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THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, JANUARY 7, 2020
Environment, logging groups sue over timber sale
Naselle schools
sign lawsuit
By EVAN BUSH
Seattle Times
Two more lawsuits have
been fi led against the Wash-
ington Department of Natural
Resources over its plans for
state-managed timberlands,
further clouding the future of
the state’s forests and the tim-
ber money that helps support
rural communities through-
out w estern Washington.
The newly fi led lawsuits
are led by a timber trade
group and an environmen-
tal coalition. A previous law-
suit was fi led on Monday by
Skagit County over the state’s
sustainable timber-harvest
level. Proceeds from tim-
ber sales have historically
benefi ted counties, the pub-
lic-school system and local
taxing agencies in rural areas,
such as school, fi re, hospital
and library districts.
The fl urry of lawsuits
comes a month after the
department approved plans
for reduced timber harvest
on state lands and a long-
term conservation plan for
the marbled murrelet, a sea-
bird federally listed under the
Endangered Species Act that
needs mature trees to raise its
young.
The long-awaited plans
pleased few stakeholders
and the three lawsuits, which
attack the department’s work
from divergent perspectives,
refl ect a bitter divide in how
Alan Berner/Seattle Times
Two lawsuits from a timber trade group and an environmental coalition have been fi led against
the Washington Department of Natural Resources over its plans for state-managed timberlands.
the parties think Washing-
ton’s forests should be oper-
ated. The three complaints
will push a messy political
fi ght into a tangle of litiga-
tion that could take years to
sort out.
Public Lands Commis-
sioner Hilary Franz has said
she hoped to avoid a law-
suit and believed the depart-
ment had balanced protection
of the endangered marbled
murrelet with what she views
as a requirement to produce
as much revenue as is sus-
tainable to local commu-
nities where state timber is
sold for logging. The depart-
ment projects fi ve decades of
declining timber harvests on
state-managed lands, some-
thing Franz has said is a chief
concern.
“If the commissioner’s
‘THE FUNDAMENTAL SYSTEM
FOR HOW WE’RE SUPPOSED
TO BE FUNDING THESE
COMMUNITIES IS BROKEN.’
Nick Abraham | a spokesman for
the Washington Environmental Council
objective was not to end up in
court, she failed miserably,”
said Rod Fleck, the city attor-
ney and planner for the town
of Forks.
Forks joined four tim-
ber-dependent counties, local
school districts, a fi re district
and the timber trade orga-
nization American Forest
Resource Council in fi ling its
lawsuit Thursday in Skagit
County Superior Court, say-
ing the department’s reduc-
Housing affordability
worsened over last decade
State’s urban-rural
job divide
saw increase
By JAKE THOMAS
Oregon Capital Bureau
Despite Oregon’s wide-
spread housing shortage,
the amount of housing built
in the state during the last
decade reached a record low.
That was one of the unex-
pected conclusions state
economist Josh Lehner
included in a blog post on
the last day of 2019.
“On
a
population
growth-adjusted basis, Ore-
gon built fewer new hous-
ing units this decade than
we have since at least
World War II,” wrote Leh-
ner. “With data going back
nearly 60 years, never have
we built fewer new units on
a sustained basis than we did
in the 2010s.”
In a follow-up email,
Lehner said that between
2010 and 2019 Oregon
permitted 37 new hous-
ing units per 100 new res-
idents. Between 1960 and
2009, Oregon permitted 47
per 100. Roughly speak-
ing, he said that’s as if the
state went from building one
new housing unit for every
two new people, to building
one new unit for every three
newcomers.
Lehner wrote that hous-
ing affordability has wors-
ened throughout the last
decade, making it harder for
residents to make ends meet
and for young, working-age
households to move to Ore-
gon. He said the root of the
problem is the low levels of
housing construction.
In 2017, the median rent
in Oregon rose to $1,079
in 2017 up from $816 in
2010, according to U.S.
Census Bureau estimates.
According to a report from
the Oregon Center for Pub-
lic Policy, one in three Ore-
gon households struggle to
afford housing.
