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Oregon still leads in timber sales By BETH QUINN Despite a decade-long decline in Northwest logging, Oregon's national forests still account for 26 percent of the U.S. Forest Service's nationwide timber earnings, the most of any state. That's one finding of a General Accounting Office analysis of 1995 to 1997 timber sale earnings on the 155 national forests. National forest timber sales earned $1.85 billion in that three-year period, with Oregon's 13 forests contributing $479 million to the total. Washington's six national forests earned $92 million while California's 17 forests earned $298 million. The GAO report was requested by California Rep. George Miller, a longtime critic of federal logging and the ranking Democrat on the House Resources Committee, who slammed the Forest Service for returning less than 10 cents of every dollar earned to the federal treasury. "GAO's audit confirms once again that taxpayers pay a huge price to subsidize commercial logging on our national forests," he said last week. "All too often these logging-based revenues have come at the expense of damaging clearcuts, eroded soils, degraded water quality and impaired fish and wildlife habitat on national forests." Federal law requires that 25 percent of national forest timber receipts be returned to the states for distribution to counties in lieu of property taxes. In Southern Oregon, the GAO found that from 1995 to 1997 the Rogue River National Forest returned $18,544,491 to the state while the Siskiyou National Forest returned $18,358,341. Other federal laws in effect during those years earmarked 24 percent of national forest timber earnings for a reforestation fund, 36 percent to prepare future sales of salvage timber, 7 percent to reimburse logging companies for the costs of building roads and 6 percent to reimburse the Forest Service for the cost of slash removal, brush cutting and erosion control. Locally, about 50 percent of reforestation money actually is spent for wildlife, habitat and recreation improvements. "All the money has to be spent within the boundary of the sale area," said John Fretig of the Rogue River National Forest. "Since we don't clearcut anymore to any great degree, we don't need as much reforestation and people have been using it more and more for wildlife activities." With Rogue forest timber harvests slashed from a 1980s high of 200 million board feet per year to today's 26 million board feet, few think local forests will ever again be money-making propositions. "We're not really doing things strictly for timber, so we're not going to have as much revenue and it's going to cost more," Fretig said. The salvage and thinning sales typical of today's national forest timber sales simply aren't as attractive to logging companies, which is one reason Congress created a fund to underwrite future salvage sales. But under the ecosystem management required by current environmental laws, national forests can't and won't be cash cows for the federal treasury. "If you want healthy fish runs, healthy wildlife habitat, then you do things differently, and it costs more money and you get a lower return," Fretig said. "But we'll have a healthier ecosystem as a result." 18 sales under appeal A Williams environmental group has appealed 18 timber sales in Southern Oregon, charging they violate current environmental law by emphasizing timber over other forest uses. The Klamath Siskiyou Wildlands Center pinpointed the Sturgis Fork and Beaver/Newt sales in the Rogue River National Forest as the most significant. The sales are near the 20,300-acre Red Buttes Wilderness on the California-Oregon border and Grayback Mountain in Josephine County. "Even though the Forest Service's proposal involves thinning, the sales would modify large areas next to the roadless area, potentially reducing species' ability to migrate and disperse," said Spencer Lennard, director of the conservation group. Endangered and threatened species such as the northern spotted owl, wolverine and fisher use that portion of the forest as a travel corridor, he said. The 16 other appealed sales are on the Siskiyou National Forest or the Medford District of the Bureau of Land Management. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1998, Medford, Oregon USA