Lots of people here hoped the long-dormant Goat Creek aspen timber sale on Lone Cone had died a natural death. In the face of longstanding and overwhelming public opposition to this aspen clear-cutting plan, it made sense that the U.S. Forest Service should quietly dump the whole idea. After all, the Goat Creek timber sale plan was more than 20 years old, and Louisiana-Pacific’s highly controversial wafer-board plant in Olathe – the impetus for the Forest Service’s massive aspen clear-cutting program – had closed down.

But, there it was – a formal notice in our mail. On May 14, the San Miguel Planning Commission will consider an application for a special use permit to haulv1.6 million board feet of timber over county roads on the Cone. “Oh, noooo,” said various friends and colleagues when we shared this startling news. It felt like an element of bad faith that, despite all the appeals, the town and the region’s watershed concerns, and the glaring inappropriateness of this timber sale, the Forest Service pursued this plan.

Consider, also, that recreation is one the most critical – and cherished – aspects of the Goat Creek area’s attributes. An easy 16 or so miles south of Norwood, Goat Creek is the central access to the upper reaches of the Lone Cone. Never mind that the area itself offers fishing, hunting, trail riding, hiking, biking, camping and winter sports, and some recently discovered rare bird types. Plus, it’s just plain gorgeous.

Of course, that’s a point of view – one not generally shared by present U.S. Forest Service policy-makers. In 2002, I’d written a piece about the history of this proposed timber sale and the massive aspen clear-cutting venture the USFS instigated so long ago. So, what had happened since the Goat Creek Timber sale reappeared six years ago? Norwood District Ranger Judy Schutza and Delta-based forester Tim Garvey, who happened to be meeting in Norwood the day I called, teamed up to answer my queries.

Two, or possibly three logging companies had submitted bids, Garvey recalled. The bid was awarded in October 2006, but high bidder Western Excelsior Corp. of Mancos, simply chose not to activate the sale until this year.

Was it a below-cost timber sale? I asked. Schutza said that really “wasn’t an issue.” The Forest Service was “mostly interested in whether it would sell,” she said. The stand which was “over-mature,” and “showed signs of” the mysterious Sudden Aspen Decline – or SAD – had “lost value,” both Schutza and Garvey suggested.

Earlier, Forest official said the Goat Creek timber sale was offered to simply clear the books of this leftover portion of a 1,210-acre sale put together in 1987. Whatever the case, both Schutza and Garvery seemed to think this eight unit, 141-acre Lone Cone aspen clear cut was perfectly appropriate. Garvey said clear-cutting aspen, which promotes regeneration of the stand, is thought to be the best way to combat SAD. (In the 1980s, the agency claimed that clear-cutting would save western Colorado’s cherished aspen from an inevitable “conifer invasion.”)

Timber sales on the Uncompahgre Plateau, the long high ridge north of Norwood, have “four or five units in decline,” Garvery said, but for the first time the Forest Service will do a pre-harvest study, followed by post-harvest “monitoring.”

“That’s a pretty cool thing. We haven’t done that before,” Garvey said.

“I’d like to see more clear-cutting,” Schutza said. “I’d like to increase the aspen program, but the Forest Services doesn’t have the resources.” Further, Schutz said the lack of “infrastructure” – referring to lumber mills – will hamper the push for more clear-cutting. (In the last decade or so, numbers of western lumber mills shut down, in part because some National Forests had overcut to the point where salable timber on public lands had been exhausted.)

San Miguel County Environmental Health officer Dave Schneck still worries about the effect of more Lone Cone clear-cutting on the Norwood area’s longstanding water quality problems. Several legal appeals to the Goat Creek timber sale, by the county and the town of Norwood, along with Colorado Wild, a Durango-based environmental group, all failed. The Forest Service said it wasn’t responsible for the entire Lone Cone watershed, the “cumulative effect” of massive clear-cutting, and noted that significant aspen clear-cutting had occurred on private land as well as Forest land.

Schneck said despite several Norwood-Lone Cone watershed studies, so far scientists have been unable to pinpoint the source of Norwood’s ongoing “turbidity” problem. As a result, Norwood-Wright’s Mesa domestic water system users receive frequent notices that the water has again tested below safe quality standards. (Schneck, himself, is one of those users.) The town’s Public Works Director and water system manager, Tim Lippert, says Norwood’s “source water isn’t as clean as it should be. It’s inevitable that the water district will enact “some sort of source-water protection” regulation, despite fierce initial opposition from the region’s ranching community. Lippert said Norwood’s murky source water is very costly to treat. To meet rising costs, residential taps fees have recently hit $12,000, double last year’s fee.

The Goat Creek area will likely fall within the boundaries of a future water source protection district. But the 924-acre timber sale unit will have been “harvested,” long before the source water issue is resolved. Over a two-year period, Western Excelsior’s big logging trucks will haul aspen timber south on the principal forest road 611, then west on County Road 4 (AKA “the Beef Trail”) to join the Norwood-Dolores road westward toward Mancos. Lone Cone recreationists probably won’t be thrilled with this serious summertime disruption from what District Ranger Schutza describes a “basic industry” here.

San Miguel County’s Phil Miller, a retired forester and forest health watchdog, doesn’t see the Goat Creek timber sale as good forestry. He frequently cites cattle grazing as a major problem in the regrowth of aspen clear cuts. Cattle – and elk – eat the tender shoots around the edges of the cuts, seriously reducing the goal – regeneration. Miller says a significant regeneration study by Barry Johnson, a USFS ecologist, found a 28 percent aspen regeneration failure rate. “If you’re losing even 25 percent from clear cuts, someday you’ll not have any forest left,” he observes.

I asked Phil if he were Lord of the Forest and the prime decision-maker, would he have offered the Goat Creek timber sale?

Without the least hesitation he said, “I wouldn’t do it.”