Changes ahead for State Forests

Elliott State Forest

Bids are due next month for Southwestern Oregon’s Elliott State Forest (ESF). The Common School Fund forest will be given to a new entity for $220.8 million and promises to keep the forest open for recreation, provide wide stream buffers, preserve the oldest forests and provide 40 jobs per year.

The unique process was set in place by the State Land Board (SLB) over two years ago following millions of dollars in losses the State incurred trying to manage the ESF in the face of a lawsuit over protection for the Marbled Murrelet. John Charles, president and CEO of the Portland-based Cascade Policy Institute, has maintained for over a decade that the ESF should be sold to the highest bidder.

The price for the ESF is set in stone after the SLB spent over $1 million on determining the value of the ESF. Timber experts were shocked at the low $220.8 million value. Others had previously pegged the ESF’s value at over $800 million.

NW Oregon Forests

Things may not be any better for the State Forests in Northwest Oregon. Linn County has filed a $1.4 billion lawsuit against Oregon for breach of contract after timber revenues have dwindled over the past 15 years. The Class Action suit heads to trial in 2017.

In the 1930s the Counties deeded the forests to the State following massive tax delinquencies. In exchange, the State was to share the revenue from the management of the very productive forests.

The arrangement worked well until the Department of Forestry came up with new plans that reduced timber revenues for the Counties. The combination of declining receipts from federal and state forests have put rural counties in an economic crisis. Linn County felt they had no choice but to turn to the courts. The timber industry, troubled by declining timber sales, has provided early funding for Linn County’s suit.

Proposals are due for the Elliott State Forest by November 15^th, the State Land Board will choose a successful owner in December. However, it will be sometime in 2017 before there is certainty over the future for the NW Oregon State Forests.

Board of Forestry Seeks Better Financial Management

Board of Forestry Seeks Better Financial Management 

The Oregon Board of Forestry, frustrated with the performance of the Northwest Forest Management Plan for the Tillamook and Clatsop State Forests, assigned a Subcommittee to present options to the full Board that can improve the financial performance of the forests while also enhancing the recreational and conservation opportunities on the once County-owned forestland.

The State took over management of the forests from the Counties decades ago but the revenue generated from forest management is shared with the Counties.

In 2001, the BOF adopted a new strategy for the forests in an effort to develop forests that produced timber revenue while providing habitat for wildlife species that favored a multi-layered forest canopy.

The 2001 plan, dubbed Structure-Based-Management, has never produced the volume of timber called for. Frequent windstorms along the north coast have wreaked havoc for the Structure-Based-Management Strategy since the trees that were left after management frequently blew down.

The Stakeholders' group met on November 11th and reviewed alternative forest management strategies. Some group members were annoyed when the group struggled to identify tactics that could lead to increased timber revenues.

The two timber representatives, Dave Ivanoff, Hampton Affiliates and Ray Jones, Stimson Lumber Co. and Tillamook County Commissioner Tim Josi see a direct link between improved forest management activities, including timber harvesting, and increased revenues.

The Stakeholders invited two forest analytical experts, Terry Droessler and Mark Rasmussen, to identify the biological and economic outcomes of the various strategies being considered. The group will meet at least two more times before presenting their recommendations to the BOF Subcommittee.

The squeeze around our neck of the woods

By The Oregonian Editorial Board

If a governor cuts down 20 years of forest mismanagement and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound -- or more importantly, a difference?

We'll see. Gov. John Kitzhaber recently delivered a powerful but little noticed speech to the Oregon Board of Forestry in which he argued that current policies across the sweep of federal, state and privately owned forests that cover over 30 million acres of Oregon conspire to hurt rural communities, the economy, fish and wildlife and the forests themselves.

Ross William Hamilton, The Oregonian/2006

 

Kitzhaber has spent years thinking about and trying to redirect forest policy, and his speech to the forestry board deserves a wider audience. The governor's central point: Today's policies are badly out of balance, they don't serve anyone or anything well, and they must change if Oregon is to have healthy forests and a vibrant economy.

Harvest numbers prove his point: The federal government owns and manages nearly 60 percent of Oregon forest lands, but these lands produce only about 12 percent of the annual timber harvest. Oregon's relatively tiny state forests, at 3 percent of forest lands, produce nearly as much timber.

Meanwhile, Oregon's private and industrial forests, which total 19 percent of Oregon forest lands, produce 75 percent of the harvest. Here's the kicker: Nearly a billion dollars' worth of private logs are not going to feed the Oregon sawmills struggling to survive; they're being exported to China. "This amounts to nothing more than exporting our natural capital and our jobs," Kitzhaber said. "We are at risk of becoming a timber colony for Asia."

