(Gallery by The Associated Press)
CAVE JUNCTION – Here lies Rough & Ready Lumber. The last sawmill in Josephine County closes next week, a grim milestone in the persistent stalemate over logging that's peculiar to this unique corner of Oregon.
In much of western Oregon, the 1990s timber wars have given way to a shaky détente, with a focus on thinning and light-touch restoration in federal forests.
In southwest Oregon, the battle still runs hot.
High unemployment raises the stakes here. So does a storied timber history and a heavy reliance on dwindling logging revenues from federal forests to fund county government.
Three Oregon Congressmen want to more than double logging in the region's O&C Lands, forests shifted to the feds after an early 20th Century railroad deal went sour.
But the consequences are uniquely high for environmentalists, too, who said no to big increases in logging when Gov. John Kitzhaber convened an O&C Lands task force last year to attempt a compromise.
Josephine County and its neighbors sit in the Klamath-Siskiyou eco-region, one of the most biologically diverse places on the planet. The landscape, warmer than Douglas fir strongholds to the north, supports 36 species of conifers alone and some of Oregon's top runs of salmon and steelhead.
Meanwhile, Josephine County voters decide today whether to increase their lowest-in-the-state property taxes to partially plug the gap left by logging reductions.
"Everybody views this as black and white, and it's just not that way," says Tom Tuchman, Kitzhaber's forestry adviser. "Finding a balance is an incredibly difficult thing to do."
Mill moments
But the mill stopped sawing last month, with Phillippi and her husband, Link, citing a lack of reliable log supply from public lands.
Federal timber production and jobs at Oregon mills have fallen dramatically since 1990, when the northern spotted owl was listed under the Endangered Species Act.
Bigger, more efficient mills and the huge housing construction drop in the recent recession contributed as well.
Rough & Ready was among 22 sawmills in Josephine and Jackson counties in 1975, the Phillippis said, down to none now.
The mill was small, running one shift with 85 jobs. And the recession stung. But the problem wasn't demand, said Jennifer Phillippi, one of three co-owners.
"We have customers who are dying for it," she said. "The only thing we don't have is the logs."
In 2002, Rough & Ready shut down its small-log mill running three shifts. It needed millions in investment to compete in commodity timber, said Link Phillippi, the mill's president.
Nearby lumber, needed to keep costs low, wasn't steady enough, he said.
Instead, they upgraded a large-log mill and built a niche in appearance-grade lumber for exposed beams and high-quality windows and doors.
For that, they needed the clear, knot-free pine and fir that runs toward the outside of larger logs. The ideal: 80- to 100-year-old second-growth logs -- not old growth, the Phillippis stress -- 22 to 24 inches wide.
The mill put out "one of the best products in the sawmill business," says John Dunkin president of Rogue Valley Door, one of the largest U.S. manufacturers. These days, his company buys wood from Canada.
Forest politics
The Phillippis say environmental groups helped stifle timber sales, protesting five of the last six U.S. Bureau of Land Management sales with Rough & Ready as the winning bidder. BLM handles most of the O&C Lands.
An industry group protested the sixth sale for lack of log supply, but withdrew it after Rough & Ready won the bid. BLM also removed two large sales in 2006 after protests, Link Phillippi said.
"Rarely do we buy a federal timber sale that we can operate right away. It usually takes a year or two. Sometimes they get eliminated."
Oregon Timber
JOBS
1990: 63,700
2010: 25,300
SAWMILLS
1988: 165
2008: 116
2012: 69
O&C LANDS
Annual growth: 1.2 billion board feet
Industry favored cut: 500 million
Current cut: less than 200 million
SOURCES: U.S. Forest Service; Oregon Forest Resources Institute; Bureau of Land Management.
Oregon Democratic Reps. Peter DeFazio and Kurt Schrader, and Republican Greg Walden are pitching a deal in the U.S. House to more than double logging on O&C land.
Their proposal, supported by industry, would put 1.5 million acres of previously logged forests in a trust run for timber production and managed under more lenient state laws for private forests -- a shift designed to limit environmental appeals.
