"Conservationist" Andy Kerr Comes Down From His Mountain

"Conservationist" Andy Kerr Comes Down From His Mountain

By: Jim Petersen, Co-Founder & Executive Director, The Evergreen Foundation

Last week, an old friend sent me the following email note:

"Conservationist" Andy Kerr has come down from his mountain with an important decision for the timber industry. He has decided timber companies should cut more trees. This is generous of him. Loggers now have his permission to start sharpening their saws to thin our forests. Does this mean he approves of molesting and killing ‘young trees' but still opposes salvaging burned trees because that would be like mugging a burn victim?

Attached to his tongue-in-cheek note was an August 15 story from the Portland Tribute, titled "Eco warrior: Let's cut more trees" in which Mr. Kerr lays out his ambitious plans for thinning overly dense federally-owned forests in Oregon, Washington and northern California, a plan he says will create about 7,200 new jobs in communities that were economically devastated by the government's 1990 decision to list the northern spotted owl as a threatened species - a decision in which Kerr was a key player.

Kerr's new proposal, which is based on a study conducted by conservationist groups, calls for increasing the harvest level on Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management timberlands to about 774 million board feet annually. Never mind that these same forests can easily sustain a harvest of at least eight billion board feet annually. Mr. Kerr and his colleagues at least deserve credit for recognizing that the per acre increase in forest density is an ecological time bomb, not least because of the wildfire risks increasing density brings. We have been arguing this same case on Evergreen pages for more than 20 years.

Is Kerr extending an olive branch to beleaguered timber communities he helped dismantle in the 1980s and 1990s? I don't think so. What we really have here is great election year theatre, and where theatre is concerned, Kerr is a master of what broadcasters call the "six-second sound bite." Who can ever forget his declaration that salvaging fire-killed timber was "like mugging a burn victim." I certainly haven't. He said it in a hastily called press conference in 1987, the year that some 110,000 acres of old growth timber was incinerated in a lightning caused Silver Fire on southern Oregon's Siskiyou National Forest.

Twenty-five years hence, Andy Kerr is still the most picturesque spokesman modern-day environmentalism has ever had. Witness his bold but disingenuous admission to Tribune writer Christopher Onstott:

"The fundamental reason we did the study is because conservationists are always accused of saying, ‘No.' Rightly so. So we started writing some numbers, and decided there was more potential timber harvest available than we thought. Conservationists want to increase cuts? Yes we do, but there are certain kinds of logs."

"Certain logs" is code for trees that are too small and of such poor quality that they have little or no commercial value. Kerr knows this, too. He also knows that West Coast lumbermen who survived the collapse of the federal timber sale program now prosper from a steady diet of high quality logs they purchase from state, tribal and private timberlands.

I can't name a single lumberman in the western United States [and I know most of them] who is rushing out to do business with the Forest Service or the Bureau of Land Management because they know their all too unpredictable timber sale programs operate under the direct control of "conservationists" and federal judges who aren't going to allow the removal of timber large enough to have any commercial value.

It's true that the trees Kerr wants removed do need to be harvested, especially in late succession reserves that are being wiped out in stand-replacing wildfires. Bear in mind that these federal reserves, which span almost 11,600 square miles [7.4 million acres] in Oregon, Washington and northern California, are thought to provide critically important nesting habitat for a northern spotted owl population of still unknown size that is now being shredded by predatory barred owls.

Equally true is the fact that these misnamed "forest restoration" projects cost the country's taxpayers more than $1,000 per acre. Yet studies conducted in Arizona, New Mexico, Montana and Idaho demonstrate that simply adding a few marketable trees to restoration projects can turn a money loser into a program that can pay its own way.

But there is a larger question here that is routinely ignored by the press. Limiting the size and age of trees that can be harvested - as Kerr is proposing - is bad science for which there is no evidence in nature. If the goal is to restore ecological functions in at risk forests the resulting thinning program needs to include trees of all sizes and ages. This is how nature does it, and it is how we should be doing it, too.

What Kerr is trying to do is steer the public away from about four million acres of "matrix lands," that were promised to lumbermen in the never implemented Clinton Forest Plan - a plan in which Kerr's invisible hand is ever present. Matrix lands are lands that the government's scientists set aside for multiple-use management, which includes harvesting.

But little harvesting has ever occurred in these forests because they remain the focal point of still unresolved timber sale appeals and lawsuits masterminded by Kerr's friends. He knows this, too. So it is easy for him to appear to be extending an olive branch while still holding a gun to the head of every unemployed logger and millworker in the region.

