12
PROGRESS 2019: FORESTS
Blue Mountain Eagle
Timber
expanded as well as diversi-
fied,” he said. “Projects have
also gotten larger, and treat-
ments are doing a better job
of addressing forest health
and wildfire concerns into
the future.”
Ongoing
challenges
include the current Blue
Mountains Forest Plan and
some state and federal regu-
latory policies that substan-
tially compromise the Mal-
heur National Forest’s ability
to implement the kind of sci-
entifically based treatments
that are needed to address
forest health, wildfire danger
and community well-being,
Webb said.
Continued from Page 1
town. Logging in the region
declined in the 1970s, and
Hines shut down its area
lumber mills and the railroad
line in 1984.
The Oregon Lumber Co.
operated a mill in Bates
from 1917 to 1960. Hines
bought the mill and operated
it until 1975. At its height
in the 1960s and 1970s, the
mill could cut up to 180,000
board-feet per day, and the
mill produced about 2 bil-
lion board-feet during its
lifetime. When operations
ceased in 1975, company
homes were sold for $1, and
much of the former mill site
is now a state park.
The D.R. Johnson Lum-
ber Co. acquired the tim-
ber mill in Prairie City in
1976 and added a stud mill
and planer two years later. In
the late 1980s, the company
installed a co-gen power
plant at the Prairie Wood
Products mill.
In September 2008, fac-
ing a lack of available saw-
logs and poor markets, D.R,
Johnson shut down the Prai-
rie City mill. It restarted the
mill the following March
but shut it down perma-
nently after that. Much of
the mill equipment and the
co-gen plant remain at the
site. By 2019, cleanup work
at the closed mill wound
down as potash waste was
covered with topsoil.
The Malheur Lumber
Co. mill in John Day, the
last remaining timber mill in
Grant County, was facing a
similar fate to Prairie City’s
by August 2012, when its
parent company Ochoco
Lumber Co. announced the
sawmill would close. After
75 years of continuous lum-
ber manufacturing, only
the pellet mill, chipper and
log shaver would continue
operating.
The closure was put on
hold the next month after
Regional Forester Kent
Connaughton
presented
plans to boost timber sup-
ply and accelerate the pace
of forest restoration work
on the Malheur National
Forest. Ochoco’s manag-
ing director, John Shelk,
responded to the news by
calling the Forest Service
commitment a good first
step.
Stewardship contract
Connaughton’s plan to
offer an additional 40 mil-
lion board-feet of timber per
year through additional for-
est treatment projects was
backed by funding from the
federal Collaborative For-
est Landscape Restoration
Program.
The Malheur National
Forest is one of 23 prior-
ity landscapes that receive
CFLRP funding to accom-
plish accelerated restoration
to restore forest resiliency.
CFLRP encourages collab-
orative, science-based res-
toration, and the Malheur
National Forest has the most
ambitious forest restoration
targets of any national for-
est in the Pacific Northwest
region.
As the Forest Service’s
new plans to boost timber
production were worked out
in 2012-2013, they emerged
as a 10-year stewardship
contract that would include
70-80% of the Malheur
National Forest’s annual
timber harvest. The goals
included improving forest
health, reducing forest fuels
that contribute to larger
wildfires and preventing a
complete shutdown of the
area’s timber industry.
The stewardship contract
allowed the Forest Service
to use timber receipts that
normally went to the Trea-
sury Department for forest
restoration work. Structured
as an indefinite delivery,
indefinite quantity contract,
the Forest Service would
offer at least one task order
each year for 10 years and
allow two years for each
order to be completed. Spe-
cific work would vary with
available funding.
The 10-year $69 million
contract was awarded to a
John Day-based company,
Iron Triangle LLC, in Sep-
tember 2013. The goal was
to eventually treat 180,000
to 500,000 acres of the Mal-
heur National Forest as eco-
Wednesday, June 26, 2019
The Eagle/Richard Hanners
Construction workers complete concrete forms and metal reinforcement for one of the
foundations for the torrefaction plant at the Malheur Lumber Co. plant in John Day.
The Eagle/Richard Hanners
A sign posts fire danger at the Prairie City Ranger Station in
Prairie City.
logical restoration on a land-
scape scale.
