Court’s Ruling in O&C Case a Victory for Oregon’s Rural Communities

Contact: Ann Forest Burns 

June 27, 2013 (503) 222-9505 

Court’s Ruling in O&C Case a Victory for Oregon’s Rural Communities 

Portland, OR - A federal district court in Washington, D.C. yesterday handed down a key victory for Southwest Oregon communities that are entitled to sustained yield timber harvests from Oregon and California Railroad Grant Lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). While this decision is focused on the O&C lands in Southwest Oregon, it has positive implications for communities throughout Western Oregon. 

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon ruled the BLM failed to comply with timber harvest requirements under the federal O&C Act. The judge ordered the BLM to offer timber sales on its Medford and Roseburg Districts to the level identified under its existing resource management plans. In applying the O&C Act, the ruling confirms the agency is required to follow sustained yield timber harvest requirements that guide the management of over 2 million acres of O&C timberlands in Western Oregon. 

“This case is a victory for rural Oregonians who’ve been suffering through 20 years of gridlock on our federal forests,” said Tom Partin, President of the American Forest Resource Council (AFRC), one of the plaintiffs in the case. “We’ve been trying for years to get the BLM to comply with the law when it adopts a resource management plan. The judge confirmed the requirements under the O&C Act are clear, and they can’t be ignored by agency officials or interest groups who might wish to sever their connection with our rural, forested communities.” 

Partin said the ruling will generate new economic activity in rural communities while producing new revenue for cash-strapped county governments. However, he said federal agencies must take additional action to assure increased sustained yield harvests across all BLM districts. 

In the Medford District, for example, the timber sale program under the ruling would increase to 57 million board feet, up from the Fiscal Year 2013 level of 19 million board feet. For the Roseburg district, the level would be increased to 45 million board feet, up from Fiscal Year 2013 level of 29 million board feet. These harvest levels are just a small percentage of the annual growth volume of timber on these lands. The BLM lands in Western Oregon have 73 billion board feet of standing volume. These timberlands are capable of growing 1.2 billion board feet per year. The O&C Act clearly mandates that this entire growth be offered for sale each year. 

Partin said the industry will continue to push the agencies, through the courts if necessary, to fully implement the O&C Act. Partin added that every million board feet of timber harvested 

supports 11 forest sector jobs and an equal number of indirect jobs, such as car dealerships and grocery stores. 

“Sustainable timber management on the O&C lands is not only required by law, it’s critical to the health and economic well-being of our forests and our rural communities,” Partin said. “Increasing sustained yield harvests will create more family wage jobs and lift more Oregonians out of poverty. This ruling is a major step toward a permanent and comprehensive solution for managing these lands and assuring timber counties survive the crisis we’re facing today.” 

Partin said the ruling should be noted by Oregon’s Congressional delegation as they continue to work on legislation to increase harvests. 

“This decision confirming the clear commitment made to rural Oregon communities in the O&C Act comes at a key time as the Oregon Congressional delegation continues developing legislative proposals for the BLM lands,” Partin said. 

The case was filed in 2010 by Swanson Group Mfg. LLC, Rough and Ready Lumber Company, Washington Contract Loggers Association, AFRC and Douglas Timber Operators. Unfortunately, the decision comes too late for Rough and Ready, which closed its doors in May due to a lack of available timber from federal lands. 

In addition to requiring BLM to increase harvest levels, the judge also prohibited federal agencies from continuing to use a flawed method for estimating the number of owls affected by timber management activities unless they comply with the public notice and comment requirements of the federal Administrative Procedures Act. 

The “Owl Estimation Methodology” is a computer model that generates virtual owls on the landscape where none actually exist. The agencies then manage around these phantom owls, which has had a major impact on timber harvest levels. 

“Using a computer model that creates imaginary spotted owl home ranges and exaggerates the impact of forestry activities on these “virtual” owls that do exist is ridiculous and does nothing to protect the owl,” Partin said. “The judge did the right thing by telling the agencies they can’t use this method without subjecting it to public scrutiny, giving the public a chance to see what it’s all about.” 

Another lawsuit before the same judge, filed in 2011 by AFRC and the Carpenters Industrial Council, seeks to require BLM to meet its full O&C Act obligation on all of its districts. That case has been on hold pending the ruling made yesterday. 

The American Forest Resource Council represents forest product manufacturers and landowners throughout the west and is based in Portland, Oregon. www.amforest.org 

Judge orders BLM to sell more timber

Judge orders BLM to sell more timber

Judge orders BLM to sell more timber

June 26, 2013, 6:10 p.m. PDT

AP

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to sell more timber in Southern Oregon, and vacated a system federal scientists use to avoid harming the northern spotted owl.

