With the Downing Research Forest tree removal project in the past, school officials and others with an interest have now transitioned into what to do in the future at the outdoor education and cross-country course site.
Cleanup and trail work at the location has picked up in recent days, Superintendent of Schools Susan Halliday said during the Aug. 23 School Board meeting.
Halliday said the latest update she had received Wednesday from Facilities Director Joey DiGiovannangelo was that trail mulching had been completed with dirt scheduled to arrive and equipment rented to move forward with trail grooming and ditch work.
Most of the individuals included in a group that met earlier this summer to figure out what to do with the damaged forest sat down Aug. 18 to determine next steps, including specifics on planting.
“Is it seedlings, is it seedlings and larger trees, is it different varieties of trees? What is it that we want to look at as we move things up?” Halliday said about the gist of the conversation.
School Board chair Rick Wells said coming up with a long-term plan will be a key discussion.
“Terrible situation but we’re trying to make the best of it that we can and working with everybody,” Wells said during the meeting’s closing comments. “It’s not going to happen next year, it’s going to be a long process of getting that forest back to looking like a forest. So they need to work on it now and have a vision for 20 to 40 years out for what it’s going to look like.”
The school district met earlier this month with cross-country coaches Joe Fulton and Brian Skaar as well as the city of Philomath.
Halliday said the city planned to communicate with Benton County about drainage along Chapel Drive to avoid the possibility of future flooding problems. The county is currently working on a road-widening and multi-use path project designed to improve safety for pedestrians and bicyclists. The city also arranged late last week to help with cleanup.
On a visit to the site last week, Wells happened upon Fulton and Skaar in the process of staking out a new course. Through a conversation, an arrangement was made for dirt to be hauled free to the site.
“I happened to be hooked up with some people that are doing some dig-outs over in west Corvallis,” Wells said. “They called me today (Wednesday) and said, ‘hey, we’re going to have some dirt’ and I said ‘good, can we have it?’ It’s always nice to have a free place to dump dirt … they don’t like to pay to dump it when they have a free spot.”
Fulton, who said he was shocked when learning of his cross-country course’s demise, showed appreciation for the proactive approach from those involved.
“In the spirit of Paul Mariman, we move on and we did stake out a course that I think will work,” Fulton said. “But I do have concerns about the future since it is now clear. There’s a lot of debris left on both sides of where we put a new trail in and eventually that’s going to have to be dealt with for the forestry program and it’s going to take heavy equipment. So I’m worried about the new trails that we’re grooming right now and keep that equipment off those trails once we’re done.”
Fulton also mentioned the impacts of additional sunlight on the course.
“We’re going to have a lot of poison oak, a lot of blackberries, and so facilities is going to have a harder job to do,” Fulton said. “Sometimes our cross-country course is neglected and now we’re going to need to do more work than we’ve ever done out there.”
Fulton referred back to a promise by a previous School Board that the course would be protected.
“I just hope that the school district and School Board will make sure that we’re put on the same stature as all of the fields at the school and our course is protected,” he said, detailing instances in the past when the course had been forced to change because of other athletic field decisions. “I’d like to get to the point where, OK, we have a course for the best cross-country program in the state — and we’re going to leave it.”
A lot of trees go down in Downing Research Forest
In the aftermath of a late December windstorm that caused widespread tree damage throughout the region, Philomath School District officials realized that its research forest had been damaged to the point that it needed to be cordoned off from public use. “It didn’t sustain much damage on the edges of it but the center of…
Cross-country coach voices anger, disbelief over decimation of course
Philomath High coach Joe Fulton said that when he first saw what remained of Downing forest and his decimated cross-country course, it felt like he was visiting a cemetery. “I started crying,” Fulton said Thursday afternoon while walking the grounds. “I was just dumbfounded.” The Philomath School District after consulting with a panel of school…
A final decision on moving forward with the Paul Mariman Invitational, which is scheduled to be hosted by Philomath High on Oct. 7, will be made during the first week of September.
“There would be ample time to cancel if it needed to be canceled, which I’m hoping it won’t have to happen that way,” Halliday said. “If we agree that we’re a go, we’re committed to putting things in place to make that be the best that it can be given the status of the situation.”
A representative from the company that performed the logging operation had mentioned the project would be a cash-flow positive venture for the school district but Halliday said that hasn’t been the case.
“We got $4,900 for the timber sale for us and we turned around and paid a landscaping crew that’s been doing the mulching and the clearing for $8,000,” she said. “So it isn’t a money-maker to be able to do that. But our plan and intent is to go forward into the future and be committed to educational space for students.”
Board member Ryan Cheeke, who has connections to a landscape and nursery supply operation in the region, offered to help possibly secure larger trees that are often just hauled away after reaching a certain size and not able to be sold. Halliday said the city has also offered to reach out to nurseries.
Board member Erin Gudge came up with an idea to have folks sponsor a tree as the forest is re-established.
On a side note, Cheeke suggested Crestmont Land Trust as a site where the cross-country team could possibly train and offered to help with approaching Benton County to access the property. Crestmont, located in the Wren vicinity, has seen extensive improvements at the property in recent years.
Fulton thanked everybody for the outpouring of support in the aftermath of the situation.
“If we do have a work day, I can guarantee you that an awful lot of people will help,” he said.
