Oregon timber industry group files lawsuit over marbled murrelet habitat designations

By Eric Mortenson, The Oregonian  

 

The marbled murrelet may be hard to detect in west coast forests, but lawsuits over its fate have found nesting grounds in the courts.

A Portland timber industry group filed a lawsuit alleging the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wrongfully designated millions of unsuitable acres as critical marbled murrelet habitat. Tom Partin, president of the American Forest Resource Council, said the agency designated land that not only isn't being used by the bird now, but doesn't have the old forest characteristics murrelets prefer.

The agency cannot "tie up currently unsuitable land hoping it turns into habitat that will support an endangered species," Partin said in a prepared statement. "That's like the government denying you a building permit because it hopes someday your neighborhood will become a city park."

Critical habitat designations do not prohibit logging, but require federal agencies such as the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to protect important characteristics of the area. In general, private landowners are not affected unless federal funding or permits are involved.

The lawsuit, filed Jan. 24 in federal court in Washington, D.C., alleges the endangered species act requires that critical habitat designations must be limited to areas occupied by the species at the time. There is an exception to designate additional land if it is essential to the species' survival, according to the lawsuit. The resource council, which represents mills and other elements of the timber industry, is joined in the lawsuit by Douglas County and by the Carpenters Industrial Council.

Fish and Wildlife officials defend designating unoccupied sites as critical habitat. Doing so provides murrelets more habitat over time as forests age, and in the short term provides buffer zones that protect them from predators.

Last fall, the agency designated nearly 3.7 million acres as critical habitat in Oregon, Washington and California.

On Jan. 19, three environmental groups announced they will sue the Oregon Department of Forestry. They maintain logging on three state forests is killing or displacing marbled murrelets. State officials say they are taking measures to avoid harming murrelets, conducting about 1,500 surveys for the bird annually and managing forests through a "take avoidance" policy.

Marbled murrelets are robin-sized seabirds that feed in the ocean but lay their eggs on limbs of mature or old growth trees. They are listed as threatened in the three west coast states under the Endangered Species Act.

 --Eric Mortenson

Two Views of the Bipartisan Oregon Federal Forest Plan

A solution for the forests

Published: Saturday, January 28, 2012, 10:49 AM

By Michael H. Pieti

In this highly charged, often nasty, political climate it takes no small amount of courage and trust to cross party lines to turn a crisis into a solution.

Congressmen Peter DeFazio, Greg Walden, and Kurt Schrader have shown their mettle by doing just that as they craft a solution to the O & C crisis – – for the benefit of Oregonians living in rural counties who have historically depended on timber harvest revenues from these lands to pay for vital community services.

The last federal check to Oregon's rural counties to help offset the loss in payments to timber-dependent counties was mailed January 19th. And sadly, these lands are still in a kind of limbo with a spotted owl forest management regime that gives conflicting and sometimes confusing direction when it comes to lands not protected for owl habitat.

These three Congressmen have seized on this crisis in an effort to address both problems – – an ambitious idea but definitely within reach. The plan satisfies ongoing concerns over the protection of old growth forests and also clarifies where sustained yield and timber harvesting is appropriate.

Under the proposal the last remaining mature and old growth forests – and thus the best habitat for listed species – of O & C lands would be turned over to the U.S. Forest Service for protective management, not to be commercially harvested. And lands that been harvested in the past that have the least ecological value would be managed to produce timber harvests on a sustained yield basis with suitably long growth cycles in some areas and subject to federal and state laws, and other forest management requirements. These lands would be placed in a trust to be managed for O & C counties.

The expected timber harvests would provide for the local timber infrastructure that supports rural communities and create an estimated 12,000 jobs. The prospect of new jobs in rural counties is more exciting than merely making the case for one more reauthorization of county payments.

The O & C measure would be attached to a larger bill being drafted by Chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, Representative Doc Hastings (R WA) that deals with forest management in national forests. This bill, with active support from Representative Walden has a genuine chance of passage in the Republican-majority House.

