New plan to balance forests, economy

President Barack Obama inherited a lot of problems: Afghanistan, health care, the economy.

But in the Northwest, one of the most intractable issues any new administration faces is what to do with our wealth of federal forests.

On Wednesday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar put forward the administration's plan to balance the economic needs of rural logging communities with environmental mandates for about 2.5 million acres of forests in western Oregon administered by the Bureau of Land Management. He proposed a modest, short-term increase in logging, focusing on projects that wouldn't harm imperiled species.
With the announcement, Salazar tried to assure Oregon mill owners of a predictable supply of wood in the coming year.

About 10 percent of Oregon's timber harvest comes from federal lands, which includes those managed by the BLM and U.S. Forest Service. Most of the rest comes from private land.

Though praised by many regional leaders, some environmentalists and industry groups -- who for decades have faced off in courts and the public square over public lands -- picked at parts of the plan even while welcoming the secretary's effort.

Administration officials acknowledged the challenge.

"Both Secretary Salazar and I recognize that the magnitude of the challenge before us to achieve this balance is immense," said the BLM's director, Bob Abbey.

The plan would slightly increase logging next year across six BLM districts: Coos Bay, Eugene, Klamath Falls, Medford, Roseburg and Salem.

The secretary also announced an effort to chart a long-term course for the forests, the fates of which have shifted under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush and are closely tied to endangered species such as the northern spotted owl and marbled murrelet.

In June, Salazar withdrew a Bush-era plan for the forests, saying it was legally and scientifically flawed.

That put the forests back under Clinton-era guidelines called the Northwest Forest Plan. That failed to satisfy some in the timber industry, leading to a lawsuit that prompted the Bush revision.

Tree-thinning projects

The BLM, in consultation with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, identified 62 sales covering nearly 19,000 acres. The sales, Salazar said, would produce about 230 million board feet of timber, a 12 percent increase from the recent annual average of 206 million board feet, though not all of that was actually logged.

Most of the sales focus on thinning small trees from overgrown stands.

A timber industry group responded that thinning projects will eventually run out and more timber could be sustainably logged from the forests.

"This amounts to cherry-picking to boost current harvest and fails to do what is needed to improve forest health and reduce fire hazard in the long term," said Tom Partin of the American Forest Resource Council.

The sales do not include any old growth, which the BLM defines as forests with trees more than 180 years old and with a complex stand structure. Old-growth logging is still allowed in some cases under the Clinton plan, but any sales in old growth tend to draw protests or lawsuits, holding them up.

"Many of the sales under the Northwest Forest Plan were controversial as well, so part of today's announcement is to try to get us away from those controversial areas in the short term," said Michael Campbell, spokesman for the BLM in Portland.

Although some environmental groups welcomed Salazar's vision, they noted that nine of the 62 sales involve clear-cuts that could damage salmon streams and water quality.

"They aren't going to get away from the controversy and conflict by proposing clear-cuts, especially in older stands," said Dan Kruse, legal director for the Eugene group Cascadia Wildlands.

Long-term plan pending

The announcement doesn't mean old growth will be off-limits to logging in the future.

Salazar directed a team of BLM, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, and other federal agency personnel to report back by March with recommendations for long-term management for the forests.

That could result in anything from small tweaks to the Clinton plan to a wholesale rewrite of forest management guidelines requiring legislation from Congress.

Sen. Ron Wyden and Rep. Peter DeFazio, both Oregon Democrats, praised Salazar's announcement and pledged to work with the department on a long-term strategy.

"Forestry policy has been gridlocked in controversy for decades, and it seems like you are taking a significant step today towards ending that gridlock," Wyden said.

-- Matthew Preusch
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