The Board of Forestry subcommittee that is exploring new management plans for the Tillamook & Clatsop state forests met on August 12th. While the subcommittee did not make any big decisions, there were still some alarming outcomes worth noting.
The Subcommittee is charged with exploring alternative plans that would bring about improved financial viability for the Department of Forestry AND improved conservation on the forests. It would seem that this can only be achieved if there is a favorable comparison with the current plan. However, subcommittee member Mike Rose indicated that he is not concerned with comparing an alternative plan with the existing plan to determine if either is better for conservation or revenue. He is already focused on an approach in which 70% of the forest is managed like an industrial forest, including short-rotation clearcutting and intensive pesticide spraying.
Clatsop County and Washington County have both spoken up for conservation areas as an integral part of a balanced forest management plan. However, the voice of the counties is being directed almost uniformly towards a more industrial approach to forestry. Speaking on behalf of all 15 trust land counties (including Washington County, Clatsop County, Tillamook County, Columbia County, and Benton County), Tillamook County Commissioner Tim Josi objected to protecting old growth forests. He also advocated for private industrial style stream buffers and drastic increases in clearcutting.
If Tim Josi is not representing you, tell your county commissioners!
Perhaps of most concern is the continued lack of conservation improvement concepts. Department staff brought forward another framework that shows decreases in conservation acreage rather than an increase compared to the current plan. This framework included significant loss of High Value Conservation Areas.
A new voice added to the discussion as north coast resident, Tom Bender brought forward concepts of long-rotation forestry to the Subcommittee.
Oregon’s renowned public lands offer Oregonians a unique and special lifestyle and provide our state with a natural legacy–picturesque beauty, diverse wildlife, wild rivers, snow-capped mountains, lush forests–that is the envy of many. Public lands are one of the defining aspects of this great state, and iconic national forests and parks are often the go-to for Oregonians mentioning their favorite getaways.
What about our state-owned jewels in north west Oregon? The Tillamook and Clatsop state forests are not on the cover of Oregon travel and destination magazines or profiled by national media, but these forests–logged, burned and now recovering–may be Oregon’s best place to offer a little something for everyone. A trip down Highway 6 illustrates why…
Just past milepost 35 (a 30 minute drive from Hillsboro) is beautiful Gales Creek. This tributary of the Tualatin River offers a great spot for the family to camp, play in the creek, and explore the nearby douglas fir forest.
Two miles down the road (milepost 33) is the southern turnoff to University Falls Trail. A short walk will take a photographer and plenty of gear to a curtain-like falls that captures light beautifully and pours into a bundle of downed logs and beautiful pools.
Near milepost 28 is Elk Creek Trailhead and Campground. Options here are abundant: splash around in the Wilson River, find a cool spot and set up the hamock, or start the long haul up the Kings-Elk Mountain traverse. A safe bet is hopping on the mountain bike and heading down the awesome Wilson River Trail.
Three miles down the highway or the trail is the Kings Mountain Trailhead. This iconic coast range hike is a quad killer–the trail climbs 2,546 feet in just 2.5 miles. From the summit (3,226 feet) one can see the Pacific Ocean and Mount Hood. Spectacular!
At milepost 23 the whole family can take a break from the heat and find the Jones Creek Campground. This very accessible spot features just about anything you’d want on a hot summer day. The feature is deep swimming holes, warm basking rocks rocks, and sandy beaches.
The Footbridge Trailhead at milepost 20 (and along the Wilson River Trail) is the beginning of some great spots for fishing. Though the water will be low during summer months, a patient angler can pursue cutthroat trout or hatchery summer steelhead, though catch-and-release fishing can stress out native fish in low water.
Spend some time in these spots this summer. Find some peace and relaxation. Share pictures and help tell the story: #WilsonRiverFun#ORStateForests. Check back frequently, this is just a taste and we’ll be exploring these spots (and others) more in upcoming posts.
The “Homesteader” timber sale in the Clatsop state forest calls for the clearcutting of some of the best old growth forest habitat remaining on Oregon’s north coast. The sale features trees over 130 years old and over 200 feet high–relative monsters in a region that has been logged and burned over.
HB 3210, which would have seen our state forest lands clearcut at much higher levels, is no longer. The bill was supported by timber industry lobbyists and Tillamook County Commissioner Tim Josi, but Rep. Brad Witt, Chair of the House Committee on Agriculture & Natural Resources heard from hundreds of Oregonians to reject the bill and keep balance on our forests. Rumor has it that Chair Witt’s phone was ringing off the hook. Congratulations and thanks to all who contacted Chair Witt!
Bills like HB 3210 rear their heads in nearly every Oregon legislative session, but they normally don’t go as far as this one did. We need to hold our lawmakers accountable for pushing unbalanced forest agendas that sacrifice future benefit for short-term dollars.
