Oregon Forest Industries Council

OFIC

Opinion: Tax policy should respect stability of Oregon logging businesses

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By: Todd Payne | The Oregonian | March 10, 2021

Payne is chief executive of Seneca Family of Companies and chairman of the board for the Oregon Forest and Industries Council.

**This opinion originally appeared in The Oregonian.

The March 2 story “Oregon’s logging industry says it can’t afford new taxes” misunderstands the market complexities of our state’s most iconic industry. The severance tax proposed by HB 2379 would not be paid by mills making short-term profits on high lumber prices driven by homeowner remodeling demands during stay-at-home orders. It would be paid by 65,000 private forestland owners in Oregon who collectively just lost over 400,000 acres to wildfires.

I can honestly say this is the worst time to increase taxes on private landowners. According to our calculations, the tax would be an 800% increase in taxes on harvested timber, which is completely untenable. Taxes are permanent. Blips in short run markets are not. Oregonians expect thoughtful policy decisions that respect the stability of family businesses, not attempts to tax them out of existence.

Private forestland owners and manufacturers make Oregon the number one national producer of lumber, and we have more trees today than we did 100 years ago. Seneca is one of Oregon’s oldest, home-grown, family-run forest products companies. We employ 470, manage 170,000 acres in seven counties and operate four sawmills and a co-generation facility that provides clean, renewable energy to 13,000 homes in Eugene. We’ve survived through smart innovation, experienced risk calculations and a grit and endurance that only come from loving what we do.

We are one of few remaining Oregon companies that own forestland and sawmills, giving us expertise on market dynamics between logs and lumber prices. The story focused on lumber prices, but that’s only one part of the equation. Log prices and lumber prices are often disconnected. Because one temporarily goes up does not mean the whole supply chain benefits. More important is long-term stability. Unlike farmers who harvest their crop annually, we invest in cultivating seedlings for 40+ years before we see a return – provided those trees aren’t lost to fire, insects, disease, or ice.

Our industry and its 60,000 Oregon employees depend on the health and vitality of both the mills and the forests that supply them. Unfortunately, the Labor Day fires disrupted that balance, and in the coming years our mills will undeniably face a shortage of timber. In addition to wildfire losses, the state is proposing a 70-year management plan that makes almost 60% of state-owned forests off-limits to harvest. We anticipate upcoming regulatory changeswill further decrease harvest.

Over the last few years, the Oregon Legislature has increased the tax burden on businesses by a whopping 41%, according to a report for Oregon Business and Industry. An additional 800% increase in taxes on harvested timber could make it economically unfeasible to maintain forestland as it would be layered on top of existing property taxes, income taxes, payroll taxes, the new Corporate Activity Tax, plus assessments for fire suppression.

Today, timber is correctly taxed as a crop, but forests are more than just crops – they provide many environmental and social benefits. That’s why our tax and land use systems work together to prevent incentives to convert forestland to other uses. While trees grow, they provide water filtration, air purification, carbon capture and storage, wildlife habitat, and recreation. When trees are harvested, they create family-wage jobs and the only reliable, renewable source of carbon-neutral building materials.

Our Legislature should help businesses struggling through the pandemic, not increase their taxes. We should focus on restoring hundreds of thousands of acres of burned forests back to healthy, thriving forests that are less likely to burn – not taxing the people doing that work.

Opinion: Timber, environmental interests’ collaborative problem-solving deserves Oregonians’ support

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By: Arnie Roblan and Caddy McKeown | The Oregonian | Feb. 7, 2021

Roblan, a Democrat from Coos Bay, represented District 5 in the Oregon Senate from 2013 until last month. McKeown, a Democrat from Coos Bay, represented District 9 in the Oregon House from 2013 until last month.

This opinion originally appeared in The Oregonian.

Oregonians are well-versed in the story of our state’s decades-old battle between the timber industry and environmentalists. Books have been written about it. University seminars are given on it. As longtime legislators, we had front-row seats to years of tense hearings with heated testimony on controversial forest policy bills. These issues are extremely emotional and divisive, sometimes fueling opposition in the form of tree sitting, massive rallies on the Capitol steps and other public protests.

We are encouraged and optimistic that those days are behind us. As Henry Ford once said, “Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success.”

