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4A | WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2019 | COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL Cottage Grove Sentinel 116 N. Sixth St. Cottage Grove, Ore. 97424 NED HICKSON , MANAGING EDITOR | Opinion 541-902-3520 | NHICKSON @ CGSENTINEL . COM The First Amendment C ongress shall make no law respect- ing an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Govern- ment for a redress of grievances. “I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.” —Thomas Jefferson (1800) USPS#133880 Copyright 2019 © COTTAGE GROVE SENTINAL Letters to the Editor Policy The Sentinel welcomes letters to the editor as part of a community discussion of issues on the local, state and national level. Emailed letters are preferred. Handwritten or typed letters must be signed. All letters need to include full name, address and phone number; only name and city will be printed. Letters should be limited to about 300 words. Letters are subject to editing for length, grammar and clarity. Publication of any letter is not guaranteed and depends on space available and the volume of letters received. Letters that are anonymous, libelous, argumentative, sarcastic or contain accusations that are unsourced or without documentation will not be published. Letters containing poetry or from outside The Sentinel readership area will only be published at the discretion of the editor. Political/Election Letters: Giesy Plan is alternative to current Elliott State Forest management (Editor’s Note: View- point submissions on this and other topics are always welcome as part of our goal to encourage community discussion and exchange of perspectives.) M ismanagement of the Elliott State Forest in Coos and Douglas coun- ties in recent years has cost Oregon schools hundreds of millions of dollars, our local families and commu- nities the loss of hundreds of high-wage blue-collar jobs — all with an ever-in- creasing risk of catastrophic wildfire to communities in Coos and Douglas counties. Somehow, this news has mostly been kept quiet and away from public attention. There is still time to fix these problems, but that time is short and citizens must become aware of how they developed — and what can be done to reverse course before things be- come worse. Background: The Elliott State Forest is Oregon’s first state forest. It was created in 1930 spe- cifically for the purpose of funding Oregon’s Common School Fund. Such proper- ties are required by federal law to be managed to the maximum economic ben- efit of all Oregon schools. Beginning with statehood in 1859 and continuing to present, management has been the responsibility of the State Land Board: Gov- ernor, State Treasurer and Secretary of State. The Elliott was created by combining the scattered remnants of other Com- mon School Fund proper- ties around the state and trading them for Siuslaw National Forest lands and other private and public holdings to form a compos- ite 60,000 acres of imma- ture timberland. Most of the Elliott had been denuded by cata- strophic wildfires from 1840 through the late 1800s. By 1930 the land was mostly covered by young Douglas fir saplings with only 4,000 acres in mature timber that had escaped the fires. Informed estimates were the new forest could begin harvesting a sustain- able 50 million board feet (mmbf) of timber per year, once the trees had matured. By the mid-1950s the saplings had developed into young second-growth tim- ber approaching commer- cial size. The decision was then made to sell the older trees in order to pay for a series of access roads to and through the Elliott. The purpose was to begin active management of the developing second-growth; most of the remaining old- er trees were then logged at money for the first time in more than 50 years. The Land Board tried to rid itself of these problems by hastily appraising the Elliott at a fraction of its Guest Viewpoint By Dr. Bob Zybach Cottage Grove that time and the proposed roads built. Recent History: Then, in 1962, the Co- lumbus Day Storm blew down 100 mmbf of 70-year- old trees on the Elliott, causing an immediate need to accelerate harvest sched- ules — and finally begin providing regular jobs and incomes to local communi- ties and Oregon schools, as originally planned. Jerry Phillips, long-time Coos Bay resident, began working on the Elliott in the 1950s and continued there until his retirement as its manager in 1989. He is the Elliott’s historian and his 1996, 414-page histo- ry, “Caulked Boots and Cheese Sandwiches,” in- cludes detailed accounts of the 1962 hurricane and the subsequent management challenges and accomplish- ments that resulted. During his career, Phil- lips added several thousand acres to the Elliott by way of statewide and local land trades and sales. He was also able to sell 50 mmbf of timber a year the entire time, adding greatly to local jobs, government treasuries and the Common School Fund. Despite the continued harvest, when Phillips re- tired there was a far greater volume of older trees than when he began — mostly because the Elliott grows 60 to 80 mmbf of new timber a year, whether it is logged or not. Almost immediately af- ter Phillips’ retirement, harvest levels, employment and income from the Elliott plummeted dramatically. Federal regulations, en- vironmental lawsuits and political decisions based on “critical habitat” designa- tions for marbled murrelets and spotted owls were the stated causes. Problems only became worse in following years and a new plan was written in 2008 to stabilize jobs and income and to meet per- ceived federal regulations. Another lawsuit was filed and the plan was not adopt- ed. More lawsuits were filed and the Elliott began losing former value and