Environmentalists, timber industry reach deal

Industry, community and conservation leaders this week reached a final agreement on the compromise to allow the Thorn and Egley fire salvage sales proceed in the Malheur National Forest.

Industry, community and conservation leaders this week reached a final agreement on the compromise to allow the Thorn and Egley fire salvage sales proceed in the Malheur National Forest.

The groups said the agreement will protect thousands of acres of potential wilderness while allowing harvest of timber that provides jobs in economically depressed Grant and Harney counties.

Environmental and timber industry officials talked for months to make the agreement, which 10 days of intense negotiations this month capped.

The agreement drew attention well beyond the boundaries of the two counties. Gov. Ted Kulongoski lauded the efforts. He said the participants' hard work means economic opportunity for areas that desperately need it. He also said he hopes this agreement will become "a model for future forest collaboration."

U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden called it a historic agreement that should stand as "an example of success through collaboration."

The conservation organizations Sierra Club, Oregon Wild, Cascadia Wildlands Project and Blue Mountains Biodiversity Project, and the timber industry's American Forest Resources Council inked the deal.

The conservation organizations had appealed the Thorn Fire Recovery Project, a salvage sale proposed in the Shake Table Fire Complex that burned in 2006 on the Malheur National Forest.

In the agreement, the conservation groups agreed to drop their appeals of the Thorn sale and forgo legal challenges to a project in the Egley Fire Complex. The Egley fire burned last summer, and industry officials have said litigation could delay the sale to the point the timber loses all value in the market. Under the agreement, the sale will proceed, but with a focus on hazard tree removal.

The agreement also protects unroaded lands in the sale area as well as more than 30,000 acres of old-growth in the Murderers Creek area, which environmental groups have long wanted protected as wilderness.

Karen Coulter, director of the Fossil-based Blue Mountains Biodiversity Project, noted the care with which participants considered site-specific ecological and social concerns. The agreement, she said, "protects substantial critical wildlife habitat while meeting some pressing economic and safety concerns of Grant County residents."

The agreement also paves the way for collaboration on a Healthy Forests Recovery Act project in Bear Valley, and a green thinning and forest improvement sale east of Austin Junction.

Conservation groups were pleased to gain commitments for protecting wildlife habitat in the fire areas.

"This landmark settlement protects rare ecologically intact areas that have never been logged," said Asante Riverwind, Eastern Oregon forest organizer for the Sierra Club. "Forests here have historically burned and naturally recovered in unbroken cycles spanning thousands of years, and support a wealth of native species biodiversity found in few places in the Blue Mountains."

Industry officials say the news comes at a critical time. Both Grant and Harney counties have seen sawmills close in the past year, and Malheur Lumber Company currently has workers on a furlough that is expected to Cassius Cash, acting supervisor of the Malheur National Forest, said the deal represents a landmark moment.

"I am glad that we were able ... to allow the appellants the time needed to craft an enduring agreement. I also want to acknowledge the supportive involvement of Grant County Judge Webb, Grant County Commissioner Britton, and State Sen. Ted Ferrioli as they encouraged the parties to find common ground."