Government scientists look askance at an administration logging proposal for Oregon's Coast Range

The plan is faulted on various counts, including underestimating the possible environmental damage.

A Bush administration proposal to accelerate logging in Oregon's Coast Range faces new criticism by the government's own scientists, who say the plan probably underestimates the environmental harm it would do and may exaggerate how much timber could actually be cut.

The scientists, including state and federal experts on forests, fish, wildlife and economics, also said the logging blueprint issued last year by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management did not use the most recent and relevant science on subjects such as wildlife habitat and water quality.

The blueprint affects about 2.5 million acres of federally managed forestland rich in timber and wildlife. Logging in the region dropped sharply more than a decade ago amid extra protection for such species as the northern spotted owl and marbled murrelet, and coastal counties have pressed to push logging levels back up.

The Bush administration struck a 2003 legal deal with the timber industry to look at eliminating permanent wildlife reserves on the land -- a move that would promote more logging. The BLM issued a draft proposal advancing that approach last year and asked the panel of state and federal scientists to review it.

The opinion of the scientists, posted on a BLM Web site about a week ago, fills nearly 100 pages and is very critical. It suggests that the BLM used simplistic models to examine the effects of logging on fish and wildlife habitat, and generally ignored major environmental issues such as climate change, which could contribute to more wildfires that leave fewer trees to cut.

The lands in question are a special category of federal lands that carry a mandate for timber production.

But the scientists said the BLM's new logging plan, known as the Western Oregon Plan Revisions, may be overestimating the amount of timber that could be cut, painting a unrealistic picture for cash-strapped counties anxious for sawmills to crank up and timber dollars to flow again. Similar plans have fallen short before: Neither the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan nor the Oregon Department of Forestry's logging blueprint for the Tillamook and Clatsop state forests turned out as much timber as expected.

While the BLM assumes more than 200,000 acres of forest would be fertilized during the first decade of the plan to speed growth of trees, the reality is that "very little fertilization is occurring in western Oregon's forests and has not for years," the scientists said.

The scientists contributing to the comments included representatives of the U.S. Forest Service's Pacific Northwest Research Station, U.S. Geological Survey, National Marine Fisheries Service, Oregon Department of Environmental Quality and Oregon Department of Forestry.

Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., blasted the BLM in a press release issued late Thursday for not alerting the public to the critical comments earlier. "The BLM leaves the impression that it didn't want this report to be widely known anytime soon," said DeFazio, whose congressional district includes much of the area affected by the plan.

Michael Campbell, a BLM spokesman in Portland, said the BLM received a draft copy of the comments in early February and met with the scientists later that month. He said the scientists gave the BLM a final copy of their report in early March.

After BLM officials reviewed that copy, the agency posted it unchanged on the BLM Web site a week ago.

Campbell said the BLM would take the scientific criticism into account while assembling the final version of the new logging proposal. He stressed, however, that science is not the only factor the BLM must consider in reaching a final decision, expected this fall. Since the lands involved have been designated for timber production, so the BLM must also consider social and economic factors, he said.

The scientists' comments are available online at www.blm.gov/or/plans/wopr/files/Science_Team_Review_DEIS.pdf.

Michael Milstein: 503-294-7689; michaelmilstein@ news.oregonian.com