The news was welcomed
at Malheur Lumber Co.,
which had not bid on the
contract. Ochoco President
Bruce Daucsavage called
Iron Triangle the best logger
in the region and the most
qualified company to handle
the array of service work the
contract entailed.
According to a 2018 Uni-
versity of Oregon study, the
10-year stewardship con-
tract supported 268 jobs in
Grant and Harney counties
from 2015-2017. The value
of the forest and watershed
restoration work came to
$1.2 million per year, with
Forest Service operations
adding another $3 million
per year.
“The logs provided
under the stewardship con-
tract have been essential in
keeping Malheur Lumber,
the lone traditional sawmill
in Grant County, operating,”
the university study said.
The lumber mill in John
Day continues operat-
ing today with about 150
employees working in a sin-
gle shift to produce dimen-
sional lumber for companies
that produce millwork for
door and window framing.
The mill takes in raw
pine logs and also produces
pellets and bricks for wood-
fired stoves and boilers, as
well as shavings for ani-
mals. Some material is sent
to Boise Cascade in Idaho
for making paper. The mill
is unable to take the small-
er-diameter logs that are
produced by forest health
and fuel reduction treat-
ment projects in the national
forest.
Iron Triangle
Since the start of the
accelerated restoration pro-
gram, with an annual target
of 75 million board-feet of
timber for sale along with the
obligations of the steward-
ship contract, Iron Triangle
faced the challenge of meet-
ing each project’s objectives
as spelled out through the
National Environmental Pol-
icy Act process and in each
of the 10 task orders, includ-
ing 18 separate project areas,
Iron Triangle consultant
King Williams said.
To meet the challenge,
Iron Triangle increased
employment by more than 50
employees and utilized more
than 25 local subcontractors.
Since 2013, the company
has removed more than 150
million board-feet of timber
while treating approximately
40,000 acres of national for-
est land, improving fire resil-
iency and reducing fire dan-
ger on those acres, Williams
said.
“Included in our treat-
ments along with the removal
of the logs is pre-commercial
thinning, hand and grapple
piling, mastication, juniper
removal, aspen restoration,
fencing, stream stabilization,
soil stabilization work, hun-
dreds of miles of road main-
tenance and culvert replace-
ment,” he said.
During this time, Iron Tri-
angle also met obligations
for completion of nine tim-
ber sales and several projects
for private landowners, Wil-
liams said.
The company faced nat-
ural, marketing and envi-
ronmental challenges along
the way. The 2015 Canyon
Creek Complex fire forced
Iron Triangle to suspend
work on their ongoing green
projects during late 2015 and
early 2016 and instead com-
plete salvage of more than
20 million board-feet of logs
impacted by the fire along
with restoration projects on
burned areas.
A major challenge Iron
Triangle faced was finding
a way to handle the large
volume of small-diameter
non-saw biomass generated
through the forest health res-
toration projects. Iron Tri-
angle met this challenge
by building a post and pole
plant in Seneca and a fire-
wood processing facility in
John Day.
“These operations pro-
vide the opportunity for uti-
lization of 25,000 to 35,000
tons of biomass generated
from our projects,” Williams
said. “As these operations
grow and expand, we antic-
ipate additional employment
opportunities.”
Another challenge the
company faced in complet-
ing the Forest Service’s task
orders has been the increas-
ing inclusion of skyline log-
ging requirements.
“Iron Triangle attempted
to utilize sub-contractors
without success and have
now added a line-logging
side operation, which not
only required additional
investment but included
additional
employment
opportunities,” he said.
Collaborative efforts
In the early 2000s, with
management of the Malheur
National Forest seemingly
gripped by gridlock, timber
output declining and forest
restoration work at a stand-
still, a Grant County com-
missioner joined an environ-
mental attorney and a small
group of diverse individu-
als to discuss the state of the
timber-dependent economy.
The Blue Mountains Forest
Partners collaborative group
emerged as a result of these
talks in 2006.
“Common ground existed
among those present, how-
ever there were also areas of
serious disagreement,” the
group’s website states. “See-
ing the value of overcoming
disagreements and promot-
ing forest restoration, mem-
bers of this group continued
to meet, gradually involving
more stakeholders within the
community.”
The
collaborative
group’s diverse stakehold-
ers included loggers, envi-
ronmentalists,
ranchers,
landowners, timber indus-
try representatives, elected
government officials and
federal land managers. The
group established a mission
of promoting the long-term
well-being of the forest.