Kitzhaber describes current policies as "de facto forest zoning" that harms forests and puts pressure in the wrong places. Timber exports force sawmills to seek more logs from public forests. The failure of federal management shifts more demand onto state forests. But adjusting the timber harvest on 3 percent of Oregon forest lands solves little.

But Oregon can demonstrate a way forward. Kitzhaber urged the forestry board to "break the mold of conflict and polarization" by adopting truly sustainable policies for state forests. He urged the board to adopt a land allocation system that explicitly protects high-value conservation and recreation areas while also delineating areas for commercial logging.

This is more or less the same philosophy that Sen. Ron Wyden, Rep. Peter DeFazio and other members of Oregon's congressional delegation have embraced and are pursuing for federal lands. Wyden's eastside forest compromise, which has idled for more than a year in Congress, would protect remaining old-growth forests while allowing more commercial logging in other areas. DeFazio's idea of carving out conservation and logging "trusts" on some westside forests is a variation of the same theme.

The word is that DeFazio and other Oregon members of Congress may be poised to roll out a serious plan to spur more activity in federal forest lands in Southwest Oregon. It would take a big push to move something through this Congress. Meanwhile, we keep hearing that the state wants to be a player in the federal forest debate. It can start by getting its own forests in order.

The Board of Forestry should get cracking on a land allocation system, and it shouldn't take forever -- the agency knows where salmon and spotted owl strongholds and other key conservation and recreation areas lie in its forests. The agency already is protecting many of these areas; formally setting them apart from commercial logging would give recognition to their stewardship. The board also should be unafraid to dig into the controversial issue of log exports, and explore ways to keep logs here by making them more valuable to Oregonians than to the Chinese.

Meanwhile, Kitzhaber, the entire congressional delegation and leaders of the timber industry and environmental groups must keep pressing for thoughtful, collaborative change in the management of federal forests. If Oregon is ever going to get the most out of its forests, the governor has to deliver a lot more than one great speech.

Forest biomass as a fuel source and solution for maintaining forest health

Letter to Oregon Board of Forestry from the Committee for Family Forestlands

The Committee for Family Forestlands (CFF) urges the Board of Forestry and State Forester to continue working with the Governor, the Oregon Forest Resources Institute, Oregon’s Forest Biomass Working Group, and the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to explore the potential for expanding the forest-based energy production industry. The EPA is presently engaged in a 3-year review of the proposed “Tailoring Rule”, the rule which would determine the acceptable limits of CO2 emissions from biomass-fueled energy generation facilities. The parameters outlined in the final Rule will effectively determine whether large-scale forest biomass-based energy production is permissible and economically viable. The current review period provides an important window of opportunity for the State of Oregon to concurrently examine the pros and cons of using forest biomass as an energy source, and to provide important and convincing input to the federal government and the EPA.  The CFF believes it is crucially important that the EPA’s review of the issues related to forest biomass includes a holistic consideration of forest ecology and forest economics as well as potential impacts on air quality.

The CFF suggests that a forest biomass-based energy production industry should:

1.     Be guided by the goal of achieving and maintaining forest health.

2.     Recognize that without a reliable market paying reasonable prices for raw materials, restoration thinnings that remove only the smallest diameter classes may not be fiscally realistic. Until such markets are available, forest operators will be financially unable to undertake small-diameter forest restoration thinnings unless these projects are publicly subsidized or unless larger-diameter, more profitable timber can be simultaneously harvested from the site to defray the cost of removing the less profitable biomass.

3.     Establish a sustainable, even flow biomass harvest rate so that infrastructure and labor pools can be appropriately matched to the ecological capacity of the forests.

4.     Be consistent with established best forest management practices as outlined in related state and federal laws and regulations.

5.     Encourage cross-boundary collaboration to achieve landscape-level forest restoration goals.

6.     Be visionary, and adaptively responsive to emergent scientific knowledge and social expectations.

A forest biomass energy industry offers an important means of improving forest health and sustainability while simultaneously helping to stabilize the nation’s renewable energy sector. This is particularly true in fire-adapted western forest ecosystems. An estimated 12.2 million acres of forests in Oregon have been identified as overstocked and in need of thinning or prescribed burning to restore their vigor and reduce their susceptibility to aggressive wildfires. In many instances these forests are so heavily overstocked that they cannot be safely treated with prescribed fire until the excess biomass has been removed through mechanical thinning. In many other cases, particularly in the wildland-urban interface where many family forests are located, prescribed fire is not a realistic treatment option due to problems related to unfiltered smoke pollution and the risk of escaped fire. In such locations, thinning is the only realistic restoration option.