What's needed when this legislation reaches the Senate is strong support and advocacy from Senators Wyden and Merkley – – at least for the O & C section. We are hopeful that the DeFazio/Walden/Schrader jobs creation measure makes it through the House but in order to achieve a lasting long range solution it will be necessary for Oregon's senators to also see that this is a crisis ripe to be converted into opportunity.

Michael Pieti is Executive Secretary – Treasurer of the Carpenters Industrial Council, a union representing lumber and wood products workers throughout Oregon.

County timber payments: Put public lands ahead of politics

Published: Saturday, January 28, 2012, 10:00 AM

 

By Steve Pedery

There is no denying that Oregon's congressional delegation is under enormous political pressure because of the expiration of federal payments to support county budgets and that there are difficult choices to be made about how to keep counties afloat ("A new forest policy or bust," editorial, Jan. 23). But short-term political self-interest is not an excuse for elected officials attempting to sacrifice clean water, wildlife and America's public lands.

Unfortunately, Reps. Peter DeFazio, Kurt Schrader and Greg Walden appear to be favoring short-term political expediency over finding a viable solution to the county payments impasse. They are poised to partner with the House Republican leadership on a plan to bail out county budgets by relinking them to clear-cut logging on public lands. Most Oregonians strongly oppose such a plan, and these representatives know it. Perhaps this is one reason that, despite months of hype, this controversial proposal has not been publicly released or opened to scientific scrutiny.

Historically, Oregon counties enjoyed an enormous windfall from the proceeds of the logging epidemic that swept through federal public lands in the 1970s and '80s. With as much as 90 percent of the region's old-growth forests cut down, strong public opposition finally brought an end to rampant clear-cutting in the 1990s -- and the money going to counties from timber sales shrank. Congress cushioned the fall by instituting federal payments (funded by American taxpayers) to help transition the counties away from dependence on federal subsidies. These payments expire this year.

Some in Congress, including Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, are working on a short-term extension of county payments to give local, state and federal leaders time to work on a permanent solution. Unfortunately, DeFazio, Schrader and Walden have not been working to advance a similar measure in the House.

Instead, they have partnered with House Republican leaders who wish to exploit the county payments impasse to weaken safeguards for clean water and wildlife. Despite historic low demand for timber, they are promoting the idea that counties can clear-cut their way to prosperity.

What little has been revealed about the plan isn't pretty. Approximately 1.2 million acres of federal Bureau of Land Management lands -- forests that belong to all Americans -- would be put into a corporate "timber trust." These lands would then be managed under weak state logging rules rather than more protective federal standards. State rules allow clear-cutting, don't require scientific analysis of logging's effects on salmon and other endangered species, and fail to include important Clean Water Act safeguards. To maximize profits, the 1.2 million acres would be subjected to industrial logging practices.

The plan is unlikely to generate the revenue county governments are seeking, as timber prices are at a record low and timber demand these days is coming from China. And as Gov. John Kitzhaber has noted, it is not in Oregon's interest to become the timber colony of Asia. Worse, the plan could undo decades of work establishing a restoration-based forestry model that repairs the environmental damage done by the logging epidemic of the past.

These are the sorts of problems that public hearings, and the normal legislative process, help uncover, which is why it is imperative that DeFazio, Schrader and Walden come clean on their legislation. They should share it with the public and schedule hearings both in Washington, D.C., and in Oregon, rather than leaving the legislative calendar in the hands of House Republican leaders. They should commit to an independent scientific analysis of the plan, as well as an economic analysis of its viability.

Most important, they should be willing to listen to Oregonians' concerns and explore alternatives for county funding that don't sacrifice our clean water, wildlife and public lands.

Steve Pedery is the conservation director of Oregon Wild.

A new forest policy or bust

 Oregon timber counties cannot prosper without more activity on federal forests 

By The Oregonian Editorial Board 

Published: Monday, January 23, 2012, 5:52 PM 

Sure, you can shift county road and school funds around like deck chairs on the Costa Concordia cruise ship, and you can try to persuade the people who live in some of the poorest communities in Oregon to raise their taxes.

