BY CAMILLA MORTENSEN
THE BLM MANAGES
MORE THAN 2 MILLION
ACRES OF LAND IN
WESTERN OREGON
PHOTO: BLM
BLM’S NEW
FLAWED FOREST PLAN
L
ike a horror movie zombie, the logging plan for
about 2.5 million acres of Oregon’s public forests
known as the “Whopper” is back, and within days
of its Aug. 5 announcement, enviros and the timber
industry filed lawsuits against it.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is calling its
plan to cut 278 million board feet of timber per year off
Oregon’s federal forests “Resource Management Plans
(RMPs) for Western Oregon.” But Susan Jane Brown,
an attorney with the Western Environmental Law Center,
which together with Earthjustice is representing about 22
conservation groups in their lawsuit against the plan, calls
it “WOPR junior.”
The groups include in their argument that most of the
timber would come from clearcut logging, streamside
protections are cut in half or more and climate change is
not addressed seriously enough.
The WOPR, which stands for Western Oregon Plan
Revisions, was a logging plan for BLM lands that was
proposed in 2008 and after years of litigation, it died away
in 2012. The WOPR would have increased logging on old
forests by 400 percent. After the WOPR died, the BLM
returned to the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) for
forest management that had helped calm the “forest wars”
of the 1980s and ’90s.
“It is certainly serving to reignite some of the forest wars
most of us hoped had been put to bed by the Northwest
Forest Plan,” Brown says of the RMPs.
She tells EW, “These lands have already been squeezed
pretty hard; you can’t go back to that well endlessly.”
The American Forest Resources Council, a timber
• The Oregon Responsible Edibles Council announces
the launch of its initial public education campaign, “Try
5.” OREC, formed in late 2015, says it “is a non-profit trade
association of Oregon edible marijuana processors, with
a mission of educating the public regarding the safe and
responsible usage of edible marijuana products for adults 21
and over.” The Try 5 campaign “will be able to teach the public
about proper dosage levels and help prevent accidental over-
ingestion for consumers new to cannabis-infused edibles.”
It encourages people to “know your dose” and start with no
more than 5 mg of THC. To learn more about OREC and the Try
5 campaign go to orediblescouncil.com.
8
A ugust 18, 2016 • eugeneweekly.com
industry group suing because it wants more logging than
the RMPs call for, says the “BLM is capable of producing
400 million board feet of timber per year.”
According to the BLM, 81 percent of the lands it
administers in the planning area are Oregon and California
Railroad Revested Lands (O&C Lands). Logging on these
lands historically generated money for Oregon counties,
including Lane. Lane County Board of Commissioners
voted in February to join a lawsuit against the BLM with
the Association of O&C Counties. Commissioner Pete
Sorenson voted against it.
Doug Heiken of Oregon Wild, one of the conservation
groups suing over the plan, says, “Old-growth forests
deserve the highest level of protection, but BLM’s new
plan adopts a number of new loopholes and excuses that
will allow logging in ‘protected’ old forests.” He says that
the NWFP called for “rigorous science before allowing
such logging” but that research was “never started let alone
completed.”
Brown says the NWFP addressed the legal demands
of the Endangered Species Act and other laws that protect
species such as the northern spotted owl in a complex
way that the new plan does not. “Do we need to step up
conservation efforts?” she asks. “Possibly. But how to
do that and increase timber harvest by 37 percent?” The
Western Environmental Law Center says that the BLM’s
37-percent increase “could boost carbon emissions and
make the forest less resilient to climate change and other
disturbance.”
While climate change may not have been as looming
as a concern in the early ’90s as it is now, Brown says
the BLM’s new plan is “anemic” in its response to a
warming planet. “Those BLM forests are definitely carbon
sequesters” she says, with the “capacity to sequester lots
and lots of carbon, but where rubber meets the road is in
those big old trees.”
Sarah Levy, BLM spokeswoman for the RMPs, says
she cannot comment on the pending litigation, but in terms
of the plan itself, she says the RMPs are not WOPR Junior,
but an “entirely new plan.” On climate change, she points
to an analysis of the plan by the Interagency Working
Group on Social Cost of Carbon that she calls “complex”
and says the “BLM will increase net carbon 32 percent
over current levels.”
Brown also critiques the RMPs’ reduction of riparian
buffers, which limit how close to a stream trees can be cut
down. “The BLM is focused on shrinking riparian buffers
because under their view we don’t need larger buffers for
fish,” she says. Trees provide shade and woody debris that
keep water cool and provide habitat for salmon and other
species.
Levy says while “management direction for the riparian
reserves directs the BLM to protect fish and water, and
is silent on terrestrial species” such as salamanders,
“that doesn’t mean that terrestrial species don’t receive
protection.” She says findings of “no jeopardy” and
“not likely to adversely modify” biological opinions
from the Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine
Fisheries mean that “BLM is adequately protecting fish,
water and wildlife under this plan.”
Oregon’s lands need “more care and feeding” that they
would get under the RMPs, Brown says.
• On Sunday, Aug. 14, nonprofit BRING received notice
of suspicious individuals in the Seavey Loop area posing
as employees. BRING says, “The report indicated that two
men driving an older pickup had gone onto private property
and, when confronted, claimed to be soliciting materials
donations.” One man may have been wearing a shirt that
said BRING on it. “BRING employees do not solicit donations
from private individuals door-to-door or scout for materials
in residential neighborhoods,” nor does it use private
vehicles to haul large materials donations, the nonprofit
recycling group says. BRING asks anyone who observes
suspicious behavior to notify local law enforcement
agencies immediately.
• This summer marks local brewery Ninkasi’s 10-
year anniversary. In a June press release, Ninkasi said
that operating under its mission to “Perpetuate Better
Living,” the brewery “has grown from a two-man team
to become the 36th largest craft brewery in the United
States, operating entirely from its facilities in Eugene,
Oregon and employing more than 100 employees.” To
celebrate, Ninkasi released in July its N10, commemorative
Imperial Blended Ale, with a collectible outer box, and “the
iconographic artwork for N10 was crafted in collaboration
with Ninkasi’s in-house art department and Portland-based
muralist and artist, Blaine Fontana.” N10 is “crafted of 50
percent Imperial Stout, 10 percent Barrel-Aged Imperial
Stout, 12.5 percent Imperial Total Domination IPA, 12.5
percent Imperial Maiden the Shade IPA and 15 percent
Critical Hit Barleywine.” To read more about it, see “The
Label Makers” (6/30 issue) at bit.ly/2aSqMZu.