More than 150 dead or unhealthy trees will be removed from a popular park near the Oregon Coast next year.

The Oregon Parks and Recreation Department announced last month its plans to close the Jessie M. Honeyman Memorial State Park campground and day-use area beginning in January 2027 for hazard tree removal.

Lauren Wirtis, a spokesperson with Oregon State Parks, said the closure could last about a month, based on several factors. The removal project, she said, is happening at the same time as a planned utility repair project.

“It’s hard to say just depending on weather conditions and how the tree removal and utility repair goes,” Wirtis said. “These things aren’t always totally predictable, but we’ll be trying to open back up as soon as we can.”

Foresters with the state parks department regularly evaluate trees throughout the parks to ensure they are in healthy condition and safe to be around, according to Wirtis. The trees being removed next year in Honeyman, she said, have been identified as potentially hazardous to people.

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Wirtis said that the closure is happening in January because that is when the park sees the lowest number of reservations. It is also the rainiest season, making it an unpopular time of the year for camping, she said.

A contractor will remove 20 dead and unhealthy trees around the Cleawox Lake and Cleawox day-use area. Another 145 trees in the campground area will also be removed because they are decaying and pose structural issues, according to the state parks department.

Wirtis said the trees being removed are across a large, highly forested area of the park. She said the removal won’t occur throughout one area and that visitors won’t feel like they’re in a different park.

“In fact, from our foresters’ perspective, it’ll actually make all the other trees in the area a little bit healthier,” she said. “Due to some of the ways that [trees have] been planted in the past, or just the way that trees have grown up in that area were a little overcrowded, so it might even help with the longer health of the trees that remain.”

The agency is planning to donate some of the logs from the trees to the Siuslaw Soil and Water Conservation District and Smith River Watershed Council. There the logs will be placed in streams to help restore riparian and aquatic habitats.

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For a few of the larger trees, the lower part of their trunk will be left standing to create a snag. A snag provides food, nesting and denning resources for birds and small mammals that live in the park.

As Wirtis explains, the logs could also be used to build what’s known as an engineered logjam — trees placed over bodies of water to create a sort of barrier or dam. She said this will help habitat restoration efforts by mimicking the natural process of trees falling into rivers.

“It can create these really more dynamic and healthy systems within water bodies,” she said.

Wirtis said the agency wants to spread the word now about the closure for people wanting to make early camping reservations. The parks department urges visitors to stay up to date on its park webpage and social media accounts for more information about the closure.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/09/07/honeyman-state-park-campground-closure/