Cash Infusion Accelerates NW logging
By Michael Milstein, The Oregonian
August 09, 2007

Northwest national forests are hurriedly boosting federal logging to the highest levels in years with a new infusion of cash, even as they close campgrounds and other recreation sites because money for them is drying up.

The push for logging came so fast that some forests could not accelerate cutting as rapidly as top officials wanted, according to documents obtained by The Oregonian through the Freedom of Information Act.

The extra cash for plotting timber sales, road-building, marking trees and other work to make way for cutting flowed from a legal deal between the Bush administration and timber industry. It's pumping life into federal land logging after years of decline.

But dollars for other work in public forests remain scarce. As a result, U.S. Forest Service is likely to renege on its promise to fix existing, poorly maintained roads in Washington that violate clean water laws, for instance. Roads torn apart by storms last winter remain closed, cutting off access to trailheads and campgrounds.

The new logging money is drawn from forests in other parts of the country and will underwrite new roads that will carry trucks loaded with freshly cut trees.

Forest Service logging levels in the Northwest shrank more than 90 percent since the late 1980s, when protections for the northern spotted owl and other wildlife ended intensive cutting on federal lands.

Now, flush with more money than they have had in years, forests are scrambling to hire forestry technicians, engineers, timber appraisers and others. They are also contracting with private companies to carry some of the load their own workers cannot handle.

"We haven't been hiring this kind of staff in, gosh, more than 10 years," said Lisa Norris of the Mount Hood National Forest.

Federal timber sales require years of environmental reviews before they can be auctioned, so many forests have only a small stockpile ready to go and are rushing to plan more.

"We're trying to sell everything we have ready," Norris said. She said most of the timber sales should bring in enough money to cover their costs.

Counties will benefit

Foresters said they're glad for the chance to speed much-needed thinning of overgrown stands and bring on new employees to replace others who will be retiring in the next few years. It will also boost revenue for counties, which get a cut of timber proceeds.

The push is by no means a return to the logging boom times of the 1980s. Oregon and Washington forests then turned out more than 5 billion board feet of wood -- nearly half the timber coming from all national forests nationwide.

Even the accelerated logging will stand at less than 20 percent of those past highs, and will likely come from thinning projects.

But it is part of a drive by the Bush administration to meet the logging targets of the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan, the compromise drawn up by the Clinton administration that was supposed to protect wildlife while turning out a reliable supply of wood.

National forests in the Northwest never met those targets, in part because of continuing environmental lawsuits and in part because they never got the money to plan enough timber sales.

But in April -- halfway through the budget year -- forests in Washington and Oregon received an extra $24.7 million to boost logging levels, raising the timber budget about 32 percent over what they first received and nearly doubling it from last year.

National forest timber sales bottomed out in 2000 and have been slowly climbing since. Forests were shooting to sell 600 million board feet this year.

But the extra money prompted Linda Goodman, the Forest Service's regional forester, to increase this year's target to 675 million board feet and set the target for the next two years at 800 million board feet. Forests in western Oregon and Washington --the area covered by the Northwest Forest Plan -- could not do it all, so others in eastern Oregon and Washington were called on to pitch in, too.

But some couldn't log so much, so fast. Regional officials wanted the Ochoco National Forest in central Oregon to cut 80 percent more timber next year, but Forest Supervisor Jeff Walter said the forest's ability to pull that off is "extremely limited."

"This requires a very steep ramp up in both the planning and implementation organizations," he wrote in a letter to the regional office, saying the forest would increase logging -- but at a slower pace.

"Tidying up"

Forest Service officials then set a slower pace for Oregon and Washington logging, which will go from 675 million board feet this year to 750 next year and then 800 in fiscal 2009.

Goodman described the cutting in a letter to employees as "tidying up" forests, which she said have become cluttered like closets.

The doubling of money for logging contrasts with declines in other Forest Service funding. For instance, money for recreation programs in Oregon and Washington has dropped nearly 25 percent, from $28.7 million in 2003 to $21.4 million this year -- and the Bush administration is proposing a further cut to $19 million next year.

National forests are now looking at closing recreation sites they can no longer afford.

Forest Service officials also acknowledge they lack the money to maintain and repair failing forest roads in Washington, though they promised the state Department of Ecology they would. The deteriorating roads are polluting streams, violating clean water laws.

Spokesman Tom Knappenberger said the agency cannot ask for enough funds to fix the roads because of limits imposed by the administration.

On the other hand, the administration committed in a legal agreement with the timber industry -- the result of an industry lawsuit -- to ask for extra money to boost logging levels.

Regional officials stressed in directives to national forests the logging money could not be used for anything else.

Washington's two U.S. senators and four congressmen, all Democrats, wrote to the Secretary of Agriculture in June, saying that plans to put extra money into logging while cutting road maintenance "reflect a serious misallocation of resources."