During the last legisla-
tive session, Oregon became
the fi rst state to pass state-
wide rent control. Lawmak-
ers also passed House Bill
2001, landmark legislation
that would allow duplex,
triplexes and other denser
varieties of housing to be
built on some land currently
zoned single-family in most
cities.
In a statement, House
Speaker Tina Kotek also
pointed to how the Legis-
lature dedicated 200 mil-
lion to affordable housing
development, $55 million
to affordable housing pres-
ervation and $50 million for
state homeless assistance
programs.
“More work lies ahead
to make up for lost time and
the state must continue to be
a partner with local commu-
nities to develop more hous-
ing,” she said.
Michael Andersen, a
senior researcher with the
Seattle-based sustainability
think tank Sightline Insti-
tute, said in an email that
House Bill 2001 isn’t a “sil-
ver-bullet” solution and
expected it to gradually
change the state’s housing
stock, noting pushback on
the new law by cities.
Andersen blamed the
lack of new construction
on high costs. He said that
if Oregon wants to slow the
rise in home prices, it needs
to build enough housing to
keep up with its rising pop-
ulations. Until then, he said
high prices would hurt the
state’s economy and throw
the housing market out of
wack.
“It’s like a game of musi-
cal chairs where people keep
arriving faster than chairs,”
he said.
While the U.S. economy
is currently in an unprece-
dented 10-year expansion,
Lehner’s blog post included
other unexpectedly glum
takes.
“Economically, the 2010s
were a disappointment,”
wrote Lehner.
He wrote that during the
last decade the economy
was running below its poten-
tial as it recovered from the
Great Recession of 2008.
Although Oregon’s median
household income has sur-
passed that of the U.S.,
growth has been uneven, he
wrote.
According to Lehner, just
nine of Oregon’s 23 rural
counties have more jobs
currently than they did a
decade ago.
“Encouragingly,
rural
Oregon has very few places
in permanent demographic
or economic declines rela-
tive to patterns seen through-
out the country,” he wrote.
“However, even with decent
to solid growth in rural
Oregon overall, the state’s
urban-rural divide increased
in the past decade.”
The Oregon Capital
Bureau is a collaboration
between EO Media Group,
Pamplin Media Group and
Salem Reporter.
WANTED
Alder and Maple Saw Logs & Standing Timber
Northwest Hardwoods • Longview, WA
Contact: John Anderson • 360-269-2500
tion of planned timber har-
vest violates the agency’s
fi nancial obligation as a
trustee to maximize proceeds
to counties and other benefi -
ciaries from timber sales.
They argue the depart-
ment’s modeling did not pri-
oritize benefi ciaries, that
the agency used low-qual-
ity inventory data and that
it did not communicate well
enough so that counties
and local tax districts could
fully understand the fi nan-
cial impacts of the agency’s
plans.
The lawsuit also argues
that the department did not
adequately explore a plan
to conserve less acreage for
the marbled murrelet, which
would have provided more
land for cutting, and there-
fore, more revenue.
“DNR is doing things that
won’t help the murrelet but
will cause impacts to rural
communities
throughout
Washington,” said Lawson
Fite, general counsel for the
American Forest Resource
Council.
The plans the department
selected will likely cause
Naselle-Grays River Val-
ley School District, a plain-
tiff, to lay off teachers due
to reduced timber revenue,
the complaint says. Because
of uncertain timber funding,
the Quillayute Valley School
District No. 402 won’t be
able to replace the district’s
1961 athletic stadium which
“is at the end of its useful
life.”
Meanwhile, an environ-
mental coalition, including
the Washington Environmen-
tal Council, the Olympic For-
est Coalition, Conservation
Northwest and several indi-
viduals, fi led a separate law-
suit Thursday in King County
Superior Court, saying the
deparment’s
management
of timberlands does not ade-
quately serve local communi-
ties or the public schools that
benefi t from timber sales.
It also argues the state
has broader obligations to all
Washington residents beyond
maximizing revenue from
commercial harvest.
“The fundamental sys-
tem for how we’re supposed
to be funding these commu-
nities is broken,” said Nick
Abraham, a spokesman for
the Washington Environmen-
tal Council.
