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Forest Habitat Keep California's Dillon Creek Wild
Steep, remote and rugged, Dillon Creek is one of the wildest watersheds remaining in the lower 48 states. Situated in Northern Californias Klamath National Forest, Dillon Creek is a large segment of an even laCalifornia'stration of wild forest habitat called the Salmon Divide area, which extends from the Siskiyou Wilderness southeastward to the Trinity Alps Wilderness. Based on analysis of infrared Landsat imagery, the Salmon Divide area appears to be the largest block of relatively intact ancient forest remaining in Northern California. President Clinton's Northwest Forest Plan designated Dillon Creek a key watershed and established a late successional reserve in the heart of the watershed. The Klamath forest ecosystem is recognized worldwide as a center of plant biodiversity and is renowned for its wealth of conifer species. For instance, in the Russian Mountain Wilderness Area, 17 different conifers grow within one square mile (dwarf juniper, incense cedar, white fir, subalpine fir, Shasta red fir, Brewers spruce, Engelmanns spruce, whitebark pine, knobcone pine, foxtail pine, lodgepole pine, sugar pine, ponderosa pine, western white pine, western hemlock, Douglas fir and Pacific yew). Dillon Creeks unsurpassed habitat is home to several rare and sensitive species of wildlife and fish. Dillon Creek old-growth provides critical habitat for the endangered marbled murrelet and Northern spotted owl. Research by conservation biologist Reed Noss and others suggests that this area contains the Pacific states healthiest populations of fishers and martens increasingly rare forest carnivores. The elusive wolverine has also been sighted. Dillon Creek is one of only six watersheds in California still supporting a viable number of summer-run steelhead (sea-run rainbow trout). An anadromous fish species like salmon, steelhead are hatched in freshwater streams, spend part of their lives in the ocean, and return to their freshwater birthplace to spawn. (Unlike salmon, which die after completing their first spawning cycle, steelhead may make one or even two additional migrations.) Dillon's steelhead, unlike some other steelhead stocks, often remain in deep cool pools through the summer and sometimes for several years. Thus it is essential they have good water quality and pristine habitat, conditions rarely found in watersheds that have been roaded and logged. While Dillon Creek has seen some past logging and roadbuilding on portions of its boundary ridges, the heart of the watershed has remained wild not even trails access Dillon's deepest canyons and steepest hillsides. This spring, however, Dillon's wild character is finally succumbing to chainsaws. The Dillon timber sale was promoted as an emergency measure to avert a forest health crisis. The looming threat of catastrophic fire, however, is not supported by the Forest Services own data. Dillon received a temporary reprieve when Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman's directive instructed the Forest Service not to proceed with salvage sales in roadless areas. Nevertheless, when the Forest Supervisors request for a special exemption from the Glickman directive got no response from the Washington office, local managers just adjusted the roadless area boundary. The agency cunningly dubbed the reconfigured timber sale the outside sale, claiming it was outside the inventoried roadless area. On Dec. 31, 1996, just hours before the salvage rider expired and environmental laws and citizen appeal rights were restored, the outside sale was completed. In April 1997, logging began in Dillon's adjusted roadless area. Sadly, the Forest Services decision to pursue logging in Dillon and other controversial areas in the Klamath may erode the fragile cooperation that has gradually built in recent years among local environmental activists, the timber industry and local government. By working through the Siskiyou Forest Management Roundtable, conservation and timber interests have mutually supported numerous timber sales in the past on the Klamath and nearby Shasta National Forests, including a few salvage sales. Unfortunately, the Forest Service seems bent on foregoing less controversial projects in favor of opening up the most sensitive areas. This year, early in his tenure as head of the agency, Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck acknowledged that many people presently do not trust us to do the right thing.... Until we rebuild that trust and strengthen those relationships, it is simply common sense that we avoid riparian, old-growth and roadless areas. When it comes to Dillon Creek, Mr. Dombeck's agency has clearly not taken its chiefs words to heart. Areas of Concern: More on forest habitat | Report Contents Up to Top HOME | Email Signup | About Us | Contact Us | Terms of Use | © 2008 Sierra Club |
