NW Timber Blog : September 2012

Saturday, September 22, 2012

Governor asks panel to find a solution in rural Oregon: Allow more logging while protecting the environment

Published: Friday, September 21, 2012, 7:12 PM Updated: Saturday, September 22, 2012, 12:42 PM

Jamie Francis/The Oregonian 2009Gov. John Kitzhaber wants an Oregon panel to figure out how to allow more logging while protecting watersheds and wildlife.
Gov. John Kitzhaber said he'll convene a panel of timber industry executives, conservation groups and hard-hit county representatives to figure out how to allow more logging on 2.6 million acres of federal land while protecting key environmental features.

Kitzhaber said an existing proposal to revise management of what are known as the Oregon & California Railroad timberlands is doomed by opposition from conservation groups, which felt left out of a bill backed by Oregon Reps. Peter DeFazio, Kurt Schrader and Greg Walden.

In an interview Friday in Portland, the governor said he envisions a group of 10 to 12 people who will meet weekly in October and November to craft a proposal, and will present it to the state's congressional delegation by December. He said having the presidential election settled midway through the discussions could clarify matters, such as whether Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat, ascends to chairmanship of the Senate's influential Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

If ultimately approved by Congress, a deal on the O&C lands could be a first step in resolving a problem that has bedeviled rural Oregon for decades. The federal government owns 60 percent of the forestland in Oregon but now provides only 12 percent of the annual timber harvest, which generations of Oregonians depended on for jobs and funding for schools, roads and county services.

It's crucial to find balance in natural-resource management, the governor said.

"I think there's a larger narrative here about the future of rural America, and Oregon," Kitzhaber said. "If the message is 'we're going to write it off,' I think there's going to be a significant backlash that could do much more damage to the fabric of our environmental laws than this issue alone."

The decline of logging due to policy changes, endangered-species protection, lawsuits, recessions and other forces has greatly reduced timber revenue to a number of Oregon counties.

Congress supplied replacement funding with the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Actbeginning in 2000. The act was extended twice, ramped down, and a last round of emergency checks was delivered this year. In several counties, the payments provided 60 percent or more of operating budgets.

Many have low property tax rates that aren't sufficient to pay for services, and voters have been reluctant to approve tax increases. Some counties have already reduced sheriff's patrols, let prisoners out of short-staffed jails and closed departments.

Allowing more logging on O&C land alone won't replace the timber payments, but some believe the model might be applicable to the 12 million acres of national forests in Oregon, providing even more revenue and jobs.

"We can't ignore what's going on out there in our rural communities," the governor said. "They want the dignity of being able to bring home a paycheck and take care of their families. That's the part I'm really concerned about."

Reps. DeFazio, Walden and Schrader announced a plan in February to convert 1.5 million acres of O&C lands to a public trust managed by a committee appointed by the governor. The trust property would be managed for commercial purposes, with some of the revenue going to counties for education and law enforcement.

But Kitzhaber said conservationists were prepared to dig in and fight the bill, and it probably would have been defeated in the Senate.

The group he's convening is a "good faith effort" to broaden support, he said.

Some observers believe the timing is right: Federal replacement payments to timber-dependent counties are ending, there is broad recognition that timber harvest targets haven't been met and conservation groups -- in the past often knee-jerk opponents of logging -- may be inclined to go along because they want to be seen as part of the solution.

Backers believe the idea has a chance in Congress if it's backed by all groups, the congressional delegation and the governor's office. Also in its favor, it involves a limited amount of federal land in a single state and may not require additional federal funding.

Increased logging on the O&C lands will require modified clear-cuts, sometimes called "regenerational harvesting." One of the issues to be settled, the governor said, is whether there is "social license" for clear-cutting on public land. The timber industry will need assurance that logs are put up for sale and harvested as promised. Conservationists groups will press for protection of watersheds and wildlife.

"Both sides -- and hopefully we can get beyond sides -- both groups of interests need some certainty, I think, for this to work," Kitzhaber said.

Friday, September 14, 2012

Plan to save Malheur Lumber Co. sawmill stems from unusual alliance

Published: Friday, September 14, 2012, 4:11 PM Updated: Friday, September 14, 2012, 8:32 PM

By Richard Cockle, The Oregonian

Jamie Francis/The OregonianThe Malheur Lumber Co. mill will stay open past its planned November closure now that the U.S. Forest Service will make more timber available for processing.

