GENOA -- Pressured by residents concerned about avalanches, fire hazards and noise, the U.S. Forest Service has scaled back timber salvage plans in mountains that tower above this historic Nevada town.
Instead of as much as 17 million board feet, the project will now yield about 10 million board feet. The area to be logged has been cut from 3,700 acres to 1,711 acres, and the work should be done by late 1998.
Carson District Ranger Mary Wagner said the controversial project will be advertised for sale Sept. 23. She added it was reduced in size "in response to significant public concern." The decision isn't subject to administrative appeal and can only be challenged in federal court.
Bev Smith of Concerned Citizens of Genoa, a group that opposed the project, said she's glad it was reduced in size -- but she still has concerns about fire hazards created by slash that will be left behind.
Less than half of the slash, or wood waste, will be disposed of. The rest will be left on the ground when trees, dead or dying as a result of drought and beetle infestations, are cut.
Smith also said the group had hoped for no logging in canyons immediately west of town which have produced avalanches in past years. That includes one a century ago that killed eight people and destroyed or damaged homes in Nevada's first settlement.
But under the final plan, 379 acres at the upper end of one of those canyons, Genoa Canyon, will be logged, mostly by helicopter. Another 502 acres will be logged in James Canyon, a few miles north of town, and 830 acres will be logged in Water Canyon, several miles north.
Wagner said noise, especially from helicopters that will be used to haul out two-thirds of the timber, will be reduced by having all loading areas and helicopter landings at least two miles from town.
No cutting will occur within a mile of Genoa, and most of the timber will be trucked out at Spooner Summit, well north of here.
Wagner said a key concern was to reduce a big fire hazard that exists in the mountains above Genoa, and the plan does that -- even though it may also increase the avalanche risk.
"Comparing the frequency of high-intensity fires along the Sierra Front with the frequency of large-magnitude avalanches, I have concluded that the large, intense fires are more frequent," she added.
On average, about a third of the trees in cutting zones will be taken out and the rest will be left. Some revegetation is planned, and lower hills closest to Genoa won't be disturbed.
While Wagner insisted the project isn't driven by greed, she said limiting the cutting to only dead trees instead of still-green trees that appear to be dying "severely limits the project's value in the log market."
Experts hired by Concerned Citizens of Genoa had presented startling reports to show that the initial logging plans could have had disastrous consequences.
University of California-Santa Cruz geology professor Robert Curry, whose doctoral thesis was on Eastern Sierra avalanches, said it's "frankly appalling" the Forest Service ignored or missed avalanche dangers until local residents told of slides.
Avalanche specialist Larry Heywood of Homewood, Calif., raised similar concerns, saying there's already a risk of big, destructive avalanches running out of some of the canyons above Genoa.
William Ferrell, a forest ecology professor from Oregon, warned that the timber project would increase fire hazards because of the slash left behind after big trees are removed.
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