Last February, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown announced a groundbreaking agreement between 13 timber and forest products entities and 13 environmental organizations. Known as the Private Forest Accord, this collaborative environmental effort is moving forward in lieu of the divisive ballot measures, litigation and contentiouslegislation of the past. The signatories of the accord pledged to work together on proactive legislation and explore if common ground exists to support recommended changes to forest practices that have long divided them.

Even during a global pandemic and a horrific wildfire season, the group has stuck together and made significant progress. During a special session in June, the Legislature passed Senate Bill 1602 with nearly unanimous bipartisan support in both legislative chambers, and the bill was signed into law by the governor in July. SB 1602, which was crafted with the help of timber and environmental leaders, codified the historic agreement and created a set of significant reforms to the Forest Practices Act. These new laws restrict helicopter applications of pesticides on forestland with new protections for homes, schools and drinking water, and created a new, first-in-the-nation real-time neighbor notification and reporting requirement. We are proud to have championed that bill. All Oregonians should be proud of this accomplishment and the admirable spirit of collaboration that made it possible.

Now is the time to build on that success. Last month Gov. Brown announced the appointment of experienced mediator Peter Koehler, Jr., to facilitate further dialogue about new protections for sensitive aquatic species on private forestland, which could be formalized in a statewide Habitat Conservation Plan. Negotiations began in earnest this month, and we have high hopes for the outcome.

These negotiations over the next few months will not be easy, but the success of SB 1602 demonstrates the promise of a thoughtful, collaborative process for change that Oregonians deserve, rather than the divisive battles of the past.

Importantly, the Legislature needs to support this momentous opportunity and give the signatories the space necessary to grow and carry out what was set in motion last February. It is time to hold off on legislation that fuels a polarizing debate over Oregon forest policy, and instead support the arena for collaborative compromise. Legislative leaders from both parties should endorse this effort and help ensure its success by tabling traditionally polarizing issues and debates.

While we do believe it is imperative the Legislature address the recent megafires in our forests that have devastated our communities, solutions should focus on federal lands and can be discussed without disrupting the Private Forest Accord. In the past decade, 86% of the forested acres that have burned in Oregon were on federal lands.

The opportunity for a better way and a new day for Oregon forest policy is before us. A new paradigm—something we’ve never seen before in our careers as legislators—is taking shape, and it deserves every chance to succeed.

The Legislature and all Oregonians should join us in embracing this new collaborative approach.

After the fires, timber industry faces ‘generational’ losses and longer-term supply questions

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By Ted Sickinger | The Oregonian | Nov 22, 2020

**This story originally appeared in The Oregonian

Rick McKay’s logging crew was off for Labor Day weekend when the Lionshead fire blew through its job site just above Breitenbush Hot Springs.

When crew members cut their way back in two weeks later, what they found was a scorched-earth patch of the fire that had consumed or damaged most of the equipment on site.

A grader purchased in January. Toast. Two log processors and a log loader. An excavator. A roller. Two trailers. A pickup/fire engine and a water tanker.

Some is insured, McKay said, but like most loggers, a bunch isn’t. He’s still trying to figure what’s salvageable.

“It was a big hit,” he said, estimating the value at $1 million. “Replacing that equipment isn’t easy either…I’m almost 60.”

Oregon’s timber industry, made up of companies small and large, is still counting its losses. Nobody has a credible number yet. It’s huge. And equipment losses are the least of it.

One industry estimate is that the fires burned or damaged trees that might have produced 15 billion board feet of timber. Only a portion of that was in areas open to logging, but it’s nearly four times what Oregon’s industry harvests each year.

The fires burned through an unusually high concentration of private land, most of it industrial forestland, and hit a subset of companies particularly hard based on where they own land and operate. They also scorched federal forests, including big sections being managed for timber production.

Logging and hauling contractors, many of them family run outfits built over generations, took a heavy hit, not only in burned equipment, but idled operations, lost payroll and other costs.

The ripple effects will spread through the sector. Pressure will increase to boost logging on public lands to make up for the lost supply. And controversy will follow.

Meanwhile, companies are scrambling to salvage what they can in the two- to three-year window when the dead wood is still merchantable. Then comes rehabbing the land. When the labor and seedlings are available, that will be a multi-year process involving major outlays.

