(Image: SPU)
It wasn’t her legislation but District 3’s representative on the Seattle City Council marked a milestone earlier this week as the first bill from the committee she chairs was passed by the full body.
Joy Hollingsworth joined here eight council counterparts Tuesday in approving legislation that will allow the city to undertake “ecological thinning” and a limited timber sale in its highly protected Cedar River Watershed east of the city.
CHS reported here on the legislation that came before Hollingsworth’s Parks, Public Utilities & Technology in February, kicking off the rookie representative’s legislative efforts at City Hall.
The bill, originally sponsored by former councilmember Alex Pedersen in 2023, opens the way for the city to clear out a no-contiguous 600 acres of valuable timber from the watershed’s 90,638 acres over five years. Proceeds will go into the city’s Water Fund.
The Cedar River Watershed is a unique, mostly untouched second-growth area where nature and wildlife has thrived thanks to hugely restrictive access controlled around the acreage due to its classification as an unusual unfiltered water source for a major American city. The city chlorinates the water at the Landsburg Diversion Dam and again just before entering the district’s system to destroy “Giardia, bacteria, and viruses that may be present.”
Officials have said the thinning is necessary for the forest’s health and to aid fire suppression efforts.
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Woooo more forest destruction. Thanks Joy!!!!!! I hate trees and love smoke yearly!
Years ago, I volunteered on several wilderness restoration projects within the protected watershed, and I got to see firsthand how carefully the city protects the area and how serious they are about maintaining the health of its ecosystem. I am confident that this logging has not been proposed lightly or unnecessarily.
You can find the forest management plan here:
https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/SPU/EnvironmentConservation/CedarRiverMunicipalWatershedForestManagementPlanFinal.pdf
You can see that a maximum of 0.7% of the watershed’s forest will be thinned, and none of that will be old-growth forest (which makes up only 17% of the total). Second-growth forest sometimes forms dense stands of pines; thinning such groves can allow for increased biodiversity, and a healthier understory.
You do know that timber thinning techniques are a common tactic to _reduce_ the intensity of forest fires, and in fact the reduction of timber thinning in California is considered by industry experts to have contributed to the ferocity of some of their recent burns.
(I work in the timber industry, specifically on ecological / environmental compliance programs).
I suppose this is the first of many anti-Hollingsworth comments. Why do I think you will do this every time in a knee-jerk fashion, no matter what the issue and no matter how reasonable her actions are.
Jason is a troll whose whole gambit is knee-jerk pro-Sawant and anti-Hollingsworth. Could be a programmed bot at this point lol
You didn’t read through to the last line before starting trolling, correct? Maybe take a deep breath next time, and consider the science. I would assume Hudson or even Sawant (though who knows) would have voted for this.
“Officials have said the thinning is necessary for the forest’s health and to aid fire suppression efforts”
Perhaps you should learn first.. the watershed is thinned for a reason and that thinning is actually nothing new- it’s always been a highly managed forest. One of those reasons is that if the canopy is allowed to become too thick, snow fails to reach the ground, melts quickly and runs off or evaporates.. Allowing that snow to reach the ground where it is shaded and will melt much more slowly, is one of the vital storage mechanism for the water we all use everyday..
It’s a shame that COVID put a halt to the watershed tours.. I’ve done a few and was really interested in several others.