This is the third of three Public Lands Blog posts on state-owned forestlands in Oregon. Part 1 focused on a prospective habitat management plan for state forestlands in western Oregon. Part 2 surveyed state forests in Oregon by location, owner, and manager. Part 3 examines several key issues pertaining to state forest management in Oregon and explores how to secure the greatest permanent value of state forestlands to the state.
Figure 1. Trees in the Tillamook State Forest. A lot of the forest was artificially planted (or aerially seeded) with off-site Douglas-fir (even where Sitka spruce is naturally dominant) and consists of generally monoculture stands that could use some scientifically sound ecological restoration thinning to accelerate the onset of late-successional characteristics. Source: Alanna Risse, Wikipedia.
The Oregon Board of Forestry voted on October 6 to proceed with obtaining a habitat conservation plan (HCP) for western Oregon state forestlands (the subject of Part 1 of this Public Lands Blog post). A very positive step forward, but more needs to be done.
As noted in Part 1, there are 36,247 acres (but who’s counting?) of ninety-plus-year-old forest in state forestlands in western Oregon. Some acres will be protected by the HCP for western Oregon state forests, but not all of them. What must be done to not violate the law is not the same as what must be done to secure the “greatest permanent value.” The “greatest permanent value” would come from protecting all older forests for the benefit of this and future generations of Oregonians.
In the climate emergency Oregonians and all Earthlings face, the highest and best use of state forestlands is carbon storage and sequestration, not commodity lumber products. While selling forests into the lumber market is more profitable in the short term than selling them into the carbon market, the “greatest permanent value” is contributing to maintain a usable climate, not to maintain the profits of some timber barons.
What Does “Greatest Permanent Value” Mean?
The Oregon legislature has directed and authorized the Oregon Board of Forestry to manage state forestlands under its control “so as to secure the greatest permanent value of those lands to the state.” By administrative rule, the board has elaborated on the meaning of “greatest permanent value”:
“Greatest permanent value” means healthy, productive, and sustainable forest ecosystems that over time and across the landscape provide a full range of social, economic, and environmental benefits to the people of Oregon. These benefits include, but are not limited to:
(a) Sustainable and predictable production of forest products that generate revenues for the benefit of the state, counties, and local taxing districts;
(b) Properly functioning aquatic habitats for salmonids, and other native fish and aquatic life;
(c) Habitats for native wildlife;
(d) Productive soil, and clean air and water;
(e) Protection against floods and erosion; and
(f) Recreation.
Historically, this has meant maximization of timber production and, therefore, maximization of timber receipts from logging of most state forestlands. However, Oregon is changing and its citizens increasingly value forests for their beauty, fish and wildlife, recreation, water quality and quantity, and carbon storage. The timber industry is also continuing to shrink, in both relative and absolute terms, from its heyday (ca. 1990) as part of the Oregon economy. Unfortunately, Big Timber’s political clout has not decreased commensurate with its economic clout. This is always the case with “mature” (pronounced “over-the-hill”) industries that don’t provide the jobs they once did.
Big Timber retains its clout through campaign contributions, both the kind that are reported and those that are not. To a county commissioner candidate, the best contribution from Big Timber to the candidate’s election or reelection is the lack of a contribution to the candidate’s opponent(s). No money actually changes hands, so there is nothing to report. Despite all such machinations, the meaning of “greatest permanent value” for Oregon state forestlands is changing and will continue to change.
A Survey of Major Issues Surrounding State Forestlands
As mentioned in Part 2 of this post, controversy over the management of state forestlands in Oregon is on the rise. All of the following issues touch in some way on how the “greatest permanent value” of those lands is understood.
Board of Forestry Appointments Gridlock
There are seven members on the Oregon Board of Forestry (OBF). By law, the board can have “no more than three members [who] derive any significant portion of their income directly from persons or organizations that are subject to [forest] regulation.” This built-in conflict of interest was considered reform in the 1980s when the provision was enacted by the Oregon legislature. Now it just stinks. It is worth noting that the statute does not require the board to have three members who represent Big Timber. It could be two, one, or even none.
Governor Kate Brown is presently seeking to replace three members of the board. Her nominations must receive sixteen votes in the thirty-member Oregon Senate. The Democrats have eighteen seats. Assuming all twelve Republicans vote against the nominations, the trio will not be confirmed because three “Democrats”—Betsy Johnson (D-Scappoose), Arnie Roblan (D-Coos Bay), and Lee Beyer (D-Springfield)—oppose the governor’s nominations as well. Historically, these three senators have shown strong allegiance to Big Timber. All represent nonurban districts (demographically, “rural” would be an overstatement).
Governor Brown has called the Board of Forestry nomination/confirmation process “broken.” We can hope that the coming general election will allow the Democrats to pick up another seat from the Republicans so they might have an effective majority on conservation (and climate and other) issues.