Freres Lumber, which operates five mills in the Santiam Canyon, saw about 40% of its land holdings in the basin burned.

“We’ve lost time, we’ve lost 30 years of growth and we’ll never be able to get that back again,” said Tyler Freres, vice president of sales. “And all those lands need to be rehabbed to start growing trees for future generations of our company. It’s a big hit for generations.”

Heavy private losses

More than 1 million acres were within the perimeter of the fires that blew up over Labor Day, an area equivalent to 3% of Oregon’s forestland. Almost all of it was on the west side, where the industry is clustered, and nearly 40% were industrial or other private forestlands.

That’s unusual. The U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management own 60% of Oregon’s forestland, and over the last decade, some 86% of acres burned in Oregon’s seasonal wildfires were on federal land.

Experts say that’s a function of fire suppression tactics, as fires are sometimes left to burn if they don’t threaten lives and structures, as well as conditions on the land. The industry’s mantra has long been that those forests – with a buildup of highly flammable downed limbs and dead vegetation — should be more heavily managed and logged to reduce fire risk and generate more supply.

Among private landowners, Weyerhaeuser took the biggest hit. As a publicly traded company, it reported its losses in securities filings for the third quarter. It estimated the fires touched 125,000 acres of its land, and it booked an $80 million loss for timber that will not be able to be salvaged. It’s a big number, but not material for a company that owns 11 million acres of timber in the United States alone and recorded $2.1 billion in sales that quarter.

Most of the companies that lost timber in the fires are much smaller, private, and reluctant to share specific figures. The Oregon Forest Resources Institute is undertaking a study of the industry losses from the fire, but that won’t be out until May.

Freres Lumber’s operations are heavily concentrated in the Santiam Canyon, where it owns some 19,000 acres of industrial forest land and operates five mills that employ about 400.

The company typically gets about 15% of its log supply off its own lands. Tyler Freres says the company’s initial estimate is that about 7,500 acres of its land was impacted, including timber with a value of about $50 million at current delivered prices. The company anticipates it will cost between $7 million and $9 million to replant over a period of time.https://www.youtube.com/embed/_6Wfsib9Bgg?feature=oembed

Casey Roscoe, a senior vice president at Seneca Sawmill, said the company had 640 acres within the Holiday Farm fire and 10,000 acres within the Archie Creek fire and is still assessing damages. The losses will be in the tens of millions, she estimated.

Wood products companies say they have two or perhaps three years to salvage trees impacted by the fires before rot, insect infestation and blowdown render them unusable. During that period, mills are likely to have a surplus of wood coming in, albeit black logs. That timber is generally worth 25% less than unburned logs and is more difficult to process.

Longer term, say four to 10 years out, the question of supply looms larger.

Federal losses

Some 60% of the acreage burned in the fires was on federal lands, including areas of the Mt. Hood, Willamette, Siuslaw, Fremont-Winema, Umpqua and Rogue-Siskiyou national forests. A significant chunk was in areas the Forest Service manages for timber supply.

According to a preliminary Forest Service analysis, the fires in Oregon burned through stands covered by some 28 federal logging contracts that had already been awarded. Those contracts, which included 172 million board feet of timber, typically run from three to seven years, and were in various stages of completion.

Another 15 planned sales totaling some 90 million board feet also were burned to varying degrees and put on hold. And the fires burned in “planning areas” slated for future contracts that hold more than 175 million board feet of potential harvest.

Those figures only count contracts on Forest Service land – not the other large federal player, the Bureau of Land Management.

Matt Hill, executive director of the Douglas Timber Operators trade association, said the BLM initially said about 22 million board feet of the Roseburg District’s planned 2021 timber program were affected, though the total land base impacted is much larger.

In general, the Forest Service and BLM designate about 80% of the forests they manage as reserves set aside for old growth habitat, and about 20% is made available for potential logging. Though the federal harvest has declined precipitously from decades ago, is still an important component of many timber companies’ supply.

According to Andy Geissler, federal timber program manager at the American Forest Resource Council, the footprint of the fires on the Mt. Hood National Forest and the Detroit district of the Willamette National Forest was particularly concentrated in areas designated for timber production.

