The elephant in the room
Most of the public debate over legislation to increase logging in Oregon is centered around the checkerboard O&C Lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). However, there’s an elephant in the room—the National Forest O&C Lands.
Senator Wyden’s O&C Act of 2014 doesn’t include National Forest land. Representatives DeFazio, Walden and Schader’s bill does. The legislation, which passed the House last September (H.R. 1526), would turn certain National Forest O&C Land over to what’s referred to as the “timber trust”—to be managed similar to private industrial forests under the Oregon Forest Practices Act,
The National Forest lands are not mapped or otherwise identified, except that up to 220,000 acres of National Forest—with stands 125 years of age or younger—would be transferred to the timber trust. Included would be native fire placement stands, as well as plantations. The White House has indicated H.R. 1526 is a non-started with them. So what now?
The timber industry, Association of O&C Counties and backers of H.R. 1526 want the National Forest O&C lands in any compromise legislation, ostensibly to up the timber volume—only they’re not saying so publicly. Everyone is pussyfooting around the subject for political reasons. The downside of the obscurity is that, if our National Forests are being essentially gifted to the timber industry to increase the cut on federal public lands in Oregon, the public needs to know.
Update – 2019
There are currently no active bills before Congress specific to the National Forest O&C Lands in Oregon. However, timber industry lobby groups have not let up on the issue. Therefore, we believe this information about National Forest O&C lands remains important,
The National Forest O&C Lands
Running across parts of seven National Forests in Oregon are almost a half million acres of O&C Lands. They’re O&C Lands for the purpose of revenue sharing only (see right side bar for the seven National Forests). These National Forest System holdings are different from other O&C Lands. First, they’re managed by the U.S. Forest Service. Second, they’re managed under laws and regulations governing the National Forest System.
These are first and foremost National Forests. On the Siskiyou National Forest, where there’s approximately 173,000 acres of checkerboard O&C Lands, they’re Botanical and Research Natural Areas, Inventoried Roadless Areas and Late-Successional Forest Reserves.
Nationally outstanding streams and rivers flow through them. They’re Northwest Forest Plan Key Watersheds and some of the steepest, most landslide prone ground in the Northwest, as well as some of the last best salmon and steelhead streams.[1]
Controverted lands—code for National Forest O&C Lands
Those pressing to include National Forest lands in O&C legislation refer to them not as National Forests but as “controverted” lands. The proponents of increased logging insist they’re not talking about contiguous national forest lands.[2] So they use code—controverted lands—to obfuscate that they are, indeed, pushing to increase logging on some of the most salmon-rich botanically diverse federal public lands in the National Forest System—well beyond the existing law and what the established science supports . [2] See side bar for definition of “controverted” lands.
National Forest O&C Lands in the Illinois River Basin and Shasta Costa Watershed
About the top photo
In May of 1992, a localized storm dumped over 3 inches of rain in a short period on lower watersheds of the Wild and Scenic Rogue (muddy in the photos) and Illinois (relatively clear in the photo) Rivers. The storm was very localized and the Rogue River at Graves Creek (the beginning of the “Wild” section of the river) was clear.
The dramatic difference in water quality seen in the photo is a result of large areas of Rogue’s lower watershed being heavily logged and roaded and the lower Illinois River’s watershed being mostly Wilderness (Kalmiopsis) or Roadless Area (North and South Kalmiopsis).
All the sediment that turned the Rogue muddy was coming from BLM and National Forest lands between Graves Creek and mouth of the Illinois River.
However, the integrity of the both the upper and lower Illinois River watershed, including key tributaries like Silver and Indigo, are at risk. A broad swath of National Forest O&C Land runs across the Siskiyou National Forest, much of it in the Illinois River Basin.
In addition, the Illinois River Valley, also includes extensive checker board BLM O&C and Public Domain Lands.
Notes
[1] Siskiyou National Forest lands with an O&C overlay are found within:
- The North and South Kalmiopsis Roadless Areas, the two largest inventoried roadless areas in Oregon;
- Four Forest Service Eligible Wild and Scenic Rivers;
- USDA recommended Kalmiopsis Wilderness Additions (2004);
- Five Northwest Forest Plan Key Watersheds;
- Thousands of acres of Late-Successional (old growth) Forest Reserves;
- Eleven Botanical and Research Natural Areas; and the
- Proposed Oregon Caves National Monument Expansion (Oregon Caves Revitalization Act of 2013).
