OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — Washington’s Department of Natural Resources and Weyerhaeuser have agreed that the forest products company will increase landslide protections.
As part of the voluntary agreement, the company and state agency also will review watershed plans that set out logging rules for southwest Washington’s Stillman Creek and Upper Chehalis River watersheds. A severe storm in December 2007 caused widespread damage, landslides and flooding in western Washington.
A Weyerhaeuser study concluded that heavy rain was the primary cause of the slides, but conservation groups contend that too much timber harvesting on steep slopes was partly to blame.