Back in 1995, the Forest Service put together a plan to remove several hundred diseased trees from an old-growth stand on the Siskiyou National Forest. At the time, there were spotted owls nesting nearby, and there was a lot of concern among Forest Service biologists about the loss of even more trees owls were using.

The 10.5 million board foot Sugarloaf timber sale, which covered 670 acres, was purchased by Boise Cascade Corporation. Predictably, environmentalists went to court to block the harvest. In fact, they took their case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. And lost. The thinning went forward, amid threats of violence by eco-terrorists, and, lo and behold, nesting owls were not harmed by the presence of loggers. In fact, the following year, a pair of owls that had been nesting there since 1990 returned and fledged their first offspring.

No doubt Kerr remembers the incident - including the fact that Sugarloaf was leveled in the 2002 Biscuit Fire, a conflagration that burned nearly 500,000 acres of timberland, including 80,000 acres of late successional owl habitat. Of 2.5 billion board feet lost [worth $825 million] the Forest Service was only able to salvage 29 million feet. The rest was bottled up in federal court litigation until it no longer had any value.

If my understanding of Kerr's proposal is correct - and I think it is - it is now okay to remove small trees from late successional reserves, so long as he approves, but it was not okay to do it at Sugarloaf. Nor were taxpayers permitted to recover their losses after the Silver or Biscuit fires, or to replant the land on which fire-killed timber stood.

If Kerr and his "conservationist" supporters seem like hypocrites, it is because they are. But they do know how to stage great theatre.

For the record, some 93 percent of the 1.1 million acre Siskiyou is off limits to harvesting. The seven percent [matrix lands] that remain are the subject of ongoing litigation. No wonder the Forest Service has rarely reached its 24 million board foot annual harvest allocation - an allocation that does not even make a dent in the 500 million feet of new wood fiber that still grow annually on the Siskiyou. Kerr knows this too, but he persists in his promise that if any old-growth timber is opened to harvesting there will be "a helluva fight."

I'm not sure who will do battle with Kerr. Certainly not the lumbermen I know. They no longer have any interest in playing his foil. Maybe he'll set up a couple of chairs and some lonely public stage here in western Oregon and argue with himself. Now there's a sideshow I'd pay good money to watch.

Click here to read the Portland Tribune story  and   Click here to read "Siskiyou Showdown," our 2004 story about events leading to and following the Biscuit Fire.

'Infinitely saddened' – Malheur Lumber plans shutdown

'Infinitely saddened' – Malheur Lumber plans shutdown
Grant County's last operating sawmill will close in November, officials say

By Scotta Callister 
Blue Mountain Eagle | 4 comments

 JOHN DAY – Malheur Lumber Company has announced that it will shut down its sawmill and related departments effective Nov. 1.

The biomass facility, which includes the pellet and wood bricks production, chipper and whole log shaver, will continue to operate on its normal schedule.

Malheur is a subsidiary of Ochoco Lumber Co., which announced the shutdown Friday. 

Bruce Daucsavage, Ochoco president, thanked employees for “their loyalty and hard work this past 30 years.”

He credited them with the company’s past success, and also thanked the leadership of the Malheur National Forest for their efforts to sell the timber necessary to keep the mill open.

“We regret this action, but find we can no longer sustain our sawmill and planing operations without sufficient local timber from adjacent national forests,” he said.

Daucsavage also cited a lack of a sense of urgency in Congress, other than the efforts by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Rep. Greg Walden (D-Ore.)

The November shutdown will mark the end of 75 continuous years of lumber manufacturing by the comppany.

“We are proud of our contributions to the communities in which we have operated, and to the employment we have provided to the rural communities,” he said. “We are infinitely saddened and frustrated by the circumstances that bring us to this decision.”

Logging roads are regulated to protect water, fish

Logging roads are regulated to protect water, fish
The Oregonian

Published: Saturday, August 18, 2012, 5:00 AM

 By Guest Columnist 

View full sizeJeff Barnard/Associated PressA helicopter ferries a log to a landing in the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest near Selma, Ore., on Sept. 20, 2006.

By Bob Luoto 

I am an Oregon logger, and so were my dad and grandfather. My son is, too. 

