Demand that Josephine County Commissioners halt the timber sale of the Pipe Fork Area

Pipe Fork Creek is a main tributary to the Williams Creek and a vital water source for the residents of Williams. Josephine County owns a major part of this watershed and is planning a clearcut. Please help us save our water!

Three major salmon runs and a variety of other aquatic fauna and flora rely on this creek fortheir survival. It is the coldest tributary to Williams Creek which feeds the Applegate providing spawning habitat for one third of all coho on their way to the Rogue River. Steelhead salmon use this habitat for spawning and rearing. Erosion from deforested areas carries fine silt and clay into the creek, destroying the pools where these fish lay their eggs.

An intact forest with a diversity of plants and fire resistant old growth trees decreases catastrophic wildfire, controls erosion, decreases flooding and retains moisture. The current trend towards warmer winters with less rain and snow resulting in lower water tables and drier creeks holds no assurance that Williams will continue to have enough water.

This matters, Pipe Fork Creek is essential. Please sign this petition to help us save our forest, animals, and water.

Save Pipe Fork Petition Letter

Dear Josephine County Commissioners,

I am concerned that the planned clearcut in the Pipe Fork area will cause damage to a rare habitat and request that a forest management which values the ecosystem be put in place.

Pipe Fork flows from the northeast flank of Grayback Mountain into Williams Creek with cool, clear water providing habitat for three major salmon runs and a variety of other aquatic fauna and flora. Josephine County owns a major part of this watershed and is planning a clearcut.

Logging roads and clearcutting is a major source of excess fine sediment in streams. Erosion from roads can carry fine silt and clay that fill the gravels and pools where salmon lay their eggs, juvenile salmon use for rearing, and aquatic insects thrive. Logging equipment can spread disease that kills Port Orford cedar and the dead and dying cedars are already obvious along the Pipe Fork. Sediment will carry it downstream to other locations and kill more trees.

An intact forest with a diversity of plants and fire-resistant old growth trees decreases catastrophic wildfire, controls erosion, decreases flooding and retains moisture. The current trend towards warmer winters, with less rain and snow resulting in lower water tables and drier creeks, holds no assurance that Josephine County will continue to have enough water.

Josephine County needs to conserve this land by selling it to a Conservancy Agency. The sale would be a bridge-loan to ownership by BLM, which owns a bordering 500 acre Research Natural Area (RNA).

Please use your knowledge and effective leadership to protect the Pipe Fork and Forest.

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726 signatures = 15% of goal

5,000