JOHN DAY -- A new plan to keep an imperiled sawmill running and save up to 70 rural jobs emerged from work by Oregon's congressional delegation, Gov. John Kitzhaber and an improbable collection of veteran tree huggers, timber industry woods bosses, local leaders and the U.S. Forest Service.

"Had you told me 10 years ago that I would be trying to keep a mill open in eastern Oregon, I would have said you're crazy, but things change," said Susan Jane Brown, Portland-based staff attorney for the Western Environmental Law Center.

Timber industry

The situation in Grant County is a reminder of how far Oregon's once-booming timber industry has fallen.

Mills: Of 405 sawmills employing 45,778 Oregon workers in 1980, the state tallied only 106 mills and 15,708 workers by 2010, said Tom Partin of the American Forest Resources Council, a timber industry advocacy group.

Harvests: Since 1980, national forest timber harvests in Oregon have dropped from more than 3 billion board feet a year to about 500 million board feet a year now. On the Malheur National Forest over the same period, harvests declined from 228 million board feet to 29 million board feet, said Forest Service spokesman Tom Knappenberger.

The math: 1 million board feet equals 50 homes.

The Malheur Lumber Co. sawmill, the last one still operating in Grant County, will remain open past its planned November shutdown after the Forest Service promised to speed up timber sales and take other steps to increase forest restoration projects.

The unlikely collaboration grew out of a growing sense that healing eastern Oregon's overgrown forests can't be done without sawmills, loggers and truck drivers to cut, remove and process logs.

Traditional foes who have fought bitterly in the past over forest management now widely agree that eastern Oregon's unhealthy forests have become overstocked, bug-infested fuel factories for catastrophic wildfires. The status quo stems from harvest reductions designed to halt clearcutting and restore habitat and wildlife, including the northern spotted owl. Canopy closures now blot out sunlight across much of the region, reducing forage for deer, elk and ranchers' cattle.

"We are pragmatists when it comes to restoration," said Sean Stevens, executive director of the environmental group, Oregon Wild. Loss of the 29-year-old Malheur Lumber Co. mill would be "a sad turn of events," he said.

Grant County has even offered the federal government what may be an unprecedented deal in hopes of keeping the mill open: a proposal to loan money budgeted for county roads to the cash-strapped Forest Service to finance more restoration, thus making logs available for the mill. The Forest Service doesn't know if that's feasible.

County landowners, at the same time, are offering to sell more private timber to the mill -- trees previously withheld from timber sales because the economic winds have blown prices into a deep hole.

An ongoing shortage of timber from 1.7 million-acre Malheur National Forest continues to plague the mill. The local Forest Service budget has been too small to undertake forest restoration, cutting its supply.

The mill ran out of timber for two months in spring 2011, and almost half the timber it processed last year was trucked in from Idaho, said Bruce Daucsavage of Prineville, president of the mill's corporate parent, the Ochoco Lumber Co.

"I can sell all the pine we can possibly produce, assuming it's the right size," Daucsavage said. The mill needs 33 million board feet of pine greater than 8 inches in diameter per year to keep operating, he said.

The new plan would direct $5 million in federal money to the Malheur forest immediately for forest restoration, including thinning and logging, brush mowing and the reintroduction of prescribed fires. The goal is to make about 60 million board feet of timber available for fiscal 2013 and 2014 on the Malheur.

While some of that timber would be too small for the mill and much would be Douglas fir and grand fir rather than pine, that amount of cutting probably would keep the John Day sawmill operating and might even provide enough timber to reopen a Prairie Wood Products stud mill in nearby Prairie City that closed four years ago, said Grant County Commissioner Boyd Britton.

"That would be the best of all worlds," Britton said Thursday. "If this is successful on the Malheur National Forest, it might be a successful model for the rest of the nation.:"

The intervention follows work by Blue Mountains Forest Partners -- an industry-conservation-government group that formed in 2006 partly to undo damage caused by earlier mismanagement of the Malheur forest.

"We spent a bunch of money in the 1980s building roads and harvesting very large, very valuable old-growth trees," Brown said, referring to earlier Forest Service policies. "Now we are faced with dealing with the leftovers, a fire-prone forest and the need to do necessary restoration work."

