Industry wants more logging, environmentalists demand less as debate intensifies in Salem, countiesFrom space, it’s easy to assess the Oregon Department of Forestry’s management of the Clatsop and Tillamook state forests.

Bob Van Dyk’s laptop computer whirrs and a satellite picture of the Coast Range in Clatsop County blinks onto the screen. It looks like an irregular patchwork quilt spread over a lumpy bed.

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Morning sun shines through the trees of a stand on the west side of the Tillamook State Forest. Debate over management of the Clatsop and Tillamook state forests has grown as the forests mature.”The image helps explain how ODF understands itself,” the Pacific University political science professor said. “The community (it comes) from is doing this” – he pointed to vast open clearcuts depicted on the screen.

Van Dyk clicked the mouse and white lines demarcating the state’s lands appeared. These areas have a mix of smaller clearcuts speckled with residual trees, dense young stands and forests pocked with pinhead-sized black dots, which is what big trees look like from space.

“Are they gentler than the industrial forestry model? There isn’t any question there,” Van Dyk said.

There’s also no question that the ODF’s management plan calls for more timber harvest than the “passive” approach practiced on federal forests, where logging has all but disappeared.

As the ODF continues implementing an ambitious plan for state forests in Northwest Oregon, it’s clear the agency’s strategy falls somewhere between the federal and industrial models.

But exactly where is a matter of growing debate.

In the final installment of a five-part series on the Clatsop and Tillamook forests, The Daily Astorian looks at how groups from both ends of the spectrum are trying to bend the state’s management to their will.

The issue illustrates Oregon’s urban-rural political split as well as a larger question about the economic future of the state.

“Right now, we’re trying to do right by our past and our future. That’s a struggle and you see it everywhere,” said Joe Whitworth, executive director of Oregon Trout, an environmental group committed to working within the current plan. “We are between value sets. One that’s been handed down and one that we make.”

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Two Portland residents, Wayne Naillon, a member of Portland United Mountain Pedalers, or P.U.M.P., and Lars Weber, who’s involved in the International Mountain Biking Association, help build trails in the Tillamook State Forest on a June weekend. “The more we build, the more we get to ride,” says Weber. The ODF’s management plan is designed to do just that. After a six-year effort, the Oregon Board of Forestry approved a plan in January 2001 that’s meant to keep logging steady, provide habitat for native wildlife and create opportunities for people to play in the woods. It’s based on the “greatest permanent value” rule, adopted by the board in 1998.

“This is a balanced plan that provides a multitude of benefits to a multitude of people,” said Tillamook District Forester Mark Labhart. “It’s what we call an ‘and-and’ plan, rather than an ‘either-or’ plan.”

‘Jiminy Christmas, give us a chance’

But no fewer than four bills were introduced into the Oregon Legislature this session to alter the plan.

House Bill 3632 has the backing of most of the timber industry, but was the idea of Rep. Lane Shetterly, R-Dallas, chairman of the House Revenue Committee.

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During a June county commissioners tour of the Clatsop State Forest, Chairwoman Helen Westbrook voices concerns about the Cougar Monster timber sale.Timber industry lobbyist Ray Wilkeson said legislators are more interested in the Clatsop and Tillamook state forests than at any other time in his 17 years with the Oregon Forest Industries Council.

“These forests have been growing for 40 years and it’s kind of been a policy of benign neglect on the part of the Legislature,” he said.

The forests represent an attractive source of revenue for state and local governments at a time of shortfalls and service cuts across Oregon. Many assert this is the original purpose of the state forests.

“It really from day one has been about revenue,” said state Sen. Joan Dukes, D-Svensen. “And it’s only much more recently (that) we’ve had a surge of people coming to the area, saying, ‘Gee, this is a beautiful forest, it’s now grown up. We don’t want you to harvest it.'”

