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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (April 27, 2017)
3A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, APRIL 27, 2017 Split vote advances Brown’s nominees for environmental panel By PETER WONG Capital Bureau AP Photo/Rick Bowmer The Dollar Lake fire smolders in 2011 near Laurance Lake on Mount Hood. notforsale Fires, low timber revenues plague Forestry Department The agency spent more than it took in By CLAIRE WITHYCOMBE Capital Bureau SALEM — Harsh fire sea- sons and lower than expected revenues from timber harvests have and may continue to put state forests in a tough financial spot, according to the Oregon Department of Forestry. The agency’s state forest pro- gram, as of late January, spent more than it realized in revenue during the ongoing two-year budget period. And the agency says the state’s Forest Develop- ment Fund, which funds state forests, will go into the red start- ing in 2022. Previous projec- tions estimated that could hap- pen in 2020. The head of the agency’s administrative services divi- sion told the Board of For- estry Wednesday that there are several other budget issues to “watch out” for, including low- er-than-expected revenues from harvests of timber and other for- est products. Timber harvest tax reve- nues are about 9 percent lower than projected when the state was crafting its budget in 2015, due in part to a downturn in the Asian market in the interven- ing months, according to Satish Upadhyay, head of the Depart- ment of Forestry’s administra- tive services division and the chief financial officer for the agency. And due to large wildfires in Oregon in 2013, 2014 and 2015, the amount of accounts receiv- able — essentially, money the agency has spent and is wait- ing to have reimbursed by other entities — is substantial. “We have a huge amount of accounts receivable,” Upadhyay told the board. The amount is currently about $92 million, Upadhyay said, with about $80 million in costs incurred due to fires. The single largest entity that needs to reimburse the department is the Federal Emergency Man- agement Agency, which owes the state about $40 million to $45 million, but there are sev- eral technical hurdles to leap before the state receives that money. In the event that the depart- ment doesn’t have enough cash on hand, it has a line of credit with the state treasurer. “We’ve been using that quite a bit lately,” said Upadhyay. The current two-year budget for the agency approved by the Legislature is about $432 mil- lion. Most of the department’s revenue comes from other funds, such as timber sales, although about 21 percent comes from the state’s general fund. Gov. Kate Brown has pro- posed a $349 million over- all budget for the department for the next two years. That decrease from $432 million is due in large part to the cost of unusually large wildfires. However, in the face of a $1.6 billion gap between expected revenues and the costs of maintaining existing services, the Legislature may reduce the department’s expected bud- get further by cutting back on expenses in some of the Depart- ment of Forestry’s programs. Meanwhile, though, the department says it is making progress on implementing sug- gestions made by the Secretary of State’s Office in an audit last year. The audit found several sig- nificant issues: recent harsh fire seasons taxed Department of Forestry personnel and took away from the agency’s other programs. Auditors recom- mended the agency conduct long-range workforce plan- ning, better evaluate whether its fire prevention and detec- tion measures were effective, and increase its fire mitigation efforts. But Doug Grafe, head of the agency’s fire protection divi- sion, said things were trending in the right direction. “We’re in a very good place,” Grafe told the Board of Forestry Wednesday. The Capital Bureau is a col- laboration between EO Media Group and Pamplin Media Group. Seaside man in standoff accepts plea deal By JACK HEFFERNAN The Daily Astorian The Seaside man involved in a standoff with police in Jan- uary reached a plea deal ear- lier this month with the Clat- sop County District Attorney’s Office, agreeing to supervised probation. Brian Wallin, 49, locked himself inside his home on Whispering Pines Drive for nearly 64 hours. He fired a number of shots before surren- dering to police. Wallin’s mother exited the home uninjured shortly after the standoff began. He shot and killed the family dog during the standoff. Wallin was later indicted on six counts of unlawful use of a weapon, seven counts of reck- lessly endangering another person and one count of first degree aggravated animal abuse. He pleaded no contest to one count of unlawful use of a weapon, one count of aggra- vated animal abuse in the first degree and two counts of reck- lessly endangering another person. In addition to three years of supervised