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47 °F 5 Day Forecast Sunday, November 30, 2003 Today's News | Classifieds | Autos | Homes | Jobs | Tempo | eSouthernOregon | Home Delivery SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map EXTRA Newspaper in Education Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People CLASSIFIEDS Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Find a Rental Place an ad eSouthernOregon Automotive Communities Entertainment Publications Recreation Calendar CUSTOMER SERVICE Frequent Questions Advertising Information Home Delivery Employment Contact Us Media Kit Network Affiliate Email Story to a Friend September 25, 2002 David Calahan, a retired Medford firefighter who has lived in the Applegate Valley for 30 years, says the Bureau of Land Management has not taken into account citizens' concerns in the five timber sales that will be auctioned Thursday. Click the photo to see a larger (43k) version. Mail Tribune / Roy Musitelli Related stories: � Fire fear used to justify logging? � Sales: 30 million board feet on 4,000 acres BLM’s five timber sales Agency works hard to ensure that all sides are represented before decisions are made concerning public lands By PAUL FATTIG Mail Tribune The Bureau of Land Management went out of its way to gather and incorporate people’s comments in the five controversial timber sales it will auction Thursday morning, says Mary Smelcer, the acting manager for the agency’s Medford District. "This was a collaborative, deliberative process," she said. "This is not radical. This is not a massive assault on public lands." The agency held numerous public meetings and field trips to discuss the timber sales, she said. "We offer the information, we listen, then we go forward with what we feel is the right thing to do," she said. "We respect that some people don’t agree. That’s their right." But she rejects the argument of those who say the planned logging will cause degradation to the land. For example, although each sale does include some road building, the agency plans to decommission more roads than are being built, she said. Four of the five sales are adjacent to the wildland interface, which the National Fire Plan identified in southwestern Oregon as a high wildfire risk. "We are doing a lot of helicopter logging, a significant amount of commercial thinning," Smelcer said. "We are trying to get as much of the ecological objectives met as we can and still have a viable commercial project." The legal mandate for the sales is not President Bush’s recently released Healthy Forests Initiative but the Northwest Forest Plan created by former President Clinton nearly a decade ago, she said. "But while we are implementing the Northwest Forest Plan, we also have been looking at the fire hazard situation — we’ve been doing that with our timber sales since 1996," she said. As a result, the district is dovetailing commercial logging with non-commercial activity in areas of high fire hazard, she said. Planned this year are some 23,000 acres of non-commercial activity to improve forest health and reduce the fire hazard, she said. On each of the five sales, there will be more non-commercial work than commercial, she added. She acknowledges that the sales have generated opposition, particularly the Scattered Apples unit in the Williams Valley. The district has received numerous written objections to the sales, she said. "Scattered Apples is one of the sales we expect will cause significant controversy with some portion of the community," Smelcer said. "But it is a very, very good project," she said. "It meets all the objectives of the Northwest Forest Plan. It is a very conservative project. It has a lot of restoration activities. We’re proud of that project." BLM specialists spent five years preparing the Scattered Apples sale, she said, adding that several years’ work were also invested in each of the other sales. Scattered Apples will harvest 3.7 million board feet of timber in the Williams Valley and includes a little more than 500 acres of commercial thinning and about 100 acres of select cutting. It also includes nearly 2,000 acres of non-commercial work to enhance pine and oak woodlands. "With Scattered Apples, the average diameter tree that will be cut is 12.6 inches," Smelcer said. "There are very few trees being harvested in this sale greater than 24 inches in diameter." More than 80 percent of that sale will be thinning work, she said. "When we thin, it is from below," she said. "We are taking the smaller trees and leaving the larger trees." As a result, the average diameter of the remaining trees increases in thinned areas. "These are good sales," she reiterated. When sold and awarded, the purchaser typically has a three-year period to harvest the timber. Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or e-mail him at [email protected] Mail Tribune Home Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life Opinion - Politics | AP News | Archives | Site Map E Southern Oregon | Classified Copyright © 1997-2003 Mail Tribune. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions Website Feedback 3 WEEKS FREE! ADVERTISERS SPECIAL SECTIONS Auto Finder Job Finder Home Finder Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Tempo Real Estate Showcase Food for Thought Hike of the Week Wellness Connection Outdoor Journal Moving to Southern Oregon? Volunteer Openings Prime Times