A matter of trust

Two proposals for a safety net to replace timber funds see land use differently

As Western Oregon counties prepare to close libraries, release jail inmates early and lay off workers to make up for lost timber subsidies, environmental groups are proposing possible solutions.

One proposal would move the management of timberlands from one federal agency to another and create an endowment that would provide a safety net for six years.

Another would split timberlands into two trusts, one for managing timber and generating money for counties, the other for preserving the environment.

Both are alternatives to a Douglas County official's suggestion that timberlands should be sold outright to keep the county payments program alive.

The first proposal, by a coalition of seven environmental groups, calls for turning over management of the roughly 2.6 million acres of U.S. Bureau of Land Management forests in Western Oregon to the U.S. Forest Service. It would also create an endowment in the existing federal Western Oregon Old-Growth Protection and Rural Investment Fund for a six-year safety net.

The money from savings in management and the endowment fund is estimated to be comparable to the $90 million counties in Western Oregon received last year from the sale of timber on former Oregon & California Railroad lands.

"This is thinking outside the box," said Joseph Vaile, conservation director of Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, one of the groups supporting the proposal. Turning management of the BLM lands over to the Forest Service was first proposed by the Reagan administration as a way to save money, he said.

"It can help solve the county crisis and protect the environment," he said.

The coalition's proposal would apply only to former O&C railroad lands managed by the BLM in the region. "It does conserve things like clean water, old-growth forest and salmon habitat," Vaile said.

The second proposal, by the Eugene-based Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, would split BLM forestland in Western Oregon into two equal-sized fiduciary trusts.

One of the 1.2 million-acre trusts would be managed exclusively for timber production to provide revenue for the counties while the other of equal size would be an environmental trust.

That acreage reflects the 2.4 million acres of the former O&C railroad lands managed by the agency in the region.

"This is intended to be a provincial solution to a provincial problem," said Andy Stahl, the group's executive director. "Using conservative estimates, we think the revenues are there for the counties."

The group believes the timber trust income could produce $255 million for Oregon, roughly the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self Determination Act timber subsidy received last year. That included $90 million from O&C lands and $165 million from national forest payments. The 2000 act expired in 2006 and was not renewed by Congress.

Jackson County faces a $23 million shortfall in the fiscal year starting July 1; Josephine County officials project a $13 million shortfall. Jackson County officials and lawmakers in Washington, D.C., are lobbying Congress to extend the act for at least another year.

Jackson County Commissioner Jack Walker, a member of the O&C board, wasn't impressed with the coalition's proposal to turn BLM lands over to the Forest Service.

"You gotta be kidding me," he said. "The BLM has been able to manage the O&C lands without some of the restrictions the Forest Service has. Why put that land under an agency that has more restrictions? It doesn't make sense."

The goals should be to receive more value from the timberlands, not less, he said.

As for the second proposal to split the O&C lands, Walker is more receptive.

"That's almost where we are, but we would sell 1.2 million acres to an investment trust," he said. "The kind of investment trust funds that buy these lands aren't the kind that cuts down all the trees. These are mostly retirement trust funds. They would be looking for an investment."

He was referring to Douglas County Commissioner Doug Robertson's proposal to sell off 1.2 million acres of the BLM lands to keep the county payments program alive. Robertson estimated the sale would raise $12 billion, of which $4 billion would be put into a trust fund for counties. Another $4 billion would be set aside in a trust for national forests and for U.S. schools and $3 billion would be put in a trust for education. The remaining $1 billion would pay for species management by the BLM.

Robertson's proposal was endorsed by the Association of O&C Counties, including those representing Jackson County.

But environmental activists are adamantly opposed to selling the public land. They note a proposal to sell off the lands last year by the Bush administration was met with bipartisan opposition in Congress.

Going back to more timber harvests isn't a viable solution, said longtime environmental activist Andy Kerr, who last year called for turning over the BLM's land in Western Oregon to the Forest Service.

"Let's say all the environmentalists went away today and they went back to cutting like they used to," he said. "We would be out of timber at that rate in ten years. There are not enough trees out there to go back to the past.

"It's time to move on," he added, noting polls have routinely showed that the vast majority of Oregonians want old-growth timber preserved. Taking the land out of BLM management would reduce the harvest of those old-growth forests, he said.

For more information on the proposals, check out the following: www.jacksoncounty.org, then click on "Internet/TV"; www.oregonheritageforests.org; www.afseee.org.

Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or e-mail him at pfattig@mailtribune.com.