Compromise reached on forest fuel reduction plan for Cove area

Conservationists & Forest Service work together in Northeast Oregon to protect communities and public lands

Old growth ponderosa pines in the snow - photo by Justin Lee

COVE — After two days of meetings last week, the Forest Service made some concessions over environmental objections to its hazardous fuel reduction project, and the plan will  move forward toward implementation With an eye toward reducing the risk of fire to Cove and the region surrounding it, the La Grande Ranger District had proposed treating 19,518 acres in the forests above Cove with prescribed fires and forest thinning.

Both Oregon Wild and  Hells Canyon Preservation Council had filed objections to parts of the proposed treatment and were able in meeting with the Forest Service to persuade a scale-back in some details of the plan.

Trish Wallace, acting Wallowa-Whitman National Forest district ranger, said Friday, “We came to an agreement. There was give and take on both sides.”

She said the Forest Service agreed to “drop some acres” proposed for treatment, primarily those “on the wilderness boundary” in the old stands on the high ridge along FS 6220 Road, an area that has never been logged. The area would have had patches cleared for potential firefighting and would have required some roads to be built for logging under the original plan.

“We feel we can still meet the project’s objectives,” Wallace said, even without tampering with the old stands in the higher elevations that both environmental groups wanted left alone.

Doug Heiken, conservation and restoration coordinator for Oregon Wild, said most of the changes they sought and won were in “the pristine area along the ridge that was so precious to us.” He said they were pleased with the bulk of the Forest Service’s plan in areas that had been previously logged and in the areas closest to the edges of the forest and nearest to Cove.

Oregon Wild had objected mainly to logging in the higher elevations. In their formal objection, Oregon Wild stated:  “Such forests are generally not suffering from fire suppression and therefore do not need restoration treatments.” It urged “focusing on treating small fuels in low elevation forests and dry forests near the community of Cove.”

Even in the lower elevations, however, the group proposed retaining old trees “regardless of size or species.”

Oregon Wild spokesman Sean Stevens said he felt one of the major changes was a plan  that is “less aggressive” at building new to implement the original fuel reduction plan.

While pleased with the ultimate outcome of the objection process, Heiken said, “One frustration was that it took an objection.”

Both Heiken and Stevens advocate passage of the Oregon Eastside Forests Restoration, Old Growth Protection and Jobs Act. The act, sponsored by  Senator Ron Wyden, would involve all groups — including wildlife, environmental, logging, local government — in the process of planning rather than in an “objection phase” afterward. The bill has had support from both environmental and logging groups.

“But the final product of this negotiation got us closer to the spirit of the Wyden bill,” Stevens said.

According to Ranger Wallace, Forest Supervisor Monica Schwalbach will be signing off on the changes in the plan within the next couple of weeks, and implementation should begin next year.

The plan is designed to prevent fires in the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest that might spread to the Cove area. Cove has been labeled high risk for fire because of the intermingling of homes and vegetation, potential fire behavior and existing fire protection capabilities.

The forest surrounding Cove has one of the highest wildfire rates in Oregon and Washington. Recent fires have included the Bridge Creek Fire, which burned 170 acres, in 2007 just north of Moss Springs, and the Big Sheep and Cougar Ridge fires that consumed approximately 4,000 acres in 2009. 

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