Forest thinning treatments, however, are typically expensive. The excess biomass is frequently too small in diameter to be sold for conventional wood products such as dimension lumber, and its quantity vastly exceeds the demand in established markets such as the particleboard industry that can utilize small-diameter material. Consequently, there is presently no market for the excess forest biomass that needs to be removed through restoration thinnings. Most restoration projects must therefore be subsidized with tax dollars on public forests, or a combination of personal funds and public cost-share programs on private forests. Small-forest owners find it particularly difficult to accomplish forest restoration, because their smaller-scale projects often cannot generate sufficient profit to attract forest operators who depend upon conventional forest products markets. Particularly in the current economic climate, wherein adequate public and private funding for forest health improvement products is less and less available, the absence of a reliable commercial market for excess forest biomass means that most of these forests will be doomed to a continuing state of decay. Forest restoration biomass would be, however, eminently marketable as a renewable fuel source that could substantially reduce US dependence upon fossil fuel supplies. The thoughtful development of a forest biomass energy industry would, therefore, help Oregon and America meet two of its most pressing environmental goals: forest sustainability and energy sustainability.

There are many who caution that enabling a new forest energy production industry may lead to overharvesting rather than sustainable harvesting within our forests, and also that the ecological impacts of removing small diameter biomass are not yet fully understood. We agree that there is need for caution. Scientific understanding of the implications of biomass extraction is indeed incomplete. There is, however, solid scientific understanding of the ecological, social, and financial risks associated with leaving forests overstocked and in declining health, and of the validity of thinning as a technique for restoring and maintaining forest vigor. We therefore concur with the Oregon Forest Resources Institute’s conclusion that “Biomass utilization for energy should be considered a tool for improving the health of our forests. To ensure a sustainable, appropriate level of development, the needs for forest restoration should determine the scale of the forest biomass energy industry” (OFRI Report on Biomass Energy and Biofuels from Oregon’s Forests, Page 1-v.) 

The CFF also recognizes that there is ongoing debate regarding how the burning of forest biomass as a fuel may affect air quality, particularly with regard to “greenhouse gas” emissions. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is by far the most troublesome of the “greenhouse gases”. Forests naturally absorb CO2 during their respiration process, and subsequently “sequester” or hold the carbon in the form of new wood growth. If the tree is harvested and the wood is used for building materials, the carbon remains safely stored until being gradually released as the wood eventually decays. Forests, therefore, are highly desirable carbon repositories. They are widely understood to be nature’s most effective tool at helping to combat this particular type of air pollution. If wood burns, however, all of its stored carbon is quickly released back into the atmosphere, thereby contributing to “greenhouse gas” pollution. Consequently, some contend that burning forest biomass as a fuel may actually add to energy-related air pollution, rather than substracting from it. This argument, however, overlooks the problem of wildfire, which releases not only massive amounts of CO2 but also many other toxic chemical and particulate pollutants in the form of unfiltered smoke.

Wildfires already run rampant through the West’s overstocked and unnaturally flammable forests each year. It is well understood that if forest overgrowth is not reduced to site-appropriate stocking levels, the incidence and intensity of wildfires can only increase. Wildfires produce levels of air pollution far exceeding any that would be produced from thoughtfully constructed wood-burning energy production facilities equipped with pollution control equipment. Furthermore, the high cost of controlling the wildfires deprives the state of funds that could be directed to other forest management practices that could directly improve forest health and sustainability. The Oregon Department of Forestry currently ranks wildfire control as its top priority and foremost expenditure.

Healthy, appropriately stocked forests provide optimal wildlife and fisheries habitat. They are invaluable as recreational sites. They are unparalleled sources of pure water. They produce the oxygen we breathe, the vistas we cherish, the wood products we use to build our homes, and the paper products we need for effective communication. With the development of a restoration-oriented biomass utilization industry, the CFF believes they can also provide a sustainable, renewable source of energy.

Oregon has long been a leader in innovative forest policy. The CFF urges the Oregon Board of Forestry and State Forester to continue this legacy by continuing to explore the potential benefits of a holistic forest biomass utilization policy.

