Elliott State Forest-The Long and Sordid History

Elliott State Forest-The Long and Sordid History

The Elliott State Forest in Southwestern Oregon is an unbelievable example of poor public policy affecting forest management. The NW Timber Blog has reported on some of the trials and tribulations of this once proud bastion of forest management that benefited Oregon's Common School Fund and overseen by the State Land Board made up of the Governor, Secretary of State and Treasurer

The Elliott, once a great example of Multiple-Use Forestry that provided recreation, fish and wildlife habitat spectacular scenic beauty and millions of dollars in revenues for schools, is now a financial drag on the Common School Fund.

Chronology 

The State Land Board, SLB, Governor John Kitzhaber, Secretary of State Kate Brown and Treasurer Ted Wheeler increased the sustained yield timber harvest to 40 million board feet per year, significantly less than the 75 mmbf annual growth on the Elliott. The harvests benefit the Common School Fund, CSF.

·     Environmental groups protest the action and occupy offices of the Governor, Secretary of State and the Treasurer. Their attorneys file a lawsuit charging Endangered Species Act violations involving the Marbled Murrelet.

·     The State surrenders without challenging the case, stops all forest management and pays the litigants $400,000 for their attorney fees.

·     Without timber harvests, the Elliott was costing the Common School Fund $3 million/year in management costs including road maintenance and fire protection fees.

·     Kitzhaber, Brown and Wheeler decide that the only viable option to stem the loses to the CSF is to sell the Elliott.

·     After Kitzhaber resigns Brown is elevated to Governor. Brown and Wheeler maintain the process to sell the Elliott. Only one bid for $220.7million is submitted by a coalition of Indian Tribes and Lone Rock Timber Management Company in Roseburg.

·     SLB meetings are flooded with protests over the Elliott sale proposal. After two such meetings, Brown, Wheeler and SOS Jeanne Atkins change course and cancel the sale.

·     Kate Brown is reelected Governor, Ted Wheeler leaves to become Mayor of Portland and Dennis Richardson and Tobias Read replace them on the SLB.

·     After canceling the sale, Brown convinces the legislature to provide $100 million in bonds as partial repayment to the CSF, essentially to buy a forest Oregon already owns. 

·     Treasurer Read’s plan to turn the Elliott over to the School of Forestry at Oregon State

      University as a 84,000 acre research forest still needs $120.7 million to make the CSF whole.

·     Today, the SLB staff and OSU are conducting public meetings in preparation for finalizing a plan to present to the SLB in December 2019.

Meanwhile Dr. Bob Zybach has been working with longtime Elliott Managing Forester Jerry Phillips and Southwestern Oregon Community College to develop an educational/recreation plan for the Elliott. The proposal is here.

More Elliott information:

Let’s Talk Timber, Madame Governor!!!

Two bills plot starkly different courses for Elliott State Forest

State Officials hoping for magic

Land Board Bails on Elliott Solution

New Members Overrule Governor

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.

New Members Overrule Governor

New Members Overrule Governor

The two new members of the State Land Board voted to move forward with the sale of the Elliott State Forest in SW Oregon. Secretary of State Dennis Richardson and State Treasurer Tobias Read Outvoted Governor Kate Brown in accepting Read’s motion to proceed forward with three amendments. Brown, clearly upset, directed the Department of State Lands to prepare an alternative to keep the Elliott in state ownership.

The SLB decision means that the $220.8 million sale to Lone Rock Timber Management Co., the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Indians and the Confederated Tribes of the Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siskiyou Indians will proceed with the new conditions proposed by Treasurer Read.

The 84,000 acre Elliott State Forest has been the center of controversy following the adoption of a new land management plan in 2012. The SLB decided to sell the Elliott when it began costing the Common School Fund millions of dollars to maintain ownership of the forest. School interests, including school administrators and teachers. support selling the forest.

Fifty entities expressed interest in buying the Elliott. However, in 2016 Lone Rock and the two tribes were the only bidders.  Read called for using $25 million in bonding to buy back special conservation and recreation areas of the Elliott, adopting Forest Stewardship Council management prescriptions for parts of the Elliott with 250-year-old trees and allowing five Indian Tribes the first right of refusal should Lone Rock decide to sell any part of the Elliott.

What happens next is unclear. The SLB meets again in April. The legislature needs to approve the $25 million in bonding. Lone Rock needs to decide if the amendments that Read proposed are acceptable to them to move forward. Governor Brown will spend the next couple of months trying to undo the SLB action and keep the Elliott in state ownership.

Stay tuned.

Oregon takes big step toward privatizing Elliott State Forest

Land board votes to sell Elliott State Forest, but decision not final

State Land Board votes to move forward on sale of Elliott State Forest

State Land Board approves sale of Elliott State Forest