Dysfunctional and Misfunded Oregon Department of Forestry
Current ODF state forestlands management plans are timber-focused and fail to attain the “greatest permanent value” for state forestlands. They need to be revised.
The Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF) reports to the OBF. As Ted Sickinger reported last year in the Oregonian, “The reasons [for dysfunction] are numerous, but stem from structural issues exacerbated during the last decade by ineffective management at the agency, ineffectual oversight by its seven-member board and inaction by the governor and legislators.”
Figure 2. A view of the Tillamook State Forest. Industrial logging of public forestlands is so twentieth century. Source: Tiger365, Wikipedia.
A new management plan for Oregon state forestlands in western Oregon is in progress and will reflect the results of the western Oregon state forestlands HCP. The ODF and the OBF should also revise the eastern Oregon state forest management plan, created in 1995, and develop a forest management plan for the Gilchrist State Forest, for which there is now none. The new plans should define “greatest permanent value” as carbon storage and sequestration—not timber production—and the associated values of biological diversity conservation and restoration, watershed protection and restoration, and compatible forms of recreation.
Increasing Urbanization = Increasing Impact on State Forestlands
The state population is growing, while the area of state forestlands is not. More people means more impact. Take, for example, this excerpt from the Draft Western Oregon State Forest Habitat Conservation Plan:
Currently ODF maintains four designated target shooting lanes in the permit area, and there are two more under development. Of the course of the permit term [seventy years] it is expected that the need to establish more designated target shooting lanes will be needed [sic] in order to direct users to areas where there is no conflict with other uses and a reduced fire risk. ODF estimates the potential to establish approximately 40 new designated shooting lanes across the permit areas by the end of the permit term. Most of these lanes are likely to be concentrated on state forest lands in northwestern Oregon [Tillamook and Clatsop State Forests] due to the proximity to larger population centers. Shooting lanes will be located outside of [Habitat Conservation Areas]. [emphasis added]
Actually, “shooting lanes” are a need best met by the private sector. There are private gun ranges (many nonprofit) where guns can be shot recreationally or in preparation for hunting. Shooting ranges accumulate toxic lead from bullets and shot. At private ranges, such can be periodically recovered and removed from the environment. Otherwise, lead pollution will become the problem of the Oregon Department of Forestry.
Linn County v. Oregon Appeal Pending
Linn and twelve other counties, along with 151 local taxing districts, sued the State of Oregon (effectively OBF and ODF) for alleged mismanagement (not logging enough) of state-owned forestlands. They claimed $1.4 billion in damages, and a jury awarded them $1.06 billion ($674 million in lost revenues from past “mismanagement” [in quotes because I agree there has been mismanagement, but not the kind alleged by Linn County et al.] and $392 million in future damages) because the jury assumed that the Oregon Department of Forestry would not change its management practices in the future.
The judgment is on appeal and the damage award is compounding at 9 percent interest annually. If the decision is upheld, every Oregonian will have to pay $238 so every resident of Tillamook County can receive $13,000. Fortunately, the chances are very good that the judgment will be overturned.
Does the State Have a “Trust” Obligation to Counties?
The timber-addicted counties would have us believe that a “trust” obligation exists for OBF lands. In the Linn County v. Oregon case, the counties creatively conjured one up, based mostly on past practices (the ODF has long been in the tank for the timber-addicted counties) and hopes for the future. Toward the same end, the Association of Oregon Counties has concocted the “Council of Forest Trust [sic] Land Counties.”
In their dreams. Though state statute provides that the counties get the net receipts from the sale of timber from most ODF-managed state forests, it is merely a statute and not a trust. State statute makes no mention of any trust relationship, and there is no real evidence of any trust relationship. It should be noted that counties are merely administrative subdivisions created by and for the State of Oregon. A county is not even a municipal corporation as is a city or town. “Oregon Has Too Many Counties” (Public Lands Blog post, 6 April 2018) anyway.
The Oregon Board of Forestry is mandated to manage state forests under its control for the “greatest permanent value.” If timber receipts are generated as part of that value, the counties get the net. If there are no net timber receipts, the counties receive nothing.
Need to Decouple Forestlands from the Common School Fund
State forestlands owned by the Common School Fund (CSF) are underperforming assets. They suffer from an expectation of maximum revenue generation to educate children and are important public lands that should find good homes. At stake are ~38,826 acres (~25,826 acres west of the Cascade crest and ~13,000 acres east) of CSF forestlands (not including the Elliott State Forest, which may be on a good path).
Good homes can be found in the National Park System, the National Wildlife Refuge System, the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System, the National Forest System, the National Landscape Conservation System, and the Oregon State Parks System, and in Oregon wildlife management areas and the like. The Oregon legislature (through the trust land transfer mechanism) or Congress (through the Land and Water Conservation Fund) would have to come up with the money. Selling the carbon rights (leaving the trees standing to help the climate) could also be a source of some funds.
