REGION
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2022
THE OBSERVER — A3
Stakeholders seek consensus for forest management
BIC completes
desired conditions
for long delayed
Blue Mountain
forest plan
tional set-asides, they still
have to go through the anal-
ysis to get to that point and
make that recommendation.
The fi nal draft of the
desired condition was to
understand that the forest
service has to evaluate the
suitability and eligibility
through the forest planning
process for future set-asides.
That said, the subcom-
mittee does not see the
need for any additions to
set-asides.
By STEVEN MITCHELL
Blue Mountain Eagle
JOHN DAY — Groups
that have long been at odds
on forest management issues
have reached a consensus on
goals and desired conditions
that will frame how the U.S.
Forest Service drafts land
management plans on three
national forests in North-
eastern Oregon and South-
eastern Washington.
At a meeting on Jan. 25,
the access subcommittee of
the Blue Mountains Inter-
governmental Council —
or BIC for short — sub-
mitted its fi nal rule and
desired conditions to the full
council.
The Forest Service
formed the BIC, made up of
county offi cials, tribal mem-
bers and other stakeholders
from the Blue Mountain
region, after the agency’s
proposed 2018 manage-
ment plan revision fi zzled
in the face of intense public
scrutiny.
The three national forests
covered by the management
plan — the Umatilla, Wal-
lowa-Whitman and Malheur
— are collectively known
as the Blue Mountain Forest
and make up a third of Ore-
gon’s national forest land.
Each forest has its indi-
vidual resource and man-
agement plans, with desired
conditions and goals spelled
out. While the plans do not
dictate project-level deci-
sions, the desired conditions
will form a foundation for
the broader guidelines sur-
rounding key issues such as
forest access, elk security,
forest health and grazing
when the Forest Service
begins the process of revising
its management plan for the
Blue Mountain Forest.
Craig Trulock, Mal-
heur National Forest super-
visor, said he is not sure
when the revision process
would begin. However, he
said a proposal has been for-
warded to U.S. Forest Ser-
vice headquarters in Wash-
ington, D.C., to put a team
together to begin drafting
the revision.
From the beginning, Tru-
lock said, the idea was to
seek compromise and solu-
tions on as many issues as
possible.
“I think we made huge
progress with the BIC on
understanding each other,”
Baker’s minority report
Blue Mountain Eagle, File
Management of Strawberry Mountain, in the Malheur National Forest, is included in the Forest Service’s Blue Mountain forest plan.
Trulock said.
The Forest Service’s 2018
management plan revision,
which was drafted before
Trulock was named Mal-
heur’s supervisor, received
intense backlash. The plan
called for an increase in
thinning dry upland forests
to improve wildfi re resil-
ience while doubling the
current timber harvest and
designating 70,500 acres of
new wilderness.
The Eastern Oregon
Counties Association,
to which Grant belongs,
listed eight main objec-
tions, including economics;
access; management area
designation; pace and scale
of restoration; grazing; fi re
and salvage logging; coor-
dination between agencies;
and wildlife.
The counties argued the
agency’s plan would close
roads and limit livestock
grazing while failing to
thin enough of the woods to
boost timber jobs or lower
the risk of large wildfi res.
The BIC subcommittee
revised the list of conditions
pertaining to a number of
key issues, including access,
elk security, wilderness and
other set-asides.
Forest access
In its fi nal draft docu-
ment of desired conditions,
the BIC’s access subcom-
mittee wrote forest access
was the most contentious
topic during the 2018 forest
plan revision process.
Committee member Bill
Harvey said the forest roads
have been used by people
in rural areas for 75 to 80
years.
Harvey, a Baker County
commissioner, said people
have lived, worked and
played in the Blue Moun-
tains their whole lives.
“Why, in God’s name,”
Harvey said, “would we
want to take that right
away?”
Public use
The group writes that
the public desires to be well
informed on forest access. It
want the agency to provide
an up-to-date and compre-
hensive inventory of all forest
roads and the status of those
roads.
This was an important
desired condition for subcom-
mittee member Mark Owens,
a state representative from
Crane, who told the Eagle
last year that he understands
certain areas have wilder-
ness or wildlife designations
restricting motorized vehicle
access.But he wanted to learn
what roads are open and what
roads are closed and why they
are closed.
He said he wanted to see
which roads were closed
through the National Envi-
ronmental Policy Act and
which roads were closed
by the Forest Service
administratively.
“If they’re closed through
NEPA, we really can’t get
it back open unless we go
through NEPA, but if you’re
closed administratively, then
those are open for a conversa-
tion on the subject,” he said.
According to the fi nal
document, “use restriction of
a road previously reviewed
and approved through the
NEPA process should be
clearly and eff ectively posted
for the public and refl ected on
updated maps.”
Elk security
The group writes that
forest road and trail system
use, density and habitat con-
ditions may have some neg-
ative eff ects on wildlife in
general and specifi cally on
elk distribution.
The desired condition is
that habitat is managed to
provide a balance of ade-
quate nutritional resources,
cover, and human distur-
bance regimes that wen-
courage elk to remain on
public lands. Collaboration
and coordination occur that
benefi ts these desired future
conditions by addressing the
many other factors such as
predation, hunting, and pri-
vate land practices that also
eff ect elk distribution while
providing year-round recre-
ational and cultural oppor-
tunities and limiting agri-
cultural damage on private
lands.
User-created routes
The desired condition is
to establish objective criteria
for user-created routes, such
as evaluating historical maps
and aerial imagery to deter-
mine if the agency should
include the forest system.
The routes would be eval-
uated and analyzed at the
project level for social, cul-
tural, historical, economic,
habitat and environmental
concerns while, at a min-
imum, seeking to ensure
access in the general area.
