Federal agencies release land management plan
Copyright 2000 Associated Press
December 12, 2000
By CHARLES E. BEGGS
SALEM, Ore. (AP) -- Timber harvesting would increase while range land grazing would decline under the latest draft of a federal plan for managing land and wildife on 64 million acres in the Pacific Northwest.
The report, one step from final approval, was issued Tuesday by the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project.
The joint effort by the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management produced the largest federal land-use plan ever proposed. It covers the agencies' lands in eastern Washington and Oregon, Idaho and western Montana.
The plan, in the works since 1994, would automatically amend 62 local land-use plans when it gains final approval. Already, the plan has cost about $47 million.
The basin project was requested in 1993 by then-U.S. Sen. Mark Hatfield, R-Ore., and former House Speaker Tom Foley, D-Wash. The goal was to avoid the kind of bitter fights that erupted in the early 1990s over logging restrictions imposed west of the Cascades to protect the threatened northern spotted owl.
The proposal "promotes the health of federal lands and benefits fish and wildlife habitats, tribes and communities," the agencies said in releasing the document.
They said it targets various goals, including promoting vegetation that is in short supply "from Ponderosa pine forests to sagebrush plant communities that have been replaced by noxious weeds."
The report estimates timber harvesting would rise by 22 percent under the plan but that size and quality of logs would decline because cuts mostly would involve thinning and other steps "to promote forest system restoration."
Livestock grazing on federal range land would decline, for land and watershed protection and restoration, by about 10 percent.
While grazing employment would drop by about 100 jobs, the agencies estimate their total employment would rise by about 4,000 jobs due to more forest-related work.
The plan would result in less road construction on the federal lands and "a higher level of road closure."
Participants in the planning process who believe the draft will adversely affect them have until Jan. 16 to file protests with directors of the federal agencies, who can make changes before final adoption.
Project spokeswoman Brenda Lincoln said the agencies intend to seek funding each year from Congress to implement steps of the plan so it can be reviewed by lawmakers often.
The plan can operate on various funding levels. For the purposes assumed a $67 million increase in their current annual budgets -- totaling $550 million -- for land management programs in the region.
Chuck Burley, Eastern Oregon manager of the American Forest Resource Council, said he wished the draft plan was more flexible.
"What gives us heartburn about these things, is they set aside actual amounts of acres rather than setting general guidelines," he said. "I don't think drawing lines on the map saying `this is a special area' works.
"You have to look at each watershed individually, but this proposal offers a top down prescription."