to 10 acres of 160+-year-old cedars, many up to 28 inches in diameter, were cut in the preserve.
" We are asking DNR Commissioner Gene Merriam to start a formal investigation," said Clyde Hanson, a Sierra Club volunteer who visited the site. "This is a terrible loss for Minnesota, and a violation of our trust in the DNR," noted Hanson, "This is either incompetent or corrupt forestry."
Two lucky breaks saved part of the grove. The area's early thaw made the logging roads too soft to finish the job. Then a March 21 Outdoor News article on white cedar logging up the Arrowhead trail spurred a conservationist to make inquiries and visit the grove.
Sierra Club is calling on the DNR leadership to immediately cancel the two sales, remove the roads, and add the 378 acres to the old-growth preserve. Prompt action is needed to protect the public's forest resources and to restore trust in our land management agencies," said Hanson.
The Sierra Club noted multiple violations in the sale:
- The DNR Forester should not have included an old-growth preserve in a timber sale
- The logger cut cedar in an area where the timber sale map clearly prohibited it
- The DNR policy is to only cut cedar where it can and will be re-grown but the plan here is to convert the cedar grove to aspen
- The advice of the local DNR wildlife officer to protect the area for wildlife reasons was ignored
- The computer map of old growth in local DNR offices is inaccurate. Other old growth stands across the state may have been logged as a result
Background
The Andy Lake cedar grove is up the Arrowhead Trail in Cook County. The recent history of its management by the DNR is a sad story.
The grove should have been part of an old-growth preserve. The forest in the timber sale was mislabeled as balsam fir on a forestry map in 1999, as the DNR was designating old-growth lands for protection. When the mistake was discovered, the grove was re-typed as cedar and sold in 2001 "effectively hiding it from an old-growth protection program that the DNR has implemented as part to mitigate the impacts of logging, which has tripled in the state in the last 30 years.
The two timber sales totaling 378 acres are removing the heart of a rare cedar habitat. White cedar groves are rare because of over-logging and high deer populations through much of the tree's range. Deer eat the young seedlings so cedar stands only regenerate when deer are fenced out. Cedar also needs large rotting logs on the forest floor as a safe site for germination and early establishment, according to research in the newsletter of the DNR Division of Forestry. The agency concluded that unless cedar is saved, "it could soon become little more than a memory." 1
There wasn't much the public could do to protect the grove. DNR foresters put the forest up for sale without competitive bids on May 15, 2001. (The sales were to Stan Pelto and John Eliasen of Cook County. It is unclear which logger entered the old-growth stand.) Public notice of the sales described cuts of 60 and 90 acres, but the agency expanded the sale to 378 acres - another violation of state timber sale policy.
Conservationists and wildlife officials did object to the sale. Moose summer in the wetlands along the nearby Swamp River and winter in the cedar groves. Hanson saw moose tracks in the logged area on March 28. The groves also host rare plants like the moschatel, musk root and calypso orchid.
At present, the DNR has no plans to re-grow the cedar grove; the sale areas are being converted to aspen, red pine and white spruce. Planned "rock raking" of the area years after the logging would destroy cedar re-growth and favors other species not native to the site.
Alan Jones of DNR Forestry wrote in the agency's January magazine, "no significant harvesting of white cedar will occur on state lands." The article claims only experimental logging for regeneration of cedar is done on state lands. Yet the two sales by Andy Lake were very large: they equal 12.5% of the 1999 total statewide cedar harvest reported by DNR.
Keith Wendt of DNR confirmed that due to the mapping snafu another timber sale already had to be 'unwound' because it included protected old growth. An investigation is on by the agency to identify more illegal old-growth logging.
Other contacts:
Keith Wendt, Department of Natural Resources: 651/297-7879
Alan Jones, Department of Natural Resources: 320/762-7812
Stan Pelto, logger: (218) 475-2278
John Eliasen, logger: (218) 387-2225
1 Cornett, Meredith. "Roots." DNR Division of Forestry August 2000.