The Medford Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) clearcuts speak for themselves—and it's not a pretty story.

Following the Rum Creek fire just upslope of the Wild & Scenic Rogue River outside of Galice, OR, the BLM engaged in extensive post-fire roadside clearcutting and in living, healthy green forest stands the BLM often engages in forms of clearcutting that the agency calls "gap creation" or "regeneration harvesting."

What you won't hear from the BLM leadership is an acknowledgement that the agency targets native forests on public lands for clearcutting, but our recent field report videos show exactly that, in addition to riparian area destruction, illegal trash dumping by the agency, and complete road failure.

Riparian Area Mismanagement

The recently implemented post-fire roadside old-growth clearcutting in riparian reserves serving as headwater tributaries to the Wild and Scenic Rogue River. For the Rum Creek Salvage Logging Project, the Medford BLM moved forward with this project without any public process through a Categorical Exclusion, allowing the agency to avoid the need for environmental assessments and environmental impact statements.There was no public planning process and the BLM ignored the concerns of its own soil scientists and wildlife biologists.

The widespread clearcut logging and yarding of logs has led to a decimated riparian area just uphill from the Wild & Scenic Rogue River outside of Galice, OR. The Medford District Bureau of Land Management has, yet again, implemented a timber sale that has left a riparian reserve, which should have been managed for its riparian characteristics, completely broken. The Medford District BLM manages their riparian reserves just as it does the rest of public lands that it is responsible for—for logging and logging alone.

The Impacts of clearcut logging on riparian reserves

On Bureau of Land Management public lands, there are certain "land use allocations" designed to protect certain aspects of a forest so it can be managed in a holistic manner. One of those land use allocations is called "riparian reserves."

BLM defines riparian reserves as "The Proposed RMP includes Riparian Reserves on all streams and includes an inner zone on all streams in which commercial forest management is generally not permitted." They acknowledge the riparian reserves "are prized for their recreation, fish and wildlife, cultural, and historic values," yet they continue to log them for monetary gain.

Because of the Categorical Exclusion (mentioned above), the agency proceeded without environmental assessments and environmental impact statements. This is what we get when that happens: Groundwater becomes surface water. Erosion and sedimentation will take place at a rapid rate, further deteriorating what's left of this forest ecosystem. For the BLM to make a few bucks by selling this land off.

Road Failure

In the groundtruthing efforts, we found major road failure following this project that was designed to protect road infrastructure and the people who use the roads. However, the logging and yarding has undermined the BLM logging road such that the road cannot be prepared, and what was once a functional forest ecosystem will now be a debris slide for the rest of our lives.

In these videos, you will see the destruction on BLM road 34-8-34 upslope of the Wild & Scenic Rogue River just outside of Galice, OR. While the road is completely eroding away on one side, the BLM has filled the ditch line on the other side of the road with logging debris, and the culvert—designed to carry water through the ditch line and dispose of it so to not flood the road—is completely blocked as its filled with sediment.

Spotlighting the BLM’s illegal trash dumping on public lands

In addition to the atrocities shown above, our groundtruthing efforts also brought us to a location within the Rum Creek project where the BLM had replaced old culvert pipes with new ones. What did they do with the old culverts? They dumped them down the hillside!

When members of the public dump their trash on public lands, it is illegal dumping. When the BLM trashes the forests with their old culverts in their new clearcuts, that's considered "forest management."

This is unacceptable on our public lands.

What about fire?

The Medford District BLM's Rum Creek project targeted the alleged "late successional reserves" aka older trees that are meant for retention due to the ecological values they provide.

Rather than managing this forest for its designated purpose, the Medford BLM logged this forest for "hazard" purposes, leaving activity slash strewn downslope from the road and below the intact forest canopy.

Were another fire to come through this forest, the remnants of this botched logging project would contribute to carrying and growing that fire.

This type of “management” is not supported by KS Wild, and it is likely not supported by you or a majority of Americans. As a watchdog organization, it is our job to monitor projects like these and bring them to your attention. As a supporter of KS Wild and an American citizen to whom these public lands are accessible, it’s your job to help us hold the agency accountable for their actions.

Please take action today!

There are a number of ways you can take action to help prevent projects like these in the future.

1. Send a letter to BLM officials demanding better public land management on your public lands to BLM_OR-MD_Mail@BLM.GOV and BLM-ORWA-Public-room@BLM.GOV

2. Send a letter to the Oregon Congressional Delegation here. This is only available to those within Senator Wyden or Senator Merkley’s districts.

3. Call or email the BLM State Director's office in Portland and let them know your position on the clearcutting going on in southwest Oregon. The State Director's office can be reached at (503) 808-6026 or adlowe@blm.gov

As always, civil and thoughtful comments are the most effective. We thank you for staying engaged on issues like these for the future of public lands across the treasured Klamath-Siskiyou bioregion.