Governor, EPA weigh BLM logging plan

The EPA calls out the WOPR and the Governor urges a complete look as the comment period on the BLM plan ends.

Plans to almost triple logging on some Western Oregon public forests drew a negative response from the Environmental Protection Agency and concern from Oregon's governor as the window for commenting on the proposal closed.

Gov. Ted Kulongoski told the Bureau of Land Management that he expects the agency to create a sustainable timber harvest that complies with the Endangered Species Act, federal clean water standards and Oregon's conservation strategy.

The EPA, meanwhile, told the BLM that two of the three options outlined in the Western Oregon Plan Revision lack a sound scientific basis and would result in substantial long-term impacts to water quality.

A draft of the BLM proposal for revising the way it manages 2.2 million acres of forests from Portland to the California border has been available for public review since August. By late Friday afternoon, the agency had close to 25,000 comments.

Of the three options the agency described in its 1,700-page document, the BLM said it preferred the one that would narrow stream buffers, permit clear-cutting and harvest 717 million board feet annually.

That harvest has drawn the ire of environmentalists concerned about the loss of old growth forests and support from several counties that stand to receive 50 percent of the logging revenue.

The agency stopped accepting comments about its plan at midnight Friday and will now begin writing a final version.

Federal law requires the agency to respond in the final document to any substantive comments raised by the public and other local, state and federal agencies. A final draft should be completed sometime this summer. At that time the governor will be given an opportunity to review it to make sure it's consistent with state laws and policies.

In a letter to BLM Director Edward Shepard dated Jan. 10, Gov. Kulongoski listed 12 "co-equal and linked principles" that he expected the agency to use as it finalizes the forest management plan.

Among the principles the governor outlined: a predictable and sustainable harvest, support of salmon conservation plans and consistency with the federal Clean Water Act. The governor also called for robust monitoring to prove the validity of the plan, sufficient funding to implement it and strategies to improve carbon sequestration in BLM forests as a response to climate change.

The issue of water quality drew a 26-page response from the EPA, which noted that in two years of meetings with the BLM, its concerns had not been met.

"The concerns are heightened by what EPA believes to be the lack of a sound scientific basis for the aquatic/riparian strategy proposed in (two of the alternatives)," EPA region 10 ecosystems Director Michelle Pirzadeh wrote in a letter accompanying the agency's comments.

Narrowing the stream buffers could raise temperature and sediment in Oregon rivers and streams whose water quality already has been degraded, the EPA wrote.

Because more than 1 million Oregonians receive drinking water from watersheds on BLM land, the agency expressed particular concern about higher levels of disease-causing organisms in turbid water as well as the presence of harvest-related chemicals. "Higher turbidity and associated health problems can result in an acute health threat to the drinking water system users," the EPA noted. "Many treatment facilities are not designed to deal with turbidity spikes nor to remove the full spectrum of chemicals from drinking water."

BLM spokesman Michael Campbell said he had not had a chance to review the EPA's comments, one document among thousands arriving at the agency as the comment period wound down, but he defended the thoroughness and scope of the proposal.

"This process has been the result of the absolutely most comprehensive analysis on BLM lands in Western Oregon, and we stand by the science as being totally and absolutely rock solid," he said.