Creating the partnership involved "a lot of time out in the field, looking at trees and talking about our feelings, which isn't easy for a lot of people," she said. A surprising level of trust was developed, she said.

Proof: "Over the past six years, we have had no lawsuits over forest-related management," said Teresa Raaf, Malheur National Forest supervisor.

Richard Cockle/The OregonianJohn Day welder Boyd Britton, a Grant County commissioner, has been an outspoken advocate of saving his countyâ€™s last sawmill by loaning reserve county road fund dollars to the U.S. Forest Service for forest restoration and the production of timber for the mill. Making that legal might take action by the Oregon Legislature, a Forest Service official said.

The Forest Service's mission no longer is to "get out the cut" as it was in the '80s, Raaf said. The focus now is to make it fire- and disease-resistant, with timber stands that are no longer overstocked with smaller trees, she said.

All agree a mill shutdown would hit Grant County's 7,445 residents like a brick through a log truck window.

Already struggling under 13.4 percent unemployment this summer, the county's population hubs at John Day and Canyon City are 80 miles from the nearest freeway, unusually remote even for eastern Oregon. Grant County is second in Oregon only to Crook County, which had a 14.1percent unemployment rate in July. The state's unemployment was 8.7 percent; and the nation's was 8.3 percent.

The graduating class of Grant-Union Junior-Senior High School in John Day last spring was 37, down from 74 in 2010. Grant County's overall population fell 6.2 percent over the past decade.

The loss of 70 sawmill jobs would be only the beginning of economic devastation for the area, said Thaddeus Thompson, operations manager for Chester's Thriftway in John Day, the county's biggest food store. He was braced for a 10 percent drop in food sales as residents left.

Other retail outlets, including tire and hardware stores, expected to be equally hard-hit. Grant County Sheriff Glenn Palmer predicted an upsurge in poaching, illegal marijuana growing and firewood cutting on the national forest.

"People are trying to make ends meet," he said. "We're already seeing people coming into town without firewood permits on their wood."

Russ Hoeflich, Oregon director for The Nature Conservancy, credited U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden for bringing the parties together to rescue the mill, including the governor, U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, U.S. Rep. Greg Walden, Forest Service's leaders, the Blue Mountain Partners and Grant County commissioners.

"He found a solution that can meet the needs of Malheur Lumber, the John Day community, and in the process significantly advances the conservation needs of the Malheur National Forest," Hoeflich said.

-- Richard Cockle

Oregon's hard-hit timber counties

Oregon's hard-hit timber counties are 'eating our seed corn' as budget problems grind on

By Eric Mortenson, The Oregonian

Jamie Francis/The Oregonian 2009Oregon counties say more logging will help solve their budget problems, critics aren't so sure.

In case anyone wondered, Oregon's timber counties are still suffering from broken budgets, unemployment, and bureaucratic, environmental, political and legal gridlock.

Representatives made that clear in testimony Thursday before the Joint Legislative Task Force on County Payments. Perhaps six to 12 Oregon counties could cease offering basic services unless they find money to replace federal timber payments; some have closed departments, used reserve funds and even released jail prisoners to cut costs.

"We're eating our seed corn," Coos County Commissioner Fred Messerle told committee members Thursday in Salem. "Deferring maintenance and capital investments is killing us, and we're managing for the future on a crisis basis."

The county funding problem stems from the steep reduction in timber harvests on federal forests, which makes up 53 percent of the land in Oregon. Counties receive no property tax revenue from federal land, so the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management for decades provided a share of timber sale money to county governments and schools.

Messerle and many other county and industry officials believe increasing timber harvests on federal land is the answer, because counties get a share of harvest revenue. Conservationists and other critics argue the counties have had decades to diversify their economies and find other funding sources.

Continuing coverage of the county payments program created in 2000 to reimburse counties for lost income from the sale of timber on federal lands.

Messerle applauded Gov. John Kitzhaber's search for a solution but said many rural timber counties may be "broke" by the time it comes about.

"We need an advocate at the state level to push it forward," he said. "We've got the tools to responsibly use our resources, but we need to have the will to do it.

