Capital press., August 10, 2018, Page 9, Image 9

August 10, 2018
CapitalPress.com
9
Public now has until Aug. 28 to file objections
PLAN from Page 1
on a wide range of environ-
mental, social and economic
factors.
The public now has un-
til Aug. 28 to file objections,
kicking off another 90-day
resolution period. Only groups
and individuals who have
previously established legal
standing can file objections.
Once that is complete, the
Northwest regional forester
in Portland will sign off on a
record of decision.
Jim Pena, the previous re-
gional forester in Portland,
retired July 3. The Forest Ser-
vice has not yet named his re-
placement.
In general, forest super-
visors for the Umatilla, Wal-
lowa-Whitman and Malheur
said the plans strive for more
active management to im-
prove forest health and reduce
George Plaven/Capital Press
the risk of the large and dan- Todd Nash, a rancher and Wallowa County commissioner, looks at a map showing grazing allotments
gerous wildfires plaguing the within the Wallowa Valley Ranger District of the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest. The areas in green
show active allotments, while the areas in pink are vacant allotments and the areas in yellow are
West.
Part of that is doubling the closed allotments.
annual timber harvest across
with the American Forest Re-
all three forests from a recent
source Council in Portland,
average of 101 million board-
agreed the plan does not pro-
feet to 205 million board-
vide a clear enough direction
feet. Between forest prod-
ucts, livestock and recreation,
for timber harvests that would
the Forest Service estimates
maintain the mill infrastruc-
ture in Eastern Oregon.
the revised Blue Mountains
“It’s not a directional docu-
Forest Plan will create up to
ment, like a forest plan should
1,173 new jobs and $59.5
be,” Fite said. “There’s no get-
million in added income in
ting from A to B in there.”
the region.
Warness said that all
Fite said the organization is
sounds good, but she — and
still reviewing all 5,000 pages
others — question how the
of documents, but is “seriously
Forest Service will achieve
considering” filing an objec-
tion.
E.J. Harris/EO Media Group
such ambitious numbers.
“The plan itself is fairly Freshly cut timber is stacked in the yard at Boise Cascade’s Elgin,
“So many mills have
vague in their desired future Ore., plywood mill.
closed, and the level of timber
conditions as to what they’re
that’s being processed in East-
trying to achieve on the land- three forests,” Beverlin said.
that is going to provide some ern Oregon is just a fraction of
scape,” Warness said. “I think
The Forest Plan itself does additional funding across the what it used to be,” Fite said.
that is causing a lot of frustra- not make any decisions on spe- Forest Service to address some “What we have now is a level
tion for a lot of people who cific projects, but it does estab- of these critical issues,” Bev- of infrastructure that is really a
lish the sideboards for future erlin said. “So we’re excited minimum for what the Forest
have been highly involved.”
work, setting goals and desired about that.”
Service will need to manage
Long overdue
conditions on the landscape.
the landscape for forest health
Timber harvest
Forest plans are gener- The overarching goals are eco-
and fire resilience.”
ally updated every 10 to 15 logical integrity and economic
One oft-cited issue is the
Livestock grazing
years, though the current Blue and social well-being, lead- sheer amount of timber and
The national forests are
Mountains Forest Plan was ing into guidelines on timber, undergrowth building up in
adopted in 1990. The revi- grazing, access, wilderness, the forests, feeding ever-larger likewise critical for Eastern
sion process, which started in recreation and other uses.
wildfires such as the 110,000- Oregon ranchers, who are a
2003, has lasted as long as the
To fully implement Al- acre Canyon Creek Complex vital cog in the region’s econ-
ternative E-Modified, the near John Day in 2015.
omy.
plan it will produce.
A draft of the plan was Forest Service estimates it
John Williams, a recent-
Warness, with Boise Cas-
released in 2014, though it would need an annual budget cade, said the Umatilla, Wal- ly retired livestock agent for
was universally panned by of $78.5 million, which is $6 lowa-Whitman and Malheur Oregon State University Ex-
the Eastern Oregon counties million more than recent allo- forests grow about 800 million tension in Wallowa County,
and environmental and indus- cations. Beverlin said he does board-feet of timber every said local agriculture is a $60
try groups. The Forest Service not expect funding to increase, year, of which approximate- million a year business, and
received more than 4,300 com- but he pointed to several oth- ly 400 million board-feet — the vast majority comes from
ments, nearly all of them neg- er agency-wide initiatives that enough for 30,000 houses — is raising cattle.
ative.
will help do work quickly and left to deteriorate.
“It’s the economic base for
In 2015, the agency de- more efficiently.
As a result, Warness said our county,” Williams said.
cided to re-engage the public,
For starters, Beverlin said the situation has compound- “We want to produce as much
holding a series of meetings the Forest Service is looking ed over the last 20 years and as we can.”
to hear concerns and ideas. to tweak how it reviews proj- left the woods severely over-
Alternative
E-Modified
Officials developed two new ects under the National Envi- stocked and prone to massive does call for potentially adding
plan alternatives, including ronmental Policy Act, putting wildfires, as well as insect and 51,600 animal unit months, or
the latest preferred alternative, crews to work faster while disease outbreaks.