On the other side of the coin is a 50-percent reserve plan, which died in the Senate natural resources committee earlier this year, but may be reborn as a ballot initiative. The reserve plan would set aside half the forest for protecting clean water, fish and wildlife and promoting recreation. Proponents say these things contribute to the quality of life that has spurred growth in the high-technology sector and tourism in Oregon. It’s backed by the Tillamook Rainforest Coalition, which includes major environmental groups, such as the Sierra Club, and many coastal small businesses.

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Tillamook District Forester Mark Labhart, like many in the Oregon Department of Forestry, is frustrated with groups that would alter the state’s management plan.

The coalition vehemently opposes HB 3632.

Labhart, like many in the ODF, is frustrated with efforts to alter the plan, especially by environmentalists and timber industry representatives who were part of committees and advisory panels that helped craft it. Work began on the plan in 1994.

“My opinion on all of that stuff is, ‘Jiminy Christmas, give us a chance,'” he said during a tour of the western half of the Tillamook State Forest last month. “Forestry is a long-term investment.”

The department’s plan includes 50-year maps, predictions of how the forest will look in 60 to 80 years and estimates of timber harvests for a 200-year time frame.

‘A sense of urgency’However, management of the state forests is at a critical juncture, representatives on both sides of the issue say. Competing proposals to alter the plan will only add to that.

Leslie Lehmann, executive director of the Oregon Forest Resources Institute since 1992, sees an opportunity to build consensus for managing all of Oregon’s 28 million acres of forest.

“I think we’re at a point in time where people could be rallied around an agreement about forests as opposed to the divisiveness and the urban-rural conflicts that have characterized the last 10 years, which have been very destructive for the state,” Lehmann said.

Until now, the Clatsop and Tillamook state forests had largely been overlooked by many environmentalists, who were fighting logging in the federally owned old-growth forests of the Cascades and Columbia River Gorge.

“It just wasn’t as sexy as these big cathedral forests,” said Nat Parker, conservation organizer for the Sierra Club.

Forest activists claimed victory on federal lands, which now produce very little timber, and have turned their attention to state lands in Portland’s backyard.

Part of the reason the Clatsop and Tillamook state forests ‘Here in Oregon, we’re focusing on the Columbia River Gorge and on the Tillamook and Clatsop state forests.’- Nat Parker

conservation organizer are getting so much attention is because they are so close to Oregon’s population center, said Van Dyk, the political science professor.

“The easy way to demonstrate that is to look at the Elliott State Forest, which is down outside of Coos Bay,” he said. “There’s no coalition of major environmental groups focusing a lot of attention on them.”

However, the value of trails, campgrounds and clean water that runs from Northwest Oregon state forests to homes and businesses in the region “is much greater because of their proximity to Portland,” he said.

Last year, Van Dyk brought to light misclassifications of ODF’s holdings on the state forests, which the department is taking steps to correct.

Like state legislators, environmentalists are aware that the state forests are maturing.

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“This meets the definition of a clearcut,” said Tillamook District Forester Mark Labhart as he surveyed this recently-logged stand. “Most people’s perception of a clearcut is everything’s gone.””They’re primed for being cut right now,” Parker said. “There’s definitely a sense of urgency to it.”

Environmental groups are using a number of tools to raise awareness and build support for their vision of the state forests.

The first priority is education, Parker said – “talking to people about what is at stake.”

The Sierra Club pays canvassers to go door-to-door spreading information and raising money. Volunteers staff booths at festivals and county fairs.

The club leads hikes into the forest for fun and to “groundtruth” controversial timber sales, checking to see that the ODF is doing what it says it’s doing.

“(It’s) going back to the ethos of the Sierra Club, which was an outings club to promote conservation,” he said.

Nationally, the Sierra Club has launched a campaign to protect lands along the Lewis and Clark trail, in conjunction with the bicentennial of the explorers’ journey.

“Here in Oregon, we’re focusing on the Columbia River Gorge and on the Tillamook and Clatsop state forests,” Parker said.

