Clear-cutting done with eye to appearance

AP 26nov00

A Willamette Industries engineer seeks to make timber harvests as unobtrusive as possible

ASTORIA, OR -- When Steve McNulty visits Cannon Beach, he likes to stand in the parking lot and take a good long look -- his back to the ocean.

"I'll be the only one looking back at the hillside," he says. "Everyone else will be looking out at the ocean."

As planning and operations engineer for Willamette Industries, that's part of his job.

Willamette is the largest private landowner in Clatsop County. Some of its land has been cut for timber, and much more will be cut in the years to come as the company begins to harvest more around Seaside. Many of those cuts will be visible to the public. Some can be seen only from obscure vantage points that aren't often visited.

But after spending a year quizzing folks in residential areas and at tourist stops, McNulty has identified 63 points in towns and along the highways where views are a concern. By combining that information with modern technology, he can envision what a cut will look like before the saws move in.

Big timber companies didn't used to worry much about planning their cuts with perception in mind. But times have changed, and most major companies also are changing.

McNulty tries to design clear-cuts on Willamette's land that are unobtrusive -- if not pretty. Until recently, that would have entailed nothing more than erecting buffers along highways, what some call peek-a-boo logging. But that has changed, too.

"We don't want to hide everything we do, because we can't," McNulty said. "There are very few places we would avoid altogether."

With the exception of the junction at U.S. 101 and U.S. 26 and some stretches along U.S. 26, he said, Willamette intends to harvest every bit of its Clatsop County acreage that it can.

It may seem like a tall order to make clear cuts look better. But McNulty said most people seem to agree that the stark lines of a square clear cut clash with the flowing lines of natural land form. Many natural clearings fit in without disturbing the view: rock outcrops, avalanche chutes, natural bald spots on hilltops and ridges, as well as openings in the forest canopy created by fire or wind.

Natural openings in the tree line are irregular, curved, broken up by patches of trees -- not straight edges.

By altering straight lines, feathering harsh edges and creating clumps of trees, foresters such as McNulty apply the same principles that seem to work for natural openings to clear cuts.

McNulty uses global positioning system photos to tie down aerial photos to precise latitude and longitude. Geographic Information Systems mapping can overlay a proposed harvest area with information about nearby watersheds or roads.

A Canadian company creates models for Willamette that tell foresters what their cuts will look like from any of those 63 vantage points. Plenty of factors come into play. How many people are likely to see it? For how long? If a driver catches a clear cut out of the corner of her eye, she might not give it a second thought. If she's staring at it for more than 30 seconds, she probably will, McNulty said.

Size is another factor. The Astoria Column is one of the viewpoints McNulty considers when planning a cut. So is the public parking lot behind the Cannon Beach post office. From the column, an 80-acre clear cut in south county won't have much of an impact. From the parking lot, it might be another story.

Computer models can stop foresters from making a big mistake, or reveal how even a subtle adjustment might solve the visual problem. McNulty isn't just picking pleasing patterns for the cuts. The patterns must make good logging sense as well.

And he has to make sure the right logs go to the right mill at the right time of year. Some of the patterns raise logging costs, McNulty said, "but from a public relations standpoint, it warrants the economics."