State Land Board: Delaying the inevitable?

Delaying the inevitable?

The State Land Board has delayed their decision on the proposed sale of the Elliott State Forest to Lone Rock Resources and two American Indian Tribes from April to May.  The delay allows Governor Kate Brown who was outvoted when new State Treasurer Tobias Read proposed amending the pending sale agreement to buy back $25 million worth of special recreational or environmental acres. New Secretary of State Dennis Richardson joined Read in supporting the sale.

Brown is trying to use $100 million in bonds to pay the Common School Fund for the Elliot, which Oregon already owns. That is less than half of the $220.8 million Lone Rock is willing to pay. The legislature would have to approve both Brown’s $100 million and Read’s $25 million. This is problematic since there is currently a $1.6 billion hole in the budget.

The Governor has enlisted the help of the Department of Forestry, ODF, to develop an option for the state to maintain the Elliott. ODF has managed the Elliott on behalf of the SLB since the Elliott became Oregon’s first State Forest in the 1930s. Funding for ODF’s management of the Elliott runs out on June 30^th of this year.

In anticipation of not having the sale finalized and needing someone to care for the Elliott, the Department of State lands has issued a Request For Proposal for an interim manager of the forest. Yet another strange twist in the Elliott saga…

If the Governor is successful in rounding up $100 million, she still needs one more vote from the three-member board. Read has been under tremendous pressure from shocked environmentalists to change his position. Old time environmental advocates have come in from the hinter lands and have been seen in the Capitol Lobbying Read.

Read has proclaimed his responsibility is to Oregon’s school children to protect the value of the Common School Fund asset. John Charles, longtime follower of the Elliott, and President and CEO of Cascade Policy Institute also calls for selling the Elliott in a recent OpEd. Charles pegged the value of the Elliott at $850 million in 1995. The current appraised value of $220.8 million reflects the restrictions the SLB has placed on the Elliott.

Oregon House Committee gets Forestry’s attention

Oregon House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee Chair Rep. Brad Witt, D-Clatskanie, withdrew HB 3210 after he reported that he received a letter from Board of Forestry Chair Tom Imeson and State Forester Doug Decker. Imeson and Decker’s letter indicates that they received the message HB3210 and proposed amendments were seeking.

Their letter promises to expedite the process of developing a new plan for the State Forests based on the recommendations of a BOF subcommittee recommendation to change the previous Structure Based Management to a new 70-30 strategy.

Under the new 70-30 plan, 70% of the forests would be managed with a timber prominence and 30% with a conservation emphasis. The new strategy is expected to both increase timber production and better address water quality and wildlife habitat concerns.

Previously, Rep. Witt and several of his committee members expressed frustration over the length of time it was taking for the BOF and the Forestry Department to design a new management plan for the state forests in Northwest Oregon.

Timber harvest receipts have been dropping for several years. Counties receiving revenues from State Forest timber sales have been at the front, along with State Forest timber sale purchasers, advocating for increased timber sales from the forest plan that has never produced the volumes expected when it was developed over a decade ago.

Meanwhile, the Forestry Department is seeking General Fund dollars for their operating expenses to replace the dwindling timber receipts. The trust counties, a different group than Oregon’s O&C Counties, long ago agreed to share the timber receipts to cover the Forestry Department’s management costs.

Enviro Lawsuit May lead to sale of State Forest

Oregon’s State Treasurer Ted Wheeler is troubled that he is not meeting the financial responsibility of managing one of the most valuable assets of the Common School Fund. Wheeler, along with Governor John Kitzhaber and Secretary of State Kate Brown are charged with overseeing the 95,000-acre Elliott State Forest in Southwestern Oregon.

Cascadia Wildlands has filed an Endangered Species Act lawsuit challenging the ESF’s plan for protection of the marble murrelet, a seabird that spends most of it’s life at the ocean. This has led to the cancellation of most of the timber sales from the ESF.

State Land Board (Kitzhaber, Wheeler and Brown) staff told a legislative budget committee on March 21st that timber revenues from the Elliott State Forest have dropped from $11 million in Fiscal Year 2012 to $2.5-3.0 million for the first six months of Fiscal Year 2013.

The Common School Fund benefits all of the public schools in Oregon. As trustees for the CSF, the State Land Board has a legal responsibility to return revenue to the CSF. The current lawsuit does not eliminate the responsibility to the CSF.

