Says the Sierra Club's Bill Arthur: "Frankly, back-of-the-envelope calculations scare the hell out of me, because that's what invented the 1.1-billion-board-foot number for the Northwest Forest Plan—which also doesn't have reality to it.
"If you're a fish in the river, you don't care if the silt of your spawning ground comes from an old-growth timber sale, a thinning sale, a salvage sale—all three of them kill you. So, thinning, even though it may not be destroying old-growth forest, is still a type of logging—it still requires building roads, soil-disturbing activities, a lot of the negative impacts of any timber sale.
AP PHOTO / LINDA SPILLERS
Mark Rey, U.S. undersecretary of agriculture for natural resources and environment.
AP PHOTO / LINDA SPILLERS
Mark Rey, U.S. undersecretary of agriculture for natural resources and environment.
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"I think it is definitely premature to be talking about broad-based thinning programs as some kind of trade-off to protect old-growth forests. Should we be protecting old-growth forests? I think the scientific jury is in on that, and yes, we should. There's probably very little cause to continue any kind of logging of old-growth forests. But that doesn't mean we need to, or have to, trade a questionable broad-based thinning program for that."
Northwest Forest Plan author Franklin, though a supporter of cautious restoration thinning, is apprehensive about the direction politics seem to be heading under the Bush administration.
"I'm worried as much about some of the environmentalists as I am about Mark Rey," says Franklin. The centerpiece of the Northwest Forest Plan, he says, is protection of second-growth stands of trees that one day will replace the logged-off old growth. That second growth is known as late successional reserves.
"I've been afraid all along that some in the environmental community are actually prepared to walk away from the late successional reserves with the goal of, 'OK, we'll trade off the young growth stands for the remaining old growth,'" Franklin says. "And if that was done in a way that damages or destroys the integrity of the late successional reserves, that would be a lousy trade-off."
Freelance writer Andy Ryan has worked as an environmental reporter and national political correspondent for the now-defunct Miami News, as a securities analyst specializing in the forest-products industry, and as a communications consultant to state and local governments, private businesses, and environmental groups. He can be reached at andy@eskimo.com.
Timber, Please
On the southern flank of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, where the Wind River flows into the Columbia, folks in the hamlet of Carson, Wash., would be thrilled to see Department of Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey succeed in squeezing more timber from public lands—8,888 more truckloads, please. That 40 million board feet is what's needed to add a shift at the High Cascade mill, third-largest employer in economically challenged Skamania County.
Until the mid-1990s, High Cascade purchased 95 percent of its logs from the Gifford Pinchot, but that all changed under the Northwest Forest Plan. Less than 5 percent of the company's wood supply now comes from the federal forest; the rest must be trucked or floated from as far away as Idaho.
Jim Mickel, president of family-owned High Cascade—one of the last mills in the Northwest capable of processing large-diameter logs—says it's very unlikely the company will ever again be interested in bidding on old-growth timber. The markets for products made from old trees have dried up, and the risks of incurring the wrath of green activists are high. But a steady supply of second growth would be great for business.
"All through the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, the harvest off the Gifford Pinchot was in excess of 400 million board feet per year," says Mickel. During the past three years, only three timber sales—totaling just 3.5 million board feet—were offered.
In spite of the short timber supply, High Cascade has refused to fold its tent: Since the mid-1990s, the company has invested about $20 million upgrading its Skamania County facilities, Mickel says.
"With as much capital investment as we have, we really would like—and it would make economic sense—to operate the mill for two shifts each day to make the return on invested capital much more comparable to most manufacturing businesses.
"In terms of employment, that probably means another 50 family-wage jobs that would be added. And in our labor market"—Skamania County unemployment last year was 11.1 percent, well above the state average—"that's a significant event."
Andy Ryan