The ruling out of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia came in a case filed by the timber industry against the Department of Interior.

Judge Richard J. Leon ruled that BLM has failed to consistently offer as much timber as called for in its 1995 resource management plans for the Medford and Roseburg districts since 2004.

And he found that a computer model used by government agencies to estimate spotted owl numbers in timber sale areas was adopted without input from the public, as required by the Administrative Procedures Act. He prohibited government agencies from using the protocol until it goes through a public comment process. The ruling did not address whether timber sales that have been sold based on the invalidated owl estimation protocol, but not yet cut, were still valid.

That portion of the ruling leaves the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service without a scientifically valid method of estimating whether spotted owls, a threatened species, can survive the harm from losing a portion of their forest habitat to logging, said Andy Stahl, director of the Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, a conservation group. An earlier method was struck down in an earlier court ruling.

"It means, I suspect, that they will actually have to go look for them, which is something they have not wanted to do," he said.

BLM and Fish and Wildlife had no immediate comment on the ruling.

The timber industry called it a clear win, validating their longstanding position that a 1937 law known as the O&C Act sets timber production as the top priority for the BLM forests.

"This is clearly a victory for timber dependent communities in southwest Oregon, and it's a victory for the forest, that has not been managed appropriately," said Anne Forest Burns, vice president of the American Forest Resource Council, a timber industry group involved in the lawsuit.

The judge ordered the agency to fulfill its obligation to meet 80 percent of the amount set in management plans in future years. The next fiscal year begins Oct. 1.

Burns estimated that BLM will have to offer double the timber it now sells on the Medford District, and increase it by 55 percent on the Roseburg District. The extra 54 million board feet would be enough to fuel more than 400 logging and mill jobs.

She noted that the extra timber will come too late for one of the plaintiffs, Rough & Ready Lumber Co., which shut its O'Brien sawmill last month for lack of logs.

But conservation groups that intervened in the timber portion of the lawsuit said BLM would have a hard time offering more timber for sale without Congress increasing their budget, and without violating other environmental laws, such as the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act.

Kristin Boyles, an attorney for Earthjustice, which represented conservation groups, said she felt an appeal was likely, from the government as well as conservation groups.

Quiet Board Meeting Turns Feisty

Quiet Board Meeting Turns Feisty

What started as a fairly routine Board of Forestry Meeting on June 5, 2013 turned passionate and intense as the BOF reviewed a report from the Subcommittee on State Forests Financial Viability.

Following Department of Forestry Staff’s recommendation to accept the subcommittee’s report, BOF Chair Tom Imeson opened the meeting for public testimony. Chuck Bennett from the Confederation of Oregon School Administrators, COSA, and Mary Botkin from the Association of Federal, State, County and Municipal Employees, AFSCME, spoke to the vital need to increase timber harvests from all public forest lands, including State Forest lands.

Environmentalists from Northwest Oregon sought further restrictions on State Forest management. The timber industry responded with timber war veterans Jim Geisinger, Associated Oregon Loggers, Dave Ivanoff, Hampton Affiliates, and Chris Jarmer, Oregon Forest Industries Council.

Meanwhile, BOF member Sybil Ackerman tried in vain to get the presenter’s to focus on the narrow issue of State Forest Financial Viability. Mary Botkin responded with her long-time experience on the timber issue, including trips to Washington D.C. to encourage the Clinton Administration to try to solve the timber crisis that has decimated rural communities in Oregon.

Botkin reminded the BOF that the Clinton Administration’s Northwest Forest Plan was intended to solve the debate. Instead, the timber supply of the “compromise” has never been seen. Botkin also pointed out the most Oregonians that see dead, gray trees can’t decipher if the trees are on state, federal or private forests.

Eventually, the BOF accepted the subcommittee’s report and will continue to develop plans that will increase the financial viability of State Forests.

Rough & Ready Lumber, Josephine County's last sawmill, a casualty of southwest Oregon's enduring timber wars

Rough & Ready Lumber, Josephine County's last sawmill, a casualty of southwest Oregon's enduring timber wars

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By Scott Learn, The Oregonian 
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on May 20, 2013 at 5:06 PM, updated May 21, 2013 at 12:29 PM

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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

Jennifer Phillippi's grandfather opened Rough & Ready 90 years ago, a safe bet in a county that's two-thirds federal forests. At the mill, the snowcapped Siskiyou Mountains hang on the horizon, and the smell of sawdust still lingers.

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.

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"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.

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In cooler, wetter northwest Oregon, BLM has focused on thinning projects. That tends to go over well in thick, second-growth Douglas fir stands clear-cut and replanted decades ago. Mills set up for small logs can process them into commodity lumber and other products.

