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Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Advertisement Email Story to a Friend April 23, 2006 USFS: Biscuit salvage turns profit By PAUL FATTIG Mail Tribune In a new evaluation of the Biscuit fire timber salvage project, the U.S. Forest Service concludes no significant new information has surfaced in studies criticizing the salvage effort. The April 11 assessment, required by agency regulations that direct the staff to re-evaluate an on-going project when new information surfaces, was in response to reports cited in a Eugene-based Cascadia Wildlands Project lawsuit attempting to stop the salvage logging. "The bottom line for us is that we didn’t consider any of it to be new information that would have required us to go back and do a supplemental environmental impact statement," said Rob Shull, the timber and planning staff officer for the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest. He noted the agency concluded in March that the salvage project is $7,632,863 in the black, not millions of dollars in the red as one non-agency study reported. "We show ourselves coming out ahead," he said. "A big portion of that comes from the hazard tree salvage sales that we undertook in the spring and fall of 2003." Advertisement He was referring to fire-killed trees bordering forest roads. "With those trees, the logging costs are very low," he said. "And the decay was really low because we got into them right away. Those two variables really upped the profit." The fire, largely in the forest, burned about half a million acres in a mosaic pattern, leaving portions unburned or lightly burned within its perimeter. However, about 50 percent of the area was severely burned, leaving more than 75 percent of the vegetation dead, the agency reported. A wildlife biologist by training, Shull was part of a nine-member evaluation team that included an ecologist, biologists, foresters and silviculturists within the agency. The team was reacting to points that came to light early this year in the report, "Post-Wildfire Logging Hinders Regeneration and Increases Fire Risk" by six researchers led by Oregon State University graduate student Daniel Donato, and by a 31-page study which concluded the cost exceeded revenues by some $14 million on timber salvage from the 2002 fire. The latter report, which also concluded salvage after a fire does more harm than good, was compiled by a group of scientists, former agency employees and environmental groups. Environmental groups, scientists and others opposed to the salvage have argued that the project is ecologically and economically unsound. However, those involved in the reports could not be contacted for comment Saturday afternoon. In its assessment, the agency acknowledges mistakes were made but not because of major changes to the project since the record of decision was made. Those mistakes included the unauthorized logging of green trees, which the assessment team concluded that mistake was made by the purchaser of the logging contract. Erroneous marking of trees in the Babyfoot Lake botanical area "was not an example of changes to the project, but instead was an error on the part of the Forest Service," it concluded. Critics of the project don’t take into consideration that the agency hasn’t logged anywhere near the roughly 19,000 acres it had planned to log in the final EIS, Shull said. Some 5,750 of those acres were dropped after a closer on-the-ground survey determined the trees weren’t dead in those areas, and didn’t meet the legal requirements under the guidelines, he said. "We abandoned those acres," he said. "There was also a lot of decay that eliminated some acres entirely. That decay made it uneconomical to log it." Because of decay, 1,350 acres were dropped, he said. Another roughly 8,200 acres have yet to be salvaged which are included in the inventoried roadless area, he said. Thus far, 3,657 acres have been sold. Meanwhile, two controversial salvage sales in the inventoried roadless area, including Mike’s Gulch and Blackberry, will likely be auctioned off this summer, Shull said. "We’re moving to put the packages together now," he said. "We’ll be selling Mike’s Gulch in mid-June and Blackberry in early August." Other sales could be offered, depending on further on-the-ground assessments, he said. "There has been a lot of decay on these sales," he said. "The likelihood is low but we’re not closing the door on future salvage." The 16-page assessment is expected to be posted this coming week at www.fs.fed.us/r6/rogue-siskiyou on the Web. Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or e-mail him at USFS: Biscuit salvage turns profit ">[email protected] . 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