Last month, the Board of Forestry refused to endorse a proposal that would have seen drastic increases in clearcutting across the landscape. Our supporters drove hundreds and hundreds of thoughtful, personalized comments to Governor Brown asking her to reject this plan. Thank you for your support—we were heard loud and clear!
The search for a new Forest Management Plan continues as the Board instructed Department of Forestry staff to engage in shuttle diplomacy with stakeholder groups in an attempt to find areas of agreement among the timber industry, county interests, and the conservation community.
The Board Subcommittee in charge of a new plan meets on April 8th with a lot of work to do. Tasked with improving conservation and stabilizing ODF’s funding, it is becoming more evident that the Board needs to seek alternative revenue streams rather than continuing to rely solely on logging to manage these public lands.
The Oregon Department of Forestry recently presented a timber-centered vision for the new Forest Management Plan on the Tillamook & Clatsop state forests.
Key proposals included:
Devoting 70% of the forest to industrial clear cutting and pesticide spraying to dramatically increase harvest.
Clear cutting most of the new High Value Conservation Areas that are currently protected for older forest.
A formal policy to prioritize cutting of oldest trees in the “production zone” so species cannot recover.
Using the extra revenue to increase the ODF budget by 30%.
Redefining conservation areas to include clearcuts.
Trask Watershed under ODF’s Proposal
No, we are not making this up!
ODF’s plan is very similar to the 70-30 proposal pushed by Hampton Affiliates, a private firm that wants the logs for their mills.
Maps based on ODF data provide images of the current plan and ODF’s devastating proposal. Red areas are removed from conservation protection and opened to clearcutting:
Fortunately, a conservation-minded member of the Board blocked this initial proposal, but ODF leadership have clearly made a power move to expand their budget as the Governor changes. The Department was directed to seek alternative revenues for their state forest program, but are clearly focused only on increasing harvest levels dramatically.
For most people, “salmon” is an expensive, unnaturally pink piece of fish at the grocery store. It is a potential meal, detached from its context by thousands of miles. Even those of us who are lucky enough to live in the Pacific Northwest often have only a distant relationship to these iconic fish. However, there are places where we can bridge the gap and connect with an elusive and integral part of our history, culture, cuisine, and economy.
Just over an hour from Portland, and a mere 30 minutes from the fast-growing cities of Beaverton and Hillsboro, one can sit on an isolated stream bank and share hours with spawning coho salmon. For the uninitiated, this is an eye-opening experience that can open new ways of looking at the natural world on which we depend. However, these are also the last hours of the salmons’ lives. They travel over 100 miles up rivers like the Nehalem, the Salmonberry, the Trask, and the Wilson to spawn where they hatched 3-5 years before, dying in the process of continuing their line.
Our publicly-owned north coast forests, the Tillamook & Clatsop State Forests, likely hold the key to salmon habitat in northwest Oregon. The management of these lands is currently undergoing a revision. Some stakeholders would like to see these lands managed with even more emphasis on timber production, a move that would likely harm wild salmon and take away the possibility of connecting with these fish.
Clatsop Forest proposed clearcut (photo by Trygve Steen)
A parcel of forest only needs to be clearcut once to destroy most of its ecological value for decades and decades. On the other hand, conservation requires constant, long-term, robust protection. That is why, as the Board of Forestry writes a new plan for managing the Tillamook & Clatsop state forests, conservation commitments need to be real–long-lasting, appropriately managed, and mapped.
Current “High Value Conservation Areas,” which we fought hard for for several years, represent an important step forward for the Oregon Department of Forestry. Their designation (covering 140,000+ acres state-wide) has helped to frame the process that will result in a new Forest Management Plan. In part because of these new designations, the Board is strongly pursuing a “land allocation” approach, which will see a conservation zone, a timber-emphasis zone, and possibly other zones that, contrasting the current approach, do not move around the landscape. Governor Kitzhaber recently promoted this type of plan.
A land allocation approach has the potential to succeed in improving conservation. Clearly, a large portion of the landscape would need to fall into the conservation zone in order for wildlife habitat and clean water to be adequately protected. What’s even more important though, is how that allocation is managed and where it is. Current conservation areas are too often managed to produce some timber volume–heavily thinned or even clearcut. In the new plan, conservation areas need to be managed for conservation without any expectation of producing timber. That means forests, left largely untouched, intended to grow old and complex. Not wilderness, but wild.
Another crucial factor in the success of this approach is maps. Public awareness and transparency are of the utmost importance for conservation. Protected areas should not be moved and changed at the discretion of ODF staff on a yearly basis. These areas need to be on long-term, publicly available maps. Oregonians deserve to know where these areas are, and for the sake of healthy salmon runs, wildlife habitat, carbon sequestering old trees, and clean drinking water, these areas should be in the public eye and the public conscience.