My college degree is in political science, but in the end, I decided to keep up the family tradition and run my own business offering services to forest landowners who harvest timber from their private lands. That includes landowners who own as few as 50 acres or as many as 50,000. It doesn't matter whose land it is; we follow the law and take pride in doing it right. 

I was relieved when the U.S. Supreme Court said in June that it would review an earlier ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on a lawsuit brought against the state of Oregon by an environmental group. By accepting the case, the high court will likely settle the issue of whether logging roads will be regulated as a point source of pollution, the same as factories or sewage treatment plants, or as a nonpoint source under current regulations, which have been in effect for 35 years. These practices are outlined in the Oregon Forest Practices Act. 

Good water quality is paramount. In Oregon, the water from our forests is cleaner than from any other land use. Had the 9th Circuit's decision stood unchallenged, it could have created an entirely new set of unnecessary and costly regulatory requirements to fix something that isn't broken. 

Today's forestry isn't the same as that practiced by my grandfather, or even my dad. Since their day, there have been many changes in regulations involving forest practices. In the past, poorly constructed roads and improper maintenance delivered sediment to streams. Today, modern road siting, engineering, construction methods and drainage control have greatly reduced the problems from new roads. And landowners are going back to older roads to upgrade stream-crossing structures, replace culverts and even decommission unused roads. 

Oregon's best management practices cover nearly every aspect of road construction and use. They've changed over time as new science became available. Landowners must maintain fish passage, design stream crossings to pass 50-year storm events and stop operating during extremely wet weather. New roads must be sited away from streams and waterways, generally up to midslope or ridgetop areas. Ditches must intercept water running off forest roads and divert it to the forest floor, where it can be filtered by the soil. At harvest, logs must be hoisted over streams. Landowners must leave forested buffers alongside fish-bearing streams and those used for domestic water supply. They must replant. 

The laws and rules have changed, and are changing, for the better. But at some point, more laws, more rules -- and especially more process -- don't help. They just cost more money. 

Because I drive over these roads practically every day, I know logging roads, and I know how much they've changed. Oregon has a good system -- one of the best -- and it has proved its ability to adapt over time. Let's hope the Supreme Court overturns the lower court's decision. 

Bob Luoto is the co-owner of Cross & Crown Logging, Trucking and Cutting in Carlton and is the board chairman for the Sustainable Forestry Initiative. 

Eco warrior: Let's cut more trees

Eco warrior: Let's cut more trees

Published on Wednesday, August 15, 2012 | Written by Jason Vondersmith |  | 

Activist calls for 44 percent increase in federal harvest

---

by: PAMPLIN MEDIA GROUP: CHRISTOPHER ONSTOTT - Conservationists such as Andy Kerr envision an Oregon future without clear-cutting (in the Tillamook Forest) and more thinning of plantations and old-growth forests.

Andy Kerr wants Oregon timber companies to cut down more trees. There’s a surplus of available timber, not a shortage, he says.

Seriously.

“If you would have thought Andy Kerr in 2012 would be calling for increasing timber cuts ... well, isn’t life interesting?” says Kerr, a longtime Oregon conservationist who lives part time in Ashland and Washington, D.C., still fighting to protect vital forests.

Years ago, Kerr was front and center at Oregon Wild (then known as the Oregon Natural Resource Council), helping bring the northern spotted owl to prominence and federal protection, aiding the institution of the Northwest Forest Plan and essentially changing the course of history. Despite that plan, enacted by the Clinton administration in 1993, timber harvesting since the early 1990s has plummeted on federal lands.

But, just as timber interests pine for more harvest opportunities, Kerr claims to have a solution. With assistance from conservation groups, he has authored a study that argues timber companies can increase their harvesting 44 percent each year for the next two decades on federal land — an increase above the average of the past 15 years — leading to 2,700 more jobs, all in a way that would prevent controversy between tree lovers and tree cutters. In his view, timber could be turned into revenue while clean-water and wildlife protections would be kept in place. His plan pertains to land in western Oregon, western Washington and northern California.

Kerr’s study is called “Ecologically Appropriate Restoration Thinning in the Northwest Forest Plan Area.” It states that thinning existing plantations and the under carriage of drier old-growth forests — smaller-diameter trees — on Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service land would produce 774 million board feet annually, compared to an average of 537 million board feet produced since the enaction of the Northwest Forest Plan.

“We’re going to be urging the Forest Service and BLM to adopt it,” says Kerr, 57, who owns the Larch Co. “Parts of it have been, but it’s not systematic.”

