Seattle - On Thursday July 20th the King County Council sent a letter to Hilary Franz, Commissioner of Public Lands and the Board of Natural Resources asking them to cancel auction of the Wishbone Timber Sale, northeast of Seattle, until the agency discloses the greenhouse gas emissions and other adverse climate impacts associated with clearcutting. The Wishbone Timber Sale is on lands managed by the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and contains naturally regenerated stands of mature ‘legacy’ forests up to 110 years old that have world class abilities to capture and store carbon. DNR plans to auction the sale on July 25th.

In a press release that was issued along with the letter, King County Council Chair Dave Upthegrove said, "In order to have a healthy sustainable economy, we need to keep our region a great place to live. That is why we want greater consideration of the carbon impacts of clearcutting the remaining mature legacy forests in King County. The harmful economic impacts of climate change require us to fundamentally revisit the old way of doing things.” 

King County’s letter cites provisions of its 2020 Strategic Climate Action Plan that calls for protection of such forests for their climate benefits and full accounting of climate impacts in land management decisions. As noted by that plan, “Mature temperate conifer forests in the Pacific Northwest sequester more carbon than any other forest ecosystem in North America. They are also among the most carbon dense forests in the world.”

King County’s letter comes on theheels of lawsuit filed by Center for Sustainable Economy (CSE), Legacy Forest Defense Coalition and Save the Olympic Peninsula against the Wishbone sale, citing DNR for its continuing failures to disclose the climate impacts of its mature legacy forest logging program under the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA). Last fall, plaintiffswon an identical case against two timber sales in Jefferson County. 

But since that time, DNR has refused to comply with the court’s ruling and continues to propose carbon dense forests for logging without accounting for greenhouse gas emissions or other climate impacts, such as increases in heat, drought, and wildfires. Plaintiffs hope the letter from King County, Washington’s most populous, will convince the agency to alter its practices.

According to Dr. John Talberth, CSE’s President and Senior Economist, “This is what real climate leadership looks like. We applaud the King County Council for its efforts to hold DNR accountable for the climate impacts of logging mature and old growth forests and its duties under SEPA. Left standing, the cool, moist interiors of these stands are climate oases. When clearcut, their vast carbon stores are released into the atmosphere and the land becomes hotter, drier, and more susceptible to fires and floods. We are hopeful that the agency will take King County’s request seriously and start telling the truth about logging and climate change.”

A copy of the King County letter is available onlinehere.

A copy of the CSE, LFDC and STOP Notice of Appeal for the Wishbone Timber Sale is available onlinehere.

A summary of the prior SEPA litigation in Jefferson County is availablehere.