The O gets the Biscuit (mostly) right

In the mid-summer heat three years ago, lightning strikes in five separate locations created forest firest that converged into the Biscuit Fire, which burned half a million acres of Southern Oregon and Northern California wilderness.

Three years later, with billions of board feet rotting on the forest floor, environmental and timber interests are still arguing about an appropriate level of salvage. One Oregon State University professor in the school of forestry suggested (PDF in link) that as much as 2.5 billion board feet of timber could be salvaged. A southern Oregon timber trade group estimated (scroll down to the 12th paragraph) that such a salvage operation would provide 20,000 timber jobs (paying $14 to $30 per hour), and another 5,000 non-timber jobs.

Instead, the Forest Service threw out 500 million board feet. Then it hemmed and hawed and listened to environmentalists to the exclusion of timber interests, and reduced that number to 372 million board feet.

To put it in perspective, here's part of a story from the Environmental News Service:

The Biscuit Fire Recovery Plan is one of the largest logging projects in U.S. Forest Service history. Under the plan, 19,000 acres of old growth forests and roadless wildlands would be logged, but the environmentalists say the plan is not about forest recovery but about enriching logging companies.

It's not about Iraq! It's about making the president's oil buddies richer! Oh wait, same argument, different issue.

Note that it's 19,000 acres out of half a million, or less than four percent. And it's 19,000 flame-consumed acres, for pete's sake!

Today's Oregonian editorial notes, "A new poll shows that three out of every four Oregonians want federal forests restored after wildfires by salvaging burned trees and replanting with seedlings. The fourth, no doubt, wants to sue to stop the Forest Service from doing anything."

And there's the rub. That minority perspective has caused the timber to sit rotting for the better part of three years. That OSU professor who put out the 2.5 billion board feet number also noted:

The loss in value of dead trees from decay and insects is about 22% after the first year. At the end of 5 years, only the butt logs of the largest trees will have salvage value. The decline in economic value is even more rapid than the decay rate. By the summer of 2003, the loss of economic value is estimated to be in the tens of millions of dollars.

We're two years past the summer of 2003, boys & girls. What's the loss in economic value today? Within a couple of years, the whole thing will be worthless. And that, I suspect, is part of the strategy of the environmental movement — tie the issue up in litigation and protest long enough for the timber interests to pull out. This story by Kathie Durbin — who used to write for the O and is well known as a minister for the environmental movement — in the High Country News does its best to paint a dim picture of any economic worthiness.

But it's not just the economics. It would also re-seed the forest more rapidly than letting nature take its course. The OSU prof estimates re-forestation would occur in half the time under the salvage option — 80 years instead of 160. (Environmentalists argue that the forest is already showing signs of life, noting new grasses and flowers, but fail to note that the grass seed was dropped to prevent erosion.) Salvage operations would also reduce the remaining fuel to prevent such catastrophic fires in the future, and to encourage tree growth by eliminating choking undergrowth.

The Oregonian concludes:

There are many places where timber salvage is a bad idea, where soil compaction, erosion or other damage from logging causes environmental harm that exceeds its economic benefits. Respected scientists disagree about how best to help forests recover from wildfires, and many now argue that a leave-it-alone approach is often best.

Yet there must be a thoughtful middle ground somewhere on salvage and recovery of federal forests. When a fire burns a hundred thousand acres of an Oregon forest, surely a small percentage of the burned area can be safely and promptly salvaged -- before the trees rot -- and certainly much of it ought to be reseeded or replanted.

The Northwest members of Congress who led the effort to pass healthy forest legislation -- including Rep. Greg Walden and Sen. Gordon Smith, both R-Ore. -- are now working on a similar bill to expedite timber salvage.

Skeptics keep saying that Congress won't be able to work out a deal because post-fire salvage is much more controversial than thinning to prevent forest fires. There is no public consensus on salvage, they claim.

The recent poll suggests otherwise. Oregonians know very well that fire salvage policy on federal lands is now a big waste of time, money, wood and jobs. Their elected leaders know it. The only question left is whether anybody is going to do anything about it.

It's a big waste of time, money, wood and jobs because the environmentalists ensure it through unreasonable judicial actions and stall tactics. The only way anybody is going to "do anything about it" is if the Endangered Species Act is reshaped to take a more "thoughtful middle ground," as the editorial stated, and the federal judges interpreting the law remember that middle ground, not Earth Justice's version thereof.