The evaluation would
coordinate with local and
tribal governments with
ample public notice and
involvement through the
NEPA process. As a result,
the public and groups that
frequent the routes would be
well informed and allowed
to comment on changes in
management actions.
Wilderness, habitat and
set-asides
Last year the subcom-
mittee asked the Forest
Service’s Dennis Dough-
erty, a recreation planner,
Nick Goldstein, a regional
planner, and Trulock about
the process of recom-
mending set-asides within a
forest plan.
Dougherty talked about
the diffi culties during the
2018 plan revision. However,
he told the group his biggest
takeaway was complying
and comporting each com-
ponent with the overarching
forest plan.
Dougherty said it is
important to remember the
forest plan does not desig-
nate motorized usage on
forest roads. Instead, those
provisions come from the
travel management plan.
He also told the group
that some areas are statu-
torily designated. Also, he
said, Congress identifi es cer-
tain set-asides as well.
He explained a Forest
Service document, the “suit-
ability-rating table,” used
during the last revision,
which lists management
areas, activities, land allo-
cations and designations
that the forest can use to
make access and land-use
recommendations.
Dougherty said he recog-
nized the framework as cum-
bersome and complicated
because of the plan amend-
ments over the years. How-
ever, he said it is the Forest
Service’s general approach
to determining land uses.
The Forest Service’s Tom
Montoya said these admin-
istrative recommendations
go through a review process
under the National Environ-
mental Policy Act.
Trulock said the goal
was to come to a collec-
tive understanding about
the Forest Service’s process:
Even if there are no addi-
Baker County Com-
missioner Bill Harvey sub-
mitted a minority report
disagreeing with the BIC
access subcommittee’s fi nal
draft of the desired condi-
tions document.
Harvey writes that spe-
cial interest groups, agen-
cies, and tribes disregarded
forest management prin-
ciples the Eastern Oregon
Counties Association com-
piled in a 2019 document
throughout the subcom-
mittee meetings. Mean-
while, Harvey noted that this
let other counties make too
many concessions.
Harvey writes that Baker
submitted several edited
versions of desired condi-
tions, and the subcommittee
off ered “minimal regard” for
the county’s input.
Local governments know
their counties best, Harvey
writes.
“And it’s ridiculous to
be overridden by com-
mittee members that have
no authority or knowledge
of what is best for the citi-
zens of this county,” Harvey
added.
Trulock said that the
BIC’s charter allows for the
submission of the minority
report.
Ultimately, he said, the
Forest Service would have
to make decisions through
the forest planning eff ort,
which will include alterna-
tive drafts and a public com-
ment period.
Grant County Com-
missioners Jim Hamsher
and Sam Palmer, who both
served on the BIC, said they
knew there would need to be
compromises.
“You’re never going
to everything you want,”
Palmer said. Palmer said
he was happy that all of the
entities began working with
each other early in the pro-
cess, which, he said, did not
happen in 2018.
“We brought all the agen-
cies up to the table at the
front end instead of the back
end,” Palmer said. “In two
years we had a product when
before they had one that got
scrapped after 15 years.”
DEQ announces new leadership in Eastern Region, Water Quality Program
The Observer
SALEM — The Oregon
Department of Environ-
mental Quality in a recent
press release announced it
has new leadership in its
Water Quality Program and
Eastern Region offi ces.
Jennifer Wigal is the
new Water Quality Program
administrator, replacing
Justin Green, who left DEQ
to pursue other interests; and
Shannon Davis is the Eastern
Region administrator,
replacing Linda Hayes-
Gorman, who is retiring
from the agency.
The two administrators
come from within the man-
agerial ranks at DEQ and
bring a wealth of experience
to their new jobs.
Davis has led the Life-
cycle Programs Team in
DEQ’s Materials Man-
agement Division for the
past four years. The pro-
gram studies environmental
impact of the full lifespan of
materials and products, from
manufacture to disposal.
Davis has worked in
the materials management
fi eld for 15 years. In addi-
tion to her work at DEQ, she
has tackled environmental
issues for the U.S. Environ-
mental Protection Agency,
the state of Arizona and in
the halls of Congress. While
at EPA, she contributed to
national materials manage-
ment policy development and
co-led the West Coast Cli-
mate and Materials Manage-
ment Forum.
Hosted by the
Island City Lions
Club
As director of Arizona
DEQ’s waste programs and
Pima County’s air quality
program, Davis focused on
environmental policy devel-
opment and implementation.
She also served three elected
offi cials, including chief of
staff to a member of the U.S.
House of Representatives.
She also had the privilege
of supporting indigenous
communities throughout the
Southwest in the stewardship
eff orts of their land.
Wigal has more than 20
years’ experience working in
water quality programs at the
state and federal level. She’s
been at Oregon DEQ since
2008, and most recently
served as Water Quality
deputy administrator.
In her tenure at DEQ,
she’s held several roles within
the Water Quality Program,
including managing Ore-
gon’s Water Quality Stan-
dards Program and the Water
Quality Assessments Pro-
gram. Prior to DEQ, she built
her expertise in water quality
programs at EPA head-
quarters, working in water
Locked & Loaded
2022
Gunshow
La Grande
Sat. March 12 • 9 to 5 & Sun. March 13 • 9 to 1
@ the Blue Mountain Conference Center • 404 12th Street
Background checks will run and ATM on site.
Breakfast and lunch to be served Saturday.
In Memory of Shelia Evans who did so much for our community.
Sponsors & Vendors call Kayla at 541.786.7210
quality standards and per-
mitting. Wigal also has held
national leadership positions,
including serving as the
president (2017-18) and vice
president (2016-17) of the
Association of Clean Water
Administrators.
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