Some are directly adjacent to the corridor of the National Wild and Scenic Illinois River.
There are thousands of acres of ecologically valuable 125-year old or younger native forests on the Siskiyou National Forest within these areas.
These native forests are scattered in a complex mosaic of diverse plant communities acreoss Inventoried Roadless Areas, Late-Successional Forest Reserves and Botanical Areas..
If National Forest O&C Lands in the Illinois River Basin and the Shasta Costa Watershed are included as Forestry Emphasis Areas in O&C legislation, any benefits to the Wild Rogue’s world class fishery—gained through the establishment of additions to the Wild Rogue Wilderness—would be negated by the fragmenting and logging of contiguous and often roadless National Forest lands with an O&C overlay.
The Illinois River and its large lower tributaries (Silver and Indigo Creeks) are the most productive wild salmon and steelhead habitat in the Rogue Basin. The Illinois River Basin is the wild salmon and steelhead stronghold for the greater Rogue Basin.
[2] National Forest O&C lands are managed under the same laws and regulations as all National Forest land with one exception. That exception is how revenues are shared with O and C Counties.
In other words, they’re different from other O&C Lands, which are managed by the BLM. Except for the revenue sharing provision, the National Forest O&C lands are in all other ways National Forest System Lands.
Congress addressed the status of the O&C lands within the National Forest system boundaries on June 24, 1954 (68 Stat. 270; 43 U.S.C. Sections 1181(g)) saying they,
are declared to be revested Oregon and California Railroad grant lands; and said lands shall continue to be administered as national-forest lands by the Secretary of Agriculture subject to all laws, rules, and regulations applicable to the national forests. (emphasis added)
If National Forest O&C lands are mentioned at all in the debate over increasing logging, they’re referred to as “controverted” lands. Some deny there are any National Forest lands involved in some proposed legislation. For example on August 21, 2013, when stumping for the O&C Trust, Conservation and Jobs Act, Doug Robinson (President of the O&C Counties) told OPB’s “Think Out Loud” that:
First of all, We’re not talking about National Forests. We’re not talking about large contiguous blocks of forests land like we see on the Mt. Hood, or the Willamette or the Umpqua. We’re talking about a checker board of federally owned lands managed by the BLM interspersed primarily with industrial forest products company owners from Portland all the way down to Ashland … You have a situation where you don’t have the opportunity to block up large areas of forest lands because they don’t exist in large blocks. These lands are very unique, they’re not managed by the Forest Service. They’re managed by the Bureau of Land Management.
Mr. Robinson is being disingenuous, because the legislation he was promoting on “Think Out Loud” would essentially privatize approximately 220,000 acres of “contiguous” National Forest O&C land by transferring management from the Forest Service to what is being called a “timber trust.” Under the legislation, the timber trust lands would be managed, not as national forest lands, but for all practical purposed as private industrial forest lands under the Oregon Forest Practices Act. Further, these National Forest O&C lands are indeed managed by the Forest Service.
Additional Information
During the February 6, 2014 hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee for S. 1784 (archived webcast) Doug Robinson’s stated:
[O}ne of the thing that needs to happen …if we’re going to achieve the outputs in terms of harvest levels and revenues … is we’re going to have to grow the land base a bit . That means public domain lands. That means perhaps some controverted lands. That can be done.
On August 15, 2013, Representative DeFazio, in an online video taped interview, told the Salem Stateman Journal (SSJ) Editorial Board. about how the timber industry and O&C Counties refused to support permanent county payment funding in the 1990s when there was a federal government budget surplus. The statement was at about minute 35:00. However, the SSJ website no longer has the interview. Here’s an approximate transcript of what Mr. DeFazio said:
When those guarantees were first made, I tried to make them permanent … there was a [budget] surplus … we tried to pass a bill to make county payments permanent … at the time the industry and counties didn’t want to do that … they wanted to create a cliff and said they thought that would drive us within five years to adopt different management on these lands… it didn’t … I predicted a crisis – it happened …