Conservation does not work at the whims of political tides and timber projections. It requires durable and robust commitments for the foreseeable future.
The Oregon Board of Forestry continues to explore new Forest Management Plans that will both provide financial viability to the Department of Forestry and improve conservation outcomes on the Tillamook & Clatsop state forests. On September 29th, the Board weighed two options developed by ODF. A “Land Allocation” proposal suggests putting at least 30% of the forest into a conservation zone and managing other portions of the forest for different degrees of timber production. A “Landscape Management” proposal is similar to the current forest management plan, with various types of forest structure moved around the landscape over time. Either proposal has the potential to succeed or fail. There is room in each framework to improve conservation, but there is also the potential for harmful environmental outcomes. The latter proposal suggests sacrificing habitat in smaller forest districts, such as the Santiam.
Counties Won’t Play
The Trust Land Counties (CFTLC), which receive a significant portion of revenue from state forest timber harvests, rejected both proposals and did not offer alternatives. County representatives implied that they would not support any new plan that did not dramatically increase clearcut levels. The Counties’ unwillingness to meaningfully participate in the process does not bode well for a new plan being created.
Speaking against the Department working with federal scientists to negotiate a Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP), the CFTLC expounded on the “risk of an aging forest,” warning that, “as forest ages and begins to provide habitat for listed species, the ability to continue timber harvest may decline dramatically. ODF and the Board of Forestry must not let this situation develop on the Trust lands.” These forests are crucial to providing habitat for listed fish and wildlife. Efforts to prevent habitat from improving are misguided and show an alarmingly single-minded view of these forests simply as tree farms.
The Timber Industry Shows Its Colors
Dave Ivanoff, of Hampton Lumber, also objected to the pursuit of a Habitat Conservation Plan and warned ODF of the “perpetual issue of creating habitat.”
Forest Practices Act “stream buffer”
Mr. Ivanoff was “dismayed” by both ODF proposals, saying that the Land Allocation approach was a “departure” from what he envisioned: “From my selfish perspective I would request support of the 70/30 zoned approach the way I’ve offered it, based on the Forest Practices Act.” “I fundamentally believe that there is absolutely nothing wrong with [the industrial approach].” There is significant scientific literature on environmental problems caused by the FPA.
When asked why he came up with the 70/30 split, Mr. Ivanoff said that it was based on “what is the level of harvest that’s going to be needed to maintain the family-owned forest manufacturing sector in NW Oregon,” what is needed to “support our company’s needs, our competitors’ needs.” The harvest level “would come close to replacing that lost fiber that is no longer coming from Washington.” It’s clear that the timber industry’s calculations of what should be cut don’t consider the forests many values, but instead stem from their own needs.
Rex Storm, representing the Associated Oregon Loggers, urged the Board to curtail public input and not seek public approval when devising a new plan, stating that the timber industry and even the Board are more important stakeholders than the Oregonians who own these lands. The Board, of course, is supposed to manage these forests on behalf of all Oregonians. Ironically, Mr. Storm delivered his alarming message during the public comment period.
Conservation Improvements Needed
Buster Creek, Clatsop State Forest
The North Coast State Forest Coalition urged the Board to move forward keeping conservation improvements in mind. In order to improve conservation outcomes, any plan would likely need to improve riparian buffers to provide adequate shade and wood delivery to streams, increase the amount of older forest on the landscape, reduce clearcutting on steep slopes, and decrease the forest road network, which currently is very expansive and can lead to sediment problems in streams. Both ODF proposals include expanding no-cut buffer zones on fish-bearing streams to 115 feet, reflecting current scientific literature that suggests little or no riparian management is best for stream health. 115 feet is a good start, but it is unclear that it is adequate. Non-fish bearing streams would benefit from a no-cut buffer of at least 75 feet. Current standards are much less protective.
The success of either plan hinges on balance, public input, and the best science available. Dollars cannot be the only driver determining the future of these forests. These lands have been over-logged and burnt. They are just beginning to recover, and their protection is crucial to Oregon’s economy and environment.
The Board Acts
The Board moved a motion to explore/pursue a land allocation proposal, but did not move any specifics such as those in the ODF proposal. Board members Gary Springer and Mike Rose, both employees of the forest products industry, voted for a zoned approach that sees much of the landscape treated like industrial timber land. Chair Tom Imeson followed the timber representatives’ vote. The only “no” vote to this proposal came from Sybil Ackerman-Munson, who was rightfully doubtful that a zoned approach would work without any cooperation from the Trust Counties.
ODF will now move forward exploring a zoned approach, but without any sideboards for conservation and with the Counties refusing to enter dialogue, it is doubtful that a good plan will come to fruition.