"Rural Oregon is on the edge of a cliff," Messerle concluded. "We don't want to leave a legacy of poverty and failure, and of being referred to as the Appalachia of the West."

Timber harvests and revenue declined because of policy changes, recessions and environmental restrictions, so the federal government attempted to fill the gap with the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000. The act was renewed twice but expired in 2012.

Congress passed a bill that provided one more year of funding, but the $100 million included for Oregon counties is less than half of what they previously received annually.

One of the proposed solutions involves what are called the O&C Railroad lands, about 2.3 million acres of timber scattered in a checkerboard pattern over 18 counties. The land was granted to a railroad company that folded; the federal government took the land back and put it under the control of the Bureau of Land Management.

Logging on O&C land has been curtailed like everywhere else, but U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., and others have proposed a policy change. Half the land, containing the best old growth, would be left alone, preserved except for thinning or other work needed to keep the forest healthy. The other half would be logged over time; some of it on 60- to 80-year harvest rotations and some on 120-year rotations. Timber sale revenue would be distributed to the counties and schools.

"We have a solution in front of us, we've got to get it implemented," Douglas County Commissioner Doug Robertson said.

Tom Tuchmann, the governor's adviser on the issue, agreed national forest policy needs work, but starting with the O&C lands makes sense. "It's a lot easier to stop things in Washington (D.C.) than it is to get them passed," he said.

--Eric Mortenson

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Governor’s Office Describes an Oregon Solution for O & C Forests

Tom Tuchman, Governor John Kitzhaber’s Forestry & Conservation Finance Advisor, described an initiative for 2.6 million acres of federal forestland in Western Oregon to two legislative committees (House Agriculture & Natural Resources and Joint Task Force on County Payments) on September 13, 2012.

The goal of this typical “John Kitzhaber” enterprise is to develop an Oregon Solution to break the gridlock that is leading many Western Oregon counties to insolvency and pushing unemployment rates upwards of 20%. Kitzhaber has succeeded in developing Oregon Solutions that have led to federal Medicare and other Health Care waivers. Kitzhaber exceeded expectations in getting buy-in from the federal bureaucracy.

Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-4^th Congressional District, Rep. Greg Walden, R-2^nd District, and Kurt Schrader, D-5^th District have spent months crafting compromise federal legislation that seeks to restore timber production from the O & C forest lands.

Tuchman described a process aimed at enhancing the federal legislation by gaining support of the environmental community to go along with county and timber industry backing. A joint Task Force will meet until the end of 2012 to develop an Oregon Solution that the new Congress can adopt in 2013.

Committee members peppered Tuchman with questions regarding specifics of this solution. Tuchman declined to presuppose what the new Task Force will produce. Sen. Betsy Johnson, D-Scappoose, and Rep. Mike Schaufler, D-Happy Valley, both wondered why the same type of resolution couldn’t also apply to Oregon’s State Forests. Legislators have tried several times to increase timber harvests on Northwest Oregon State Forests only to be thwarted by first Governor Ted Kulongoski and then Governor Kitzhaber.

During the Joint Task Force on County Payments hearing a parade of state agency leaders who describe all of the services the state will have to assume when counties are no longer solvent. Not just high profile law enforcement and criminal retention, but other more mundane services like unemployment insurance or the issuance of building permits.

Nearly 15 years of declining federal welfare payments intended to make up for the lack of timber revenue have postponed the inevitable county funding crisis that the timber industry predicted when President Clinton’s Northwest Forest Plan was adopted in the mid 1990s.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Feds To Rescue Malheur Lumber

Wyden, Merkley announce Malheur Lumber to postpone closure

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Washington, D.C. – U. S. Senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) announced on Tuesday that Malheur Lumber has agreed to remain open past its planned November closure, thanks to a commitment by the US Forest Service (USFS) to make more timber volume available on the Malheur national forest.

In response to requests from Senators Wyden and Merkley, the Governor, county government, and local community groups, Regional Forester Kent Connaughton, who oversees Region 6, including the Malheur National Forest, said the USFS will accelerate timber sales and take other steps to speed up forest restoration work and provide a supply of timber for local mills, in letters to Senator Wyden and Merkley.

