The Bureau of Land Management has filed a notice of intent to revise the resource management plan for nearly 2.5 million acres of forests in Oregon, potentially quadrupling the amount of timber open to logging on O&C Lands (Oregon and California Railroad Lands).
The agency is seeking to increase its sustained yield timber harvest to around 1 billion board feet annually, an amount matching levels prior to conservation restrictions in the 1990s. Last year, logging on those lands only yielded around 250 million board feet.
In its notice, the BLM says the proposed changes are needed because of wildfire, barred owl management and reduced revenue. The agency also cites an executive order from President Donald Trump directing federal agencies to issue new guidance aimed at increasing timber production.
The government shares timber revenue from O&C Lands, a checkerboard of federally owned forests, with 18 Oregon counties. Recently, the Department of the Interior increased local governments’ share of receipts to 75% from a previous 50% split.
Travis Joseph, president of the timber-industry association American Forest Resource Council, celebrated the possibility of a new management plan.
“It would mean thousands of more private sector jobs,” Joseph said. “It would mean millions of dollars of revenue for county governments to support mental health services, roads, schools — essential public services.”
He said the BLM currently allows for only 20% of annual timber growth to be logged, which defies the O&C Act of 1937’s mandate to harvest as much timber as grows annually.
“We're adding a lot of biomass to these fire-prone forests in Western Oregon every single year,” he said.
But conservationists say increased logging and replanting of dense timber plantations will exacerbate wildfire risk in the region.
“There's a world of difference between small-diameter fuels reduction and prescribed fire, which can reduce fire hazard, and industrial clear-cutting and plantation management of timber,” said George Sexton, conservation director for KS Wild.
Sexton said the surge in logging will not only increase fire hazard but also remove wildlife habitat and harm water quality.
In 2016, the BLM withdrew from the Northwest Forest Plan — and its conservation protections — in managing O&C Lands.
“The good news is that the BLM can no longer falsely claim that they are capable or interested in managing your public land for anything other than enriching the timber industry,” Sexton said.
Counties that once relied on revenue from logging on O&C Lands have struggled financially since conservation efforts drove out the timber industry. Local governments have had trouble increasing property taxes to replace that money.
“This resource management plan revision really is going to save many of our rural counties here in Western-Southern Oregon from going insolvent,” said Tim Freeman, Douglas County commissioner and president of the Association of O&C Counties. “It is the lifeline, and it's the only thing big enough to solve this problem.”
Last year, O&C Lands generated $66 million of timber receipts, which were shared between counties. He doesn’t expect that number to quadruple soon, but even a doubling could dramatically affect local economies.
“Having our local mills and our local citizens work at those mills and mill that wood into the best building product in the world, and sending it all over the nation to build homes with, is exactly what we need to be doing,” Freeman said.