But in the end, there is only one way to ensure a future for Oregon's rural timber counties: Get commercial logging and other economic activities going again on federal forests.

On Friday, legislators held a public hearing at the Capitol billed as a discussion of ways to respond to the termination of federal county payments, the loss of tens of millions of dollars of critical support and the prospect of county governments going belly up. The lengthy meeting wasn't a total waste of time, but it offered nothing new and demonstrated again that there is no getting around the basic story problem underlying the crisis in rural Oregon.

And that is, if more than half the land in an economically depressed county is federally owned and provides no tax revenues and precious little economic activity, you're dead in the water.

The hard truth is that without some action on federal lands, there are no state or local responses able to save Oregon's failing timber counties. If Curry County slips under water, or Josephine does, state government isn't coming to the rescue. Not with a state budget deficit of several hundred million dollars. Maybe the counties could shift and empty road funds, or merge with one another, and stagger along for awhile.

And of course they will have to ask their taxpayers to raise their very low property tax rates. But that's difficult, too, with voter-approved property tax limitations cramping rates and compressing levies. And never mind that the economic collapse has driven property values across much of rural Oregon well below current assessed values.

The only real answer lies in those federal forest lands, and getting the federal government to live up to the promise it kept for more than a century to provide timber revenues -- or substantial direct payments -- to the counties. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., is fighting to reauthorize county payments at a reduced level, but at a time of runaway federal deficits and white-hot partisan politics, that's no sure thing.

Everyone is waiting to see the details of a proposal that Oregon Reps. Peter DeFazio, Greg Walden and Kurt Schrader are preparing to get commercial logging going again on the federal forests of Southwest Oregon, while providing lasting protection for older forests, key watersheds and other important conservation areas.

The lawmakers are said to be preparing to introduce their bill in early February. Speaker after speaker Friday said they were eager to see and support the legislation, which might come in time to save the last dwindling sawmills in parts of Oregon, and provide enough critical jobs and timber revenues to preserve county governments.

Of course, a legislative solution that returns some semblance of active management to large areas of federal forests in Oregon is a lot to hope for, after all these years of legal and political gridlock. But there's political momentum, bipartisan support and, most of all, a most powerful argument for change. If it fails, so will some Oregon counties.

Charting the decline of Oregon's timber industry

Published: Monday, January 23, 2012, 10:30 AM     Updated: Monday, January 23, 2012, 10:32 AM

By Jeff Mapes, The Oregonian  

 

Oregon Office of Economic Analysis 

The change in color in the lines on the report refers to a change in the statistical measures used to report on the industry.

 

The decline of Oregon's timber industry -- and the fading of its political clout -- is not a new story.  But a series of charts from the Oregon Office of Economic Analysis paint a vivid picture of how our economy has changed.

First, here's a chart showing employment in the wood-products industry.  As you can see, employment took a big dive during the deep recession of the early 1980s and again following new environmental restrictions on logging in federal forests in 1990.

Since then, employment has trended down, with a small upswing during the housing boom of the early years of this century.

Oregon Office of Economic Analysis

The second chart shows how the industry has become a much smaller part of Oregon's gross domestic product.  Bear in mind, some of this is not just because of the decline of the industry, but because other sectors -- such as high tech and services -- have grown.  Since at least the 1980s, the state has deliberately pursued economic diversification and that's helped reduce timber's impact on the state.

The office's blog has much more detail that's worth taking a look at.

Environmental groups voice concerns about plan to replace county payments

Published: Monday, January 23, 2012, 3:18 PM     Updated: Monday, January 23, 2012, 5:11 PM

By Charles Pope, The Oregonian

 

The Oregonian 

 

Environmental groups in Oregon expressed concern Monday about emerging legislation that could lead to increased logging on 1.2 million acres of federal land in the state. They demanded that negotiations over details of the proposal be more public and open.

