BLM's delicate timber dance

Differences in timber production and philosophy between the Umpqua National Forest and Roseburg BLM.

Under the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's Roseburg District has met only half of its timber sales target.

The remaining timber sales -- 48 percent -- were held up in court. Largely presented to industry as regeneration harvests -- clear cuts -- those sales stalled, despite a 70-year-old mandate, the O&C Act, requiring the BLM to sell trees in wholesale fashion.

Between 1995 and 2006, the district slowly began shifting from regeneration harvests to thinnings, avoiding lawsuits stemming from potential impacts to at-risk species. For fiscal year 2007, the Roseburg District sold only thinning projects.

"That's kind of been our lifeblood ever since," said Steve Niles, forester of the BLM's Roseburg District.

With an annual sales target of 45 million board feet of timber under the Northwest Forest Plan, the Roseburg District has sold an average of 25 million board feet since 1995.

This past fiscal year it sold 30 million board feet.

In 2000 and 2001, the BLM district sold only 1.6 and 2.7 million board feet, respectively.

And since 1995, clear-cut harvests have hit just 27 percent of target, while thinning projects maxed at 178 percent of target.

For fiscal year 2006, the district put up five regeneration harvests for sale. But courts either suspended or stalled them, citing faulty oversight by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the agency charged with protecting species listed under the Endangered Species Act.

The northern spotted owl, the keystone species of the Northwest Forest Plan, was listed as threatened in 1990.

Before the Clinton administration implemented the plan, the Roseburg District annually sold nearly 10 times as much timber, 240 million board feet, Niles said.

 
Timber sales on the Umpqua National Forest also used to get muddled by lawsuits several years ago.

 
But for the past two years Umpqua sales have sailed through approval processes without an appeal. And the forest is selling more timber, exceeding targets.

 
For fiscal year 2007, the Umpqua sold 46.2 million board feet of timber. Its original target was 40 million board feet, before Congress in April primed Oregon and Washington national forests with $24.7 million to increase timber budgets by hiring more staff to cruise and prepare sales.

 
The Umpqua expects to sell 48 million board feet in 2008 and hopes to eventually reach 70 million board feet, the high point allowed by the Northwest Forest Plan.

 
But it will avoid controversy.

 
The forest has based timber contracts on thinning and fuels-reduction projects for the past two years and plans to stay within those parameters in coming years.

 
Officials say the projects will meet industry and environmental expectations, while generating revenue for timber-dependent counties.

 
"I think the general community is recognizing those common goals," said Steve Nelson, contracting officer for the Umpqua.

 
A conservative estimate gives the Umpqua National Forest perhaps 10 to 20 more years of such thinning, until second-growth stands reach a certain age of maturity, Nelson said.

 
When the forest's matrix stands -- set aside by the Northwest Forest Plan for timber management -- no longer require thinning, the Umpqua will re-consider regeneration harvests, Nelson said.

 
"We are growing 48 million board feet a year on the Umpqua National Forest and we're harvesting a fraction of that," he said.

 
Considered a "tool in the toolbox," the forest could re-introduce regeneration harvests in coming years as a management practice, despite opponents' harsh criticism of the method, Umpqua spokeswoman Cheryl Caplan said.

 
"Who knows what the political climate is going to be in 10 years?" Caplan said.

The BLM doesn't have time to wait that long.

 
Nor do timber-dependent counties. Douglas County relies on $53 million annually from a federal safety net, set to fade away June 30 -- the end of the county's fiscal year.

 
Prompted by a lawsuit the timber industry filed against the BLM, the Western Oregon Plan Revisions, currently in draft form and open to public comment, will become the agency's new guidelines for timber and habitat management, overriding the Northwest Forest Plan. Its preferred alternative could triple timber harvests -- by markedly bringing back regeneration harvests -- from current levels.

 
The WOPR is based on the 1937 O&C Act.

