PORTLAND, Ore. (CN) — The Bureau of Land Management's plan to stop logging on nearly all its old-growth forest in western Oregon and increase its timber harvest elsewhere satisfies neither environmentalists nor the rural counties that depend on dwindling logging revenue, both of whom have promised to sue if the BLM does not make key changes.
The draft proposal is the BLM's first update to the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan to add the latest science, policies and laws from the past two decades to its plan for 2.4 million acres of forest it controls in western Oregon.
The plan would increase logging in western Oregon by 37 percent, but in more restricted areas. It would make nearly all old-growth BLM forest off-limits to logging and increase the protected forest reserves to 75 percent of the bureau's holdings.
Rural counties say the plan will produce only half the timber they want.
Environmentalists say it allows too much clear-cutting and logging too close to streams.
The 1994 Northwest Forest Plan brought a temporary cease fire to timber wars in the Pacific Northwest. With logging at a standstill because of new rules to protect the spotted owl, President Bill Clinton forced discussions between environmentalists, loggers and government agencies that resulted in the sweeping management plan. Since then, vociferous disagreements have kept the plan from ever being overhauled.
The BLM manages millions of acres known as the O&C Lands in a checkerboard across the western half of Oregon. Congress put the land in the hands of the Oregon and California Railroad Company in the 1860s, but took it back in 1916 because the company was unable to sell all the land to settlers.
The O&C Act of 1937 directs the BLM to manage the O&C Lands as watersheds that regulate stream flow for salmon and as permanent timber production land for rural counties whose tax base is reduced by large swaths of federal land.
Those two opposing directives have created continuous controversy about how to manage the land. A 2008 effort to update the Northwest Forest Plan was shelved when it didn't pass an endangered species review.
Lines Drawn for a New Battle
On one side of the fence, 17 of the rural counties affected by the new plan say they will sue the BLM if it doesn't boost the timber harvest. They say the bureau is legally required to share timber revenue to supplement their atrophied economies. Without their historical logging income, the counties are struggling to keep their jails open and provide basic services such as 24-hour emergency service.
Rocky McVay, executive director of the Association of O&C Counties, which represents all 18 counties affected by the new plan, told Courthouse News the government acts like an absentee landowner.
The federal government owns a major portion of the land in many of the counties in western Oregon. The counties can't tax the millions of acres of federal forests, but still must provide services they cannot afford: such as fighting wildfires, searching for and rescuing tourists and maintaining access roads.
"Counties can't budget for services without any assurances from Congress that there will be money coming in," McVay said.
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