Watershed policy to end "killing fields" on the Sitkoh
Pt. 1 of 2. A river near Sitka is scheduled for restoration work next year. The Sitkoh River valley was logged in the 1970s, when harvesters clear-cut trees right up to river banks, and sometimes used stream beds as roads. The Sitkoh has retained a limited fish run while the valley has regrown, but the salmon are now in danger: Recently, the river meandered onto an adjacent logging road, leaving many fish stranded when water levels drop. Restoration is an old practice on the Tongass that has a new priority in the Obama administration’s Dept. of Agriculture. In the first of a two-part series, KCAW’s Robert Woolsey looks at how work on the Sitkoh River may signal an important and growing role for watershed restoration in forest policy.
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