Logging forests takes this toll on already-strained Nooksack River, new research suggests

The Nooksack River is under enormous strain, as development brings its ecosystems to the brink of collapse and climate change chokes summer water supply by reducing the region’s annual snowpack.

Recent research shows there is another party that should very likely be held partially responsible for the Nooksack’s dangerously low summer stream flows: The commercial forestry industry, which cuts down trees to sell as timber. Commercial forestry could reduce late-summer stream flows in the Nooksack River’s South Fork by as much as 25%, said Oliver Grah, the Nooksack Indian Tribe’s water resources program manager, referencing computer simulations developed in partnership with Western Washington University professor Bob Mitchell and Washington-based environmental engineering firm Natural Systems Design.