“The forest’s declining
condition is largely due to a
combination of fire suppres-
sion, social and legal grid-
lock that arose as a result
of dissenting stakeholders
views and sharply curtailed
silvicultural management,
outcomes of well-intentioned
policies and advocacies that
have produced a myriad of
unforeseen and unintended
negative consequences,” the
website states.
A similar process took
place in Harney County. In
2008, the Harney County
Restoration Collaborative
was convened by the High
Desert Partnership, Harney
County Judge Steve Grasty
and the Nature Conservancy
to work toward finding com-
mon ground to improve the
declining state of sustain-
ability on the southern Mal-
heur National Forest.
The next spring, Gov. Ted
Kulongoski designated the
Harney County collaborative
as an Oregon Solutions proj-
ect. A declaration of cooper-
ation and common ground
principles were signed by the
diverse stakeholders in 2009.
According to Mark Webb,
the Blue Mountains For-
est Partners executive direc-
tor, the collaborative process
is mandated by federal law.
Forest Service and Bureau
of Land Management lands
in Grant County are public
lands, so citizens across the
U.S. have an interest in what
happens to these lands. On
the other hand, locals need
an additional voice, he said.
The partnership tries
to help the Forest Service
avoid litigation and to facil-
itate stewardship projects, he
told the Grant County Court
in June 2018. No litigation
over timber projects on the
Malheur National Forest has
occurred since 2006, but that
might be because the stew-
ardship treatments were not
aggressive.
Webb said he’d like to
see more aggressive treat-
ments, but he expected that
could spark litigation by
environmentalists. The col-
laborative group also might
not want to be more aggres-
sive, he said. Grant County’s
economic opportunities are
limited, he noted — Google
won’t set up a server cen-
ter here, so the county will
need to focus on its natural
resources.
Without the stewardship
contract, the mill in John
Day would have shut down,
he told the court. About 10%
of the planning areas on
the Malheur National For-
est are being treated, and he
wanted to see that increased
to 40-50%. That increase,
however, might trigger more
administrative work under
the National Environmental
Policy Act.
Summing up successes
he’s witnessed, Webb said
the Malheur National For-
est since 2012 has received
more than $20 million in
additional funding to help
increase staff capacity to
implement work on the
ground.
“As a result, timber har-
vest has increased approx-
imately three-fold, forest
sector jobs and wages have
increased substantially, and
industry infrastructure has
Forest projects
The Forest Service pub-
lished a final draft of its Blue
Mountains Forest Plan Revi-
sion in June 2018, which
included the Malheur, Uma-
tilla and Wallowa-Whitman
national forests. The new
plan called for more than
doubling the total harvest in
the 5.5 million acre plan area
from 101 million board-feet
to 204 million.
In addition to replacing
the 21-inch diameter East-
side Screens limit with a
guideline that would allow
harvest of large trees under
certain scenarios, the new
plan called for thinning up to
33% of overstocked dry-up-
land forest types. The Forest
Service anticipated the new
plan would increase employ-
ment in the forest products,
livestock and recreation sec-
tors from 1,647 jobs to 2,820
jobs.
In March, however, the
Forest Service responded to
deep-rooted concerns of res-
idents, industry and environ-
mental groups and withdrew
the plan. More than 300 peo-
ple spoke against the plan
during objection resolution
meetings held across Eastern
Oregon in November and
December 2018.
Objections
mostly
focused on road closures,
forest access, restoring land-
scapes to improve wild-
fire resilience and providing
economic benefits to com-
munities, Regional Forester
Glenn Casamassa said. The
last 15 years of preparation
for the plan revision was not
wasted, he said. The lessons
the Forest Service learned
will play a role in helping the
agency come up with new
forest plans that are written
in plain English and can be
implemented.
“To be quite honest, we
can’t obviously do this on
our own,” he said. “We need
everyone working together.”
Meanwhile, work on the
Southern Blues Restoration
Coalition Project by the For-
est Service, Iron Triangle,
Blue Mountain Forest Part-
ners, the Harney County
Restoration Collaborative
and other partners continues.
“The first few years we
received $2.5 million per
year, but with the success we
were having we applied for
an expansion of the project,
and in 2015 we expanded
the landscape and increased
the funding to $4 million
per year,” Malheur National
Forest Public Affairs Offi-
cer Marc Strong said.