AUMs, associated with vacant
avoiding costly lawsuits.
“We believe that logging is allotments for livestock across
dubbed “E-Modified.”
Steve Beverlin, the Mal-
Congress also recently an important tool that can be the three forests. An AUM
heur National Forest super- passed legislation ending the used on this landscape,” War- describes the amount of for-
visor based in John Day, said practice of “fire borrowing,” in ness said.
age one cow and her calf, one
Doubling timber harvest horse or five sheep or goats
E-Modified should lead to an which the Forest Service took
overall increase in the pace money from its fire prevention would provide some certainty would eat during a month.
and scale of restoration across programs to pay for fighting for the industry, Warness said,
Todd Nash, a longtime
the forests, working with lo- wildfires. Wildfires will now but the plan does not offer any rancher and a Wallowa County
cal partners and collaborative be covered under a $2 billion guarantees the Forest Service commissioner, remains skep-
groups.
will be able to meet those tar- tical whether that will come
federal disaster fund.
“I think those opportunities
to fruition. He said the plan
“The fire funding fix is gets each year.
are really interwoven across all coming on board next year, so
Lawson Fite, an attorney lends itself to more stagnation,
Blue Mountains Forest Plan
Revision changes under review
The U.S. Forest Service released its final environmental impact
statement for the Blue Mountains Forest Plan Revision in June,
selecting Alternative E-Modified as its preferred alternative.
Current Alternative
(no change) E-Modified
Item
Miles of road maintained annually
Animal unit months, grazing
Timber volume (million board feet)
Annual forest restoration* (acres)
Jobs created †
Income † (millions of dollars)
*Tree thinning, treatment
† Timber,
2,023
242,800
79
52,702
1,647
$54
2,212
294,400
205
69,200
2,820
$113.5
Percent
change
9.3%
21.3
159.5
31.3
71.2
110.2
livestock and recreation
Source: U.S. Forest Service
Capital Press graphic
and appears to favor vacant
grazing allotments as “grass
banks,” rather than issuing
new grazing permits.
At the same time, grazing
restrictions continue to get
tighter for riparian protections
and threatened plant species,
Nash said. He specifical-
ly mentioned a lawsuit filed
in January to block grazing
around Spalding’s catchfly, a
summer-blooming member of
the carnation family, on 44,000
acres within the Hells Canyon
National Recreation Area.
“Cattle are always pointed
at as the villain,” Nash said.
“We think that they have a
role here in Wallowa County,
one of which is reducing fine
fuels availability. ... All the fire
managers will tell you that fine
fuels, a.k.a. grasses, are what
carry the flames.”
Matt McElligott, owner of
LM Ranch in North Powder
and public lands chairman of
the Oregon Cattlemen’s As-
sociation, said ranchers made
significant progress on easing
some restrictions in the plan
last year. Watershed health
is now linked to trends in in-
dividual allotments, he said,
which in turn dictate graz-
ing standards such as stubble
height and stream bank alter-
ations.
“What they had placed in
there earlier, it wasn’t going
to work,” McElligott said.
“It was just too restrictive for
grazing.”
McElligott said he does still
worry that biological opinions
for endangered fish issued by
federal agencies will super-
sede the Forest Plan. One such
opinion on the Malheur Na-
tional Forest, he said, is “more
anti-grazing than anything else
I’ve read.”
“I’d like for the Blue
Mountains plan to be the plan
that everybody runs under,”
McElligott said.
Access, wilderness
On the other hand, some
environmental groups say the
plan places too much empha-
sis on resource extraction, and
does not do enough to protect
old-growth trees and wildlife.
Doug Heiken, conserva-
tion and restoration coordi-
nator for the Portland-based
Oregon Wild, said untouched
wilderness areas have be-
come increasingly fragment-
ed over the years, and the
Forest Plan now overempha-
sizes logging and grazing at
the expense of habitat.
“We’re really afraid the
Forest Service is going to lose
sight of the entire reason we
had protections for these large
trees,” Heiken said. “That’s
especially important in light
of climate change. Those trees
are big reservoirs for carbon.”
Species such as wolves,
goshawks, pileated woodpeck-
ers and Endangered Species
Act-listed fish would all do
better in greater unmanaged
wilderness, he said. He agreed
there is a need for more active
forest management, but argued
that should take the form of
thinning, using fire as a man-
agement tool when the weath-
er is favorable, and perhaps
most controversially, closing
roads.
“Nobody needs all of those
roads,” Heiken said. “We do
need reasonable access to
our forests, obviously. ... We
can have reasonable access to
lands and still conserve our
water quality, conserve our
salmon and save our big game
from disturbances.”
Road closures remain a
major source of contention
in the plan. The three forests
have a combined 23,421 miles
of roads, while the projected
annual maintenance of roads
is just 2,007 miles, creating a
backlog of maintenance needs.