“Their future timber program is very uncertain,” he said. “If the timber program for any particular forest is reduced by 40% to 50% annually, there are ripple effects beyond those regular purchasers off those forests and it will be felt around the region.”

It’s unclear how much post-fire logging will be allowed in existing contract areas and whether the Forest Service and BLM will provide replacement contracts. Over the next decade, that debate will expand to cover the Forest Service and BLM’s unburned, green timber programs.

Given the size of the federal land base, experts say pressure will mount on federal managers to replace the lost harvest base and even make up the volume from industry losses on private land. And that will tee up opposition from conservation groups

“The bottom-line takeaway is that we’re moving a lot of wood that’s wasn’t ready to get moved very quickly, and we lost private inventory that would have been spaced out over the next few decades,” said Hill of the timber trade group.

“When that is gone and it’s not available five or ten years from now, who fills that gap?”

Logger losses

The Associated Oregon Loggers estimates that the fires’ costs to logging contractors will ultimately exceed $100 million.

It’s big number. Another guesstimate. But logging equipment doesn’t go home at night, and that figure includes $43 million in burned equipment owned by about 30 separate companies, including 112 pieces of logging, hauling and road building machinery.

As with McKay, who says he lost about $1 million worth of equipment, much of what was lost was uninsured or underinsured.

The association says idled operations cost another $22 million in lost payroll payments as the industry was shut down anywhere from two to six weeks, and still hasn’t resumed operations in many burned areas. Other costs included the debt payments on their idled machinery, the cost to move it to other jobs and replacement premiums on lost equipment due to supply shortages.

“A few companies will close their doors, while others will operate at reduced capacity as they gradually replace what they lost,” said Rex Storm, executive vice president of the trade association. “It’ll rebuild and rebound, but it will take some time, and it comes at a high cost to their businesses, to their productivity and to their workforce.”

Chuck Goode, a logging and hauling contractor based in Silverton, counts himself lucky. He moved his logging equipment off a job north of Detroit Lake two weeks before the fires, so nothing burned.

For now, he has put all of the jobs he had lined up for winter on hold while he helps Freres salvage log on their burned land — until rain and snow put a stop to that.

It’s dirtier, costlier and more dangerous work than normal. Charred bark dulls blades faster. Yields are lower. And with burned out roots, no needles, and brittle wood, trees fall faster and break apart, occasionally ricocheting back on the harvester, as happened three times in Goode’s first week on the job.

“My destiny is I’m going to be logging burnt timber,” Goode said. “At some point it’s a loss to log it, then I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Rehab and replanting

Rehabilitating and replanting private forestlands will be a years-long undertaking, one initially limited by the supply of seedlings and labor to complete the work.

Mike Cloughesy, director of forestry at the Oregon Forest Resources Institute, says rehab costs on a very young stand — clearing the ground, rehabbing soil and planting seedlings — might be $400 to $500 an acre. Getting into stands over 20 years, it might be as high as $1,500 an acre as most of the biomass is still there, and needs to be cut, piled, chipped or burned. In older stands, the higher salvage value of the trees may turn a profit.

Kathy LeCompte, the co-owner of Brooks Tree Farm in Salem, said the seedlings needed to replant are grown for specific elevation zones so they are genetically acclimated. She says it’s typically a two- to three-year process to grow a seedling that timber companies would plant, and that the nursery industry was already experiencing a seed shortage before the fires.

“Of course, no one knew to go collect seed in those areas two years ago and grow 50 million seedlings,” she said. “If we didn’t have the seed planted in 2019, the people who got burned out don’t have anything to work from.”

Timber companies maintain their own seed banks, and many rushed into the seedling market as the fires were burning to secure supplies.

“If we had several million seedlings, that would be great, but we don’t have the labor to put them in the ground,” said Peter Sikora, chief executive of Springfield-based Giustina Resources.

Sikora said Giustina lost several generations of trees on its land in the Holiday Farm fire. At this point the company is concentrating on salvaging trees at higher elevations and working its way down. The company had extra seed in cold storage, and while it doesn’t typically replant using seed, it’s trying this year.

“We hope we get some viable growth,” he said. “I don’t know how that’s going to work at some of our higher elevations. It’s an experiment.”

