Logging plan gets one more review

BLM reverses course, allows for protest period on old-growth logging plan.

The Bureau of Land Management reversed itself this week and decided to allow a 30-day protest period for a broad new proposal that will increase logging in Western Oregon.

The Western Oregon Plan Revision, the result of a lawsuit settlement with the timber industry, has been in the works for several years. The BLM came out with a final version in October, and federal regulations require the agency to give people who have been involved in the planning process a month to raise questions or concerns about the proposal before it is adopted.

But when the BLM published the plan, agency officials said they would not allow a last round of public input. A handful of environmental groups filed a legal challenge last week in U.S. District Court in Portland.

That challenge prompted the agency to reconsider, said BLM spokesman Michael Campbell. The decision, made on Monday, came about after discussion among state Director Ed Shepard, BLM national Director Jim Caswell and Interior Department Assistant Secretary Stephen Allred, as well as several attorneys, Campbell said.

“We decided this is the most prudent way to move forward,” he said.

The new decision will be published in the Federal Register today. The protest period will run through Dec. 7, he said.

The decision confirms the agency’s interest in maintaining public involvement in the plan, said Shepard, the state director.

“Throughout this process we’ve been open and transparent with the public, and we wanted to make sure that this extended to the protest period as well,” Shepard said.

The BLM held more than 170 public meetings to make sure people had the opportunity to ask questions and express concerns about the proposal. The agency also expanded the original public comment period from two months to five months and posted the almost 30,000 comments it received online.

The environmental groups who filed last week’s complaint called Tuesday’s decision to reinstate the protest period a smart choice.

“It is of tremendous importance to Oregon citizens how these lands are managed, and to cut out public participation is a bad way to manage public resources,” said Kristen Boyles, an attorney with EarthJustice, which is representing the environmental groups.

The Western Oregon Plan Revision will increase logging on 2.2 million acres of Oregon forests. These forests were specifically designated by Congress in 1937 to be logged sustainably, with half the revenue going to the 18 counties where the forests are located. Logging diminished significantly on the lands starting in 1994 when the Northwest Forest Plan went into effect. That management regime estimated an annual harvest on BLM forests of 205 million board feet a year but actually only averaged 134 million board feet.

The new proposal will increase logging 335 percent. The oldest stands of trees will be protected from logging for 15 years.

The BLM expects to implement the Western Oregon Plan Revision by the end of the year. It is currently being reviewed by the governor’s office for consistency with state law.