The U.S. Forest Service would manage the remaining 1.1 million acres with a focus on retaining old growth. The Rogue Wilderness would get 56,000 more acres.
The plan could fly in the Republican-controlled House. It stands little chance in the Democrat-controlled Senate, Oregon Sen.Ron Wyden has warned.
DeFazio's approach is the "only hope for federal timber in our region," Link Phillippi said. But after decades of battling, the Phillippis said, the prospects are too dim for Rough & Ready to bank on.
Biggest and best
Eighteen miles down the Redwood Highway from the mill, Walter and Mary Camp manage their own 180 acres of forest with light-touch logging to improve forest health. Threatened coastal coho salmon teem in their pond.
DeFazio's proposal, which would apply Oregon's private logging rules to public forests, scares them, the Camps said.
Their property is surrounded by a mix of private and O&C forests, typical in southwest Oregon.
In 2008, Rough & Ready's timberland arm clear-cut 67 acres next door to the Camps, spraying herbicides afterward. That approach is allowed under Oregon's Forest Practices Act, and would extend to lands placed in the trust, the Camps fear.
The proposal "should terrify people across the nation," Mary Camp said.
Endangered Species Act rules on the trust lands would also be far less stringent. Many cuts would be in potential spotted owl habitat. And streamside protection would drop from putting nearly 40 percent of harvestable acres off limits to about 5 percent.
Thinning is tougher to execute profitably and ecologically in southwest Oregon. Ecologists here focus on keeping larger pines and clearing smaller trees crowding them.
That's the rub for Rough & Ready: Larger trees like its mill needs, particularly pines, aren't left to grow on private lands, where more profitable 30- to 60-year rotations are the norm.
The Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center has led many timber sale appeals.
George Sexton, the group's conservation director, says he offered to back off a lawsuit over a recent Rough & Ready sale, Rio Rumble, if BLM put trees less than 30 inches wide off limits.
The agency declined, saying older trees needed to be cut to prevent harmful mistletoe spread along the trees' crowns.
Rough & Ready and at least seven Oregon mills are relying on larger diameter trees from public lands, environmental groups estimate.
Rough & Ready's mistake was banking on bigger trees, particularly large pines, said Steve Pedery, Oregon Wild's conservation director. New regulations have cut harvests because past volumes were unsustainable, he said, harming streams, salmon and wildlife.
"It's not a good business model to depend on eliminating 20 years of conservation standards."
300 million feet apart
The governor hoped his O&C committee would compromise. It didn't.
The environmental representatives could swallow just over 200 million board feet a year, tapping an "ecological forestry" model with limited clear-cuts. Industry and county representatives stuck to 500 million, enough to meet county revenue goals.
A staff report said meeting the revenue goals and abiding by environmental laws as interpreted now "appear to be mutually exclusive." It also said thinning projects would run out in 10 to 25 years.
Wyden has promised a strategy later this month to address the deadlock. The two sides could reconcile in conference committee.
The House proposal could use more streamside protection, DeFazio agreed. But it would pay for private forest streamside buffers, manage half the trust lands in at least 100-year rotations and add wilderness and some old-growth protections.
Industry has filed lawsuits for bigger cuts, arguing that O&C law sets aside the lands for "sustainable yield."
If the lawsuits succeed, "the environmentalists would be here in a second saying, 'We want old-growth protection and wilderness,'" DeFazio said. "At that point, I might not be able to get it."
Back at Rough & Ready, 19-year millwright Larry Mason is hoping for a solution. Josephine County's unemployment rate tops 11 percent. At last count, a quarter of its residents were on food stamps. Mason figures his chances of getting a local job are close to zero.
It could make you cry every night, Mason said.
"In this valley, there's no jobs. The kids my daughter went to school with, none of them have jobs. It's tough, man."
-- Scott Learn
The timber industry is super competitive, especially in Oregon. It's crazy to think about, but it really is true. The amount of companies in the industry is huge. http://www.simplyoregon.com.au
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