In previous newsletter issues, we've described how the U.S. Forest Service often seems like a two-headed creature. On the one hand (or head), the Bush administration and certain economic interests push the agency hard to cut public timber rapidly and emphasize motorized recreation over the well-being of the lands and waters. On the other, forward-thinking scientists and talented professionals within the agency are working overtime to repair past damage stemming from excessive road-building and logging–often with creative strategies to obtain needed funding, despite a federal government that's opted to devote the lion's share of taxpayer dollars to overseas war.

OFCO believes strongly that watershed restoration is the future of Olympic National Forest. Although we rightly criticize and challenge Forest Service decisions that would harm our resources, we know it's important to highlight the good things happening on the ground. What follows, then, is an update of current restoration activities in the Forest, mostly involving road decommissioning projects such as closure of old logging roads and returning those sites to more natural aquatic and soil conditions). While not exhaustive, this listing does convey that, beneath the media radar, wounded portions of the Forest are gradually being stitched back together, stream by stream.

• Brown Creek road: In the South Fork Skokomish watershed, 4.7 miles of road are being put to bed for the benefit of threatened bull trout.

• Wynoochee River road spurs: Two projects, one to the south near Anderson Creek, and another to the north at the confluence of the West Branch, would prevent illegal off-road vehicle use on sensitive river bars.

• Sams River system: Quietly as a mouse, the Forest Service, in collaboration with the Quinault Tribe, has removed nearly the entire road system from the Sams River drainage (a major tributary of the Queets River), effectively rewilding this remote valley adjacent to Olympic National Park. If OFCO had medals of honor to bestow, we'd be handing them out with the utmost gratitude for this extended project.

• North Fork Calawah/Sol Duc: As part of the mitigation activities associated with the Clavicle timber sale, 2.1 miles of road will be decommissioned along the Calawah/Sol Duc divide.

• Goodman Creek: In a major tributary of the salmon-rich Sol Duc River, 4 miles of road will be removed for both aquatic health and to discourage off-road knuckleheads.

• Slab Camp road: Derived from a stewardship collaboration project facilitated by OFCO, this project will – once and for all – take out the grotesque extension of Forest Service Road 2875 south of Slab Camp, a major intrusion along the peripheries of the Buckhorn Wilderness and Quilcene Roadless Area. In the process, blockages will be erected to fight the virus of illegal off-road vehicles in the area, which have repeatedly trashed Canyon Creek and a mid-elevation wetland nearby. Certain other road spurs in the Dungeness watershed will also be decommissioned.

• Little Quilcene spur road: In the Olympic rainshadow, just east of Mount Townsend, 1.4 mile of road is being removed.

• Mount Crag/Tunnel Creek: On the slope west of Mount Crag, above Tunnel Creek, 5 miles of road will be decommissioned to benefit threatened summer chum salmon.

• Tunnel Creek road: The Forest Service had originally planned to convert the final 2 miles of the main Tunnel Creek road to trail and remove constraints to the North Fork of the creek, but guidebook author Seabury Blair, Jr. mounted a letter-writing campaign in opposition to the project. Regrettably, District Ranger Dean Yoshina gave in to Mr. Blair's misguided wishes, allowing only an unneeded culvert over the South Fork to be pulled, along with some stabilization of the remainder of the road. Although purportedly a hiker, Mr. Blair apparently values vehicle access and modern conveniences more than the integrity of the wild country around him. OFCO fails to see the logic, and the City of Port Townsend's municipal water managers are similarly mystified.