A10
News
Blue Mountain Eagle
FOREST
Continued from Page A1
many organizations help pro-
vide the other half through the
required local match. He said
the projects include prescribed
burning, stream restoration,
pre-commercial
thinning,
fencing and other wildlife,
vegetation, hydrology and
range projects.
The collaborative includes
both timber industry profes-
sionals and environmentalists
that have traditionally been at
odds over forest management
policies. Beverlin said the sci-
ence-backed, solutions-based
approach has been successful
on the Malheur.
“We’re the only forest in the
nation that’s tripled our timber
target in the last four years.
We’re the only forest in the na-
tion I know of that has not had
a vegetation management proj-
ect litigated in the past four
years. We’re the only forest in
the nation that nearly doubled
the size of their CFLR project.
With the collaborative’s assis-
tance, we’ve brought in more
funding in the community to
do more work in the communi-
ty to provide more stability of
forest products in the commu-
nity to the mill,” he said. “(The
collaborative process is) really
the proven method to work
through those sticky issues and
continue to get work done and
not come to a stalemate and
have things stop.”
From laissez-faire to
litigation
At one point, a large vol-
ume of timber — about 200
million board feet each year —
was being harvested from the
Malheur, BMFP Executive Di-
rector Mark Webb said, adding
many industrial professionals
would agree that amount was
not sustainable.
In the mid-1990s, how-
ever, the U.S. Forest Service
implemented a new screen-
ing protocol, the Eastside
Screens, on forests east of the
Cascade Mountains in Oregon
and Washington to protect old
growth forest areas, according
to a chronology by U.S. Forest
Service silviculturist David
Powell.
Among other new guide-
lines, the screens prohibited
cutting trees larger than 21
inches in diameter, which re-
duced the annual volume har-
vested.
The Eastside Screens also
provided new legal footing for
environmentalists to challenge
proposed timber projects.
Webb said litigation became
common and slowed the pace
of projects, which hurt the
resource-based economy in
Grant County while allowing
the forest to become over-
grown and more prone to cat-
astrophic wild¿res.
In 2002, the annual timber
harvest was down to 3 million
board feet.
From enemies to partners
Susan Jane Brown, an en-
vironmental attorney, said she
began working on issues in
Grant County in 2003, repre-
senting several conservation
organizations. She said, al-
though she was quite success-
ful in stopping projects with
lawsuits, wild¿res would often
destroy the areas she was try-
ing to protect.
“Litigation is a great tool
for stopping things from hap-
pening, but it’s not a very good
tool to compel good actions to
happen,” she said. “As a con-
servation community, we were
losing a lot of wildlife habitat
we worked to preserve.”
Grant County Commission-
er Boyd Britton approached
Brown at a forest plan revision
meeting in 2003 and said he
wanted to discuss moving be-
yond litigation toward a more
sustainable outcome for the
community.
Brown said the discussions
started small. Slowly, more
people joined in, and although
there were many points of
disagreement, she said they
started to ¿nd common ground
to move forward. The Blue
Mountains Forest Partners
collaborative was formalized
in 2006 with members repre-
senting the timber industry and
environmentalists.
“Following the science and
being true to our values really
meant that it made sense in this
particular situation to engage
with these diverse stakehold-
ers,” Brown said. “There was
just a convergence of agree-
ment that working together
Wednesday, April 6, 2016
The Eagle/Sean Hart
The Malheur National Forest on Dixie Butte west
of Prairie City. An additional $1.5 million — for a
total of $4 million this year — has been awarded
by the federal government for Collaborative Forest
Landscape Restoration projects on the Malheur
forest.
was going to get us where we
wanted to go faster and better
than litigation. Ultimately, I
think we’ll be more successful
than the back and forth that has
characterized forest manage-
ment in the past.”
From closure to
consistency
Webb said it took the col-
laborative several years to
reach a consensus for its ¿rst
project, which was only about
6,000 acres. Through the years,
however, the collaborative de-
veloped “zones of agreement”
that could be applied for proj-
ects across wide swaths of the
forest, he said.
In 2012, the Blue Moun-
tains Forest Partners teamed
up with the Harney County
Restoration
Collaborative
to create the Southern Blues
Restoration Coalition to apply
for the federal Collaborative
Forest Landscape Restoration
funding, which was awarded
at $2.5 million per year.
When Malheur Lumber, the
last sawmill in Grant County,
announced it would be clos-
ing in 2012, the Forest Service
was able to accelerate timber
sales and increase the pace of
restoration work.
With enough wood, the mill
was never forced to close and
still employs about 100 peo-
ple, said Bruce Daucsavage,
president of Malheur Lum-
ber’s parent company Ochoco
Lumber.
“The Blue Mountain col-
laborative work in general has
given us a new lease on life
with our John Day sawmill,”
he said. “With the good work
they’ve put forward, we’ve
been able to have assurances
that an ample supply of wood
would be available to our mill.
I cannot tell you how import-
ant it was for us to have all
these people work on these
projects that were so interested
and committed to our commu-
nities. We could not, under any
circumstances, do this on our
own.”
From decreases to
increases
When the collaborative was
established in 2006, it covered
about 690,000 acres of the 1.7
million-acre Malheur National
Forest.