Guest View: Practical solutions must win the day

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By Garrett Yarbrough | November 7, 2020 | Register-Guard

**This opinion originally appeared in the Register-Guard.

Dylan Plummer’s column misrepresents not only the 2020 wildfire season but also the past decade of wildfires in Oregon. Any reasonable conversation about wildfire should not cherry pick one fire and one study to make sweeping conclusions about cause and effect, and readers should be skeptical of those who attempt to do so. Moreover, structuring competing, divisive narratives assigning blame rather than seeking solutions won’t help Oregonians recover or rebuild after the traumatic and heartbreaking loss over the last month. 

The 2020 wildfire season is unlike any we’ve seen in the last 100 years — and no single cause exists. The east-wind-fueled weather event on Labor Day was extreme and unprecedented in our lifetimes, creating a fire situation that shocked seasoned firefighters and fire experts. In such an extreme event, any land would have burned, managed or not. These fires did not discriminate between young and old forests. Over a million acres burned across all ownership types — federal, state, tribal and private. In such an extreme event, fire perimeters almost perfectly mirror ownership distribution in the state: roughly 60% federally owned and 40% state/privately owned.

No one was left unscathed. 

Three elements control wildfire: weather, fuel and topography. The only one we can manage is fuel. Proven, science-based forest management tools like logging, thinning and controlled burns reduce excessive vegetation that fuel catastrophic wildfires. 

Outside of the extreme example of 2020, in the past decade 86% of the acres burned in Oregon were on federal land. Excessive buildup of fuels from decades of poor management have left federal forests overstocked with disease- and insect-ridden trees and standing dead timber — extremely dangerous conditions with catastrophic results when lightning strikes. This buildup creates “ladder fuels” allowing fire to torch up to tree crowns where embers catch on the wind and spread fire for miles. 

Fires on managed forestland are easier to put out because fuels are reduced through harvest, lands are replanted after fire, access is maintained through roads and fires are aggressively, but safely, put out. Young plantations may burn thoroughly and completely, but it is in these areas that firefighters are often able to gain control of a wildfire and stop it from spreading. I was on the Holiday Farm Fire, and after personally scouting miles of decommissioned and degraded federal road systems for fire line, it was evident that catching and holding fire on federal ground would be more difficult than on private land. 

Since 2000, 15 of the 16 megafires in Oregon started on federally managed lands — many of them then spread to private and state lands where they were put out because of road access and better fuel management. In 2020, Oregon saw 17 large fires on the landscape. Over half of them, including many of the most destructive fires like the Beachie Creek, Archie Creek and Riverside fires, likely originated on federally managed lands and spread to other ownerships. 

These are simply the facts that help us move away from assigning blame and instead to uniting around solutions. Now is the time for practical solutions and actions to put out dangerous fires, protect against future catastrophic fires, and restore and rebuild communities. 

Instead of assigning blame, our sector prefers to get to work. Every year Oregon’s timber industry provides millions of dollars of equipment and manpower to battle fires to save people and property, at the risk of their own lives. 2020 required even more — with state and federal firefighting resources spread thin, private foresters and loggers filled the gap. Private forest landowners and operators were and still are on the front lines supporting federal and state firefighting efforts, with more than 650 employees and over 350 pieces of privately owned equipment. In many cases, private resources were the only crews on significant portions of the 2020 fires. Some of those men and women had lost their own homes and still reported to the fire line the following day to help save surrounding communities. 

And now that rains and firefighting efforts have slowed the spread of the fires, the forest sector is pivoting its focus to the future — restoration and regeneration of Oregon’s forests — a feat that will likely require over 100 million tree seedlings. Restoring hundreds of thousands of acres of damaged forest back to healthy, thriving forests is the best way to prevent dead and dying trees from re-burning in the future (dead trees create future fuel for wildfires) and maximize the forest’s ability to capture and store carbon. 

That’s what we’ll be focused on in the coming months — solutions that help Oregonians recover. We invite others to join us. 

Garrett Yarbrough is a Lane County forester and firefighter.

