BLM Issues Decision on WOPR

Noelle Straub, E&E reporter
www.eenews.net

The Bureau of Land Management finalized a plan on Dec. 31 that would nearly triple the timber harvest on 2.6 million acres of land in western Oregon, despite objections from environmental groups and the state's governor.

BLM issued records of decision implementing the Western Oregon Plan Revisions, or "the WOPR," by the end-of-2008 deadline set under an agreement settling a lawsuit by the timber industry.

BLM originally had not allowed a public protest period on the plan, but after environmental groups sued, the agency reversed course and allowed a 30-day protest period that ended Dec. 8. BLM received 264 formal protests against the plan but made only "minor changes" as a result.

The plan also had been sent to Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski (D) for a 60-day review period to ensure it is consistent with state laws. Kulongoski last month asked BLM to delay finalizing the plan until the agency addressed environmental concerns and held another public-comment period.

But BLM said the governor's review did not reveal inconsistencies as defined in the agency's planning regulations, so no additional public comment period or appeal will be offered. Environmental groups plan to sue.

"We've heard a lot about midnight regulations from the Bush administration, but the WOPR is about as last minute -- and as bad -- as it gets," said Sean Stevens of the conservation group Oregon Wild in a statement. "It's a New Year's present to the timber industry; a big old-growth stump wrapped in a bow."

BLM said the new plan increases the timber harvest from current levels, meets the conservation needs of the northern spotted owl, increases habitat for marbled murrelet, maintains water quality and improves habitat for federally listed fish.

The new plan will defer from harvest nearly all older and more structurally complex forests for 15 years, taking the issue of old-growth logging "off the table" until then, BLM Oregon State Director Ed Shepard said.

"Under the plan, 100 years from now it is anticipated that there will be 1.7 million acres of mature and structurally complex forest -- a 50 percent increase from the current level," Shepard said in a statement.

Tom Partin, president of the American Forest Resource Council, said the plan falls short of legal requirements to manage the forests to produce a sustainable and permanent yield of forest products.

"The forest health needs of these lands also support the need for active management to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires," Partin said in a statement. "The BLM's decision to set aside over half of these lands in reserves fails to meet the forest health objectives and legal mandates."

Under the WOPR, 27 percent of existing old forests -- forest stands more than 199 years old -- would be harvested in 100 years, BLM said.

Overall, the estimated timber production would be 502 million board feet (mmbf) per year, plus another 86 mmbf per year for several decades from habitat improvement projects. That level of production is lower than the 727 mmbf goal of a draft plan released in August 2007 but higher than the 211 mmbf originally anticipated in the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan, which the new plan will replace.