Union Democrat -- Modern logging in the Sierra Nevada

Steve Crook has been logging the area forest for 34 years.

In that time, he's seen the forest go from being heavily logged to being enforced by arguably the strictest logging regulations in the world.

He's seen other loggers go out of business. He's seen sawmills shutdown all over the state. He's seen logging evolve from having to camp out in the forest for days at a time using manpower to fell, strip and cut the trees, into a highly mechanized process using equipment that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars.

He's seen the logging business' future become uncertain in California.

"Thirty years ago, no one could have told me there could be an end to this," Crook said, from a logging site outside of Twain Harte.

Crook's face was black from sweat and grime. He had risen at 3 a.m. to get an early start because the site has been getting shutdown about 1 p.m. by the U.S. Forest Service because of high-fire danger.

Despite the uncertain future, both of Crook's sons have followed their father's footsteps into the woods.

"I've been in the forest since I was 12," said Russ Crook, Steve Crook's son. "Once it's in your blood, it's always in your blood."

"It's one hell of an office," he added, gesturing to the surrounding forest.

Declining production, increasing consumption

Steve Crook worries that he's steered his boys down a path with a bleak future.

"I worry everyday that when they get into their 40s and 50s, there will be no business here," he said.

The numbers warrant Crook's fear.

In 1978, 4.5 billion board feet of logs were harvested from California forests. In 2007, 1.6 billion board feet were harvested.

A board foot is a lumber measurement equaling a board 1 foot long, 1 foot wide and one inch thick. A small, three-bedroom ranch style house — about 1,000 square-feet — requires about 3,000 board feet of lumber to build.

Since 1989, 84 sawmills have closed in the state.

While state logging production has vastly decreased, consumption has increased. According to a 2003 California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection study, California is the nation's largest user of wood and paper products — a thirst that has reached 10 billion board feet a year.

This results in the state importing wood from places with less-strict environmental regulations like Canada.

During the 1990s, Canadian lumber imports rose in the United States by 6.2 billion board feet, while federal forests in California, Oregon and Washington dropped 4.8 billion board feet.

Clear-cuts in Canada are stretching anywhere from 400 to 500 acres, said Tim Tate, the regional forester with Sierra Pacific Industries.

"They'll stretch from watershed to watershed," he said.

A study by California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, found California has among the strictest requirements in the world for forest management.

The state and federal governments have mandated measures to protect threatened and endangered plants and animals, water quality, forest soil productivity and archaeological resources. The study found that each timber harvest in California must be in compliance with more than 1,000 laws and regulations.

"California's regulations are certainly time-consuming," said Josh Buswell-Charkow, spokesman from the environment group ForestEthics. However, he said, that doesn't preclude a profitable logging operation.

Steve Crook disagrees.

"No one does a bad job anymore," Crook said. "You can't. The state will pull your license."

Logging is no longer men swinging axes

The vision of Paul Bunyan swinging an ax doesn't apply to modern loggers.

From felling the trees, to stripping and cutting them, to loading them onto trucks — logging has become a mechanized process.

"I got into this business for $30,000," Crook said. "Now, that piece of equipment (log processor) cost me $485,000. The loader cost $325,000."

The process starts with the feller buncher — a tractor with an arm that grips the trees, lops them with a chain saw and sets them down.

The machines move well in the tight confines of the forest.

"You just start cutting and make a hole," said Ed Woolery, of Woolery Timber Management.

The trees are then dragged to the landing by a skidder, where they are stripped of their branches and cut to size by a log processor.

"Different species are cut to different lengths," said Russ Crook, who was operating the processor on the site.

Then a loader arranges the logs onto a logging truck for transportation to the sawmill.

"These replace seven or eight men," Steve Crook said.

"You can't find men that want to work that hard anymore," Crook added about the old logging days.

Sierra Pacific Industries and clear-cuts

The wood has to come from somewhere.

Much of California's production comes from Sierra Pacific Industries — the largest private landowner in the state, owning more than 1.7 million acres in the Sierra Nevada.

SPI's preference to clear-cut has made it the target of environmental and conservation groups.

SPI argues that California should get its lumber from forests in the state, which are protected by strict rules, rather than importing from places like Canada.

"Canada's irresponsibility in their boreal forests doesn't give us the right to do it here," said Darca Morgan, conservation biologist with the Sierra Forest Legacy, a consortium of environmental groups based in Sacramento. "That argument just doesn't hold weight. The Sierra is where our water comes from."

Much of SPI's land is on a 100-year plan, Tate, of SPI, said.

First, they clear-cut the land in 17-acre to 20-acre parcels. The land is replanted, usually with an assortment of four or five mixed-conifer trees set 12 feet apart.

After six to eight years, thinning stretches the distance between trees to 19 feet. The remaining trees grow until they're about 35 years old, when they are thinned again to a distance of 27 to 35 feet. The remaining trees grow until they reach about 100 years old, when the parcel will be clear-cut again.

"We don't want to see California's logging jobs go elsewhere," Buswell-Charkow, of ForestEthics, said. "But SPI's practices are completely inadequate."

Buswell-Charkow said an example of this is SPI's use in tree planting of herbicides and chemicals that have been banned in Europe because they pollute water.

"Sixty percent of California's water supply comes from the Sierra," he said.

But Tate and SPI say that they are managing the forest in a responsible way — balancing the environment with the state's thirst for lumber.

Tate said that they spread out the cuts, so their land becomes a checker board of different aged trees.

"It becomes a mosaic of different age classes and types," Tate explained of SPI land under the 100-year plan.

On a recent day, Tate pointed out different clear-cuts while driving down a winding, dirt road through the forest. Some of the cuts were two years old and still barren, while others were 10 years old and beginning to fill back in.

"As foresters, we tend to look at things in much longer periods of time," Tate said. "We're in this for a very long time."