Stimulus money aimed for Forest Service in Northwest

SISTERS, Ore. — In a fire-prone patch of federal forests, a chain-saw crew spent a long day lopping down young trees that crowd in among the larger pines. In a grinding, eight-hour shift, they toppled hundreds of young saplings, dragging the wood into piles that would be burned.

"I like logging a lot better," said Roy Woody, a logger from Sweet Home, Ore. "This is just kicking our butts."

But the housing bust has sapped demand for timber and made it tough to find logging work. So earlier this spring, to keep their paychecks flowing, Woody and the rest of his crew shifted to federal lands to thin the trees.

They were among the first hired in an Obama administration stimulus program that seeks to reduce unemployment by putting people to work in the woods.

In the months ahead, the U.S. Forest Service will spend more than $1.1 billion to thin timber stands at risk of wildfires, repair roads, maintain trails and tackle other work in the forests. The money will be used on federal land, as well as some tribal, state and private lands.

A sizable chunk of the money will be spent in the Northwest. The grants are weighted toward areas hit hardest by the recession.

So Oregon, which in March had a 12.1 percent unemployment rate, tentatively has been allocated more than $100 million. Washington, with a 9.2 percent March unemployment rate, is in line for about $27 million, according to the tentative allocation. An additional $18 million will be split between the two states. The project list is expected to be finalized in coming weeks, and the total amount allocated to the Northwest may grow.

This is a gusher of new money for a financially strapped federal agency, which has been saddled with escalating costs to fight punishing wildfires. Firefighting costs in recent years have topped $1 billion, prompting the agency to borrow from other accounts to help finance those efforts.

The stimulus money will help the Forest Service tackle a big backlog of projects that have piled up over the years.

Some money will be used to repair roads or shut down unused logging roads so they don't cause erosion and other problems. In the Northwest alone, deferred maintenance now tops $1.8 billion, according to Tom Knappenberger, a regional agency spokesman.

Other money will go toward maintenance of buildings and campgrounds. One of the early grants awarded to Olympic National Forest will fund nearly $500,000 in repairs on administrative and recreational buildings.

The Forest Service nationally will direct some $500 million — nearly half of the stimulus windfall — to reducing fire hazards on public and private lands.

Decades of fire suppression have short-circuited natural fire cycles and helped create big buildups of brush and small timber. This wood helps fuel the intensity of wild fires.

Thinning, controlled burning and other tactics can reduce the heavy buildup of wood. Then, when fires hit these forests, flames hopefully will creep across the ground rather than climbing into the treetops, leaving most mature trees unharmed and making it easier for firefighters to contain.

Some of the first work is under way in central Oregon, a popular recreational area where wildfires have been a big threat to cabins, subdivisions and other developments. With some $5 million in stimulus funding, more than 140 people have been put to work.

Some crews use beefed-up mowers that pulverize brush and spit the chips onto the forest floor.

Other crews are being paid to saw down young trees that are 8 inches in diameter or smaller. These workers included Woody and his crew until late April, when a private-land logging job opened up and they moved back to clear-cutting. By then, their company — Melcher Logging — had hired more workers to take over the work on federal lands in central Oregon, where the unemployment rate in and around the city of Bend is at 17 percent.

"It's all about jobs, creating as many as we possibly can," said Susan Olson, a Forest Service public-affairs officer for Deschutes National Forest.

In some sensitive areas, the Forest Service wants workers to pile the downed trees for burning, rather then having heavy equipment haul them out of the woods.

In other areas, these trees can be retrieved and sold to reduce a contractor's labor costs.

The greater the value of this wood, the lower the contractor can afford to bid on a stimulus contract, and the greater the amount of work that can be accomplished with each stimulus project.

But Scott Melcher, the contractor tackling the job near Sisters, says this is a tough time to sell small trees. Stung by the recession, mills that might turn these skinny logs into lumber don't want this wood. So he has sent logs to a plant that turns the logs into bedding for horses and to pulp mills.

"All the resource values have just plummeted," Melcher said. " It's a real challenge to keep operating."

Hal Bernton: 206-464-2581 or hbernton@seattletimes.com