Wyden Brings Eastern OR Forest Bill to Bend

Senate field hearing explores all opinions on compromise eastern Oregon old-growth protection and restoration legislation.

Sen. Ron Wyden brings a touch of Congress to Bend today with a hearing on his "Oregon Eastside Forests Restoration, Old Growth Protection and Jobs Act." The legislation was introduced in Congress in December after more than a year of negotiations between timber companies and conservation groups.

According to Tim Lillebo, Eastern Oregon field representative in the Bend office of Oregon Wild, the bill would restore forests and still produce timber for the mills. It proposes shifting the Forest Service's role in six Eastern Oregon forests from overseeing timber sales to improving the health of trees and streams. And that, he says, would put people to work.

"This gives a legislative priority to doing this restoration, which we haven't had in the past. I think that definitely could speed up the restoration happening in these forests - and then, that can end up helping those communities, too."

The bill would appoint an expert panel to prioritize restoration projects on more than eight million acres of federal forestland, all east of the Cascades. It also would create new guidelines for managing national forests, including rules for conserving trees over 120 years old and not logging near streams, says Lillebo.

"The legislation would pass into law current protections for old-growth forests, streamside management areas, important salmon and steelhead streams. Those are things that are just policy now, but this would actually legislate them so that we would have that long-term protection for those resources."

Oregon Wild has also released a new poll in which 75 percent of people surveyed in Eastern Oregon and 77 percent statewide said they would support the bill. Not all timber companies agree, however, and the hearing will give Sen. Wyden a chance to find out if there is organized opposition. The hearing today is at 1:00 p.m., Deschutes County Services Bldg., 1300 N.W. Wall, Bend.