Logging was conducted on the plateau above the slide in Oso, Washington

[greatlaurel]

The slides in this area are known to occur with 5 to 10 years after logging on the plateau above the hill. Link to the article in the Seattle Times:

http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2023225363_mudslideloggingxml.html

"Lee Benda, a geologist with the University of Washington, wrote a report that said harvesting can increase soil water “on the order of 20 to 35 percent” — with that impact lasting 16 to 27 years, until new trees matured. Benda looked at past slides on the hill and found they occurred within five to 10 years of harvests."

"The remnant of one clear-cut operation is visible in aerial photographs of Saturday’s monstrous mudslide. A triangle — 7½ acres, the shape of a pie slice — can be seen atop the destruction, its tip just cutting into where the hill collapsed."


"Grandy Lake has done selective logging on the plateau in more recent years. Following the approval of a 2009 permit that also included an area abutting the sensitive zone, the company reported to the state that it removed 20 percent of the area’s trees. It returned in 2011 and got approval to take 15 percent more."

Money always trumps safety of people and the environment. This tragedy should never have happened. These people were murdered by negligence by the politicians to do their due diligence and the logging companies greed.

[me b zola]

1. Greed is a mass murderer n/t

[Enthusiast]

17. Greed is a mass murderer spreading its tentacles.

[malaise]

2. Now I'm beginning to understand why M$Greedia hasn't covered this

the way they're covering the missing airline.

Logging corporations.

[laundry_queen]

27. You totally said what I've been thinking

although it's curious that CNN would go 24/7 with the BP spill and not this (and choose the plane crash instead). Logging can't be that much money compared to big oil. I have been watching the Seattle stations for updates, or even my Canadian news channels have had more coverage than most American news channels.

[malaise]

34. Rachel is covering this now

She began with the volcano eruption in the 1980s and says the death toll is likely to surpass Mt St Helen

[n2doc]

3. The connection has been known to those who live in these areas

Back in the 80's i lived in a place where there was a lot of logging, northern California/southern Oregon. Every time a hillside was logged, you could generally count on a landslide taking place there the next winter, if rains were heavy.

[Zorra]

4. I grew up in rural Washington logging country, had my heartbroken many times

by seeing patches of forest I loved leveled. I wore the EarthFirst hat for several years.

Trees and other plants hold the soil, that's a natural fact. A lot of times you'll see serious erosion on hillsides after logging or a forest fire.

The Dust Bowl in the 30's happened because ignorant farmers plowed the prairie grass under, and nothing was left to hold the soil.

Ignorant RW religious bible believers think the verse where it says god gave people dominion over the earth means "you have my blessing to go out and kill and destroy anything and everything if you feel like it".

"My young men shall never work, men who work cannot dream; and wisdom comes to us in dreams. You ask me to plow the ground. Shall I take a knife and tear my mothers breast? ...

...We simply take the gifts that are freely offered. We no more harm the earth than would an infant's fingers harm its mother's breast. But the white man tears up large tracts of land, runs deep ditches, cuts down forests, and changes the whole face of the earth. You know very well this is not right. Every honest man knows in his heart that this is all wrong. But the white men are so greedy they do not consider these things...

...Each one must learn for himself the highest wisdom. It cannot be taught in words."

~ Smohalla, 1891

[countryjake]

5. + infinity

"It cannot be taught in words."

[Enthusiast]

14. +1 an entire shit load!

You are exactly right on!

[truedelphi]

33. Thank you for posting your thoughtful words

From someone whose heart breaks every time I witness yet another 400 by 400 acre patch get logged and burned to put in the vineyards.

[GoCubsGo]

6. Can't say I'm surprised by that. n/t

[Ilsa]

7. I was wondering what the connection was.

Not giving a damn about peoples' lives is par for corporations.

[KT2000]

8. In this case, not corporations

These have been individuals who logged.
The pressure is great to allow logging anywhere and everywhere. Political survival often depends upon one's position on this - logging good, environmental consideration bad. Lose the job or next election if one stands for safety.

[LanternWaste]

12. Seems in this case, the individual went by the name of Summit Timber, LLC.

Seems in this case, the individual went by the name of Summit Timber, LLC.