WASHINGTON -- A collection of environmental groups demanded Monday that negotiations to replace the county payment program be more public amid concerns that an emerging agreement could open 1.2 million acres federal land in Oregon to more logging while loosening environmental protections.

Oregon Reps. Greg Walden, a Republican and Democratic Reps. Peter DeFazio and Kurt Schrader have been working for months to designate about 2.4 million acres of federal land in Oregon as public “trusts.” Half of the acres would be managed as a conservation area wile the rest would be designated for commercial purposes, such as logging. Revenue from the logging would go to local counties replacing federal payments that have sustained them for years.

In a letter to the lawmakers, the Oregon Chapter of the Sierra Club, Oregon Wild and five other groups said the process was a dangerous and a major departure from traditional protections. Shrouding it in darkness prevents the public from clearly understanding what ideas are being considered, the letter said. Other groups signing were: Cascadia Wildland, Coast Range Association, Geos Institute, The Larch Company, and KS Wild.

“You are all on the record advocating that very significant acreages of these public lands be transferred into a logging ‘trust,’ to be governed under weakened environmental safeguards,” the letter said. “This would be an enormous change in public forest policy, and have severe implications for the rest of America’s public lands system.

Specifically, the letter calls on the three lawmakers to “Publicly commit to an open and transparent process before attempting to move any legislation that would alter the management of (the) lands – including scientific review and sharing of legislative language.”

Walden did not respond to a request for comment. 

Charles Pope/The Oregonian

 

Rep. Peter DeFazio is helping to draft legislation that could bring needed funding to rural Oregon counties by increasing logging on more than 1 million acres of federal land. Environmental groups worry such a step would be a mistake.

Aides to DeFazio said he has had conversations with a wide variety of interests, including those who signed Monday’s letter. In a statement released by his office, DeFazio said, “We have been engaged in a substantive discussion of major provisions of the bill for the last two months with Chairman (Doc) Hastings and other majority members of the Natural Resources Committee.

“The negotiations are not concluded and once we have reached some agreement to move forward, we will be able to provide more detailed text. At that point I would like to have public hearings, markup, and observe regular legislative procedure through the subcommittee, full committee and full House. However, that process is up to the Republican majority,” the statement said.

No proposal has been publicly released and for now the major elements of likely legislation remain largely conceptual, congressional aides say. But they add that designating the lands as “trusts” controlled by local officials will allow the lands – and activity on them – to be governed by new rules that could make it easier and faster to cut timber while also limiting some legal appeals.

Doing that, said Steve Pedery, Oregon Wild’s conservation director, could undermine the Northwest Forest Plan, the landmark agreement reached in 1994 for managing federal forests in western Oregon, Washington, and northern California. 

“Treating these lands as a piggy bank is not good policy … and it opens a Pandora’s Box,” he said.

Aides to DeFazio dispute that suggestion, saying any proposal would include language to protect the environment, such as requiring that the land meet the same state and federal standards that currently apply to private forests.

The county payments program was created in 2000 to reimburse counties for lost income from the sale of timber on federal lands. The funding is critical because in most of the counties, the federal government owns more than 50 percent of the land, pinching the tax base and in some cases limiting the ability of local officials develop their local economy.

The payments were also acknowledgement that the federal government should help local governments after logging on federal land was reduced. Counties receive 25 percent of the revenue from timber sales but when logging plummeted, so did revenue. By law, the money was to be used to finance public education. In 2008, $250 million poured into 33 Oregon counties from the program.

-- Charles Pope

U.S., Canada extend lumber trade pact, but dispute continues

Published: Monday, January 23, 2012, 6:26 PM     Updated: Monday, January 23, 2012, 7:05 PM

By Richard Read, The Oregonian

 

View full sizeJAMIE FRANCIS/THE OREGONIAN

Logs head for the Warm Springs Forest Products mill in Central Oregon.