Healthy forests can bene-
fi t water quality, mitigate cli-
mate change as sinks for car-
bon and reduce landslide risk,
along with other environmen-
tal benefi ts, Abraham said.
The department’s belief
that it must focus narrowly
on maximizing revenue to
counties and other benefi -
ciaries from timber sales is
mistaken, the environmen-
tal groups’ complaint says.
Instead, it argues the state
should ensure forests are also
benefi ting the public, broadly.
“We shouldn’t be using
clear cuts to build class-
rooms,” Abraham said, add-
ing that for rural communi-
ties, “there needs to be a new
way to support them.”
Like Washington, the
state of Oregon has also been
debating the purpose of its
state-managed forestlands.
Last fall, 14 counties won
a $1 billion lawsuit against
the state , after a jury agreed
that their communities had
been deprived of revenue for
decades as the state limited
logging. State offi cials plan
to appeal.
The histories and legal
arguments differ, but the
stakes are high in both states.
‘ON A POPULATION GROWTH-ADJUSTED BASIS,
OREGON BUILT FEWER NEW HOUSING UNITS
THIS DECADE THAN WE HAVE SINCE AT LEAST
WORLD WAR II. WITH DATA GOING BACK NEARLY
60 YEARS, NEVER HAVE WE BUILT FEWER NEW UNITS
ON A SUSTAINED BASIS THAN WE DID IN THE 2010s.’
Josh Lehner | state economist
Mildred Sada Ziak
June 8, 1920 - December 29, 2019
Mildred Sada Ziak was born in
Portland Oregon on June 8, 1920, and
died December 29, 2019, in Astoria
Oregon. She was the third of six children
born to William and Ann (Haacke)
Hallock: besides Wesley, Jane, Jimmy,
Lorna, and Rose. Mildred’s early years
were spent down the Oregon coast in
Delake, Nelscott, Taft, and later around
Brush Prairie, Washington. Childhood
jobs included delivering newspapers,
picking hops, and watching over sheep
with a gun-bearing brother.
In the mid-1930s a nurse aunt needed
someone to accompany home a fragile patient, then stay with her; somebody who
could both tend house, and attend its owner. Hence at age 16 Mildred helped Marie
Thompson return to Big Creek Logging Camp, which her husband bossed. Camp
kids took a railroad speeder to catch the school bus, and Knappa High was where
Mildred met future husband Francis Ziak. After graduating in 1939, she eventually got
accepted into nurse training at Astoria’s Saint Mary’s Hospital. And upon earning her
RN in 1943 immediately went to work at Portland’s Saint Vincent Hospital. Meanwhile
wedding Francis in 1944 during his Navy stint. It was autumn of 1951 when Mildred
retired to become an Astoria mother.
In 1958 they moved their three children to
Naselle, Washington, where Francis continued
logging until the mid-1980s. Mildred was
very involved in church and community,
giving neighbors allergy shots into the 1970s.
And was exceptional at making any visitor
feel comfortable in her home. Having a mate
who loved foreign travel, Mildred gamely
accompanied him. These itineraries ranged from
a Caribbean cruise, to roaming South America,
Europe, Australia/New Zealand, Mexico, South
Africa, and China/Japan.
Mildred’s greatest joy in life was her family;
devoutly serving as wife, mother, grandmother
and aunt. But she touched the lives of everyone
who met her warmth. Wheelchair-bound after a
broken hip, her final years were spent at Clatsop
Care Center.
Mildred was preceded in death by Francis Ziak, her husband of 44 years. Immediate
survivors include children Larry Ziak of Astoria Oregon, Rex Ziak (Keiko) of Naselle
Washington, and Nancy Cooper (Jim) of Magnolia Texas. Plus grandson Brian Cooper
(Lisa) and great-grandson Logan, also in Magnolia. As well as brother-in-law Gary
Ziak (Peggy) of Knappa Oregon, numerous nieces and nephews.
No public funeral nor memorial was Mildred’s instruction. Just like Francis, her
ashes will be cast off the north jetty. Any monetary remembrance should be made to
Clatsop Care Center.