Frank O. Glenn IV, Cranguyma Farms
3204 113th Lane
Long Beach, Washington 98631
Les,
I want to thank you for the care and concern you have shown in the past few weeks, during our process of envisioning possibilities for solutions to what is an impending crisis on my family farm.
When you mentioned "accidents of history" how many are bad, but some indeed are good, it really hit home with me, seeming to prove so true in our unique situation. We have indeed had a "good accident" on our property, which has allowed us through the over 63 years we have owned the land, to preserve an extensive acreage of forest primeval, sparing it from the woodsman's axe, the chainsaw and the bulldozer. Our single-minded, even stubborn focus on cranberry farming has kept our attention on the bogs ever since this farm was founded, and the forest has persisted through it all. Stubbornness has worked in our favor for a long time, but now my family is faced with making some of the toughest decisions ever, just to survive as a business.
As you now know, the nationwide cranberry market has for the first time in decades taken a nosedive, turning us once well-heeled farmers into a desperate group, struggling, fighting and failing to survive in our industry. The price we are being paid for our fruit this year and last year is around one-half the cost of production. As Washington's largest cranberry farm, our family business is going into the red on the order of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. Our payroll has been slashed in half. We are having to cut expenses in every way possible. Desperation within this family business is increasing by the week, as limited family savings are being used to subsidize the business and keep it afloat. How long this can continue is a matter of great, even grave concern to many family members.
The increasing financial desperation is forcing us to take stock of all our internal and natural resources, and to make necessary decisions to keep our farm alive, with faith that cranberry markets will recover in a few years. Unfortunately, what keeps coming to the surface in all of our meetings of late, is talk of logging potentially hundreds of acres of our timber resource to pay back the family savings account. I say unfortunately, because our forest is truly unique, and as far as I know, one of the largest non-industrial privately owned blocks of mature/old growth forest left on the northwest coast.
A cranberry farmer by trade, and a forester by passion, I have grown up surrounded by the backdrop of these majestic, sometimes monstrous spruce and hemlock. Our farm, being over two-thirds forested was a marvelous place to explore and learn in my youth, and I continue to be fascinated and learn to this day. My passion for trees guided me to the University of Washington in the 1990's where I completed my bachelor's degree in Forest Management and Conservation of Wildland Resources. Since, I have returned to work the family farm and every day grow to love this land and this region more and more. I am particularly fond of the Willapa Hills wherein I spend considerable time visiting those few disparate patches of old-growth and mature timber that remain standing.
To consider logging our forest is a consideration that breaks my heart. Not only would the destruction vanquish the unfathomable beauty these forests have to offer; such logging would destroy a beating heart in the Willapa ecosystem, wrenching the wild core of the Long Beach Peninsula out by its roots, taking another vital link of habitat forest from the fragile chain of life that still remains in our local region. Our forest is situated on the precise latitude as preserves at Long Island and Ellsworth Creek, and in the precise longitude as protected forest at Fort Canby St. Park and Leadbetter Point St. Park. These essential forests are spaced apart by almost equal distances, each forest being just a short hop from the other.
Being a forester, and not an ornithologist, I can only offer the opinion that our expanse of forest provides essential bird habitat. From personal experience on an almost daily basis, I can tell you that owls abound in this forest. And it is only natural to think that the structural diversity of our forest would provide habitat for the endangered marbled murrelet, with all of the large-limbed character trees we have. As a curious human being, I can tell you that even if we had no owls, songbirds, seabirds or what have you, the crown jewel of our property must be its Great Blue Heron rookery.
Centrally located in our forest, the Heron Rookery occupies a stand of spruce forest which is furthest from human intrusion and disturbance. During the past four years, in nesting season I take at least one hike up there, ever so carefully and quietly, to stand in awe of this phenomenon of communal living. Overcome by the smell and rain of their brackish fish-and-frog white-wash waste, deafened by their "crrrraaank!" and "garrraaaawww" calls, a dramatic scene carries on and on high overhead, in the 70 odd nests in the treetops. I imagine this place to give home and community to over 250 birds, parents and young. The thought of this community being destroyed, even somewhat impacted by actions nearby calls me deeply from within to seek its protection. The herons rely on this rookery, as they have for decades, as their home base, a place to raise their young. Several times daily, they fly to Baker Bay on the Columbia, Willapa Bay, and Peninsula wetlands to hunt food for themselves and their young. The smell of their waste, brought in from miles in all directions, quantities of which turn the underbrush white as snow, is an olfactory drama in itself, giving one a unique sensory experience -- the heavy scent of the digested productive diversity of aquatic life from our estuaries and wetlands. You can smell the frogs, the fish, the salt!
Les, the threat to all we have held on to for so long is undeniable. Talking with you has been a great inspiration, and gives me optimism that there are other alternatives to logging. We are faced with difficult choices, and will soon be forced to do something, whatever that turns out to be. Now is the time for my family to consider its options with this property, to debate, and decide on its future. Will we turn our "good accident" into a disaster? Or will we discover, to our benefit, that our majestic forest may grace us with its beauty ever more?
Let's discover what is possible.
-Frank O. Glenn IV (received via e-mail)