Action Alert!

DBug Timber Sale Update!

This is one of the worst projects in the nation!

See what partner Oregon Wild says and Take Action online (offsite)!

The DEIS comment period was extended to June 8, 2009. Please continue to speak against this unreasonable project.

Electronic comments may also be sent to: comments-pacificnorthwest-umpqua@fs.fed.us

Lodgepole climax forest in High Cascade mountains. This fragile ecosystem is slated for logging in the Umpqua National Forest's D-Bug timber sale. Logging will occur right over the hiking trail. The Blue Diamond on a tree next to the trail indicates the trail location for wintertime skiers.

The DEIS can be downloaded from here (offsite).

The preferred alternative converts 8.2 miles of trails, all in roadless areas, into logging roads. One is a snowmobile trail (an old road converted to a trail that will be converted back to a logging road). Other trails that will be logged over are for hiking and nordic skiing (trail 1410, the only non-snowmobile skiing trail in the area).

They propose to log (leaving as few as 20 to 40 trees per acre) in 620 acres of Inventoried Roadless Areas and another 318 acres in the designated roadless Oregon Cascade Recreation Area (OCRA). An estimation is they propose to log in another 4,000 acres of non-inventoried roadless areas immediately adjacent (no road separating) to Inventoried Roadless Areas.

They propose to build 25 miles of new roads, maybe a quarter of those are in roadless areas. The roads are temporary, if temporary is possible on fragile, easily compactible pumice soils.

The three main roadless areas proposed for logging:

1. The big roadless triangle north of Crater Lake National Park, part of a ? 30,000 acre or more roadless area in Crater Lake NP is in alternative 4 to be logged and roaded. The part of this roadless area on UNF lands is a triangle of about 4 square miles and 3,200 acres of it is one big logging unit, with about 5 miles of new logging roads (temporary, if there is such a thing on pumice soils).

2. The roadless area between highway 138 and the OCRA/Mt. Thielsen Wilderness, is one big unit with miles of new roads and converts trails to logging roads. It even looks like they are converting SOME OF the nordic ski trail 1410 to a logging road.

3. The inventoried Thirsty Creek roadless area is also being logged. Around some of its eastern boundary with the OCRA is an old logging road, and they are logging 800 feet off both sides of this road -- 800 feet into the OCRA and 800 feet into the Thirsty Creek inventoried roadless area.

The DEIS says it complies with the 2001 roadless rule because it logs hazardous fuels in a wildland urban interface. While this is true for a small part of DBug -- a part we have no quibble with, it also logs far from any urban interface, deep into roadless areas.

In fact, most of the project area is healthy with little beetle kill, maybe no beetle kill above normal rates, yet the forest service is going to D-BUG it in case the beetles come in the future, so beetles won't find any trees to kill and cause hazards.

It is also important to note that the part of this project in the very high-elevation, open lodgepole pine forests has not missed a fire-return interval. In fact, prescribed burning is not proposed here because there is so little fuel on the ground, it couldn't carry a fire if we tried.

The forest in the area is obviously going to burn like all forest should. The importance of keeping the biomass onsite for future forest fertility and biological diversity is far more critical and economcal than removing the trees. 

The proposed logging treatments are fallacies that fly in the face of the areas fire ecology where stand replacement and mixed severity events should occur in backcountry areas. 

Ignoring fire ecology and rationalizing wrong management treatments is what has landed the FS with forest conditions that are costing taxpayers billions of dollars to fix.

The DEIS can be downloaded from here (offsite)

See what Oregon Wild has to say!

posted on 3/18/09
updated 4/22/09, 7/6/09

News Release 7/16/09

Date: July 16, 2009
Contact: Frank Quimby (DOI) 202-208-6416
Celia Boddington (BLM) 202-452-5128
Chris Tollefson (FWS) 703-358-2222

Interior Withdraws Legally Flawed Plan for Oregon Forests, Presses For Sustainable Timber Harvests

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Because the previous Administration failed to follow established administrative procedure before leaving office, its plan to intensify logging in western Oregon – known as the Western Oregon Plan Revisions (WOPR) – is legally indefensible and must be withdrawn, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar said today. 