attempt- ing to sell it for $220.8 mil- lion — no more and no less. There was a single bidder at this fixed rate and the curi- ous transaction approved. Under public pressure the Land Board then reversed itself and negated the sale. The Giesy Alternative: As these latter events were unfolding in 2016, then-Oregon State Senator Ted Ferrioli was meeting regularly with long-time as- sociate and forest industry supporter, Wayne Giesy. Meetings often includ- ed a continued discussion of many years regarding Giesy’s theories on ending the costly “timber wars” that had become imbedded between proponents and opponents of active forest management. Giesy’s thought was that if public forestlands could be divided into three zones — riparian, habitat and product — that would help resolve the legal disputes of previous decades without unfairly punishing rural families and businesses, and while making certain desired wildlife habitat con- ditions were maintained. Ferrioli suggested that a “Giesy Plan Alternative” to management of the Elliott as a test for application on federal forestlands might be a good idea. At that point Giesy and I began to devel- op this proposal and con- tinued to work on it almost daily until his passing last August at age 99. The plan would only last 20 years and rigorously re- search land use patterns of key Elliott bird, fish and animal species by using the successful Oregon State University (OSU) “paired watersheds” design em- ployed for many years on the North Umpqua River. By that time, taxpayers and scientists would have far better information for making a new set of long- term plans for the property. Basic elements of the proposal were to divide the Elliott into about 25 sub- basins, similar to the 2008 plan. Fish-bearing riparian areas would be managed separately and upper forest- ed slopes would be used ei- ther for older forest habitat or for intensive harvest. Animal populations would be closely monitored to see how different species responded to each condi- tion — all while maintain- ing Phillips’ 50 mmbf per year harvest schedule for schools and local jobs. A 2017 analysis by an Or- egon Legislative Economist estimated the plan would produce more than $440 million for the Common School Fund and more than 440 local jobs over the 20- year life of the plan. This proposal was for- mally entered into the pub- lic record at three Land Board meetings, endorsed by Boost Southern Oregon, discussed on a number of Lars Larson radio inter- views, thoroughly written about in a series of articles for a statewide sportsman’s magazine, presented to a number of industrial orga- nizations, and then some- how buried without com- ment. Instead, the State Land Board opted to — hopeful- ly — sell the Elliott to OSU at the reduced sales price and give a year to develop a long-term “research forest” plan for the Elliott with lit- tle mention of the proposal already on the table. Current Opportunities During the recent meet- ings in Coos Bay and Reedsport with OSU, De- partment of State Lands, and local residents on Oct. 23 and 25, tentative plans were revealed in which more than one-half of the Elliott would be reserved for wildlife habitat, the re- mainder used for a series of research projects, and log- ging reduced to as little as 10 mmbf/year “incidental harvest related to research.” There are real questions as to how OSU could even afford to manage the Elliott with these numbers, much less pay for ownership or produce income for the Common School Fund. What can be done to re- store the Elliott to an active- ly managed condition, as previously required by law? The next meeting of the State Land Board to con- sider the OSU proposal and the future of the Elliott is on Dec. 10, in Salem. Dr. Bob Zybach has a PhD in Environmental Sciences from OSU, with a research focus on forest fire history and reforestation planning. He has been Program Man- ager for ORWW.org since 1996. Election-related letters must address pertinent or timely issues of interest to our readers at-large. Letters must: 1) Not be a part of letter-writing campaigns on behalf of (or by) candidates; 2) Ensure any information about a candidate is accurate, fair and not from second-hand knowledge or hearsay; and 3) explain the reasons to support candidates based on personal experience and perspective rather than partisanship and campaign-style rhetoric. Candidates themselves may not use the letters to the editor column to outline their views and platforms or to ask for votes; this constitutes paid political advertising. As with all letters and advertising content, the newspaper, at the sole discretion of the publisher, general manager and editor, reserves the right to reject any letter that doesn’t follow the above criteria. Send letters to: nhickson@cgsentinel.com HOW TO CONTACT YOUR REPS Oregon state representatives Oregon federal representatives • Sen. Floyd Prozanski • Rep. Peter DeFazio District 4 State Senator PO Box 11511 Eugene, Ore. 97440 Phone: 541-342-2447 Email : sen.fl oydprozanski@ state.or.us (House of Representatives) 405 East 8th Ave. #2030 Eugene, Ore. 97401 Email: defazio.house.gov/ contact/email-peter Phone: 541-465-6732 • Rep. Cedric Hayden Republican District 7 State Representative 900 Court St. NE Salem, Ore. 97301 Phone: 503-986-1407 Website: www.leg.state.or. us/hayden Email: rep.cedrichayden@ state.or.us • Sen. Ron Wyden 405 East 8th Ave., Suite 2020 Eugene, Ore. 97401 Email: wyden.senate.gov Phone: (541) 431-0229 • Sen. Jeff Merkley Email: merkley.senate.gov Phone: 541-465-6750 S entinel C ottage G rove 541-942-3325 Administration Jenna Bartlett, Group Publisher Gary Manly, General Manager... Ext. 1207 gmanly@cgsentinel.com Gerald Santana, Multi-Media Sales Consultant... 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