COUPEVILLE — A contract for tree thinning at the Rhododendron County Park Campground will go before the Island County Commissioners Wednesday.

While county park managers say tree thinning is necessary to ensure forest health and public safety, the proposed logging contract has environmentalists up in arms.

Island County Parks Superintendent Lee McFarland said thinning the stand of trees is necessary for two reasons: A number of “hazardous” trees have to be cut down before they fall and injure park visitors, but it will also allow weaker, smaller trees to grow out from under the shadow of the thick overgrowth.

Environmentalists don’t see it that way.

“These guys (the county) are not doing it right,” said Theresa Marie Gandhi, an environmental activist from Clinton.

“Saying that this is for health and safety is like Bush saying we’re winning the war,” she said.

Washington Timberland Management, the company chosen by the county for the job, has selected and marked a number of trees for logging in the park area.

Many of the trees — Douglas fir and hemlocks, — have a circumference smaller than a frisbee. Most of the trees marked for removal were also near much larger and healthier trees, and many trees marked for removal rim the cleared area of individual campgrounds or along the edges of access roads into the park.

The current proposal is a down-scaled version of a plan to thin 15 acres of trees in Rhododendron County Park. McFarland has nixed tree cutting near the ballfields, but he said the county needs to do some clean-up of other trees so it can reopen the campground.

“We have a responsibility to the public. If we are aware a hazard exists, we’re liable,” McFarland said.

He said he wasn’t sure how many trees are marked for cutting, but said it is a “very, very small percentage” of the more than 7 acres of park area. Most of the trees have been damaged by wind or the weather and some are diseased.

Ron Godwin, operations manager for Washington Timberland Management Northwest, said his company marked originally one in every three trees.

“We were looking for dead and diseased trees,” he said.

However, fewer trees will be taken down at the request of the county parks department.

In earlier news reports, Godwin had said he expected to harvest enough trees to fill between eight and 10 truckloads worth up to $20,000.

However, those estimates were no longer current, Godwin said Thursday.

“We will not make this kind of money,” he said.

The company may make

$8,000 to $10,000, Godwin guessed, but he didn’t have more recent figures.

Washington Timberland Management had originally expected a bigger contract — between $30,000 to $50,000 — based on the original proposal that would have also included logging near the ballfield.

McFarland said the amount of money that the company will make on the contract will be small. He said the trees currently marked were done after an assessment that was based on the health of the forest.

However, environmental activists say the number trees set for clearing is too high.

Environmentalists oppose the thinning, and say the proposed logging will damage many additional trees and the forest understory like the rhododendrons the park is named for.

Also, environmentalist say a number of healthy trees have been marked to be cut.

Ghandi also said the county should stop logging the park because it is part of the Ebey’s Landing National Historic Reserve and includes a rare old-growth forest.

She also criticized the county for hiring a logging company for the job and also suspects that the county and the logging company will draw a large profit from the project.

“The issue at the root of this issue is the health of the whole park, not just dollars for the county and logging company. In truth, a tree surgeon should be called,” she said.

“The understory, the giant rhododendrons and other very rare vegetation is under the trees and will be destroyed by loggers unhappy they will only make $20,000 and get 10 trucks of healthy logs for lumber, rather than the $50,000 they’d hoped for and were led to believe by the county was possible,” Ghandi said.

Members of the Whidbey Environmental Action Network also have inspected the forest. Steve Erickson of WEAN said in an e-mail to local supporters that he has found a number of healthy trees among the marked ones.

“The county has relied on a timber management company to decide what trees should be cut,” he wrote. “But the Rhododendron Park is not a logging plantation – it is a rare undisturbed natural forrest and public park.”

WEAN is asking Islanders to send messages to county commissioners urging them to halt the logging until the county gets a second opinion on the cutting proposal.

County Commissioner Mac McDowell said no final decision has been made and the commissioners are going to carefully consider all the information they have received, which includes a personal site visit the commissioners made in May.

McDowell said the safety issue concerns him.

“To leave the park closed doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. But if we open it up with trees that have a high potential of falling, that’s a concern,” he said.

The county commissioners may sign the contract with Washington Timberland Management as early as June 10. Commissioners will also discuss the proposed contract during their staff session June 6.