Moreover, Assistant Secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks Thomas Strickland said that the federal government will ask the District Court to vacate the Fish and Wildlife Service’s 2008 revision of the critical habitat for the spotted owl, on which the WOPR was in part based, because Interior’s Inspector General determined that the decisionmaking process for the owl’s recovery plan was potentially jeopardized by improper political influence.

“We have carefully reviewed the lawsuits filed against the WOPR and it is clear that as a result of the previous Administration’s late actions, the plan cannot stand up in court and, if defended, could lead to years of fruitless litigation and inaction,” said Secretary Salazar. “Now, at a time when western Oregon communities are already struggling, we face the fallout of the previous Administration’s skirting of the law and efforts to taint scientific outcomes. It is important that we act swiftly to restore certainty to timber harvests on BLM lands and to protect vital timber infrastructure in these tough economic times.”

To help protect jobs and timber infrastructure in the region, Salazar directed the Bureau of Land Management—in coordination with the Fish and Wildlife Service—to identify ecologically sound timber sales under the Northwest Forest Plan that can get wood to the mills over the coming months. With the withdrawal of the WOPR, Bureau of Land Management (BLM) forests in western Oregon will again be managed under the Northwest Forest Plan, which guided BLM timber sales from 1994 until December 2008.

Salazar noted that the legal problem with the Western Oregon Plan Revisions, which was finalized in late December 2008, arose from the previous Administration’s decision not to complete consultation on the plan’s impacts on endangered species under Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act.  The WOPR also partially relied on spotted owl protections that have been challenged in federal court and have been called into question by Interior’s Inspector General, who determined that the integrity of the decision making process was potentially jeopardized as a result of the improper political influence of a former Bush Administration official.

Assistant Secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks Thomas Strickland said today that the federal government will conduct a thorough review of the 2008 Spotted Owl Recovery Plan, which informed both the WOPR and the Fish and Wildlife Service’s 2008 revision of critical habitat for the spotted owl.

“We will work with the scientific community to ensure that the spotted owl recovery plan lives up to its name, by accounting for scientific and technical reviews by prominent national scientific organizations, as well as forthcoming new data on the status of the spotted owl population,” said Strickland.  “A solid, peer-reviewed recovery plan will provide a road map for the spotted owl's return to health, enabling us to designate critical habitat areas and help develop a forest management plan that meaningfully contributes to its recovery.”

If the court agrees to vacate the Service’s 2008 critical habitat revision, designated critical habitat for the spotted owl would revert to the 6.9 million acres designated in 1992 until a new designation is finalized.

Secretary Salazar said that despite the late actions of the previous Administration,  Senator Ron Wyden, Governor Ted Kulongoski, Senator Jeff Merkley, Congressman Peter DeFazio, and others have helped build consensus around a vision for forestry on Oregon’s BLM lands that moves the region beyond the battles of the past. “There is broadening agreement that it is time to reevaluate the logging of old growth forests on BLM lands,” said Secretary Salazar. “There is also agreement that logging should not occur in areas that would put water quality at risk, and we should fully consider advances in forestry and increased knowledge of species’ needs over the last two decades.”

While the FWS revises its Recovery Plan, the BLM will explore the development of local, collaborative planning processes in areas where timber harvest is particularly important – and often controversial – such as in the Roseburg and Medford Districts. These collaborative efforts could serve as the starting point for the eventual development of new resource management plans for Western Oregon.

"Local and tribal communities, stakeholders, and the dedicated men and women of the BLM and the FWS in the Pacific Northwest have worked very hard on these issues for many years,” said Secretary Salazar. “Their expertise and experience will be essential as we work to craft a timber program that can ensure a sustainable economic and environmental future for the Pacific Northwest.”

Acting Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management Ned Farquhar emphasized that forest restoration and timber harvest are dual, compatible goals. “We can support a strong and sustainable forest industry by focusing on thinning, forest restoration projects, and certain types of regeneration harvests,” said Farquhar. “Done right, timber harvests can increase the structural complexity of stands, provide better habitat for spotted owls and other wildlife, reduce the risk of catastrophic fire, provide revenue for Western Oregon counties, and generate a reliable and robust supply of timber for local mills and biomass plants.”