The CFLR report from
2014 shows it created or main-
tained 113 jobs with direct la-
bor income of $4,522,167.
Information from the col-
laborative in 2015 states more
than 68,500 acres of hazardous
fuels were reduced and more
than 15,500 acres of wildlife
habit was restored.
Beverlin, the forest super-
visor, said the collaborative
was so successful they want-
ed to expand their efforts to
increase the pace and scale of
restoration over a larger area.
In 2015, an expansion to more
than 1 million acres was ap-
proved, he said, the largest in-
crease of any CFLR project in
the nation.
In 2016, the collaborative’s
CFLR funding was increased
from $2.5 million per year to
the maximum $4 million pos-
sible.
In 2002, only 3 million
PLAN
Continued from Page A1
meetings was to adopt a
more “hands-on” approach to
land management that would
make the forests safer, more
resilient and productive.
“These alternatives really
try to do that, and they try to
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From outside the circle
Not everyone is pleased
with the collaborative, how-
ever.
Grant County Sheriff Glenn
Palmer deputized 11 people to
create an independent natural
resources plan for Grant Coun-
ty in September 2015. The
sheriff introduced the plan to
the Grant County Court during
an opportunity for public com-
ment and attempted to invoke
coordination with the Forest
Service. Coordination is a law
that requires the Forest Service
and Bureau of Land Manage-
ment to work with local gov-
ernments on how public lands
are managed.
“I want a seat at the table,”
Palmer told the commission-
ers. “The people I represent
are not getting heard. I’m not
getting heard.”
Ultimately, the commis-
sioners did not adopt the sher-
iff’s natural resources plan,
and Palmer did not attend a
work session with Beverlin
and the commissioners about
the issue. The commissioners
ruled the sheriff had no author-
ity to invoke coordination and
told Forest Service of¿cials
do it at a different pace and
scale,” Montoya said.
Comments made at the
public meetings also em-
phasized the need to protect
watersheds and the environ-
ment, Montoya said. Any
new restoration proposals
would still have to comply
with existing laws, making
forest management an exer-
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board feet were harvested and
sold from the Malheur. Sales
increased to 39 million by
2010 and up to 70 million in
2014. Sales were down to 43
million in 2015 due to the Can-
yon Creek Complex ¿re but
are projected to be 75 million
for 2016 and the foreseeable
future, Beverlin said.
The collaborative’s work
has received praise at the na-
tional level.
“It’s no accident the harvest
on the Malheur National For-
est tripled over the past few
years,” U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden
of Oregon said in a statement.
“It took hard work by industry,
community and environmental
partners, working through the
Southern Blues Restoration
Coalition, who got the cut up
in an ecologically responsible
way. I am pleased the Forest
Service has recognized the
value of their work by adding
$1.5 million to this successful
collaboration. The collabora-
tive is a national model for us-
ing the best available science
to restore the forests and main-
tain timber jobs.”
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the County Court was the of-
¿cial government agency with
which to coordinate.
Frances Preston, one of the
natural resources deputies,
said she has attended sever-
al Forest Partners meetings
in the last year and the most
recent meeting in March. She
said she was surprised by how
comfortable everyone in the
room — environmentalists,
Forest Service personnel,
timber industry professionals
and others — were with each
other.
Preston said she believed
the group should be com-
prised of more local people
than outside organizations.
“There’s not very many lit-
tle guys that are there that are
going to be able to get any of
this money,” she said. “That’s
my problem. I feel that there
needs to be more local people
around the table.”
Preston said it made her
uncomfortable “because only
a few people are getting the
bene¿t of the dollar, because
they’re the ones that are around
that table.” She also said peo-
ple believe the Forest Partners
make back-room deals with
Forest Service of¿cials.
The BMFP Operations
Manual speci¿cally prohib-
its back-room deals and out-
lines the membership process,
which is open to anyone who
attends a certain number of
meetings, adheres to guide-
lines and signs a declaration of
commitment.
However, Preston said at-
tending the meetings can be
dif¿cult for many small busi-
ness people, because the col-
laborative goes on full-day
¿eld trips to analyze upcoming
project areas and half-day ¿eld
trips to monitor previous proj-
ects each month.
The group also meets from
4-7 p.m. the third Thursday of
each month at the airport in
John Day, and Webb, the ex-
ecutive director, said anyone
is welcome to attend to learn
about or participate in the col-
laborative.
Preston said she could
agree with what the collabo-
rative is trying to accomplish
“if they were bringing in ev-
eryone.” She said she plans to
attend future meetings and to
become an of¿cial member.
cise in compromise.
Forest plans are the guid-
ing script for achieving goals
and desired conditions in
each national forest. Though
the Blue Mountains Forest
Plan is being authored under
one umbrella, each forest will
have its own individual plan.
All together, the Blue Moun-
tain forests comprise 4.9
million acres across Eastern
Oregon and southeast Wash-
ington.
The plan has three stated
goals: to promote ecological
integrity, social well-being
and economic bene¿ts. While
it does not approve any spe-
ci¿c management projects,
it does set numerous desired
conditions for things like
¿re protection, recreation,
access, scenery and timber
harvest.
The Forest Service typ-
ically updates forest plans
every 10-15 years to account
for new science. However,
the current Blue Mountains
plan hasn’t been revised
since 1990.
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