Publicity plays a big role in the group’s efforts on the state forests. The Sierra Club has run television commercials related to the broader Lewis and Clark campaign. Last year, the club rented a billboard on U.S. Highway 26 that read: “Tell ODF to stop clearcutting our Tillamook Rainforest.” Parker said that generated a lot of calls.

With an eye toward running a ballot initiative for the November 2004 election, the Sierra Club and other members of the Tillamook Rainforest Coalition are reaching out to voters.

To get an initiative on the ballot, they’ll need to collect 75,630 signatures.

While the coalition has gathered the majority of environmental groups focused on state forests under one umbrella, there are others on the more extreme end of the spectrum.

One of these is the Cascadia Forest Alliance, which offered no comment for this series, despite repeated phone and e-mail requests from The Daily Astorian.

That group was involved in a tree-sit protest of the Acey Line timber sale in God’s Valley, along the Clatsop-Tillamook county line in October 2001. Michael Scarpitti, a protestor who famously scaled a federal building in downtown Portland to protest a U.S. Forest Service timber sale, fell and was seriously injured after authorities chased him from tree-to-tree.

It was the first direct-action protest of a timber sale on state forest land in Oregon.

The Tillamook Rainforest Coalition plans no such action, outreach director Donald Fontenot said.

Industrial pressureLORI ASSA – The Daily Astorian

Bill Lecture, deputy Astoria District forester, describes the results of thinning operations in the Gnat Creek area during a tour of the Clatsop State Forest with county commissioners and staff June 25. Pictured from left are Lecture, Commissioner Bob Green, Astoria District Forester Tom Savage, Commission Chairwoman Helen Westbrook, Assistant County Administrator Debra Kraske, and County Commissioners Sam Patrick and Lylla Gaebel.The timber industry is focusing its attention on the state Legislature.

The Oregon Forest Industries Council has helped lawmakers compare the state’s plan with the timber industry model, said Wilkeson, the lobbyist.

He noted that stricter provisions in the forest management plan, such as larger buffer zones along streams and growing older trees, are expensive.

“That’s what the Legislature is wondering about right now – if those are prudent decisions,” he said.

OFIC has also researched the legal and public opinion issues that could arise with passage of HB 3632, which would make timber harvesting the priority on the Clatsop and Tillamook state forests.

Opponents of the bill have argued that increasing the cut on state lands to more closely match production on private lands will open the ODF to the same kind of Endangered Species Act lawsuits that halted logging on federal forests.

Not so, Wilkeson said. Lawsuits on federal land were based on federal laws that don’t apply to state or private lands. The state is not facing any different legal liability than private land owners, he said.

Others have said that passage of the bill would strengthen environmentalists’ arguments for the 50-percent reserve.

Wilkeson, citing a statewide poll OFIC conducted this spring, said there was support for increased harvests on state lands.

“We understand the public opinion is very important and if we lose the confidence of the public … that’s bad news for us,” he said. “(But) the public is not downtown Portland, the public is broader than that. Broadly the people of Oregon appreciate the forest industry.”

He would not release specific figures from the survey because they could be useful in the battle against the 50-percent reserve plan, if it’s placed on the ballot.

Dissent in the ranksThe opinions of the 15 counties that make up the Forest Trust Lands Advisory Committee also weigh heavily on the politics of state forest management.

Their “trust like” relationship with the state entitles them to a share of revenues from the forests and input into management decisions. Many state forest activities, such as land exchanges, must be approved by county commissioners.

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Paul Levesque, Tillamook County management analyst, says counties are no longer the unified group in support of increased timber harvests that they once were.Once a unified voice in support of timber production on state forest lands, the counties have shown signs of splitting.

“Since 1939, counties were considered a homogeneous unit until the past two or three years, when things have changed in the county landscape,” said Paul Levesque, Tillamook County management analyst and author of a 1,400-page history of the county’s forestlands.