The Forest Service has re-
peatedly said the plan does
not close any roads, and those
decisions will be made at a
project-specific level. How-
ever, Bruce Dunn, a forester
for RY Timber in Joseph and
a Wallowa County commis-
sioner-elect, said the plan does
set the stage for roads to be
closed, cutting off a vital link
to residents’ way of life —
from wildlife viewing to ac-
cessing firewood and picking
mushrooms and berries.
“You add all that together,
and that’s why we have this
opposition to it,” he said. “I
think this is going to be a big
thing when we get back into
travel management.”
The Forest Service said it
received its first two objec-
tions to the plan last week.
Beverlin said the agency
looks forward to working
with the public to bring the
plan across the finish line and
start accelerating restoration
in the forests.
“We’re optimistic we’re
going to be able to do that
across the Blues,” Beverlin
said.
Conaway doesn’t foresee much change to crop insurance in farm bill
NAFTA from Page 1
Speeding up the process is need-
ed, he said.
“To move forward is something
we want to see,” Harris said. “If we
stall out these agreements, it just
exacerbates the problems, especial-
ly when we look at our trade into
Mexico with the current structure
of new tariffs that have been placed
on frozen french fries because of the
breakdown in communication in the
original NAFTA renegotiations.”
Retired wheat farmer Randy
Suess asked why Trump and the
U.S. don’t use World
Trade Organization
trade dispute process-
es to address unfair
trade issues against
the country more of-
ten, particular with
Rep. Michael China.
Conaway
Previous adminis-
trations have worked
as though the U.S. should be an
example in trade for the rest of the
world, Conaway said.
“China cheats, and this presi-
dent’s going after them,” he said.
“I’m encouraged that we’ve got a
president now who’s willing to fight
to try to enforce our trade deals. We
all (learned) in school to stand up
to a bully, and sometimes the bully
punches back. That’s what’s happen-
ing.”
Conaway understands that ag
representatives can find China’s re-
taliation “unsettling,” but said it’s the
right move for Trump to make.
“It’s the right fight to have,”
Conaway said. “I think President
Trump’s much more amenable to go-
ing after folks like this. There’s a lot
in play right now, and we also don’t
know what’s going on behind the
scenes. (Wife Suzanne) and I raised
four children: Spank one, and the oth-
er three got real perfect for a while.”
Trump also told ag committee
leaders that he wanted “bigger, bet-
ter” and “great” crop insurance,
Conaway said.
Conaway doesn’t foresee much
change to crop insurance in the farm
bill.
Conaway told the ag leaders he
was “beyond compelled” to finishing
the Farm Bill on time, by the Sept.
30 deadline, to provide farmers with
certainty.
“I’m moving heaven and earth,”
he said. “I know how hard things
right now are in their world. They’ve
burned through equity, they’ve burned
through capacity to stay in the fight
(through) these long, extended periods
of low commodity prices. We’re try-
ing to get a farm bill done as quickly
as possible so that at least we can take
that unknown off the table for them by
the end of September.”
Other topics during the breakfast
meeting included commercial long-
haul driver hour requirements, la-
bor, the Columbia River Treaty, rural
broadband needs and research priori-
ties.
‘This is what the market has needed to see. It’s a step in the right direction’
WHEAT from Page 1
“They were there maybe a
month, and when they fell off;
it was an epic collapse,” said
Dan Steiner, grain merchant for
Morrow County Grain Grow-
ers in Boardman, Ore. “I don’t
expect it to come anywhere
close to that.”
Back then, world stocks
were about 122 million metric
tons. Today, the USDA esti-
mates world stocks at about
260 million metric tons, Steiner
said.
“We’re not running out of
wheat globally, but we are re-
ducing supplies,” said Darin
Newsom, commodity market
consultant in Omaha, Neb.
“This is what the market has
needed to see. It’s a step in the
right direction and the markets
are certainly reacting to that.”
In the last two weeks, grain
speculators purchased more
than 250 million bushels on the
futures market in Chicago and
200 million bushels in Kansas
City, Steiner said. But the rally
isn’t driven by demand, he said.
“We’re not selling any more
wheat,” Steiner said. “Our sales
have been rather pathetic, actu-
ally.”
Wheat sales are about 115
million bushels behind last
year’s sales, he said.
The USDA projected being
ahead on sales. Steiner said
wheat sales need to increase by
at least a third just to catch up
with USDA projections.
The $6 per bushel price
range for winter wheat is a
“pretty tough ceiling,” for the
Chicago and Kansas City mar-
ket, Newsom said. Soft red
winter wheat is priced at $5.65
per bushel to $5.70 per bushel
in Chicago.
“It’s going to be hard to
push it higher, but not impossi-
ble given the momentum we’ve
got right now,” he said. “We
could push up a little past $6
this time around.”
Newsom said farmers may
want to sell any wheat they
have on hand if they see nearby
futures prices approaching $6
per bushel.
Krueger recommends farm-
ers hang onto their wheat, or
replace some of their sold
wheat with call options on the
Chicago market.
Steiner still expects soft
white wheat prices to move
higher after harvest and into
the winter, especially if Aus-
tralia’s competing wheat crop
continues to struggle.
“There’s still plenty of
room for this thing to go high-
er,” he said. “It just depends
how high speculators want to
take it.”