Most sincerely,

The Oregon Committee for Family Forestlands

Craig Shinn, Chair

Susan Watkins, Vice-Chair

The Committee for Family Forestlands is a statutory committee appointed by the Board of Forestry to provide advice and recommendations regarding family forests and includes family forestland owners from different areas of the state, environmental organization and forest industry representatives, a citizen-at-large and ex-officio members representing the Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF), Extension Service, Oregon Forest Resources Institute, the Oregon Small Woodlot Association and logging or forestry consulting interests.

Kitzhaber wants Oregon forests to be model for region

Majority of state's timber being shipped overseas

From Salem Statesman Journal

Written by

Jeff Barnard

AP Environmental Writer

By Jeff Barnard

Gov. John Kitzhaber on Thursday called on the state Board of Forestry to take a new approach to managing state forests that will make them a model for resolving regional conflicts that have pitted logging against fish and wildlife habitat in the Northwest for more than 30 years.


Speaking to the board at its regular meeting in Forest Grove, Kitzhaber said since national forests in Oregon cut logging 90 percent to protect old-growth forest habitat for salmon and northern spotted owls, the bulk of the timber now comes off private lands. Too many of those logs are being shipped to China rather than sustaining jobs in Oregon mills, he said.


"This amounts to nothing more than exporting our natural capital and our jobs," Kitzhaber said. "We are at risk of becoming a timber colony for Asia, while undermining our mill infrastructure and their surrounding communities."



The governor's speech comes as his office and Oregon's congressional delegation are struggling to save rural timber counties from going broke when a federal safety net expires at the end of this year. The Secure Rural Schools Act has made up for the big drop in federal revenue sharing based on logging.


In the past four years, West Coast log exports from private lands have gone from $42 million to $500 million, Kitzhaber said. Meanwhile, federal forests, which amount to 59 percent of Oregon's land mass, produce just 12 percent of the timber. State forests produce 10 percent of the timber from 3 percent of the land. And private forests produce 75 percent of the timber from 19 percent of the land.


Legislative efforts to increase logging have just eroded trust on all sides, he added.
To make Oregon a model for resolving these issues, Kitzhaber said the state will have to work closely with agencies managing federal and private forests.


He suggested the board adopt strict performance standards to measure the success of forest policies and re-examine the longstanding model that produces timber by cutting forests in a way to encourage structures similar to old growth, rather than for maximum timber yield.

He also encouraged the board to act more aggressively to protect fish and wildlife habitat, particularly along salmon streams and on hillsides vulnerable to landslides, which will create conservation jobs and give everyone a better idea about what to expect from state forests.

Kitzhaber told the board to take a new look at its business model, taking into account the economic problems faced by timber counties, where plummeting federal timber revenues have left them struggling to survive.


Oregon Board of Forestry Chairman John Blackwell said he liked the fact the governor was giving them permission to be more aggressive protecting fish and wildlife habitat.


Ray Wilkeson of the Oregon Forest Industries Council, a timber industry group, said he was encouraged by the governor's recognition that management on public forest lands, state and federal, is not working and needs changing.


Josh Laughlin of Cascadia Wildlands project, a conservation group, said the speech did not follow with the governor's recent vote to approve a 40 percent increase in clear-cut logging on the Elliott State Forest.

Gov. John Kitzhaber says forest policies must balance health of habitat and rural communities

By Eric Mortenson, The Oregonian  

FOREST GROVE -- Gov. John Kitzhaber called on the state Board of Forestry Thursday to step back from the "politically driven seesaw management" of the state's timberland and adopt a balanced approach that can be extended to the much larger federal forests as well.

Kitzhaber, in a rare appearance by a governor before the board, said current management practices put state, federal and private forests in isolated silos, when they should be viewed as an interconnected landscape.

"We are mired in ongoing conflict -- timber sale by timber sale, forest by forest -- rather than engaging in a holistic strategy" that balances environmental, economic and community values, the governor said.

The result is unhealthy forests and damaged rural communities, the governor said. The 18 million acres of federal forests, which make up nearly 60 percent of the forestland in Oregon, are choked with unmanaged stands of young fir and pine and produce only 12 percent of the annual timber harvest.

That puts harvest pressure on the relatively tiny state forests, which make up only 3 percent of the forestland base but produce 10 percent of the timber. Meanwhile, private forests make up 19 percent of the land base and produce 75 percent of the timber.

Much of the private timber, however, is exported overseas. West Coast log exporters are on pace to ship $900 million worth of logs this year, compared to $42 million four years ago, the governor said.

Kitzhaber said excessive log exports undermine Oregon's mill infrastructure, hurt communities and put more harvest pressure on the public forests.

