Chimacum County Park

9635 Rhody Drive
Chimacum, WA 98325

A few of the forests around Jefferson County will be getting a little thinner and, if all goes according to plan, a lot healthier as the county’s forest management program looks to selectively harvest timber on selected county lands throughout the area.

Chimacum County Park and some of the county’s parcels east of Gibbs Lake will be the first to see some thinning, said Malloree Weinheimer of Chickadee Forestry — the group tapped by JeffCo to head up its pilot forestry program. The forester also said that once the timber is harvested, she hopes to see the milled lumber return to the community again.

“The goal with this, initially, was to use this as an opportunity to see if we can demonstrate selling wood back into the community,” Weinheimer said. 

“That’s something that there’s a lot of talk about but hasn’t really been demonstrated. I know there’s a lot of difficulties around it, so one of my big goals was to figure out: Can we at least crack into that market and start figuring out what the barriers and opportunities are?”

Of the work at Chimacum County Park, Weinheimer said she was hoping to mostly keep the thinning effort to trees that pose the most significant hazards, with the intent of ongoing observation and maintenance into the future.  

“I’m steering more toward the goal of taking hazard trees out, and having the option to come back in every 10 years or so, rather than taking every tree that’s a risk or a potential risk down the road, because that can be every tree,” she explained.

But why cut anything at all? Well, the answer is fairly simple: light. 

When trees are planted too close together, they begin to compete with one another for the available sunlight. As the competing trees grow, the lower branches and the understory become shaded by the higher branches and eventually die off. The result is a darkened understory exhibiting a lack of growth opportunities and taller, skinnier trees. Healthier forests also mean increased carbon sequestration and reduced fire risk.

For her work as a contracted forester, Weinheimer is paid an hourly rate by Jefferson County and all profits from the harvested timber will belong to the county. 

But, as the forester points out, this isn’t always the case for contracted foresters.  

“Not everyone does this, but it’s better to be independent of the timber values completely just because then there’s no bias on my side,” she explained. “There’s no incentive to have any higher or lower harvest.”

Without the incentive of a bigger portion of the overall pie from timber sales, Weinheimer can instead focus more on the longterm preservation and health of Jefferson County’s forests, as well as the identification and removal of certain hazardous trees from its parks.  

The forestry program received approval for its Forest Practices Application Aug. 18 from the Washington State Department of Natural Resources. 

Included in the permit (which is valid for three years) is permission to conduct harvest operations on eight forest units, across 312 acres throughout the county. Along with the Chimacum County Park and Gibbs Lake sites, there are plans to drop trees on 32 acres surrounding Trailhead Park’s Larry Scott Trail.    

The most significant harvest could come from the Gibbs Lake (Silent Alder) site, which has been given the OK for 165 acres of thinning and a harvest total of up to 900,000 board feet. 

Also included in the application is approval for a series of access roads and log landings to be established at the sites.

As stipulated in the permit, removed trees will be expected to maximize the long-term productivity of the forests and; at least 100 vigorous, undamaged and well-distributed saplings or merchantable trees will be left per acre within the harvest areas.

A background in working with and for government entities, Weinheimer said, has imbued her with an appreciation for public service work. The forester has also served on parks and stewardship advisory committees. 

“It’s nice to have a pretty good grounding in land management and the community here and to be able to guide forest management with all of that context behind me,” Weinheimer said. “I was trying to figure out how we can get funding back into the county to help county landowners and the community reconnect to forestry in a different way than only seeing clear cuts and large industrial management. It is such an integral part of our collective community history here.”