Trail access points to be shaped in coming months
9/1/14
After nearly four years of work between state, timber and local officials, Humboldt County has the title to nearly 1,000 acres of community forest southeast of Eureka after closing escrow with Green Diamond Resource Company.
“Having it actually close escrow, that means this is the community’s forest now,” 3rd District Supervisor Mark Lovelace said. “It’s not the county of Humboldt that owns it, it’s the people of the county of Humboldt that own it. As a community forest, the management and the trail planning will be guided by public input.”
The county was able to purchase a portion of Green Diamond Resource Company’s 7,600-acre McKay Tract using $6.8 million in funds received from three state agencies: the Wildlife Conservation Board, the California Natural Resources Agency and the California State Coastal Conservancy.
Having received the full funding in May, Public Works Department Deputy Director Hank Seemann said closing escrow with Green Diamond on Aug. 21 was a hurdle that required several months to jump.
“There is a lot going into closing escrow,” Seemann said. “That was a big accomplishment.”
Next Monday, Seemann said, the county will make a formal announcement on the purchase and future plans at a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Proposed to generate revenue for the county through sustainable timber harvesting practices while providing outdoor community access and educational opportunities, the McKay Tract Community Forest has been an eagerly awaited addition for the county.
As the land has only hosted timber harvesting owners for several generations, Seemann said the current infrastructure and trail system needs improvement to make the county’s vision come to fruition.
“We want to the public to see this new public land, but we need to get it ready first,” Seemann said. “We do have a goal of trying to set up a good access point and at least a short trail loop as soon as possible. It’s hard to pinpoint a month. With a project of this magnitude, things need to come together before we open it up.”
As part of the county’s agreement with the funding state agencies, the county must develop a management plan to lay out how it will balance the forest’s intended uses. A state environmental review will also have to be performed before any projects can move forward. On the forefront of this effort is designing access points to the forest and developing a trail system.
“That’s going to take some time because there are really important issues such as being compatible with adjacent properties and having access trail points that avoid user conflicts,” Seemann said. “The community forest will be used by people who are walking, running, equestrians, riding bikes. So it’s really important that different speeds, different sizes, different capabilities are accounted for. And, they have to be tied to appropriate access points.”
While the property has existing roads and trails made by trespassers over the years, Seemann said more trails will have to be built or altered so that users are no longer trespassing on private land. Another issue that has to be addressed is parking.
“There are no perfect, ready-to-go access points,” Seemann said. “We have some top candidates, but they all need work before they can be opened up.”
There will be no lack of volunteer help to build and maintain the trails as the Humboldt Volunteer Trail Stewards have been recruiting for the project since last year.
“They already have over 100 people signed up who want to do work in this forest,” Lovelace said. “I’ve been out there on trail days where there has been 50 volunteers and seen them cut 600 feet of new trail from nothing. ... It’s pretty phenomenal what a group of volunteers can accomplish in four hours.”
Rees Hughes, one of the trail coordinators, said the group began outreach efforts last year in order to show how supportive the community would be should the board vote to purchase the land. Now that the focus has shifted from purchasing the forest to preparing it for public use, Hughes said he, his fellow volunteers and the county all have their work cut out for them.
“Based on what I see, it will take a while,” he said. “This has been a parcel of land that has been used for industrial timber for many generations. It will probably take longer than we all want to get it ready for general public use.”
More information on volunteering to build and maintain McKay Tract trails can be found at www.humtrails.org/mckay.html.