“Ochoco Lumber is a vital part of the John Day community and their mill represents the kind of infrastructure we can’t afford to lose if we hope to restore eastern Oregon’s overstocked forests,” Wyden said. “We have plenty of hard work ahead of us, but I promise to keep fighting with the rest of the Oregon delegation to get the Forest Service and the mill what they need.”

“I’m thankful to Regional Forester Connaughton for his swift reaction that indicates the Forest Service will take urgent action to provide more timber, and to John Shelk for keeping his mill doors open on this John Day institution. I am also grateful to the others in the state and community that have stepped up and demonstrated their support of this mill,” Wyden said.

“Closure of the mill would be devastating,” said Merkley. “The livelihood of so many families, the broader Grant County economy, and the vitality of our forests are all on the line. Thus, this reprieve is joyous and welcome news indeed. It must be recognized, however, that more work needs to be done. We need to fully secure a long-term, sustainable supply of sawlogs with the full commitment to the planning and field resources necessary to make that happen.”

“I continue to work on all options to create jobs in our forests and forested communities and provide more timber for mills across Oregon,” said Representative Greg Walden (R-Ore.). “The crux of the problem is the need to reduce the regulatory gridlock that drives the cost of producing timber and jobs through the roof and largely prevents our land managers from doing work needed to improve forest health and create jobs in and value from our forests. Communities and businesses must have access to the natural resources that surround them to create jobs and reduce the risk and occurrence of wildfire.”

In light of the Forest Service letter (attached) as well as an outpouring of support for Malheur Lumber from the Oregon delegation, the Governor, county commissioners, the Blue Mountain Forest Partners collaborative and the John Day community, Shelk said Ochoco will put the mill closure on hold, at least for the next few months.

“This commitment is a good first step, and I’m thankful to Senator Wyden and the rest of the delegation for putting in the hard work that gives me the confidence to keep our mill running,” Shelk said. “Thanks to their efforts, and the outstanding community support over the past few weeks, we’ve authorized our foresters to buy enough public and private timber to keep the mill in operation past the planned November closure.”

Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber: “Malheur Lumber is a key cog in the economy of eastern Oregon. I am gratified by the outpouring of support for Malheur Lumber and the Blue Mountain collaborative, and appreciate the work that the Forest Service and Senator Wyden are doing to keep this mill open. The state is working with Senator Wyden and the rest of the Oregon delegation to find solutions that will keep our vanishing mill infrastructure and jobs in place.”

Susan Jane Brown, founding member, Blue Mountains Forest Partners: “We appreciate the efforts of Senator Wyden and the rest of the Oregon delegation to address the challenge of retaining critical infrastructure in Grant County, and look forward to continuing our work together to restore our public forests in eastern Oregon."

Russ Hoeflich, Oregon State Director for The Nature Conservancy: “We are so appreciative of Senator Wyden for his leadership to save Malheur Lumber from the brink of closure. His rapid efforts to unite with Senator Merkley, FS leadership from DC, Portland, to the Malheur National Forest along with the governor, Grant County Commissioners, and the local community collaborative groups was key,” Hoeflich said. “He found a solution that can meet the needs of Malheur Lumber, the John Day community and in the process significantly advances the conservation needs of the Malheur National Forest.”

In a letter to Senator Wyden and the Oregon delegation, Regional Forester Connaughton committed to several steps that could immediately allow a larger timber harvest and increase restoration work on the Malheur National Forest, including:

Confirms the $2.5 million allocation of Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration funds for the Malheur National Forest and the matching $2.5 million from existing Forest Service appropriations and partner funds. This will enable the USFS to treat an estimated 20,000 acres annually and produce 40 million board feet per year.
· The Forest Service Malheur National Forest will offer 11 million board feet of already-prepared timber sales this month. Additionally, other timber sales will be moved up. For fiscal year 2013 the Malheur Forest will offer 50 to 60 million board feet and similar efforts planned for 2014.
· The Forest Service will look at utilizing new tools under the National Environmental Policy Act on the Malheur and move to begin a new 10-year stewardship contract as a means to increase acres treated and timber volume.
· The Agency will work to continue to expand acres treated and timber volume in future years, recognizing that additional new funding will be needed on the forest to sustain these harvest level, as well as continued collaborative and community support.
· It also outlines other creative options, which may require Federal legislation, to allow the Forest Service to fully take advantage of offers of county and state financial assistance.