 

The United States and Canada have decided to extend a lumber trade agreement for two years, but a dispute continues over Canadian exports that U.S. mill managers consider unfair.

U.S. lumber industry leaders still contend that British Columbia misgrades and
underprices timber, enabling Canadian mills to undercut competitors in the
United States and abroad. That perception and other disputes over the years
explain the lukewarm reaction Monday from Oregon industry leader Steve Swanson,
chairman of the U.S. Lumber Coalition.

"We are supportive of the extension, but compliance with the existing Softwood
Lumber Agreement is imperative," Swanson said. "If Canada continues to violate
it, then we need to make sure that our government continues to pursue those
violations."

The 2006 agreement will remain in effect through Oct. 12, 2015, U.S. Trade
Representative Ron Kirk said Monday. Canadian news reports described the
extension, closely following President Barack Obama's rejection of the Keystone
XL pipeline from Alberta to the U.S. Gulf Coast, as an olive branch from the
United States.

Swanson, president of the Swanson Group based in Glendale, Ore., described the
agreement as a compromise that is "not ideal." He cited the current dispute,
which is undergoing arbitration expected to wind up later this year.

Canadian exports to the United States have fallen, along with the collapsed
housing sector, to account for about a quarter of the U.S. market, said John
Allan, president of the BC Lumber Trade Council in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Exports to China have boosted Canada's mills.

Sales to China helped prevent closure of Swanson's Glendale mill, which now runs
at three-quarters capacity serving the U.S. market. With two sawmills, two
plywood mills and an aviation division, Swanson Group has about 750 employees,
down from more than 1,200 at its peak in 2007.
-- Richard Read, twitter.com: ReadOregonian
 

Loss of federal forest payments has Oregon counties looking for revenue while having millions that can't be tapped

Eric Mortenson, The Oregonian  

Published: Saturday, January 21, 2012, 9:45 AM     Updated: Saturday, January 21, 2012, 4:31 PM

View full sizeTerry Richard/The OregonianU.S. 101, from base of Cape Sebastian, looking to Pistol River, southern Oregon coast, Curry County,

Curry County, teetering on the edge of insolvency as federal forest payments come to an end, needs to find a way out of a deep budget hole. It's considering a property tax increase, combining county departments, outsourcing services, selling carbon credits or even a county sales or gas tax.

One member of a citizens committee assembled to find a solution wondered if the county's picturesque beaches and mountains could attract corporate sponsorships.

But even as Curry and other counties look for answers, they sit on millions of dollars in road fund reserves -- money deposited over decades of timber harvests and earmarked for county roads. By law, they can't readily be used for sheriff's patrols or other general fund expenses, but some counties find creative ways around restrictions.

The conundrum is a preview of what other Oregon counties may face. The counties lose about $230 million annually with the end of payments under the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act. The act was a safety net for rural communities slammed by the recession and collapse of the timber industry, but it expired with no money available to replace it.

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Help from elsewhere is unlikely. It's uncertain whether a bitterly partisan Congress will restore payments or increase county revenue by allowing more logging. State officials, facing their own budget shortfall, have said financial rescue won't come from Salem. Meanwhile, unemployment rates in many Oregon counties are stuck at 10 to 13 percent. Residents routinely vote down property tax increases that would provide more money for local government and schools.

A 2009 state task force said a dozen counties would face severe shortfalls within one or two years of the end of the federal payments.

"For counties already near the financial cliff and facing Depression-like unemployment, this could be the final blow," the state task force concluded.

The impact is widespread. Wallowa County, in Oregon's northeast corner, may allow some of its 700 miles of county roads to revert to gravel, Commissioner Mike Hayward said. The county road fund alone will lose $800,000 to $1 million annually, he said -- about half the road department's budget.

Over time, paved roads will deteriorate. "We will not be able to keep it up, and it will go back to gravel," Hayward said.

More

The Oregonian’s continuing coverage of the economic struggles of the residents of rural Oregon.