“We have two more years
of CFLR funding for the
Southern Blues Restoration
Coalition Project (2020-
2021) at $4 million per
year.”
Strong said economic
analyses completed each
year indicate the majority of
the CFLR funds stay in the
Grant and Harney county
communities. He said the
Forest Service receives
requests from researchers,
scientists, politicians, volun-
teers, potential new partners
and the media regarding the
collaborative project.
A multi-disciplinary team
that includes Forest Ser-
vice personnel, collabora-
tive groups, universities and
non-governmental organiza-
tions monitors work on the
project.
Monitoring projects for
forest vegetation and fuels,
white-headed woodpecker,
riparian restoration, invasive
species,
socio-economic
and collaborative effective-
ness are in their fifth year of
implementation.
In fiscal year 2018,
according to the Forest Ser-
vice, 54.43 million board-
feet of timber were sold
from the collaborative proj-
ect; 11,344 green tons of
small-diameter and low
value trees were removed
and made available for
bio-energy
production;
17,843 acres of hazardous
fuels were treated outside
the wildland-urban interface
to reduce the chances of cat-
astrophic fire; and 23,753
acres of hazardous fuels
were treated inside the wild-
land-urban interface.
In addition, 41 miles of
stream habitat in the proj-
ect area were restored or
enhanced; 40,455 acres
of terrestrial habitat were
restored
or
enhanced;
5,243 acres of forest veg-
etation was established;
8,151 acres of forest vege-
tation were improved; and
31,489 acres of water or soil
resources were protected,
maintained or improved to
achieve desired watershed
conditions.
“Fiscal year 2018 was
another successful year for
the Southern Blues Res-
toration Coalition proj-
ect on all possible fronts,”
Strong said. “We contin-
ued the focus on fire resil-
iency treatments and imple-
menting riparian restoration
treatments using appropri-
ated funds, partnership con-
tributions and monies gen-
erated through our 10-year
stewardship.”
The future
In its May 2019 draft
Economic
Opportuni-
ties Analysis report, John-
son Economics looked at
target industries in Grant
County for improvement
opportunities.
The natural resource and
agricultural production sec-
tor employed 494 workers in
2017 with an average annual
wage of $37,752. Many of
the employers in this sec-
tor were involved in tim-
ber or forest work, including
the Forest Service, Iron Tri-
angle, Grayback Forestry,
AAA Thunderbolt Fire Ser-
vice and Rude Logging.
The report noted that
challenges to developing
value-added products in this
sector included the need for
significant capital invest-
ments and the limited avail-
able labor workforce and
workforce housing.
In May 2018, Grant
County residents learned
that the U.S. Endowment for
Forestry and Communities
had met that challenge with
plans to invest $15.5 mil-
lion in a plant to produce a
new bioenergy product from
small-diameter and low-
value biomass generated by
forest stewardship projects.
Construction of the tor-
refaction plant at the Mal-
heur Lumber Co. mill in
John Day is underway, and
the facility could be operat-
ing by September, accord-
ing to Matt Krumenauer,
the Endowment’s vice pres-
ident for special projects. It
will be the first commercial
torrefaction plant in North
America.
Operating under the name
Restoration Fuels LLC, the
100,000-ton-per-year plant
could have a total economic
impact of 39 jobs and $6.8
million per year, according
to an Oregon Employment
Department report.
A large supply of
small-diameter and low-
value logs already sits at the
mill’s log yard on Lower
Yard Road in John Day
ready for the mill’s chipper.
From there, the chips would
be run through a new belt
dryer and then a rotary tor-
refier, which would turn the
biomass into a charcoal-like
material.
A machine from Den-
mark will be used to com-
press the torrefied wood into
briquettes or pellets. Japan
— which has imposed tar-
iffs on power produced by
nuclear and coal, making
torrefied wood competi-
tive — has shown interest in
purchasing torrefied wood
mass.
Restoration Fuels plans
to ramp up production to
more than 100,000 tons per
year, equivalent to about one
log truck or one chip truck
of biomass per hour, Krume-
nauer said.
Plans call for transporting
the torrefied wood to a rail
line in Prineville, at which
point it can be shipped to
domestic or international
customers.