Need to Decouple the Counties from State Forestlands Timber Receipts
It is poor public policy to educate children and fill potholes by making stumps. Logging revenues have never been stable, and as Oregon increasingly urbanizes, this becomes more and more problematic. Most funding for K–12 education comes from the Oregon General Fund, spent by the Oregon Legislative Assembly. For school districts that get timber receipts from state forests, the amount of timber revenue is deducted from what they would otherwise get from the legislature. So the legislature could just keep the timber receipts and give every child the same amount of money.
Such an arrangement would not work for non-school taxing districts (fire departments and such) that get a share of the timber receipts in lieu property tax receipts. The Oregon legislature should equitably (“in a fair and impartial manner”) end sharing state timber receipts with counties. These taxing entities should receive a fair transition payment and then the state should pay to counties what it would pay in property taxes like any other owner of private timberland.
Need to Bring the OSU Department of Forestry into the Twenty-First Century
Oregon State University’s state research forests are in shambles. Cutting down a 420-year-old tree in 2019 is evidence enough (Figure 3), especially when the OSU College of Forestry said it was consistent with its 2005 management plan for the forest. Even by 2005, the social license to log old-growth trees on public lands had expired, but the College of Forestry didn’t get the memo.
It should be a priority of new College of Forestry dean Anthony DeLuca to develop modern research forest management plans and see that they are enforced. I was going to suggest the dean get rid of the “dead wood” in the College of Forestry, but I like dead wood as it is indicative of a healthy old-growth forest. (There is more life in a dead tree than a live one.) Perhaps he should get rid of the crap wood in his department. (Crap wood comes from monoculture plantations that grow fast but make lousy lumber—lots of knots and large growth rings.)
Figure 3. Slice from a tree that first sprouted in 1599 in what is now the McDonald-Dunn State Research Forest. Last year, the Oregon State University College of Forestry cut down this 420-year-old tree, evidence that the college is at least three decades behind the times. Source: Doug Pollock, Friends of OSU Old Growth.
Negotiations are under way by the State Land Board (the governor, the secretary of state, and the state treasurer) to offload the Elliott State Forest from the Common School Fund and make it the Elliott State Research Forest administered by Oregon State University. Such could be a very good outcome, or not. I reserve judgement for now and will certainly issue a Public Lands Blog post about it later.
Forest Management Agencies in Transition
All the forest management agencies in Oregon are in transition.
The Oregon Department of State Lands actually hates managing state lands and increasingly views itself as an asset management agency, with most assets not being state land.
The Oregon Department of Forestry, long the last bureaucratic redoubt of unreconstructed timber beasts, has moved from opposing to embracing habitat conservation plans. Having the State Land Board take away its management of the Elliott State Forest was a wake-up call (the bureaucracy had to significantly downsize). More agency employees are coming to realize that the “special relationship” they thought they had with the counties (see “Linn County v. Oregon Appeal Pending” above), if it ever existed, no longer does. Finally, like all bureaucracies, the ODF follows the money. There is more money these days in fighting fires than in managing forests. In 1987, the California Department of Forestry officially changed its name to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, which is still the official name. However, it brands itself as CAL FIRE. I fear there is an OR FIRE in our future.
The Oregon State University College of Forestry has a new dean (a good thing) who must lead the institution into the twenty-first century (actually, the late twentieth century would be an improvement). The college is the last academic redoubt of the unreconstructed timber beast (a downside of tenure). Fortunately, the college also has on faculty some of the finest forest scientists, who are doing pioneering work in forest ecology, forest management, forest carbon, and much more. The correlation between age and enlightenment is there, but not strong. Most, but not all, unreconstructed timber beasts are old. Most, but not all, enlightened forest scientists are not old (in academia, young is a relative term).
Perhaps the 2020 general election will go well and there will be sixteen real Democrats in the Oregon Senate (a guy can dream, can’t he?) who will vote for OBF members who are not beholden to Big Timber. Then the matter of securing the greatest permanent value to the state can be modernized for the twenty-first century.
For More Information
• Converting State Trust Lands into Public Lands, Part 2: Focus on Oregon (Public Lands Blog post, August 28, 2020)
• “Oregon Loses $1 Billion Timber Lawsuit to Rural Counties,” by Ted Sickinger, Oregonian, November 20, 2019.
• “‘Majestic’ Douglas Fir Stood for 420 Years. Then Oregon State University Foresters Cut It Down,” by Rob Davis, Oregonian, July 26, 2019.
• Council of Forest Trust [sic] Land Counties Annual Report, Fiscal Year 2019. Oregon Department of Forestry and Association of Oregon Counties.