Washington: 116 landslides in 6-mile stretch of over-logged Glenoma area
In a 6-mile stretch of hillsides north of Glenoma, state Department of
Natural Resources aerial surveys tallied 116 slides. Nearly 80 percent
came from lands logged in the past 20 years or roads built to access
timber, according to a Seattle Times analysis.Mark Hornby left a
construction management job in Utah to return to his family’s farm in
this Cascade mountain valley. He wanted to raise cattle and his two
young daughters on land that his grandfather once cleared with mules.
During the intense rainstorms two weeks ago, a clear-cut slope behind
the farm gave way.
A chocolate-colored wave of mud, stumps and slash
killed three calves, tore down fencing and enveloped most of the
pasture. Another slide funneled into a creek as Hornby and his younger
brother, Jon, were trying to clear a culvert. They got out of the way
minutes before the slide blew through. “It’s been pretty devastating,”
said Hornby, 27, who estimates the farm sustained several hundred
thousand dollars in damage. “I had this beautiful master plan for the
farm that we could raise natural beef. This wasn’t in the plan.”
Landslides in the upper Cowlitz Valley caused an estimated $4.5
million in private-property damage, destroying eight homes and
striking dozens of other properties including a tavern, a golf course
and a fish farm that lost more than 200,000 Arctic char and steelhead.
Many mud-struck property owners can look at the nearby hillsides and
spot the logged sites where the slides originated. Some of the
property owners are looking to the timber companies for help to
rebuild. “I know this wasn’t an intentional thing,” Hornsby said. “But
I want my farm back. I want everything restored.” Timber companies
aren’t about to shoulder the blame for everything that happened. Their
representatives note that the trigger for the landslides was a huge
amount of rain dumped on the mountains at a time when deep snow piled
up even on lower slopes. They add that there were plenty of slides in
older, more intact forests across Southwest Washington.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008674714_glenomaslides27m.html
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