Oregon’s Forestry Board has approved a controversial plan to increase logging on more than 630,000 acres of state forests.
The reason? More timber revenues for counties, schools and other local governments. But environmental groups say wildlife will be hurt.
A Whitebark Pine in the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest. Photo by Dave Powell, U.S. Forest Service
Tomorrow, the Senate gets its first look at a compromise logging bill for Eastern Oregon.
Ideally, the bill is supposed to end years of timber wars. No more logging for the sake of logging. Instead, timber harvests happen as part of a greater effort to restore forests. Old growth trees are off limits. But Eastern Oregon lumber mills get a steady supply of smaller trees to help them stay in business.
The compromise came after 18-months of negotiations between Oregon environmental and timber groups. Senator Wyden, who helped organize the talks is sponsoring the bill and Senator Merkley has joined him.
The Hells Canyon Preservation Council says it just can’t support a compromise deal for logging forests in Eastern Oregon.
The deal, put together after 18-months of negotiations between environmental groups and the timber industry, opens the door for logging on about 8 million acres of federal forests east of the Cascades.
Add Governor Kulongoski to the list of supporters for the new Eastern Oregon logging agreement that was announced this week.
The deal was negotiated by timber and conservation groups, with the help of Senator Wyden’s office. Wyden will introduce legislation to make it happen.
“The forests of eastern Oregon have reached a crisis condition as has our wood products industry,” says Kulongoski in his statement. “Our communities and rural economies are stressed beyond tolerance and Senator Wyden’s bill is the kind of solution to this triple threat that Congress should adopt as quickly as possible.”
The bill has been described as historic, and for good reasons.
Interior Secretary Salazar is stepping into the middle of one of the Northwest’s longest running environmental battles, logging the vast federal forests of Western Oregon.
Old growth forest on BLM land at Esmond Lake. Photo by Kristian Skybak. For more see flickr.com/kristiansven.
The challenge is this: how do you create a steady supply of timber for local economies without hurting those forests and the endangered species that live there? The two previous administrations have tried, and failed, to come up with logging plans that could win widespread support. Clinton’s Northwest Forest Plan was bitterly opposed by the timber industry. Bush’s WOPR was so badly flawed that the Obama administration decided it would be a waste of time to defend it in court.
Which brings us to today’s announcement.
First, Salazar says he’s moving forward with a one year plan to allow the logging of some 230 million board feet during 2010. He’s approved 46 timber sales and another 16 are still under consideration. Most of the sales involve thinning and restoration projects, the kind that are less likely to be controversial.
That’s not much of a change from what’s been happening the past few years. From 2005 to 2008, the Bureau of Land Management says it’s offered an average of 206 million board feet for logging each year. But the actual amount that was harvested is much less, about 150 million board feet.
So far, so good.
But the bigger challenge is coming up with a long term strategy for managing the 2.4 million acres of BLM forests in Western Oregon.
Salazar has ordered the BLM and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to work together on finding long term solutions. The two agencies will form a special task force that will report back to him by next spring. Getting these two agencies to cooperate is extremely important. Because while BLM has authority over the forests, Fish and Wildlife as well as other agencies, have a legal duty to protect the endangered species. Lack of cooperation is one of the big reasons the Bush WOPR logging plan was killed.
One sign that Salazar might be on the right track is that Senator Wyden and Congressman DeFazio attended today’s announcement and offered their support. Wyden called the plan, “good old fashioned common sense”, saying that bringing all the agencies together now the plan will save time and lead to healthier forests.
The reaction from the environmental community is not as enthusiastic. Oregon Wild has been following the logging dispute closely. Steve Pedery, the group’s Conservation Director, says “Increased cooperation between the BLM and Fish and Wildlife is a good start, but the bottom line is that the BLM must begin to place as much value on wild salmon, clean water and old-growth forests as they do on logging volume.”
Oregon Wild is also concerned because the Salazar plan for next year includes clear cut logging on about 1,000 acres of BLM land. ”The public rejected clear-cutting decades ago,” says Pedery. ”If the Obama administration wants to avoid conflict and controversy, they should rein-in BLM clear-cutting.”
The timber industry filed suit last week, hoping to force the Obama Administration to bring back a Bush-era logging plan for Western Oregon.
It’s known as the Western Oregon Plan Revisions, or WOPR. If it went into effect, it would greatly increase how much logging is allowed on more than 2.5 million acres of BLM forests in the state.
Clear cut logging near Eugene. Photo courtesy Kristian Skybak. See more at flickr.com/kristiansven.
The lawsuit filed by the American Forest Resource Council says Obama doesn’t have the authority to simply withdraw a logging plan that had been developed over a five year period. The group also says the law that created these forests, known as the Oregon and California act, calls for as much sustainable logging as possible. To not allow that, it argues, violates the law.
The Interior Department announced in July that it was killing WOPR. Secretary Ken Salazar called the plan “legally indefensible” and said it would never stand up in court. For starters, Interior said WOPR was approved before going through all the steps required by the Endangered Species Act.
It also raised questions about changes the Bush Administration made to the Spotted Owl Recovery Plan. The Bush changes were part of the process that allowed WOPR to move forward. But a report by the Inspector General says the Bush team used “improper political influence” to get what it wanted.
Have you noticed all the news attention Representative Greg Walden is getting for his recent “debate” with Vice President Al Gore?
The two squared off over forest biomass, and whether or not it should be considered a form of renewable energy. The exchange came during a week long string of hearings on national greenhouse gas legislation.
Gore was skeptical. He appeared concerned that thinning federal forests for biomass fuel might encourage too much logging.
But Walden was clearly frustrated that biomass was not in the bill as a renewable energy source. He wants more thinning partly because he thinks it will help reduce wildfires. He also sees more jobs in the forests if thinning is ramped up, and at new power plants that could be built using biomass as fuel.
Walden isn’t alone in his point of view. Senator Ron Wyden and Rep. Peter DeFazio also support including forest biomass on the renewable energy list.
Walden’s office posted the exchange on its YouTube page.
The exchange was well covered in the Bend Bulletin, and Walden carried on with his argument a few days later in White City as seen in this Medford Mail Tribune story.
Senator Ron Wyden’s latest attempt to find some common ground on managing Northwest forests is… no surprise here… getting mixed reviews.
As described in this Associated Press report via the Register Guard, Wyden says he wants to stop logging of old growth trees while shifting the focus to more thinning of forests.
(In my previous life as a member of the mainstream media, I had a couple of brief conversations with Wyden about forest thinning. He was adamant that thinning was the best way to reduce wildfires.)
The AP says Wyden wants to ban logging of trees based on their age. How old they have to be before being protected depends on their location in the state. It would spend $50 million on thinning projects and fast tracks projects on about 25,000 acres.
While praising Wyden for his efforts, both the forest industry and environmental groups think the plan has serious flaws.
