The Bureau of Land Management in late February announced it would change the Western Oregon Resource Management Plans that have governed logging and conservation on 2.5 million acres of forests in 17 Oregon counties for decades. The stated goals were “maximum” timber production to “advance Trump administration priorities,” including logging in areas that are home to federally protected, vulnerable species.
The announcement kicked off a month-long public comment period that ended March 23, but the agency did not hold any public meetings. Officials said in the announcement they would not hold any meetings before releasing a draft proposal for new logging.
Oregon’s U.S. Sens. Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden and Reps. Suzanne Bonamici, Janelle Bynum, Maxine Dexter, Val Hoyle and Andrea Salinas, all Democrats, said such generational change in logging practices deserves far more public scrutiny.
In a letter to Kim Prill, the acting director for the region at the Bureau of Land Management, they asked for a pause and more public comment. Specifically, they want 60 more days of public comment and for bureau officials to hold at least one in-person public meeting in each of the land management bureau districts that would be affected by the increased logging.
The lawmakers wrote they had received “significant outreach” from constituents concerned about whether the bureau’s environmental analysis will be adequate, and asking for more time and opportunities to engage with officials on plans, impacts and concerns.
“More robust engagement at this stage will help ensure the agency does not overlook critical information necessary to reach a socially and legally acceptable decision,” the lawmakers wrote.
A draft analysis of environmental impacts is expected in June, according to the bureau’s site page for the project. Officials did not immediately respond to the Capital Chronicle’s questions Friday about the letter and whether they’d do more public engagement. Hank Stern, a spokesperson for Wyden, said on Friday that land management bureau officials have acknowledged receipt of the letter and told the lawmakers they are working on a response.
About three-quarters of the 2.5 million federal acres, known as O&C lands for having once belonged to the Oregon and California Railroad, are currently protected from regular logging. But in its notice of intent, the land management bureau indicated it could return those acres to 1960s harvest levels, at times more than 10 times average harvest levels over the last two decades.
Conservationists have called it a plan to return to a time when the agency and the U.S. Forest Service clear cut roughly 3 square miles of old-growth forests per week, and an attempt to override years of court precedent protecting vulnerable species that depend on the stands. That level of logging nearly drove the federally protected northern spotted owl and the marbled murrelet, a small seabird that nests in old-growth forests, to extinction.