A16
NEWS
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, September 28, 2022
Economy
Continued from Page A1
In addition to Grant,
the other Oregon coun-
ties included Baker, Har-
ney, Malheur, Umatilla, Wal-
lowa, Crook, Morrow, Union
and Wheeler. In Washington,
Walla Walla, Garfi eld, Asotin
and Columbia counties were
studied.
The three national for-
ests that sprawl across that
14-county region — the Uma-
tilla, Wallowa-Whitman and
Malheur — are collectively
known as the Blue Mountain
Forest and are covered by a
single, over-arching manage-
ment document called the
Blue Mountains Forest Plan.
Each of the three national
forests in the region also has
its own individual resource
and management plan that
identifi es the goals and desired
conditions for the landscape.
The plans establish broad
guidelines for livestock graz-
ing, timber harvest, wilder-
ness and roads.
The data collected in the
analysis, along with the goals
and desired conditions estab-
lished by the BIC, will frame
how the U.S. Forest Service
drafts its management plans in
the region.
Forest plans are supposed
to be updated every 15 years to
account for the latest science
and changing conditions. The
Blue Mountains Forest Plan,
however, was last updated in
1990. Coming up with a new
plan has been a diffi cult and
contentious process. In 2019,
the Forest Service scrapped its
most recent draft management
plan after it came under wide-
spread scrutiny and faced pub-
lic backlash.
Nils Cristoff erson, exec-
utive director of Wallowa
Resources, told the newspaper
in a phone interview that one
of the criticisms of the 2019
draft management plan was
that a supporting socioeco-
nomic analysis missed essen-
tial diff erences between the
counties and even the commu-
nities within the counties.
This time around, Maille
said, the Forest Service
brought in EOU and the REV
because the agency realized
how diff erent the counties in
Eastern Oregon and South-
east Washington are from one
another.
“(The Forest Service)
acknowledged that, based on
past experience, they were
looking at the region from the
level of the forest and not the
level of the county,” Maille
said.
Grant County and the
Sierra Dawn McLane/Capital Press, File
Steven Mitchell/Blue Mountain Eagle
Prairie Wood Sawmill employee Brian Luglan stacks lumber on Monday, Sept. 26, 2022.
Home to three national forests, a 14-county region of Northeast
Oregon and Southeast Washington is economically dependent
on the U.S. Forest Service.
Is Grant County too
dependent on the Forest
Service?
Between 2010 and 2021,
according to the study, the
Forest Service awarded $46
million in contracts for for-
est restoration work in Grant
County, including $29 mil-
lion that went directly to local
contractors.
While that revenue is cer-
tainly a welcome addition to
Grant County’s economy, the
fact that it all came from a
single source underscores the
county’s vulnerability to an
economic downturn if the For-
est Service should change its
policy in the area.
Webb said the county
should continue working to
diversify its economy, but it
would be unrealistic to think
that a broad range of compa-
nies that could provide that
diversifi cation would choose
to come to Grant County rather
than, say, Bend or Boise.
However, Webb also
pointed out that Grant County
could be an attractive location
for companies that can take
advantage of the economic
activity generated by the For-
est Service.
He said the goal of Blue
Mountains Forest Partners has
been to diversify the natural
resource economy by work-
ing with the agency in var-
ious ways, such as pushing
for stewardship contracts that
keep the work local or looking
for opportunities to open up
more grazing allotments.
Asked if that would ulti-
mately keep Grant County
dependent on the Forest Ser-
vice, Webb said it’s import-
ant to think about what being
dependent really means.
“Does it mean not do any
of this (forest restoration)
work? Or does it mean to
complement it with something
else?” he asked. “In my view,
you would complement it with
other eff orts.”
Steven Mitchell/Blue Mountain Eagle
An abandoned lumber mill on
the west end of John Day.
Steven Mitchell/Blue Mountain Eagle
The Innovation Gateway area of John Day, consisting largely of former lumber mill property.
Blues
The Blue Mountain region
as a whole has lagged behind
the rest of Oregon and the
U.S. when it comes to popula-
tion, income and job growth,
but the situation is especially
dire in a half-dozen Eastern
Oregon counties.