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

Reps. DeFazio, Walden, Schrader urge Congress to get involved in finding a replacement for county payments

Reps. DeFazio, Walden, Schrader urge Congress to get involved in finding a replacement for county payments

By Charles Pope, The Oregonian 
on February 13, 2013 at 5:00 PM, updated February 13, 2013 at 5:49 PM

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View full sizeCurry County is one of the rural areas that is desperate for Congress to approve a permanent replacement for county payments. Three Oregon lawmakers on Wednesday asked for hearings on possible plans.Jamie Francis/The Oregonian 

WASHINGTON - Moving to breathe life into a rescue plan for rural Oregon, Reps. Peter DeFazio, Greg Walden andKurt Schrader urged the chairmen of two key committees - including Sen. Ron Wyden - to hold hearings on proposals for turning millions of federal acres into a long-term revenue source for cash-strapped counties.

The letter to Wyden, a Democrat who chairs theSenate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and his Republican counterpart in the House, Rep. Doc Hastings of Washington, comes a week after a task force appointed by Gov. John Kitzhaber failed to reach consensus for how best to handle 2.6 million acres of federal forestland in Western Oregon known as the O&C lands.

That failure has shifted focus to Washington as the three lawmakers, Kitzhaber and county officials worry that time may already be running short.

And with Congress consumed by other issues, DeFazio said in an interview it's important begin educating lawmakers now. If he and others can build support, a rescue "could pass Congress in less than 24 hours," DeFazio said. "But when Congress isn't in the mood it can take more than the rest of my life to pass something."

Congress needs to start moving, DeFazio says.The Associated Press 

"In order to keep the process moving forward, we respectfully ask that you hold an oversight hearing todiscuss long-term solutions for the O&C Lands –including our bipartisan proposal and the governor’s report," the letter to Wyden said.

It added: "The time is ripe for a substantive hearing and open discussion about solutions."

DeFazio said in an interview that oversight hearings would educate lawmakers and hopefully build momentum for the congressional action that's required for any plan to come into reality. Kitzhaber, who was in town after attending the State of the Union, told DeFazio he would testify if asked.

"We are making the request," DeFazio said, adding, "we have a sense of urgency."
The task, however, has become more complicated because the task force could not unify around a single idea.

The letter concedes that point but insists there is still broad agreement on many aspects of the plan.

"While the panel did not come to a consensus, the governor recently released a substantive 94-page report that outlines possible management solutions and outcomes," the letter says.

"We believe both our bipartisan proposal and the governor’s O&C Lands Report are largely consistent with the 'Principles for an O&C Solution' your office released in December," the letter to Wyden says. "We also remain optimistic that a long-term management solution exists and that together we can craft responsible, bipartisan legislation that provides certainty to all constituencies."

The panel deadlocked on some key points, including the amount of logging and the degree of streamside protection.

Kitzhaber added a sweetener, pledging $10 million a year for 10 years toward voluntary private land conservation if a deal is reached.

County and timber representatives on the panel favored plans that would increase logging to more than 500 million board feet a year. They would generate more than $100 million dollars in annual county revenues, up from $13 million now.

“It’s time for action,” DeFazio, Walden, and Schrader said in a joint statement.  “We think hearings on realistic, long-term solutions for the statutorily-unique O&C Lands that would create jobs and provide certainty to counties in both the House and Senate would be productive next steps.”

Despite the important to his home state, Wyden offered a measured response, suggesting that the most difficult issues need to be sorted out at the state level before Congress can take action.

View full sizeWyden says a deal on O&C lands "is a priority" but an agreement must balance economic and environmental interests.Stephanie Yao Long/The Oregonian 

"I’m using my new position as chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee to make O&C lands a priority in the Senate. But for legislation to have a chance to pass, any solution must include stable funding for counties, sustainable timber harvests, strong environmental protection and more efficient management, as I laid out in my principles last year," he said.
Pressure is already increasing on the counties even though funding through the county payments program was extended for this year. But the financial lifeline to many of Oregon's rural counties is in jeopardy because it's part of automatic spending cuts known as "the sequester." Those across the board cuts, totaling $85 billion, will occur March 1 unless Congress intervenes.

"To make matters worse, we recently learned that a portion of the final payments is being withheld from the O&C counties in anticipation of the budget sequestration threatening additional cuts to vital services like law enforcement and health care," the letter warns.

"Some counties in western Oregon are on the brink of bankruptcy and are considering insolvency, or turning over their responsibilities to the state. … Uncertainty of federal funding is devastating to counties and must be replaced with jobs and economic growth.  We know you are intimately familiar with these problems," the lawmakers write.

-- Charles Pope

and
-- Scott Learn