Curry, in the southwest corner of the state, is the first to falter. Federal payments provided about 61 percent of its annual general fund revenue and 65 percent of its road fund. Without timber payments, expenses will exceed revenue by more than $350,000 in 2012-13. The deficit grows to more than $3 million the following year.

Philip Dickson, a member of Curry's citizens committee, said during a hearing last week the county will be broke by January 2013. Cutting inevitably means eliminating employees, he said.

"We're going to have a lot less government in Curry County very, very soon," he said.

Money maneuvers

Tapping road reserve funds might help counties temporarily balance budgets and maintain services. Instead, they're stuck cutting or disbanding departments until solutions come about.

Curry County has $33 million in road fund reserves. Grant County saved $50 million from timber sales on the Malheur National Forest. Klamath County has about $90 million in road reserves. The money isn't supposed to be used for health clinics, jails, tax assessors, prosecutors, planners or other county services.

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But in 2010, Klamath transferred about $700,000 in restricted road funds to the city of Klamath Falls, which used the money on city streets. The city transferred $700,000 back to the county general fund, where it was used to keep a second jail pod open until June 30.

"What we're struggling with is how to fund law enforcement, because it's such an expensive part of our budget," Klamath County Commission Chair Al Switzer said.

"There was some question about the legality of it," he said, so the arrangement was reviewed beforehand by the attorney general's office.

Switzer said fund transfers won't work for all counties. First, it requires a city or other jurisdiction with the money to trade, he said. "Most counties are reluctant to do that because at some point in time you run out of road reserve."

Lane and Douglas counties received permission from the Legislature to use road reserves for sheriff's patrols. Lane County will have transferred $8.6 million by June 30, but that will be the end of it, county Budget Manager Christine Moody said.

"The road fund doesn't have any more to transfer," she said.

Timber rich

The situation traces primarily to the management of Oregon's national and Bureau of Land Management forests, which make up 60 percent of the state's timberland -- including more than14 million acres of national forests.

Because federal land isn't subject to property taxes, rural counties and school districts since 1908 have received a share of timber sale revenue. The states dictate how the money is distributed; Oregon law directs 75 percent of national forest harvest revenue to county road funds and 25 percent to school districts. Timber receipts from BLM land can be used for county general funds, but the amount is much smaller.

Revenue going to the counties dropped sharply as logging on federal land declined over the past 20 years, however. To ease the blow, Congress in 2000 approved the federal payments.

The payments went to more than 700 counties in 41 states, including 33 of Oregon's 36 counties. Funding was extended twice, ramped down, and the last checks delivered this fiscal year.

It's not just governments that will feel the hit. A study by Oregon State University projected rural counties will lose 3,000 to 4,000 jobs and business sales will drop by up to $400 million if payments aren't restored.

Oregon's congressional delegation and others have proposed to break the deadlock by designating some timberland for sustained harvest to generate money and jobs in rural areas. In the meantime, counties are looking for answers. Many have extremely low tax rates and collect very little in property taxes. Curry's is second lowest in the state: 60 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value.

One of the early suggestions included borrowing enough from Curry's $33 million road reserve to get by until a tax increase passed. The last levy attempt was hammered down: 72 percent to 28 percent.

Curry Roadmaster Dan Crumley opposes borrowing from the road reserve. He expects to begin drawing from it this year. Roadwork is expensive: Repairing two slides on North Bank River Road, near Brookings, will cost $1.2 million. Recent flooding and road damage in Oregon drives home the expense.

"My point is, it's not a very big section of road here, and it's in excess of $1 million," Crumley said. "We're one bad storm away from needing a pretty good section of that replaced."

More to the point, he said, road funds should be spent on roads.

"It's not our money," he said. "It belongs to the public, and was earmarked to be spent on roads.

"I'd like to see that happen, but I understand it's a dire situation."

