Cuts force BLM to combine Glendale, GP resource areas

The Medford District of the Bureau of Land Management workforce will shrink by about 17 percent over the next year, and the Glendale and Grants Pass resource areas will be combined, because of budget cuts.

District spokesman Jim Whittington said many of the projected 37 job losses will be absorbed by retirements, but 10 to 15 people will work under non-personnel funds, such as special projects, he said. Those jobs will eventually go away. The number of full-time, permanent employees will drop from 218 to 181, compared to more than 400 during the logging boom of the mid-1980s.

"We're not immune to what's going on in the larger economy," Whittington said. "We have to reduce like everybody else."

The district's annual budget will likely drop from about $34 million to $25 million in the federal 2011 fiscal year beginning Friday, but the numbers aren't set yet, Whittington said.

The slump in the timber industry is part of the equation.

Eight foresters or forest technician jobs will go away in the new Grants Pass Resource Area that will include the former Glendale Resource Area, and the Butte Falls and Ashland resource areas are also losing timber jobs.

"Some of the timber positions we've traditionally had on the district will not be funded," Whittington said. "We'll be funded at an amount enough to harvest close to 20 million board feet. It's the reality we have to deal with."

The Medford District timber harvest target has been 57 million board feet since the Northwest Forest Plan of 1994, but it's averaged around 20 million in recent years. The Medford District has been funded enough to harvest 45 million to 46 million board feet in recent years, Whittington said.
A Western Oregon Plan Revision would have allowed harvest of 97 million board feet in the Medford District and 502 million board feet in Western Oregon, more than doubling the harvest. But it was scrapped by the Obama Administration in 2009 because of insufficientprotection of fish and wildlife.

Glendale Resource Area Manager Katrina Symons will be the new Grants Pass Resource Area manager beginning Dec. 1, and currentGP Resource Area Manager Abbie Jossie will move to the Lands and resources staff in Medford, Whittington said.

The Glendale and Grants Pass resource areas have shared the Grants Pass Interagency Office on Spalding Avenue the last few years, one reason those two were consolidated.

The U.S. Forest Service went through a similar downsizing process a few years ago, combining the Rogue River and Siskiyou national forests, and consolidating ranger districts. The combined total personnel in the 1980s was over 800, but has hovered around 262 in the last year, said forest spokesman Paul Galloway.

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Reach reporter Jeff Duewel at 541-474-3720 or jduewel@thedailycourier.com