Monte forester warns of vandalism

Montesano Forester Loren Hiner is sounding the alarm over recent vandalism in the city-owned forest.

Problems Hiner warned the city of at the June 11 meeting include dumping, shooting of signs, cutting of locked gates and trees being illegally harvested.

“I let (the Montesano Council’s Forestry Committee) know that in the last nine to 12 months, we’ve been seeing a big increase in problems in the forest,” Hiner said Friday.

“I’m trying to encourage the council to close it to the general public,” he said.

Hiner does similar forest management work for the cities of Aberdeen and Hoquiam on contract. He says those cities, which have their properties blocked by gates, have had similar gate cutting issues as well as illegal salal brush picking.

The city-owned forest is about 5,400 acres of the Lake Sylvia watershed, Hiner said. The land was purchased “as a cut-over stump farm” in 1931 with a water bond of $12,000. Since then, the city let the trees regrow and is now a few years into the third harvest of trees (the city’s second). About 85 acres are harvested most years.

“It’s returned almost $40 million in net revenue to the city water fund,” Hiner said. But he believes vandals and misuse of the land are threatening it.

“Mudding has become a real problem up there,” Hiner said. Drivers in four-wheel drive vehicles look for wet land they can drive through. Cascade Natural Gas has an underground line through the forest where trees are kept clear and the land has commonly been used for mudding.

“We put up this trail head sign last summer,” Hiner said showing pictures of a damaged sign. “It was a Boy Scout Eagle Scout project and it’s been knocked over and busted up. Somebody’s recently been cutting gates open. We’ve had four of those cut since last spring.”

Chief Brett Vance of the Montesano Police Department did not return requests for comment before publication of this paper.

“Undoubtedly it is a small minority of people that are abusing it, but it is very serious, especially with our fire danger in the time of year we’re at. It is a big concern,” Councilman Clint Bryson said during the June 11 city council meeting.

“Things can’t go on the way they have been going on,” he added.

A cost estimate of the amount of damage done was not available. So far, the cost to repair cut gates has been more that $1,700. But the total vandalism cost is enough to have the city’s forester recommending locking gates to block public vehicular access to the land.

If the gates are closed to vehicular traffic, Hiner said, it would not affect hiking and biking use of the forest by people visiting through Lake Sylvia State Park.

Hiner said he hopes the city council will develop a system where Montesano citizens, who own the forest, can access the roads by checking out a key. Then they could “pick berries or pick mushrooms or something,” Hiner said.

“Most of our trails hub away from the state park. So people could go there and get on the trails there,” Hiner said. “It wouldn’t affect the recreational use as far as trails go. But I would like to see the gates closed to the general public.”

Photo courtesy Loren Hiner, City of Montesano A crew of workers from DC Farms in Elma works to repair a gate that somebody cut through to access a blocked road in Montesano-owned forest land. The repair required replacing an entire post and cost $1,186.