[BanzaiBonnie]

18. It looks to me it was not Summit Timber LLC that did the logging

Mapping out the areas most likely to feed water into unstable terrain is “fraught with uncertainty,” wrote one geologist who studied this landslide zone in the 1990s.

Summit Timber was a family logging business led by Gary Jones, who grew up in nearby Darrington. Jones believed the acreage atop the hill was second-growth forest, initially logged in the 1920s or 1930s. He said the company eventually backed away from its request to log the 48 acres, given the hill’s history.

“It was a little bit risky,” Jones told The Seattle Times. “We decided not to do it.”

Jones said he was always cautious when working around the river, especially considering he was an avid fly fisherman fond of the Stillaguamish.

[countryjake]

24. He may have stopped logging right at the top of Slide Hill...

but the state sure as hell didn't stop him from clearcutting vast areas that lie further above it and also stripping practically the rest of that plateau. There was a small war over logging here in the late eighties, after the Hazel Landslide right there at Steelhead Drive in '88. Snarls of "Logger Power" and cries of "Live by the Clearcut, Die by the Clearcut" could be heard echoing all over this part of Western Washington. Some of the busy, lucrative Oso/Darrington/Arlington shake mills didn't shut down til the early '90s, when they finally ran out of Cedar.

[BanzaiBonnie]

37. History is important. Context is everything. Thank you countryjake

You're local? Or at least Washington state?

Reading the history of the battle over the logging issue involved is telling. And yesterday, when I heard someone say, "sometimes these things just happen" I wanted to scream.

[greatlaurel]

38. Thank you very much for your insights into this issue.

This is a very important story that needs to get out to the general public. I still hear the certified foresters maintain that clearcutting is the best way to timber land. They discourage select cutting. I assume that is what is taught to foresters, but it makes no sense at all from an ecosystem outlook. Clearcutting does tremendous damage to soils, no matter what part of the country you are.

The timber companies could still be in business if they had down select cuttings, instead of cutting down everything all at once. Greed makes people stupid.

[ErikJ]

9. Glacial till on non-porous bedrock

plus lots of rain, not big enough tree roots to stabilize the glacial till and the foot of the hill eroded by the river below. Spelled doom.

[mike_c]

26. yep-- my first thought when I saw the "before" pics...

...was "Holy shit, who couldn't have seen this coming?" The only surprise was the magnitude.

[XemaSab]

31. +1

Classic slump-rotational feature.

[uppityperson]

10. More photos...

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Mudslide-searchers-press-on-with-dogs-bare-hands-252441281.html?tab=gallery&c=y&img=0

A searcher uses a small boat to look through debris from a deadly mudslide Tuesday, March 25, 2014, in Oso, Wash. At least 14 people were killed in the 1-square-mile slide that hit in a rural area about 55 miles northeast of Seattle on Saturday. Several people also were critically injured, and homes were destroyed. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

[greyl]

11. "a Summit representative wrote DNR, saying $750,000 to $1 million worth of timber was at stake"

In August 1988, the DNR issued a stop-work order, putting Summit Timber’s logging operation on temporary hold.

“1988 was maybe the first time that we were getting serious as to what you should or should not do in terms of logging and road construction around those things,” said Matt Brunengo, at that time a DNR geologist.

A week after the stop-work order, a Summit representative wrote DNR, saying $750,000 to $1 million worth of timber was at stake. He listed alternative steps that could be taken to lessen the risks of a slide — for example, having the state relocate the channel of the Stillaguamish River that was cutting into the hill’s base.

“I can only conclude that the real issue here is not slides and water quality, but timber cutting,” he wrote.

http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2023225363_mudslideloggingxml.html

Ass. Hole.

[Enthusiast]

15. Ass. Hole.

[arikara]

13. They are clear cutting like crazy here on Vancouver Island too

the government gave thousands of acres of crown land to logging companies with the stroke of a pen. Now they are ripping the massive beautiful trees, many old growth out at a frenzied pace and shipping them to China.

No benefit to us, but we bear ALL the costs, from the resulting hurricane force winds from no tree buffer, flooding, devastation to the salmon streams and animal habitat to the degradation of the highways from the overloaded logging trucks banging potholes into the roads not to mention tipping over on corners and blocking highways on a regular basis.