Restoring Oregon’s Forests After Wildfire: Capturing and Storing Carbon

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For Immediate Release
Contact: Sara Duncan
Phone: 503-828-2373
Email: sara@ofic.com

[SALEM, October 14, 2020] – On Labor Day, 2020, Oregon witnessed the ignition of the most destructive and damaging wildfire season in recent history, but now that rains and firefighting efforts have slowed the spread of the fires, the forest sector is pivoting its focus to the future – restoration and regeneration of Oregon’s forests – a feat that will likely require over 100 million tree seedlings.

“More than half of Oregon’s human-caused carbon emissions are captured by its 30 million acres of forests, but the 2020 wildfires have turned hundreds of thousands of acres of privately-owned forests that were once thriving, healthy, carbon capturing engines into smoldering carbon emitters,” said Kristina McNitt, President of the Oregon Forest and Industries Council. “Restoring those acres of fire-damaged trees back to productive forestland is the best way to prevent dead and dying trees from re-burning in the future and maximize the forest’s ability to capture and store carbon.”

Driven by an extreme east wind, in less than a week, fires burned nearly one million acres across all ownership types. The fires threatened mills, destroyed homes and structures, took lives, displaced thousands of Oregonians, blanketed the state in dangerously high smoke levels, and dramatically impacted whole communities, many of which may never be the same.

The 2020 wildfires in Oregon burned over 350,000 acres of productive private timberland. Across all ownership types, the 2020 fires burned four times what Oregon harvests every year, which may have killed as much as 15 billion board feet of timber – enough wood to build 1 million homes.

Initially, private forestland owners and operators were focused on the front lines, supporting federal and state firefighting efforts with more than 650 employees and over 350 pieces of privately-owned equipment.

“Throughout the state, countless examples exist where private timber companies provided the only personnel and equipment on vast sections of fires, with foresters and loggers selflessly working thousands of hours to protect lands and communities, irrespective of ownership, only to return after a shift to help their own families and neighbors evacuate.” said Kyle Williams, Director of Forest Protection for the Oregon Forest and Industries Council. “It was truly an outstanding response to a worst-case scenario.”

Despite the best efforts of firefighters, wildfires converted a massive amount of wood into air pollution, emitting more carbon into the atmosphere in a few weeks than both the state’s energy and transportation sectors – which were previously Oregon’s largest sources of carbon emissions.

One large fire year can emit up to 15 million tons of carbon, which is equivalent to a quarter of Oregon’s annual human-caused emissions and twice as much carbon as all the cars in Portland emit in one year.

“Our communities are reeling in the aftermath of the fires,” said Seth Barnes, Director of Forest Policy for Oregon Forest and Industries Council. “We’re mourning with them, but it’s our responsibility to start thinking right away about what comes next. Quickly removing damaged timber and milling it into wood products prevents carbon emissions, eliminates fuel for future wildfires, and provides the very materials needed to rebuild these communities from fiber that would otherwise be wasted.”

After a fire, damaged trees quickly become susceptible to insect infestation and rot, emitting carbon into the atmosphere as they decay and creating deadly conditions for firefighters should a future wildfire re-ignite in that same forest in the future.

Reforestation after harvest is required by the Oregon Forest Practices Act, and Oregon reforestation crews typically plant about 40 million seedlings each year – four for each one harvested – at an average cost of about $335 per acre. Based on the extent of the fire perimeter, estimates indicate post-fire reforestation efforts will likely require over 100 million tree seedlings, excluding any reforestation efforts on federal forest, more than double the seedlings needed for average annual reforestation efforts. This estimate accounts for acres of timber not completely killed in the fires, a percentage of acres that were not forest lands, and a conservative reforestation effort of 350 trees per acre.

Not only do studies demonstrate that post-fire harvest increases the effectiveness of reforestation, studies also conclude that young growing trees capture carbon at a higher rate than older trees, so re-planting with new seedlings after a fire maximizes the forest’s ability to capture carbon in the future.

“While the 2020 wildfires will deeply impact our industry for years to come, the forest products sector will continue to be a cornerstone of Oregon’s economy and we will continue to do what we do best — grow, harvest, and replant new forests while manufacturing carbon-friendly wood products to meet our country’s needs,” said McNitt.  “This is our contribution, and the Oregon way – creating green jobs and locally sourced material to rebuild our homes and communities after this tragedy.”

