In Douglas County, we are privileged to live among some of the last remaining natural forests in the world. Some of these native forests are centuries-old ancient forests. This is truly a treasure we must not take for granted.
This ecosystem is under severe threat from corporate logging interests. Most of our remaining natural forests are public lands. They have a chance at survival only if we can intervene strongly enough. We have to act fast, for they are being liquidated at an alarming rate.
The public forests in Douglas County constitute about 1.5 million acres. Out of this, our yearly sustainable harvest levels, or yearly target volume is 120 million board feet (75 from UNF and 45 from BLM). That's 24,000 logging truck loads, cut from our public lands, and rolling through Roseburg every year. Unfortunately, many of those logs are from native forests being turned into tree plantations. And even worse, many are logged by the harvest method of Clearcutting. (Clearcutting is called by many names, such as 'even aged management', regeneration harvests or shelterwoods).
But for the September 1995 to September 1996 logging year, 24,000 truck loads is only the beginning. In 1995, timber interests successfully lobbied Congress to pass what is deceitfully known as the "Salvage logging rider".
For our section of the Pacific Northwest, the rider mandated the logging of old sales previously held up because of their extreme environmental damage (called section 318 sales). This caused the clearcutting, in addition to the current harvests, of 135 mmbf of green healthy old-growth forests in Douglas County. That's the equivalent of an additional 27,000 logging trucks. These sales were in violation of most current environmental laws and produced over 3,538 acres of clearcuts, or 5.5 square miles of clearcuts. Over 82 mmbf of this was from Late Successional Reserves, land that had been set aside for the preservation of old-growth dependent species, including fish. Most of these sales had no buffers on intermittent streams and inadequate buffers on fish bearing streams.
This brought the total approximate volume cut from Douglas County public forests last year to 51,000 logging trucks.
Even on the new, supposedly more environmentally friendly cuts, the legal interpretations by the agencies consistently has been in favor of increased timber extraction, with questionable compliance with the laws. The salvage logging rider mandated that there be no citizen appeals or due process of law for any new sale. This part of the rider doesn't expire until December 31st of this year. Until then, we are supposed to just "assume" that all laws are being met.
They are not. Take for instance, the Roseburg BLM, near Elkton, which had only 50% of the legally required buffer widths on most of its intermittent streams.
Then there is the Broken Buck timber sale, near Yoncalla, which was awarded to Roseburg Forest Products just today (October 22, 1996). It will log on soils BLM's own soils scientist classified as so steep and unstable, they should be reserved out of the units.
Kernel John timber sale will clearcut forests right next to units that have not, and possibly will not recover from past logging, in violation of BLM's own laws. Not only is Kernel John in a specially designated sensitive watershed, called a Tier 1 Key Watershed, it is also directly in the community of Milo's watershed, and will clearcut some of the last native forests above the town.
There are many examples. One more is the Paw Timber Sale , which will harvest 5,000 logging trucks worth of native, ancient forests. Paw will not only seriously erode away the Mt. Bailey Roadless area, near Diamond Lake, it will also clearcut some dramatically huge trees from remaining fragmented forests in one of our highest recreation use areas. Some of Paw will be auctioned to the highest bidder tomorrow (October 23), some on October 30, and last of it will be sold to industry in November.
Clearcutting these ancient forests, and turning them into tree plantations makes sense if one only looks at the value of these forests in human terms. We've heard this argument: "These are decadent old forests that will fall on the ground and be worthless to us. We must replace them with young healthy plantations."
But we must look further than the value to humans, for we share this earth with many other creatures. Our current human centered logging practices have led us toward mass extinction's of the uncountable species that depend on the biodiversity of old natural forests, including owls, salamanders, lichens, and fish. As humans, only we have the power to decide how much to take for ourselves, and how much to leave for our earth mates.
Old growth, native forests are a non-renewable resource. Once they are converted into tree plantations, they will continue to be harvested every 60 years on a rotational basis. They will never again be allowed to become 200, 400, or 600 years old. They will never again be allowed to become decadent and diverse with rotting trees giving a home woodpeckers. Even if they were, the species that inhabit these forests today, could become extinct before the recovery that takes centuries.
Umpqua Watersheds is fighting to not only have our current environmental laws enforced, but also dramatically improve the laws on both Public and Private forest lands, so that our public resources, such as fish, can be preserved for our children. We have a lot of work, jobs, and employment ahead of us, repairing the damage that's been done.
12/95
Congress has given timber industry in Douglas County a windfall of at least 16 million dollars. A provision of the "salvage" logging bill (section 2001(k)), says that in Oregon and Washington, millions of board feet of green healthy old growth forests, that were withdrawn years ago because of their extreme environmental damage, must be cut. The provision states that timber industry gets these sales at the 'original contract terms'. Many of these sales are administered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).
The 'original contract terms' include the original contract PRICES. These old prices are about 50% below the current market value of the timber.
The timber industry has been given a huge windfall. In the Roseburg BLM alone, the industry is making an extra profit of almost 16 million dollars, perhaps much more. Not only do the American tax payers have to make up the difference in the cost of administering these sales at today's prices, Douglas County is loosing 50% of it's income on these sales (what it gets from federal sales 'in lieu of taxes').
The analysis of 16 million dollars is based on only 8 sales out of the hundreds of Salvage Rider Sales. This is a huge lose of revenue for the U.S. government (U.S. taxpayers). The 8 sales were compared with similar sales (species, harvest method, area) that were sold earlier in 1995.
An even greater cost to the American public will be the cost of cleaning up after the logging. These sales were originally withdrawn because they are the worst of the worst. For instance, federal and private scientists say that these specific sales could wipe out the remaining wild fish stocks in our area. The cost of rehabilitation will be extreme.
Specific data on the 8 sales costing taxpayers 16 million dollars follows:
________________ New prices '95 BLM sales Price Hello Folley $570 Idleyld $585 Lean Louis $671 Average Price $621 ________________ Old prices Old BLM Sales bid/mbf Volume/mbf Dead Middleman $345 9,622 Jeffers Revenge $302 4,797 Pond View $353 7,010 Canton Creek 2 $361 4,769 Summit Creek $339 9,481 Texas Gulch $268 7,943 Upper Renhaven $346 2,328 Yellow Creek $383 9,963 Average Price $337 55,913 Total Volume New minus Old = $283.37 Saved per mbf $283.37 x 55,913 mbf = $15,844,346 Money saved by industry able to cut at original contract prices: $15,844,346 for these 8 sales