Interior agencies are taking several immediate and coordinated steps to help local communities, said Farquhar.  They will engage local stakeholders, counties, elected officials, and the State of Oregon to put appropriate projects online as fast as possible. “We will keep offering timber for sale, we will do all we can to maintain western Oregon’s timber infrastructure, and we will work with the timber industry to extend existing contracts.”

Additional information on the Department’s decision and the Northwest Forest Plan are online at www.doi.gov and www.blm.gov.


Umpqua Watersheds, Inc.
"Dedicated to the protection and restoration of the ecosystems of the Umpqua Watershed and beyond."
539 SE Main Street
Roseburg, OR 97470
541-672-7065
www.umpqua-watersheds.org

updated 7/20/09

Help Stop The First WOPR Clearcuts!

The Coos Bay BLM is asking YOU for your opinion on the

First WOPR Clearcuts,

Edson Regen and Fairview Project.

Update per Oregon Wild 3/18/09: Tell the Legislature Stop the WOPR! The Oregon House and Oregon Senate both have drafted resolutions that would support a Bush-era logging plan that seeks to liquidate 100,000 acres of old-growth forests. Senate Joint Resolution 24 and House Resolution 3 would be symbolic gestures that would show the world that Oregon's political leaders refuse to enter the 21st century when it comes to harmful logging. We've already lost up to 90% of our historic old growth. We rely upon these forests for clean drinking water, critical salmon and wildlife habitat, world-class recreational opportunities, and critical carbon sequestration and storage in our fight against global warming. Oregon's mature and old-growth forests can store more carbon per acre than any other ecosystem on Earth. By clear-cutting so much old growth, the WOPR would result in 180 million tons more carbon entering the atmosphere-that's the equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions from 1 million cars driven for 132 years!

Call your legislators today.

Please write to BLM before March 2, 2009 at the address or email below.

Edson Regen is located in the New River watershed, about 10 miles east of Langlois, just north of new Copper Salmon Wilderness in the southern Oregon Coast Range. The scattered BLM lands in this area are surrounded by private lands that have been extensively clearcut. These BLM lands, much of them mature, native forests, provide habitat for threatened birds like the marbled murrelet and northern spotted owl, and fish like the coastal Coho salmon.

Edson Regen would clearcut 1,400 acres and commercially thin 200 acres of Riparian Management Area adjacent to clearcuts. The forests to be clearcut are generally between 80 and 150 years old – mature, native forests. The project would build 10 miles of new road and would yield 40 million board feet, for rock-bottom prices in today’s market.

Fairview Project is located east of the town of Coquille, north of highway 42, in the North Fork Coquille watershed. BLM is proposing to clearcut 900 acres of mature forests over 80 years old, and commercially thin 6,000 acres. Thinning for economic reasons (not for restoration), and clearcutting will occur in the former riparian reserves (stream buffers) of the Northwest Forest Plan.  It would also require new roads, but the BLM has not told us how many.

Please write to the BLM before March 2, 2009.

Tell the BLM that implementing the Western Oregon Plan Revision (WOPR) is the WRONG thing to do. Increasing clearcuts on public forests, in spotted owl habitat, marbled murrelet habitat, and salmon habitat, is not only immoral it also violates the Endangered Species Act.

Tell the BLM that they should be promoting reuse and recycling of wood products, instead of the wasteful squandering of our forests.  Our forests provide us much more value in ecosystem services, like clean water, recreation, and carbon sequestration.

We don’t even need these wood products.  Timber prices are so low the BLM will have to virtually give away our precious public forests to meet the unrealistic and unsustainable timber targets of the WOPR.

Speak from your heart.  Tell the BLM how you feel about clearcutting, about the ways you value these beautiful areas, and how you use our public lands.

To comment, write to the BLM at 1300 Airport Lane, North Bend, OR 97459

FAX comments to: (541) 756-9303.

Email> comments to: OR_CoosBay_Mail@blm.gov. Put the timber sale names in the subject line.