BLM: Ore. timber plan promotes sustained yield

Plan would nearly triple harvest largely through clear-cutting.

The Bureau of Land Management says its new management plan for 2.6 million acres of Western Oregon assures an increased but sustainable timber harvest and protects federally listed wildlife.

Not everyone agrees.

The bureau released an environmental impact statement Thursday on a plan it developed to settle a lawsuit brought by the timber industry and timber-dependent counties. They want more production from the federal forests.

Conservationist critics say the BLM plan effectively removes the land from many protections of the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan, would resume clear-cutting, harm streams and cut dwindling stands of old-growth forest.

The American Forest Resource Council, a timber industry group, said the plan neglects forest health and legal requirements to produce a permanent and sustainable timber yield for local communities.

The bureau calls its plan the Western Oregon Plan Revision. It is known as the Whopper for its abbreviation: WOPR.

Most of the land is under the 1937 Oregon & California Lands Act, which bans cutting more timber than the forests can replace.

Council president Tom Partin said the lands in question can produce more than 1 billion board feet and that the plan calls for cutting less than half of that.

He said it leaves forests vulnerable to wildfires and insect infestations.

Federal scientists asked to advise the bureau issued a report in March saying the plan likely overestimates the habitat left for fish and wildlife and underestimates environmental impacts.

"We're afraid they're going to turn back the clock of federal forest management and go back to clear-cutting, and that about 70 percent of the volume could come from clear-cutting operations," Joseph Vaile of the Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center said Thursday.

"This is the last gasp of the Bush administration to give away our public resources, ignoring the science that says we need to protect these places," said Kristen Boyles, a lawyer with Seattle-based EarthJustice.

She said a lawsuit to block the plan is possible.

Chuck Closterman of the Mid-Rogue Steelhead Chapter of Trout Unlimited said logging produces good jobs, so the group doesn't oppose the logging "in and of itself. We think it could be done in a more environmentally sensitive manner."

He said the plan will not keep sediment out of streams during heavy storms because it allows logging closer to riverbanks and allows cutting on steep slopes subject to erosion in heavy rain. Even lighter rain could cause mud to flow into creeks, killing young fish, he said.

"And with economic conditions what they are now, what will they do with any lumber they do cut?" he asked.

The public and the Oregon governor's office have 60 days to question the plan.

Gov. Ted Kulongoski's office said he will be reviewing the impact statement to see if it meets conditions he set out in January.

They included BLM compliance with the Endangered Species Act and aid in recovery of listed species, use of best management practices to restore freshwater habitats for salmonids, and the provision of a sustainable mix of outdoor recreational opportunities and aggressive plans to control or eradicate new invasive species on BLM lands.

The BLM plan proposes withholding from harvest "nearly all older and more structurally complex forests for 15 years" to provide added habitat for the northern spotted owl while a strategy to deal with the invasive barred owls is developed.

Congress will have to approve funding for the plan, but final approval rests with the Department of the Interior.