Among the 14 counties in
the study, the authors point
out that Grant, Baker, Harney,
Union, Wallowa and Wheeler
are isolated rural counties
without easy access to a met-
ropolitan area or main high-
way to stimulate economic
activity. That leaves them
with lower average wages
and more unpredictability in
employment.
Many people in those six
counties, the study’s authors
write,
have
fl uctuating
incomes that are character-
ized by seasonal employment,
poor job earnings, and limited
access to higher-paying jobs.
In 2020, the total pop-
ulation in the region was
296,000, with a density of 11
people per square mile. Ore-
gon’s counties dropped to six
people per square mile, third
to last nationwide, ahead of
just Wyoming and Alaska.
The U.S. Forest Ser-
vice signifi cantly impacts
the economy throughout the
Blue Mountain Forest region
through the agency’s staff -
ing levels, land management
plans, timber sales, service
work contracts, stewardship
contracting and grazing allot-
ments, the study determined.
Additionally, each county
receives an annual payment
in lieu of taxes to help off set
property tax revenue losses
due to federal land as well as
payments designed to make
up for losses related to declin-
ing timber harvest levels.
Grant County has more
acres per resident — 222 —
than any other county in the
Northwest. Thus, according
to the study’s authors, Grant
County is the most depen-
dent on the Forest Service
for county payments in lieu
of property taxes. These pay-
ments support various county
functions, including road
maintenance, law enforce-
ment and public safety, search
and rescue, public school dis-
tricts and other services.
Timber
and
natural
resource production have long
played a signifi cant role in
the local and regional econo-
mies of the Blue Mountains.
But environmental protections
and changes to mill technol-
ogy led to steep declines in
those industries. As a result,
the annual timber volume
in the Blue Mountain For-
est declined from 700 million
board feet in the late 1980s
to 70 million in the last few
years. In the past decade, the
authors note, the Malheur
National Forest has made up
just over 30% of the total tim-
ber volume of the Blue Moun-
tain Forest region.
The loss of timber from
the forests led to the closure
of sawmills across the region,
the loss of contractors and
the decline of other related
industries.
For several counties in the
region, Grant especially, natu-
ral resources and forest prod-
ucts was the largest employer.
Unemployment rates across
the Blue Mountains region are
among the highest in Oregon.
The loss of timber and nat-
ural resources in the region
led to population declines as
working families moved out
of the area. That created rip-
ple eff ects that impacted small
businesses, schools, health
care and property values.
Risk vs. opportunity
In taking into account the
vast differences between
each county, Maille said
he and McConnell came
up with what they dubbed
a “risk/opportunity index,”
which evaluates a county’s
relative sensitivity to pos-
itive or negative impacts
from forest management
decisions.
Maille said the index has
two measures. First, he said,
is economic resilience — in
other words, the ability for a
county to weather financial
calamity. Second, Maille
said, is a county’s level of
exposure to a national for-
est. This, he said, depends
on how much community
income is related to Forest
Service lands and the vol-
ume of public land in a par-
ticular area.
Christofferson pointed
out that forest management
decisions in Grant and Wal-
lowa counties would have
a greater significance than
they would in Malheur or
Walla Walla counties, for
instance.
While federal land man-
agement decisions are not
entirely irrelevant in Walla
Walla and Malheur counties,
he said, they are a much big-
ger factor in the economic
activity and social condi-
tions of more isolated and
rural counties like Grant and
Wallowa.
Malheur and Walla Walla
counties, according to the
assessment, are among the
least exposed, with less than
1% of Forest Service-owned
land.
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CLUES ACROSS
1. Fall down
5. Gas usage measure-
ment
8. Golf score
11. A superior grade of
black tea
13. Wrath
14. Eating house
15. Delay leaving a place
16. People now inhabiting
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38. Promotions
41. En __: incidentally
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world (abbr.)
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50. Broadway actress Daisy
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64. Tall, slender-leaved
plant
CLUES DOWN
1. Parts per thousand
(abbr.)
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indigenous person
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34. Distinctive practice
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dates engage in them
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composer
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actress Headey
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northeast
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WORDS
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