probation, Wallin agreed to serve 90 days in jail with credit for time served and treatment court with a mental health evaluation. He also agreed to forfeit all weapons and not care for animals for 15 years. FREE SENIOR EDERCISE CLASS! let’s get fit at suzanne elise CLASS: TAI CHI FOR RELAXATION » SALEM — Gov. Kate Brown’s three nominees for a new majority on the Environ- mental Quality Commission have advanced to a vote of the full state Senate. But in a 3-2 vote Wednes- day by the Senate Rules Com- mittee, minority Republicans served notice they want the Legislature to weigh in on a pending plan for how the com- mission regulates toxic air pol- lution from industrial sources. The shift that a Brown-ap- pointed advisory panel rec- ommends would focus state efforts on cumulative effects of pollutants on public health, rather than the amounts gener- ated by individual plants. The commission is the pol- icy-making arm of the Depart- ment of Environmental Qual- ity, which regulates a variety of pollutants. The Republicans praised Brown’s nominees — a sci- entist at Oregon State Univer- sity, a tribal council member who has worked at the Depart- ment of Environmental Qual- ity, and a retired wood products executive. “Our bone of contention is not with the three of them, but for the next 48 hours, with the governor,” said state Sen. Brian Boquist of Dallas. “It is this notion of creat- ing policy without regulatory or statutory authority. It is one of those constitutional clashes between the executive and legislative branches. I believe most of that will be resolved in the next day or two.” Although he voted “no,” Boquist said he expects he will vote for the nominees when their names come up for a vote by the full Senate for four-year terms. Brown abruptly fired three commissioners in March and replaced them in what Boquist called “unusual cir- cumstances.” She said she dis- puted their process, but not the result, of hiring Richard Whit- man as permanent director of the Department of Environ- mental Quality. Such mass firings are rare, although Neil Goldschmidt requested and received resig- nations from all five members of the Oregon Transportation Commission upon becoming governor in 1987. No quid pro quo All the replacement nom- inees told the committee their appointments were not contin- gent upon automatic support of the new plan, which would allow the department to regulate pol- lutants generated from several sources in the same area even if an individual’s pollutants are considered at a safe level. “If the governor appoints you, I certainly would listen to her input,” said Robert “Wade” Mosby of Lake Oswego, the retired wood products execu- tive. “It does not mean I would rule with what the governor says; that was never implied.” Mosby has worked for sev- eral companies, including the privately held forest products company now known sim- ply as Roseburg, although it is based in Springfield. He was a senior vice president for Col- lins, another company based in Portland. “We recognize the desire that there needs to be a bet- ter path in Oregon for man- aging and regulating air tox- ics,” said Kathleen George, a council member of the Con- federated Tribes of the Grand Ronde and a former Depart- ment of Environmental Qual- ity employee who worked with small communities for compli- ance. “The details of that have not been shared with us beyond an overview of the air quality program.” “The minute you talk about using a natural resource, it is automatically contentious,” said Molly Kile, an associ- ate professor at Oregon State’s College of Public Health and Human Sciences, who special- izes in how exposure to chemi- cals affect public health. “It is important that you hear from different stakehold- ers involved,” she added, espe- cially those who are often unrepresented in these public debates. Senate Republican Leader Ted Ferrioli of John Day responded: “I think the ret- icence of these members to comment without full informa- tion gives me confidence that they understand the complexi- ties of these issues.” Tough job ahead Brown appointed the advi- sory panel last year after public reaction to pollutants generated by two Portland eastside glass- makers — Bullseye Glass, which is now in compliance, and Uroboros Glass, which was sold in December and its production moved to Mex- ico — and by Precision Cast- parts at its plant in southeast Portland. The panel’s plan also calls for the state to set health-based concentrations for 215 toxic air pollutants, up from the current 52. Formal rulemaking by the commission would start in a year. Majority Democrats were largely silent. But Sen. Lee Beyer of Springfield, who sat on the Public Utility Commis- sion from 2001 to 2010, had an observation for the nominees. The Capital Bureau is a collaboration between EO Media Group and Pamplin Media Group. 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