In his plan, old-growth and older trees would be left alone.

Olive branch

Kerr’s plan was met with some skepticism on the other side of the long-term debate.

Tom Partin, president of the American Forest Resource Council, says Kerr’s study aims to take focus off the real issue: the supposedly 4 million acres of “matrix” multipurpose land that had been promised to timber companies in the Northwest Forest Plan. Those multiple purposes include thinning, clearcutting or other harvesting techniques by timber companies. Environmentalists are fighting to prevent harvesting, Partin adds, and the federal government has delayed action because of persistent litigation.

Kerr’s study “has good points,” Partin says, and a lot of thinning does need to happen. But, “we have to have more of a landscape approach rather than thinning.” He says that the western side of Oregon has matrix land that has to be addressed.

“In the Northwest Forest Plan, you can only thin and treat them until they reach age 80. At that point in time, they’re supposed to be off limits. What happens when they reach age 80? What do we do with those lands and the rest of the forest?”

So, Partin wouldn’t give a nod of approval to Kerr’s study. “It appears to be an olive branch,” he says. “But, it looks like a pretty smart concept, thinning only in LSR (late-successional reserve) lands.”

Many mills have gone out of business or downsized severely in Oregon, and the trickle-down effect has seen the economies and welfare of small towns suffer, from Medford to Ontario, and, ultimately, Portland. To see a log truck hauling thick older trees is simply a rare sight these days; to see a truck carrying LSR trees is another thing.

Are some mills dinosaurs?

Kerr argues that while many of Oregon’s mills have modernized to accommodate the smaller trees, he labels nine mills in the state as “dinosaurs” that depend on older trees to survive — “socially unacceptable” harvesting, he says. Many of them exist in the area that Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Springfield, represents in Congress, namely the Hull-Oakes Lumber Co. in Monroe.

Kerr fears that federal lands would be susceptible to more clear-cutting and use of untested forestry practices.

“These nine mills, their business model is to cut whatever old growth is left, and they’re running out,” Kerr says. “Most of the industry has moved on, but not all of them. ... The timber industry of today is a mixture of an industry that has survived the transition and yet we have a few mills that essentially did the same thing, except louder and harder. The dinosaur tail is still flopping. If you want to be sustainable, you gotta dial it back. That’s always easier said than done.”

Partin begs to differ with Kerr and his “dinosaur” description.

“You have to realize that all of them have modernized,” he says. “Some of them focus not so much on old-growth trees, but larger-diameter trees. Landowners, including state and private, have larger-diameter trees. Andy would like to make you think these are mills that used old-growth and are old dinosaur mills. But, they cut a specific product from a resource that is still available. They are nobody’s dummy that Andy would portray them to be.”

As far as clear-cutting, Partin says it’s a public perception that it’s most economically feasible, but Douglas fir trees need direct sunlight to blossom and, under the state’s Forest Practices Act, “you can’t clear-cut next to other clear cuts; there are rules and regulations that make the art of clear-cutting harder than in past years.”

A native of Creswell who grew up with the opposite mindset of his timber industry neighbors and began working in conservation in the 1970s, Kerr says that his study was 20 years in the making, harkening back to an era when the timber industry still thrived in Oregon. That was before the northern spotted owl, before President Clinton put his name on federal legislation.

In developing the plan, Kerr partnered with conservation groups and Jim Furnish, who oversaw such ecological practices as former deputy chief of the U.S. Forest Service and forest supervisor on the Siuslaw National Forest. “There hasn’t been an appeal or litigation on the Siuslaw in over a dozen years,” Furnish claims.

Kerr says that timber volume in areas designated by his plan would increase 138 percent in Washington, 100 percent in California and 37 percent in Oregon. The Oregon numbers would partially be offset by a decrease projected for western Oregon BLM lands. Timber harvests would be a byproduct of ongoing forest protections; the study says that “all desired objectives” for forest and watershed restoration wouldn’t be achieved.

The report was published by Conservation Northwest, Geos Institute, Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center and Oregon Wild.

Kerr insists that it’s mutually beneficially to both parties.

“The fundamental reason we did the study is because conservationists are always accused of saying, ‘No,’ ” he says. “Rightly so. So we started writing some numbers, and decided there was more potential timber harvest available than we thought. Conservationists want to increase cuts? Yes we do, but there are certain kinds of logs.”

There’ll be “a helluva fight,” he adds, if Oregon’s old trees are opened for harvest.