--Eric Mortenson

Conservation groups say logging approved by Oregon Department of Forestry harms marbled murrelets

Published: Thursday, January 19, 2012, 2:57 PM     Updated: Thursday, January 19, 2012, 5:14 PM

By Eric Mortenson, The Oregonian  

 

Three conservation groups plan to sue the Oregon Department of Forestry, saying logging on three state forests is killing or displacing protected marbled murrelets.

The lawsuit notice, announced Thursday, is the latest smack against the department's management of the Elliott, Clatsop and Tillamook state forests. The conservation groups Center for Biological Diversity, Cascadia Wildlands and Audubon Society of Portland are particularly critical of the department's decision to increase logging on state forests.

The groups allege logging has killed or displaced murrelets and fragmented its habitat. In addition to directly harming the murrelets, reducing its habitat and logging near the edge allows predator jays and ravens access to raid murrelet nests, the groups allege.

Josh Laughlin, campaign director for Cascadia Wildlands, said the groups have retained experts who will testify the department's practices have harmed the birds.

Marbled murrelets are robin-sized seabirds that forage in the ocean but nest in mature or old growth forests. They are listed as threatened in Oregon, Washington and California under the federal Endangered Species Act.

State officials maintain they take prudent measures to avoid harming murrelets. According to department documents, officials conduct about 1,500 surveys for murrelets annually and manage forests through a "take avoidance" policy. In an April 2011 report to the Oregon Board of Forestry, the department said it has designated more than 20,000 acres as marbled murrelet management areas in northwest Oregon.

According to the report, four timber sales totaling 654 acres have taken place inside or adjacent to murrelet management areas since 1996. "Seasonal restrictions" on logging are applied so nesting is not disrupted, according to the department.

Conservation groups believe the department should adopt more restrictive habitat conservation plans for murrelets.

--Eric Mortenson

A solution at last?

Medford Mail Tribune

January 01, 2012

The future of four counties may depend on a bipartisan plan to restore logging

Oregon faces a number of challenges in 2012, but perhaps none as great as the one threatening the solvency of four timber-dependent counties. If nothing is done, Curry, Coos, Klamath and Lane counties will slip into bankruptcy by the end of the year.

There is little the counties can do beyond raising taxes, which is unlikely to pass muster with voters. The state cannot help because its budget has been stripped to the bone as a result of the recession.

That leaves Congress, and a bipartisan proposal from three Oregon congressmen that offers real hope for a long-term fix — if enough lawmakers can be convinced to go along.

The roots of this crisis — and the solution offered by Reps. Greg Walden, Peter DeFazio and Kurt Schrader — lie in the woods.

For generations, timber harvested from federal forests employed thousands of Oregonians and the proceeds from the sale of that timber were shared with Oregon counties. When timber harvests plunged in the 1990s because of environmental restrictions and policy changes, Congress made up for much of the lost revenue with direct payments to the counties starting in 2000.

Those payments were always intended to be temporary. They were renewed twice, at lower levels each time. The last payments came in 2011.

A succession of Jackson County commissioners recognized the need to prepare for the loss of this money, and built up sizable reserves through belt-tightening and reductions in services. Not all counties showed the same foresight.

Now the day of reckoning that had been forestalled for so long is finally coming to pass. Curry County expects to run out of money by the summer, with the other three "crisis counties" not far behind.

Details of the Oregon congressmen's proposal have not yet been revealed. But in broad terms, their plan calls for increased timber harvests on public land that has been logged before, managed by a public board in trust for the counties, which would get a steady revenue stream to keep them functioning and new jobs for their struggling economies.

Old-growth forests would be transferred from the Bureau of Land Management to the Forest Service, which would protect them from logging, and new wilderness and Wild & Scenic River protection would also be included.

Specific details are expected to be announced early in the new year, but so far, the plan appears to seek a middle ground between the unsustainable logging of the 1970s and '80s and the gridlock of lawsuits from environmental groups opposed to any logging on public land.

Maybe the impending economic failure of four counties will be enough to bring opposing sides together and get the attention of Congress as a whole. If not, life in some of Oregon's rural timber communities will be grim indeed.