If a school district challenged the state for not meeting the trust’s financial duties, selling the ESF to a private forest landowner might be the only option available.

In other words, should Cascadia Wildlands continue with their suit, they might find that the Elliott State Forest will be sold to a private forest landowner in order to return revenue to the Common School Fund.

Aiming to boost timber products Kitzhaber orders state to feature wood in two construction projects

By Dylan J. Darling / The Bulletin

Published: October 09. 2012 4:00AM PST

SUNRIVER — Gov. John Kitzhaber is ordering the agency in charge of state office buildings to find a pair of construction projects to highlight the possibilities of building with wood.

“In this my hope is to add value to wood products here in the state," he said.

Kitzhaber announced the executive order Monday morning at the annual meeting of the Oregon Forest Industries Council, a trade association of forestland owners and timber product companies, in Sunriver. About 150 people were in the room.

The order calls for the Oregon Department of Administrative Services, which oversees the construction and maintenance of state buildings, to find at least two construction projects that can be improved by featuring wood products.

It also tasks the department with considering wood in all new construction and renovations, said Scott Nelson, jobs and economy policy adviser for the governor.

“Wood hasn’t been used as much as it could be in the U.S. in nonresidential construction," he said by phone Monday. “This is a way to pilot that concept."

Increased interest in wood for commercial building would bring welcome demand for wood products, said Ralph Saperstein, public policy specialist for Boise Cascade. The Boise-based company operates mills in Southern and Northeastern Oregon.

“What better way to show off the wood products we have in Oregon than to have our state build buildings out of wood," said Saperstein, who was at the meeting in Sunriver.

While concrete and steel have traditionally been used for big buildings — mid-rises of four to six stories and high-rises of seven stories and up — new products make it possible to make those out of wood, said Bryan Schuyler, western regional director for Woodworks for Non-Residential Construction, a California-based organization.

“We can build those buildings out of wood," said Schuyler, who was at the Sunriver meeting.

Kitzhaber also ordered the Oregon Business Development Department to devise a strategy to speed up development and selling of new wood products and put together a plan to increase the market for Oregon wood products.

Nelson said there are potential markets for Oregon wood products all over the world.

“Asia could be a big market for our finished products," he said.

Since the federal listing of the spotted owl as a threatened species in 1990, the state’s timber industry has all but disappeared as the amount of harvest on federally managed land dropped drastically. But Kitzhaber said Monday he thinks there is a chance for a revival. To accomplish this, he said, the industry should focus on projects aimed at thinning forests and lowering the risk and effects of wildfire. And it should work in collaboratives — groups composed of local, state and federal leaders, as well as environmental groups — to avoid lawsuits.

“We have a remarkable opportunity to turn things around," he said.

Where were they 20 years ago???

By Ralph Saperstein, NWTimberBlog

The Oregonian published an Editorial “Taking an ax to rural Oregon”.  In the piece the authors admonish President Obama’s Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, who during a recent trip touting President Obama’s Jobs Plan, predicted an end to county timber payments.

 

“Listening to Vilsack, it's not clear that he or anyone else leading the Obama administration fully understands the challenges of keeping county governments and schools operating in places where the U.S. Forest Service owns more than half the land and about the only economic activity it generates is whatever is spent putting out the wildfires that flare every summer.”

 

No kidding.  Since President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore came to Oregon to hold a timber summit in 1994, the federal government has failed to address the reality of rural Oregon’s dependence on the scientifically sound management of our federal forestland.

 

Instead, President Clinton’s Northwest Forest Plan has failed to maintain the economic and social viability of the rural communities in the Pacific Northwest.  Lately, elected officials urge continuing county timber payments. 

 

They decry the “broken promises” of discontinuing the county timber expenditures, or welfare payments, for all Western Counties that have lost the economic activity federal forestlands once provided.

 

This scream of “broken promises” misses the most important point.  The federal government, through the Departments of Agriculture and Interior promised rural communities that they would provide a Sustained Yield of raw materials for the independent timber industry.

 

Through the sale of timber, the federal forests would generate county revenue for schools and roads, and family-wage jobs for foresters, loggers, truckers, tree planters and thousands of mill workers.  That ‘community stability’ is the real broken promise of every Administration since the timber crisis began in the 1990’s.

 

Worse, while rural communities have been thrown under the bus, the forests continue to lose Northern Spotted Owl and other fish and wildlife habitat as a result of burning from uncharacteristic wildfires that result from the exclusion of scientifically sound forest management.