Santa Cruz, a green-leaning city on the central coast of California, owns thousands of
acres of redwood forest that supplies the city’s drinking water. When I lived there, I was
shocked to discover that the city water department had been commercially logging
these forests since the 1960s. Most of the logging used the selection method, which the
city’s forester touted as “light touch” forestry.
Santa Cruz residents decry logging for impacts on water
After decades of “light touch” forestry, most of the old-growth was gone and a dense
network of roads criss-crossed the steeply sloped watershed above Loch Lomond, the
city’s drinking water reservoir. By the 1990s, citizens were alarmed about impacts to
water quality and silt accumulating in the reservoir. A coalition of environmental groups
brought the issue to the Santa Cruz City Council in 1999.
The city’s forest management plan stated protection of water quality and quantity as its
primary goal, with secondary goals including habitat protection and timber revenue. We
argued that—in reality, the primary goal became timber revenue generation, while water
quality, quantity, and habitat protection were all overlooked as loggers rushed to get out
the cut.
Consultants study issues
In response, the Santa Cruz city council placed a moratorium on logging and funded a
team of consultants to study the issues. A year later, the consultants summarized
impacts from the city’s 30-year management regime. Most significant was “the
contribution of chronic fine sediment runoff to streams, affecting aquatic habitat” from
the 35 miles of logging roads, landings, and skid trails. The city’s logging tended to
remove the larger trees over the years, opening the forest canopy, allowing rain to
directly hit the ground, increasing runoff and erosion.
Santa Cruz declares end to logging
The consultants’ overall recommendation—to meet the city’s stated primary goal of
preserving water quality and quantity—was to limit land uses to “those that improve
water quality and restore ecosystem function.” They specifically called for an end to the
city’s commercial logging program “since it contributed to erosion, and was
counterproductive to ecosystem restoration.” So, in 2001, the City water department
officially ended their logging program.
Bear in mind, the city of Santa Cruz ended commercial logging on its watershed forests
back in 2001, solely on the merits of restoring the forest’s role in providing clean,
reliable water. The public was not yet aware of two impending catastrophes on the
horizon: The biodiversity crisis and climate change.
Fast forward 20+ years and now there are two more reasons for not commercially
logging forests that supply drinking water. These same protected forests also address the biodiversity crisis by providing plentiful native habitats and mitigate climate change
by storing abundant carbon.
What can Corvallis take away from this Santa Cruz story?
Today, residents of the city of Corvallis have an opportunity to demand that the city
council declare an end to commercial logging of the 2,352 acre Corvallis Forest. The
city acquired the Corvallis Forest to protect its highest quality drinking water, but there is
considerable pressure to continue logging for revenue. Don’t let revenue drive forest
management!
The Corvallis city council can—with one stroke of a pen—preserve this late
successional forest for all of its priceless values.
Send them an email: city.council@corvallisoregon.
If you want to get involved in forest issues, or the Corvallis Watershed campaign, please contact the Oregon Chapter's Conservation Committee at ConservationCommittee@oregon.sierraclub.org.
Note: This story of the city of Santa Cruz is fully documented in Betsy's dissertation:
Herbert, Elizabeth. 2004. “Forest Management by Public Water Utilities: Influences and
Consequences.” Ph.D. dissertation, environmental studies, University of California,
Santa Cruz.