Logging in Northwest forests on the rise

PORTLAND, Ore. — Federal logging levels are the highest they've been in years, fueled by an infusion of timber from Northwest national forests, according to an investigation by The Oregonian newspaper.

The Bush administration has been allocating money for plotting timber sales, road-building, marking trees and other logging-related work at a rapid pace, even as funds to run campgrounds and other recreation sites inside national forests has become increasingly scarce.

For example, roads across the region that were ripped apart by last winter's storm season have remained closed, blocking access to popular trailheads.

The new logging money is drawn from forests in other parts of the country and will underwrite new roads that will carry trucks loaded with freshly cut trees.

Forest Service logging levels in the Northwest shrank more than 90 percent since the late 1980s, when protections for the northern spotted owl and other wildlife ended intensive cutting on federal lands.

The region is unlikely to see a return to those levels. The accelerated logging will amount to less than 20 percent of the past highs, and will likely come from thinning projects.

But now, thanks to the cash infusion, national forests are hiring technicians, engineers, timber appraisers and others, even contracting with private companies to carry some of the load their own workers cannot handle.

Foresters said they're glad for the chance to speed much-needed thinning of overgrown stands and bring on new employees to replace others who will be retiring in the next few years. It will also boost revenue for counties, which get a cut of timber proceeds.

The accelerated logging is part of a drive by the Bush administration to meet the targets of the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan, the compromise drawn up by the Clinton administration that was supposed to protect wildlife while turning out a reliable supply of wood.

National forests in the Northwest never met those targets, in part because of continuing environmental lawsuits and in part because they never got the money to plan enough timber sales.

In April forests in Washington and Oregon received an extra $24.7 million to boost logging levels, raising the timber budget to about double last year's.

National forest sales bottomed out in 2000 and have been slowly climbing since. Forests were shooting to sell 600 million board feet this year.

The extra money for logging contrasts with declines in other Forest Service funding. For instance, money for recreation programs in Oregon and Washington has dropped nearly 25 percent, from $28.7 million in 2003 to $21.4 million this year, and the Bush administration is proposing a further cut to $19 million next year.

National forests are now looking at closing recreation sites they can no longer afford.

Washington's two U.S. senators and four congressmen, all Democrats, wrote to the Secretary of Agriculture in June, saying that plans to put extra money into logging while cutting road maintenance reflect a serious misallocation of resources.