 
In the late 19th century, Congress granted lands to the Oregon & California Railroad Company as capital so it could build a rail between Portland and the California border, tying two states' commerce together.

 
The lands were granted in a checkerboard format, typically in 1-square-mile blocks, in a swath about 40 miles wide.

 
The rail line went bust and the lands were revested to the federal government. The O&C Act designated the lands public, but slated for permanent timber production, since they were off property tax rolls.

 
Most counties in which those lands are located have been dependent on timber revenue.

 
The Northwest Forest Plan was supposed to allow the annual harvest of 240 million board feet of timber on BLM lands in Western Oregon.

 
It never came close to hitting that mark.

 
"It's woefully short of what the O&C lands are growing," said Tom Partin, president of the American Forest Resource Council, a timber industry group that was part of the lawsuit settled by the BLM.

 
Partin said the BLM lands are for managing timber first and species second: The revisions will bring back economic health to counties and industry.

 
"The WOPR will basically say the O&C lands were not supposed to be under the Northwest Forest Plan," Partin said.

 
The preferred alternative -- Alternative 2 -- would raise the annual cut to 727 million board feet on BLM lands in Western Oregon.

 
Opponents say the plan is setting up unrealistic expectations of the BLM.

 
Dominick DellaSala, executive director and chief scientist for the Center for Conservation Science & Policy in Ashland, said environmental regulations will still apply. Though the BLM is mandated by the O&C Act to keep 2.1 million acres in constant timber production, newer mandates like the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act will override.

 
"I kind of feel for the agency because they're stuck between a rock and a hard place," DellaSala said.

 
The BLM is pushing the WOPR forward -- public comment ends Jan. 11 -- while the Fish and Wildlife Service writes a recovery plan for spotted owls.

 
The public commenting period for the spotted owl draft recovery plan ended in October. It received over 80,000 comments.

 
A final owl recovery plan is expected to be released in April 2008 by the Fish and Wildlife Service.

 
Northern spotted owl populations have been on an annual decline of 3.7 percent since they were listed as threatened, the Fish and Wildlife Service has said.

 
The agency's recovery plan for spotted owls identifies barred owls, a distant avian cousin, as its main threat and proposes a reduction of critical habitat for the bird.

 
DellaSala, a member of the team that helped draft the owl recovery plan, said success for the WOPR's preferred alternative hinges on the outcome of the owl recovery plan.

 
"That's the key domino," he said.

 
In early October, 23 members of Congress and more than 100 scientists urged the agency to scrap the owl recovery plan, claiming it would help renew logging in old-growth forests that are necessary for the owl's recovery.

 
BLM Roseburg District Forester Niles said the agency is focused on combining a push behind WOPR with a push for the owl recovery plan.

 
"Some of the aspects of WOPR are taking away some of the layers of analysis and some of the vagaries out, and trying to make our management simpler, more clearly defined, so that actions under the plan would be less vulnerable to court actions," he said. "But they're still going to be vulnerable. The Endangered Species Act is complex."

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So you know ...

WHAT: www.daylightdecisions.com/wopro/, a Web forum dedicated to the Bureau of Land Management’s Western Oregon Plan Revisions, which is currently in draft form.

Visitors can influence which revision alternatives the BLM chooses from by exploring interactive maps, alongside the draft environmental impact statement, and making public comments.

UNTIL WHEN: The BLM recently extended the public comment period on the draft environmental impact statement of the WOPR until Jan. 11, 2008.

The new plan could triple timber harvests on 2.5 million acres of land managed by the agency.

WHY: Because the draft document is more than 1,600 pages, www.daylightdecisions.com/wopro/ was designed to give the public an easy tool for exploring the WOPR’s contents.

The BLM will use public comments and suggestions, including ideas from cooperating public agencies, to craft proposed resource management plans to be analyzed in a final environmental impact statement, expected by fall 2008.

The draft statement also can be viewed at libraries; paper and electronic copies are available at BLM offices, and it’s also available online at www.blm.gov/or/plans/wopr/.