New state proposal would allow for bigger timber harvest

By Craig Welch
Seattle Times staff reporter

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The Board of Natural Resources, which oversees management of forest trust lands, is expected on Tuesday to set the new timber target, which calls for cutting at least 30 percent more wood than has been logged from state forests in recent years.

The board also is expected to dismantle other regulations that in the past decade prevented logging from reaching previous state goals.

Environmentalists, alarmed by the potential change, fear the combination will put pressure on threatened spotted owls and salmon runs, and potentially expose steep slopes and watersheds to stream-choking erosion.

But timber-industry representatives maintain the state could still squeeze out even more wood, and logging practices are much less environmentally damaging than in the past.

And state managers insist they're only removing ecologically unsound or redundant rules that kept them from fulfilling their obligations to maximize the forests' economic potential.

"In terms of creating the environment our forests need, it came down to two choices: active stewardship or passive management," said Todd Myers, spokesman for the Department of Natural Resources (DNR), which manages state forests under the board's direction.

"This means, over time, we'll simply be doing a lot more thinning, rather than simply locking up large areas of the forests and doing nothing."

Info on forests • For more on the state's plan: www.dnr.wa.gov/htdocs/fr/sales/ sustainharvest/sustainharvest.html • For other views: Environment: www.wecprotects.org/Home/ Industry: www.afrc.ws/

Washington's 2.4 million acres of state forest — two-thirds of which are in Western Washington — are by law to be managed as trusts, for recreation, environmental benefits and to help fund schools.

About 75 percent of money raised from logging goes to public schools, colleges, counties and other government institutions.

Specifically, the board on Tuesday is expected to choose its preferred option for a "sustainable yield" — a timber-harvest plan it thinks could be maintained over the long haul without damaging forests.

While Tuesday's action will kick off a public-review process that won't be finished until summer, on this all sides agree: Given the 2-1/2 years of research and review that have led to this point, the board isn't likely to do much more with the plan than tinker around the edges.

"The likelihood of them ultimately choosing anything other than the preferred alternative is pretty slim," said Tom Geiger, with the Washington Environmental Council. "And none of the alternatives are very environmentally forward-looking."

The board already has largely agreed on the basics of the plan. It would set a logging goal of about 716 million board feet a year statewide, 635 million of it in Western Washington. That plan would raise about $158 million a year just on the west side of the state.

Environmentalists point out it's a marked departure from the status quo.

	Doug Sutherland

The last time such a goal was set, in the mid-1990s, it was at 655 million board feet statewide. But Public Lands Commissioner Jennifer Belcher, a Democrat, issued additional rules to limit timber harvests in parts of forests where most of the trees were only 25 years old.

And she barred harvesting around dozens of spotted-owl nests. The result: Actual timber harvests were substantially lower.

The new proposal would remove those rules.

"Those rules were set up as sort of a screen to say, 'Whoa, let's not go too fast and cut too much,' " said Becky Kelley, with the Washington Environmental Council. "The state, right now, has the right to cut in owl habitat as long as they create more in the long run. But owls are in decline, and we're worried about the time gap."

Bob Dick, with the American Forest Resource Council, an industry group, called the new harvest goals "prudent and conservative."

"It is an increase over what Commissioner Belcher wound up with, but are they going to be overcutting their land base? No," he said. "Commissioner Belcher's rules were in excess of what was required."

Environmentalists also took issue with the way lands would be logged — primarily through clear-cutting.

"That's not what those forests need," Geiger said. "Thinning can help dense forests recover. But they're using thinning as a euphemism for clear-cutting."

But Myers and Bruce Mackey, a lands steward with DNR, said logging under the new plan would incorporate several types of clear-cuts — from patchwork harvests to heavy thinning — and that 70 percent of it would be designed primarily to create habitat.

"Yes, we are treating more acres of land, but we're using timber harvests to create habitat," Mackey said. "We have a gem here, and we have an obligation to take care of it. We take that seriously."

Craig Welch: 206-464-2093 or cwelch@seattletimes.com

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