Two of the three Tillamook County commissioners voted to support HB 3632. Three of five on the Clatsop County Commission voted not to pay for a consultant hired by the trust land counties to increase the harvest from state forests.

The counties hired the consultant to address the disparity between actual harvests and the harvests estimated when the management plan was crafted – an annual difference of 80 to 100 million board feet.

Clatsop Chairwoman Helen Westbrook said the plan should be given an opportunity to work before groups try to “skew” it one way or the other. She said the counties’ decision to crank up the cut through a consultant contradicted their statements of support for the plan.

“I think that there are certainly counties that are looking to increase the harvest, maybe at any cost,” Westbrook said.

More important than the positions of the individual county commissions is the position of the Forest Trust Lands Advisory Committee, which lent its support to the existing forest management plan at a meeting in May.

Still, dissent in the ranks could weaken the counties’ clout on forest management issues.

“It doesn’t bode well for the future of the counties’ interest in these lands,” Levesque said, “because unless the counties can achieve consensus through the Forest Trust Lands Advisory Committee … we lose our legal voice and political strength.”

The middle groundWith the potential for a big showdown over the bill and the ballot initiative, some have said that the middle ground on which ODF’s management plan is based is eroding.

ODF State Forests Director Ross Holloway does not see it that way.

“If anything, the number of people who occupy that philosophical middle ground is growing,” Holloway wrote in an e-mail to The Daily Astorian. “Public opinion polls would suggest that the type of thinking that led to the integrated, multi-resource management plan we have today is probably growing in the general public, rather than shrinking.

“The single-resource focused interest groups have certainly become more vocal following plan adoption, having largely failed in their attempts to ‘steer’ the plan in their direction,” he continued. “That could easily be perceived as a shrinking middle ground.”

For its part, the ODF is doing its best to explain how its complicated management plan works as it adjusts to increased public scrutiny.

“The public gives us permission to manage this forest,” said District Forester Labhart, running for Tillamook County commissioner in 2004. “If the public doesn’t like what you’re doing, they’re going to change it.”

Education and outreach programs are a big part of gaining that permission. The department is working on an interpretive center near Jones Creek. State foresters are also spending more time answering questions from the public.

‘Still my neighbors’ Opinions on forest management often split along roughly the same urban-rural political divide pervasive in Oregon politics.

Environmentalists, by and large, fall into the urban category. And timber interests are most easily associated with the rural communities where logging has the biggest economic and social impact.

“To be quite honest with you, I don’t think the folks in Portland give two hoots in hell about how we make a living out here,” said Clatsop County Commissioner Sam Patrick.

Pacific University’s Van Dyk put it this way:

“Certainly there are plenty of insensitive enviros who don’t recognize the very real economic distress that exists for a lot of people in some of these historically resource extraction-based communities.”

But there are also Oregonians, urban and rural, with a strong environmental ethic and an understanding of the importance of timber where they live.

“I’ve been to meetings where a great many local people have come out to speak about their concerns about forest issues,” said Doug Firstbrook, a north Tillamook County resident since 1976.

Firstbrook, who supports the 50-percent reserve plan, said he often hears the crowds at those meetings described as “just a bunch of Portland people.”

“That’s often used as a way to gain support from their presumed constituency, by claiming that the interest is really out of towners,” he said. “I resent it when it’s done.”

As a carpenter and general contractor, Firstbrook does not fall into that category of environmentalists who forget that homes are made of wood.

“The people who make their living with close ties to resource extraction … those people are still my neighbors. They’re part of the community and I’m part of it,” Firstbrook said.

The debate about management of Northwest Oregon’s state forests is, at its essence, a more fundamental question on the state’s future. It’s a struggle for balance between the timber harvesting that has historically driven Oregon’s economy and conserving the natural amenities that draw tourists, retirees and skilled workers here.

Oregon Trout’s Whitworth asks: “How do we do well by both our grandfathers and our granddaughters?”