Knappenberger said the agency would like to complete more of the road work if it could.

"We're doing the best we can with the money we have," he said.

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, and as defined under the provisions of "fair use", any copyrighted material herein is distributed without profit or payment for non-profit research and for educational use by our membership.

BLM Proposes Major Upswing in Logging
By Scott Learn, The Oregonian
August 10, 2007

Federal officials want to nearly triple logging allowed on 2.5 million acres of forests in Western Oregon, in part by cutting older trees that are protected now and reducing reserves for the northern spotted owl.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management's draft plan also would triple federal payments to 18 Oregon counties and create as many as 3,500 new jobs, the agency said Thursday. Many of those counties have had to make steep budget cuts in recent years as federal timber revenue and a safety net replacing that money have declined.

Much of the increased logging would be of older trees that have been off limits under the Clinton administration's 1994 Northwest Forest Plan. The "preferred alternative" in the BLM's draft plan would boost logging of trees 200 years and older sevenfold over the next decade, from 5,100 acres to 34,800 acres.

The U.S. Forest Service also is pushing hard to increase logging on national forests in Oregon, as The Oregonian reported Thursday. The two agencies' efforts reflect a drive by the Bush administration to boost logging, which has fallen well short of goals set by the Northwest Forest Plan.

BLM officials stressed Thursday that there's plenty of room for tweaking the plan -- 1,650 pages and two years in the making. It goes out for public review for three months and 25 public meetings. A final decision is expected in August 2008.

"This is the most detailed and comprehensive analysis ever completed" on the BLM lands, said Ed Shepard, the agency's Oregon and Washington director. "But it's really just a start."

Split reactions

The new plan, prompted in part by the settlement of a timber industry lawsuit in 2003, gives logging a higher priority than on national forest lands. Most of the land involved falls into a unique class of acreage known as "O&C lands" that are supposed to be used for "permanent forest production."

The BLM still has to comply with the Endangered Species Act. The agency says increased logging would only slightly decrease salmon productivity and actual habitat for the spotted owl and marbled murrelet.

Conservation groups said the BLM's blueprint is part of a sellout to timber interests that will damage streams and old-growth forests.

Timber industry officials and county leaders said it will bring badly needed federal money to rural counties and thwart challenges of logging projects that have helped keep logging on BLM forests far below Clinton-era projections.

Departure from Northwest plan

Both sides agreed that the draft marks a sharp departure from the Northwest Forest Plan. That plan was supposed to end the Northwest's logging wars by protecting wildlife on 24 million acres while turning out a reliable supply of wood.

The draft environmental impact statement compares three alternatives to the Northwest Forest Plan status quo. The agency's preferred alternative would increase the land available for intensive logging from about 600,000 acres to 1.2 million acres. Other acreage would be available for thinning.

About half the increase would come from logging trees 80 years or older.

Allowable timber production would rise from 268 million board feet a year now to 727 million board feet -- enough to fill about 150,000 log trucks. That's still less than the annual growth rate of trees on the land and previous production, timber industry officials noted.

"That land has a lot more production than they are even considering," said Chris West, vice president of the American Forest Resource Council.

The Association of O&C Counties backed the BLM's preferred alternative Thursday, saying it best aligned with Congress' intent when lawmakers set policy for the Oregon & California Railroad lands in 1937.

"Very positive step"

Logging in federal forests dropped sharply in the 1990s because of the wildlife protections and other decisions. That prompted Congress to pass a law in 2000 providing money to counties to make up for lost timber revenue. But that deal could expire next year.

Jackson County, in southern Oregon, closed its 15 libraries when it appeared that Congress wouldn't reauthorize the money this year.

The BLM plan "is a very positive step and it's long-awaited," said Dennis C. W. Smith, chairman of the Jackson County commission. Smith said he's confident the plan will not harm southern Oregon's fishing streams.

Threat to streams

Conservationists said the plan will do significant harm, in part by allowing logging closer to streams. They said there's room to boost logging to needed levels without cutting old-growth trees. And they predicted that lawsuits will stall the plan's implementation.

"This is more about making a political point than about getting volume to the mills, because this is certainly going to go into litigation," said Steve Pedery, conservation director for Oregon Wild. "It's just ripping the bandages off the wounds of the timber wars."

Under a deal negotiated by Gov. Ted Kulongoski, Oregon fish and wildlife biologists and others advised the federal agency. That doesn't mean the governor endorses the plan, said Mike Carrier, Kulongoski's natural resources policy director.

"We're comfortable with the science they're using," Carrier said. "What will be at issue is how people interpret the science."

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, and as defined under the provisions of "fair use", any copyrighted material herein is distributed without profit or payment for non-profit research and for educational use by our membership.