"This amounts to nothing more than exporting our natural capital and our jobs," he said. "We are at risk of becoming a timber colony for Asia."

Kitzhaber challenged the board to make several management changes. Among them, he said the board should establish conservation zones in state forests, and likewise define the amount and location of land that will be used for timber production.

He said the state should move away from "structure based" management and should not let harvest revenue targets drive forest management. Timber harvest revenue from state forests supports counties and school districts.

A "land allocation" management approach with both timber production and conservation emphasis would provide stability and certainty for everyone concerned, he said.

To manage Oregon's forests as a joined landscape, the board will increasingly have to work closely with federal and private forest managers, Kitzhaber said. The governor said increased management -- thinning and other logging -- is required to restore the health of federal forests.

Groups at both ends of the state's long-running forest arguments found things to like among the governor's ideas.

The Sierra Club, Wild Salmon Center and Association of Northwest Steelheaders issued a joint statement applauding the idea of establishing conservation areas.

Ray Wilkeson, president of the Oregon Forest Industries Council, said Kitzhaber's ideas are worth a try both on state and federal land.

"If anybody can do it, it would be him," Wilkeson said of Kitzhaber.

In other business Thursday, the board voted 4-2 to approve a management plan for the Elliott State Forest near Coos Bay.

Under the plan, the Elliott's annual timber harvest will increase to 40 million board feet, compared to 25 million board feet under a plan implemented in 1995. The new plan increases the targeted annual harvest to 1,100 acres with up to 850 acres to be clear-cut. The previous plan logged 1,000 acres annually, half by clear-cutting. The new plan will produce annual net revenue of up to $13 million, compared to about $8 million currently.

Board members John Blackwell, Cal Mukumoto, Jennifer Phillippi and Gary Springer voted in favor of the plan. Peter Hayes and Sybil Ackerman opposed it

More than 90 percent of the 93,000-acre Elliott consists of Common School Fund lands under jurisdiction of the State Land Board, made up of Kitzhaber, state Treasurer Ted Wheeler and Secretary of State Kate Brown. The land board unanimously approved the plan Oct. 11.

--Eric Mortenson

Dollar Lake: Understanding the full costs of wildfire

Published: Saturday, September 24, 2011, 8:56 AM

By Bob Zybach

Two years ago, The Oregonian printed a column I wrote that summarized a paper written and published online by three coauthors and myself. The piece, titled "The Real Cost of Wildfires," reported our findings that large-scale wildfires in the US typically result in ten to 50 times more costs and damages than suppression costs:

That is, forest wildfires in the US have typically cost US citizens $50 billion to $100 billion – or more – annually for the past several years.

Rick Bowmer/The Associated Press/FileThe Dollar Lake fire.

 

If the Dollar Lake Fire had reached (or does reach) the BPA transmission lines or the Bull Run watershed, it will easily cause significantly more damage than just its suppression costs. Such damages can be readily understood by people in Texas, Arizona, San Diego, and Sisters, Oregon, that have had first hand experiences with property damage, polluted air, degraded soils, personal health problems, destroyed wildlife habitat and other problems caused by forest wildfires.

Ken Snell, the USFS regional director of fire, fuels, and aviation management was quoted by The Oregonian as saying "a large fire on the Bull Run will come in time." Snell is correct. Whether that time is ten days or ten years from now, it is a certainty. Annual growth in the forested watershed leads to a continuous increase in fuels that must either be managed by people or else consumed by flames. Those are the only options, and since fuel management was legally halted in the Bull Run more than 10 years ago, that leaves only fire to clean up the mess.

Two weeks ago, on Sept. 7, one of my co-authors, Mike Dubrasich, and I presented the same paper to the Oregon Board of Forestry in Lakeview. The Dollar Lake fire was part of the resulting discussion. Our point was that an economic analysis of potential wildfire losses is best made before these predictable events occur, so that affected communities, landowners, foresters and wildfire managers can make better-informed decisions when they do take place.

The focus of our paper is a one-page checklist of possible costs and damages associated with wildfires. Anyone can use this checklist to consider the harm that will be done when wildfire ultimately does affect BPA's power transmissions and Portland's water supplies.

One can hope the Dollar Lake fire will become a wake-up call to Portland residents who value fresh water, clean air, cheap electricity, native wildlife and forest recreational opportunities that are being degraded or put at risk by current forest and wildfire management policies. Our checklist provides a good first step in considering these values and the types of actions that can be taken to protect them for ourselves and for future generations.

Bob Zybach writes from Cottage Grove.