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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, MAY 9, 2017
Timber counties cut costs as
logging, federal aid evaporate
Rural counties
struggling with
basic services
By GILLIAN FLACCUS
Associated Press
ROSEBURG — So much
timber money once flowed into
this rural county that its leaders
set up committees to find ways
to spend it.
Today, Douglas County’s li-
brary system is on life support,
and its sheriff’s department is on
track to lose funding.
Nearly 30 years after envi-
ronmental protections slashed
logging in federal forests, coun-
ties like this one that thrived on
timber revenues for decades are
struggling to provide basic ser-
vices. These so-called timber
counties received hundreds of
millions of dollars during log-
ging’s long heyday, and since
then the federal government has
continued to pour money in to
make up for timber’s downfall.
Now the money has dried
up and people are reluctant to
tax themselves, leaving leaders
scrambling and public institu-
tions in free fall.
Commissioners in Doug-
las County, which once re-
ceived $50 million in annual
profits from logging on federal
lands, have slashed health ser-
vices, cut nearly 300 jobs and
started charging for landfill use
and parking at parks. The coun-
ty’s main library will close June
1 because voters rejected a tax,
and voters in nearby Josephine
County must decide May 16
whether to restore limited tax
dollars to libraries and fund
county response to 911 calls.
AP Photo/Gillian Flaccus
Children’s librarian Chere Brown reads to toddlers during
a story time at the main Josephine County library branch
in Grants Pass.
vices nearly a dozen times be-
fore, including for public safety
and libraries. Many residents feel
county leaders are quick to come
to voters and must do more to
bring back timber dollars, said
Jim Rafferty, who opposes rais-
ing taxes in Josephine County.
“I’m not saying that we’re op-
posed to public safety. That’s not
the message,” he said. “The mes-
sage is for the county commis-
sioners to roll up their sleeves and
fund the sheriff when they can,
rather than give us this rhetoric.”
The economic spiral playing
out in western Oregon is inter-
woven with themes that have
emerged across the American
West: Anger over federal land
policy, debate about the limits
of environmental regulation and
the question of who has the right
to benefit from federal lands.
Quirk of history
Communities across the
American West have long
received revenues from logging
on federal land, but a quirk of
history made the timber wealth
of more than a dozen counties
in Oregon even greater — and
makes their current plight unique.
These 18 timber counties
stretch from Portland to the Cal-
ifornia line. They contain 3,281
square miles of densely forested
territory that is the central char-
acter in a tale of rapid West-
ern expansion and century-old
corruption.
The Oregon & California
Railroad got the lands in the
1860s for a rail line. The proj-
ect spurred growth in Oregon
but also inspired large-scale
land fraud that led to the indict-
ment of a U.S. senator and two
congressmen.
In the scandal’s wake, the
federal government in 1916 took
back the land, but locals argued
that cheated them of a tax base
on land ripe for logging.
Federal legislation tailored
to compensate the counties cre-
ated a cash cow: 75 percent of
the logging receipts from those
lands go to the counties, with no
restrictions.
During the 1980s, the U.S.
Bureau of Land Management
was selling 1 billion board feet
of timber a year, producing so
much money that some of the
counties did not assess property
taxes. Most also get 25 percent
of timber receipts from national
forests within their borders under
a separate program.
But in the early 1990s, con-
servation groups won lawsuits to
protect spotted owl and salmon
habitat, and logging on federal
land dropped by 90 percent. Fed-
eral dollars to ease the counties’
transition has been shrinking for
years and was not renewed this
year.
Submitted Photo
Gearhart and Seaside firefighters responded to a blaze
Sunday in Gearhart.
Gearhart fire claims
life of family dog
Blaze started
in kitchen
By R.J. MARX
The Daily Astorian
GEARHART — A kitchen
fire Sunday afternoon led to
the death of a family dog, a
Rhodesian ridgeback, most
likely from smoke inhalation,
Gearhart Fire Chief Bill Eddy
said Monday morning.
Fire officials received a
call at a single-story home at
1368 Garden Terrace Road at
2:10 p.m. Sunday.
Upon arrival, flames were
showing in the front window.
After a quick knockdown of
the main fire by the first crew,
teams fought the blaze until
3:20 p.m.
A wooden cutting board
caught fire atop a gas stove,
starting the blaze, Eddy said.
Seaside Fire assisted with
coverage. No firefighters
were injured and no one was
home at the time of the fire.
Attempts to resuscitate the
dog were unsuccessful.
The home, a full-time
family residence, is unlivable
as a result of smoke and heat
damage.
Damage could reach
$50,000 to $80,000, Eddy
said.
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