Clock ticking for salvage sales

Wyden urges FS action on Thorn, Egley sales in Eastern Oregon

U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden is urging the U.S. Forest Service to act quickly on a proposed agreement to salvage timber from the Shake Table Fire and Egley Complex in Grant and Harney counties.

Conservation groups, timber industry representatives and local officials have been talking for months about ways to push the salvage operations forward.

The latest proposal - which is linked to the withdrawal of legal challenges to the two sales - would provide needed material for local lumber mills and aid the ailing economy in the region, Wyden said.

"I am writing to ask that you give immediate and serious consideration to their efforts," he said in an April 30 letter to the Forest Service.

In his letter, Wyden pointed out that the Shake Table Fire in the summer of 2006 and the Egley Fire in 2007 devastated a significant amount of valuable forest land in Grant and Harney counties, two areas of the state that have been hard hit economically for the past decade.

Wyden wrote that under the proposal, up to 38 million board feet of timber from two timber sales could be made available to local mills this spring before decay renders the logs worthless, "providing the U.S. Forest Service can expedite the approval of the agreement."

Locally, officials welcomed Wyden's involvement, although several cautioned that it's premature to pin down the timber volume that way.

Grant County Commissioner Boyd Britton said he was "very appreciative" of Wyden for addressing the issue, noting that it's unusual for a senator to weigh in on an individual timber sale, especially a salvage sale.

"But it's unfortunate to hear that figure, 38 million, being batted about," Britton said.

The Forest Service currently is considering salvage sales that could bring 15-20 million board feet of timber from the Egley Complex and 21 million board feet from the Thorn sale in the Shake Table area. However, officials also said the volumes mentioned at this stage are just estimates, and are likely to change considerably by the time crews hit the ground.

Jerry Hensley, ranger for the Malheur National Forest's Emigrant Creek Ranger District, said the eventual volume depends on factors including the weather and the deterioration of the trees since the fire. In addition, the Egley sale will include cutting of danger trees along roads, and that volume is hard to predict using standard acreage estimates.

"We have to have a big range, because we just can't tell," said Hensley.

Tim Lillebo of Oregon Wild, one of four groups that has appealed the Thorn sale, said the conservationists are proposing that the Forest Service reduce the scope of the Thorn sale to protect the unroaded lands in the boundaries. He said while removing those areas, the proposal also calls for adding some green thinning to the project.

The benefit for industry would be that the groups would agree to drop their current appeals and not litigate any further on either sale.

Lillebo said the groups are willing to make that concession to make the projects happen, as long as the end result protects roadless lands, critical wildlife areas and core old growth.

It's a first for such groups to make such an offer and press ahead for salvage and green timber cutting, Lillebo said. He added that they would retain the right to intervene in future sales, but he said the Thorn and Egley projects are too important to the local economy and the community to delay.

"We could go to court, and everybody would be losers," he said.

Grant County Judge Mark Webb described the litigation offer and the support for salvage as critical steps toward progress.

"It's significant that some of the environmentalists were even willing to consider salvage," he said.

Mike Billman, timber manager for Malheur Lumber Co., also said the conservation group's proposal was "quite a gesture" in light of their traditional, staunch opposition to salvage sales.

"For them to allow fire salvage here in order to help maintain our infrastructure, is huge," he said. "They realize the currrent infrastructure - the mills - will be important to getting future restoration projects going."

Billman said the proposal also would allow the Forest Service to proceed on Egley with an environmental assessment, without a challenge seeking an environmental impact statement. That could mean that the work begins this summer.

That timing is critical for the sale, as the timber would deteriorate substantially with another year's delay, he said.

Hensley confirmed that the deterioration accelerates in hot weather, and a delay of more than a couple of years could have a big effect on the commercial value of the sales. He said experience from previous sales shows that a salvage area will lose 30 percent of its volume in the second year, and 30 percent of the remaining volume the year after that.

On one sale, he said, there were trees down to 12 inches in diameter that were viable when the planning work began. By the time the cutting began two years later, even the 16-inch trees were no good.

"It goes fast," Hensley said.

The timing also could be critical for the industry in Grant County. D.R. Johnson's Grant Western mill has been shut down since last July, and Malheur Lumber three weeks ago put most of its 70-plus employees on furlough.

"We are on the edge," Billman said of the local industry. "We need some volume now."

Billman said Malheur expects some deliveries from other sources that could end Malheur's furlough before June. However, the salvage sales remain an important prospect for the continuity of the local mills, as Wyden noted in his letter.

"I cannot overstate the importance of these sales to these economically distressed areas of Oregon," Wyden said. "I believe this is a unique opportunity to tide over the local mills until further green thinning sales can be offered and we can move forward with productive forest management."

Lillebo said "we need to do something that's unique" to keep people working, and at the same time to protect the resources. He said green thinning will be increasingly important as a tool to restore the health of the forest.

"And if we lose the mills, who's going to do that?"

Britton also stressed the value of the sales, although he remains concerned about the timber volume.

"Both Grant and Harney counties desperately need these to go through," he said of the sales.

Webb said some of the parties are expected to discuss the sales further later this week, and he hopes they can find agreement.