Celebrate a learning opportunity at The Oregon Garden Rediscovery Forest

Celebrate a learning opportunity
at The Oregon Garden Rediscovery Forest

“Raise the Rafters” event is set for May 21

NEWS RELEASE

May 19, 2014

For immediate release

Contact: Dave Kvamme – 971-673-2948 / 503-706-1884

   Elizabeth Peters – 503-837-1802 / 503-250-2235

 PORTLAND, Ore. – In the spirit of a community barn-raising, The Oregon Garden Rediscovery Forest will raise the roof of its new Discovery Pavilion and celebrate the donors who are making it happen.

Jointly sponsored by the Oregon Forest Resources Institute and the Strategic Economic Development Corporation’s Construction Alliance, “Raise the Rafters” will happen from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., May 21 at The Oregon Garden in Silverton.

Members of SEDCOR’s Construction Alliance will work with teams of Silverton and Stayton high school students building the 1,300-square-foot, covered but open-air pavilion during the event. The structure is on schedule to be finished by fall. It will improve access for student field trips to the Rediscovery Forest, especially in the rainy months.

The Rediscovery Forest is a partnership of OFRI and The Oregon Garden. For the past 10 years, students, educators and forest landowners have visited to learn more about forests and the sustainable production of wood products in Oregon. In all, more than 1 million people have visited in the past decade.

“The donors deserve our heartfelt thanks,” says OFRI Executive Director Paul Barnum, “as do the companies who are investing sweat equity. The pavilion itself will be a showcase of Oregon wood products, and it will allow us to expand our work teaching Oregonians about their forests, all the benefits they provide, and how we manage and sustain them.”

Donors who have contributed $10,000 or more to the project so far are Seneca Sawmills ($20,000) and Cascade Timber Consulting, Northwest Farm Credit Services, Weyerhaeuser and Rich Duncan Construction ($10,000 each). The largest in-kind contributors are K & E Excavating and Withers Lumber.

For SEDCOR, the project underscores one of its key cluster industries: forestry and value-added wood products.

“This collaboration between our Construction Alliance and OFRI is about creating awareness within the next generation of workers that there is a wide array of good, sustainable jobs in both the construction and the forest and wood products sectors,” says Chad Freeman, SEDCOR president. “These young people will potentially be upcoming leaders of our mid-Willamette Valley companies; they’re critical to the economic health of our region.”

Northwest Natural is sponsoring the event.

###

'Privatizing' Elliott State Forest a consequence of environmental law, litigation

'Privatizing' Elliott State Forest a consequence of environmental law, litigation: Editorial

comments

'Privatizing' Elliott State Forest a consequence of environmental law, litigation: Editorial

Protesters from Earth First! and Cascadia Rising Tide wait for transport the Douglas County Jail in Roseburg after they were arrested in 2009 for blocking access to an 80-acre parcel in Elliott State Forest. (The Oregonian/Thomas Boyd)

Print

By The Oregonian Editorial Board 
Email the author | Follow on Twitter
on May 15, 2014 at 11:00 AM, updated May 15, 2014 at 11:01 AM

The Elliott State Forest, covering about 90,000 acres in the Coast Range near Coos Bay, provides a large and dependable stream of cash for the Common School Fund, which in turn sends millions of dollars to the state's public schools every year. Well, that's the theory, anyway. In reality, timber harvests have been constrained so severely by environmental litigation and Endangered Species Act restrictions that the Elliott cost the Common School Fund about $3 million in 2013.

That's bad news for schoolchildren, sure. But at least it's good news for the marbled murrelet and the environmentalists who've sued to protect the threatened seabird, right? Only if their definition of good news includes the sale of large chunks of the forest.  Two timber companies bid successfully last month for about 1,400 acres of the Elliott.

A handful of environmental groups, including Cascadia Wildlands and the Audubon Society of Portland, sued to stop one of the sales, which would transfer 788 acres to the Seneca Jones Timber Co. But last Friday, a Lane County judge denied a request for a preliminary injunction. The sale isn't a done deal yet, says Seneca co-owner Kathy Jones, but if it goes forward the company will manage the former Elliott acreage for harvest, just as it manages the 165,000 acres of forestland it already owns.

Meanwhile, additional pieces of the Elliott are likely to be sold later this year, says Department of State Lands spokeswoman Julie Curtis, continuing what environmentalists like to call the "privatization" of state forestland.

In retrospect, this outcome shouldn't surprise anyone. The primary purpose of the "Common School" land within the Elliot is revenue generation. Reduce the land's money-making capacity severely enough, and unloading acreage begins to make a lot of sense. That's true even though the land may sell for a relative pittance thanks to the presence or likely presence of murrelets. Last month's winning bids for three parcels covering about 1,450 acres amount to only $4.3 million, but the cash could be enough to delay further losses to the Common School Fund.

"That's something that's not sustainable," says Curtis of the red ink, noting that theState Land Board "is concerned about it because they're the trustees" of the Common School Fund. Those who consider selling off state land an extreme response should consider the composition of the State Land Board, which made the call. Gov. John Kitzhaber, state Treasurer Ted Wheeler and Secretary of State Kate Brown are not the Clear-cut Club. They're responding reasonably to an extreme situation brought about by federal policymakers and by litigious environmental groups.

The selling will continue, at least in the short term. The state plans to unload another 1,300 acres or so later this year and, perhaps, even more in the future. "Privatizing" the Elliott in this fashion may continue to encounter resistance, but barring the appearance of a better solution, the state should keep right on selling. If timber companies want to buy the property with the expectation of logging it, that's fine. Their management will sustain jobs and provide tax revenue, and the new owners will be required to follow state and federal laws protecting threatened species.

It's also fine if bits and pieces of the Elliot are snapped up by conservation interests who don't want to touch a twig. This, in fact, is something the Department of State Lands would like. Among the criteria it established for selecting parcels to sell is a requirement that they "be of a size, configuration, and in a location that will solicit the greatest diversity of potential buyers." The state included this requirement "to see if we could attract conservation buyers for some or all of the parcels," says Curtis, who notes that officials hope to find such buyers for the remaining parcels to be sold this year.  

In the end, what matters most is that the State Land Board remain focused on the primary purpose of the Elliott, which is to make money for public schools. If the best way to honor that purpose is to sell the forest, piece by piece, then sell it to the highest bidder. Oregon needs teachers far more than it needs underperforming public land.