Yes they are bastards and we have to change it. But where does one person with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach go to do it? I just haven't been able to figure that one out yet.

I do hope that with this revelation, Washington can get its act together before there are more disasters. My condolences to the families and the people affected by this tragedy.

[love_katz]

21. ^^^^This!^^^^ + a gazillion!

Just as true in the U.S. The tax payers pay the price, and endure the carnage and destruction. The corporate pigs gorge at the public trough, thanks to greed-head politicians who are on the take.

[Warren DeMontague]

16. That was the first question that crossed my mind.

I can't say I'm hugely surprised.

[spanone]

19. i heard that today and just shook my head. whoever issued these permits should be ........

fuck it.

[love_katz]

22. Exactly!

Even my grandfather used to tell my dad that the hills looked like the logging companies had cut down the trees with a scythe.

[love_katz]

23. There are more pertinent articles linked at the Seattle Times web site. Will try to post links.

http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2023225339_westneat26xml.html

The above link is about how officials are in denial on the Oso slide. Surprise, surprise.

http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2023218573_mudslidewarningsxml.html

The second link talks about how warnings about mud slides go back decades.

[love_katz]

25. Here is another link.

http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2023218573_mudslidewarningsxml.html

As usual, the promoters of greed want to CYA, by denying that they had any knowledge that this might happen.

[love_katz]

28. I find a statement near the end of the article to be particularly significant.

“human influence has been identified in more than 80 percent of reported slides.”

'Nuff said. This tragedy was preventable, and can be attributed to greed on the part of both local government who can't seem to stand up to those who profit most from selling lots/homes in places that are risky due to natural factors (for example, rivers meander in their beds), and the logging outfits that continue to strip the mountains of their protective cover in a very rainy, maritime climate. It is very telling that no one involved with contributing to this event wants to admit anything.

[truedelphi]

35. Sarcasm alert: But "scientifically speaking" --how can any human know that

A particular hillside will indeed become a landslide, just from the reports of a few environmentally oriented scientists?

I mean, do you want the environment or money? Can't have both. And on and on.

The people who get to approve logging contracts want to see the landslide happen before they will admit there is a cause and effect situation going on. And by then it is too late.

[Cleita]

29. Clear cutting should have been outlawed years ago.

Yet our forestry departments are complicit in it and in the pockets of the lumber companies, like Georgia Pacific, which is incidentally owned by the Koch brothers. Clear cutting causes erosion for years after the harvesting of the trees.

[love_katz]

30. This tragedy is really bugging me.

Here is another link:

http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2023218474_mudslidehomexml.html

Here is the statement from the woman who sold a home now buried under the slide. She sold it to another woman, who was a nurse.

“I’m never selling another house there again,” she said. “I don’t know why, after the first slide, the Army Corps of Engineers didn’t condemn all the houses.”

[Tribalceltic]

32. K&R

But it needs so much more than just a KnR

Non of this has been reported on any of the M$M that I have seen. The staggering loss of life in the name of the almighty $.

[countryjake]

36. Here's a link to the Stillaguamish Tribe website, lots of good photos of '06 slide

Steelhead Haven Landslide January 25, 2006

http://www.stillaguamish.nsn.us/steelhead%20haven%20slide.htm

Scroll down to the final sentence of the piece, click on the pdf. file, "Geology is now".

[greatlaurel]

39. Thanks for the link.

Very interesting information. This was a very high risk area. The government officials should have taken a stand to move people out of there. No new homes should ever been built there after the 2006 slide. The slides all happened within five to ten years after clearcutting above the slide area. Every slide was bigger than the one before. Shocking that the government officials are not tarred and feathered after stating that "No one could have known this could happen". Duh! Are they incapable of pattern recognition? How many more places are at risk, because no public official has the intestinal fortitude to stand up to the real estate and timber industries?

We have many of the same issues here with coal, fracking and the timber industry here in Pennsylvania, Appalachian Ohio and West Virginia.

[greatlaurel]

40. Interesting editorial in the Seattle Times today about this tragedy.

Link: http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2023225339_westneat26xml.html