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The Oregon Forest & Industries Council is a trade association representing more than 50 Oregon forestland owners and forest products manufacturers. OFIC’s members combine sustainable forest management practices with the latest science and technology to continuously improve the environmental, social and economic value of healthy working forests. We protect and manage more than 5 million acres of Oregon forestlands, employ nearly 60,000 Oregonians, and make Oregon the nation’s largest state producer of softwood and plywood. For more information, go to ofic.com.

Opinion: Wildfires show need to unite behind forestry solutions

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By Kristina McNitt, Travis Joseph, Rex Storm and Jim James | The Oregonian |Oct. 11, 2020

McNitt is the president of Oregon Forest and Industries Council, Joseph is the CEO and president of American Forest Resource Council, Storm is the executive vice president of Associated Oregon Loggers, and James is the executive director of Oregon Small Woodlands Association.

** This opinion originally appeared in The Oregonian.

When we thought 2020 couldn’t get worse, the windstorm and resulting wildfires from Labor Day created the worst fire season in Oregon history: bigger than the previous record-holding Silver Falls Fire in 1865, bigger than all the Tillamook Burns combined, and bigger than the footprint of degradation left in the wake of the eruption of Mt St. Helens.  The enormity of the devastation – more than 1 million acres burned – is hard to absorb. Preliminary analysis indicates almost a third of the total acres in Marion County are within the fire perimeter.

We are all suffering in the aftermath, but the worst impacts fall on those who live, work and play in our forests. Lives have been lost. Homes and businesses burned to the ground. Hundreds of millions of dollars in equipment and property destroyed. Many of our rural, natural resource-based communities and businesses may never recover.

In the face of this ongoing tragedy, Oregon’s forest sector remains resilient, hopeful and determined. We are committed to non-partisan, practical solutions and actions to use controlled fires to reduce fuel loads, protect our fellow citizens from future catastrophic fire events and restore and rebuild the communities and natural places we love.

In the coming months, hundreds of thousands of acres will need to be restored by removing dead trees and regenerating the land to healthy, thriving forests again. We’ll replant, but landowners face a shortage of seedlings due to the unprecedented scale of destruction. Oregon mills will face a shortage of timber supply in coming decades that will test their ability to remain operational and further stress rural communities.

This prolonged environmental, public safety and economic disaster requires the best of Oregon. Already, national media has structured competing, polarizing narratives assigning blame rather than seeking solutions. We ask that Oregonians unite to reject the partisan and false choice between climate change and active forest management. Actively managing Oregon’s forests with proven tools like thinning, logging and controlled burns is a climate solution. The truth is that climate change and lack of forest management on federal forests have both played a role in these severe wildfires.

There is something we can do now to address both.

Carbon emissions from 2020 Oregon wildfires have now surpassed those from each of Oregon’s largest sources of emissions – the energy and transportation sectors.  Managing federal forests to avoid mega fires also avoids the carbon emissions choking our communities today. Active forest management helps forests adapt to changing conditions, and healthy, growing trees pull pollution out of the air, capturing that carbon into the wood fiber. When harvested, timber is manufactured into the only building materials that store carbon for the life of the product.

Three elements control wildfire: weather, fuel and topography. The single element that can be mitigated is fuel. Sixty percent of Oregon’s forest is federally owned, yet 86 percent of the acres burned in Oregon in the past decade were on federal land. Excessive buildup of fuels from decades of lack of management have left federal forests overstocked with diseased, insect-ridden and standing dead timber. This cocktail of dangerous conditions leads to catastrophic wildfire when lightning strikes, which further explodes under wind conditions like those experienced over Labor Day.

Reducing fuel loads on federal land can and should be a primary focus. Our public lands managers should be given the policy tools and resources to implement proven, science-based forest management tools like thinning, logging and utilizing controlled burns in the off-season to reduce severe fires and toxic smoke in July, August and September.  Smart management also increases forest resiliency, improves access and safety for firefighters and first responders, and supports the livelihoods of thousands of Oregon workers we desperately need to stop and prevent dangerous wildfires.

The forest products sector will continue to be a cornerstone of Oregon’s economy, and we will continue to do what we do best — grow, harvest, and replant new forests while manufacturing carbon-friendly wood products to meet our country’s needs. This is our contribution and the Oregon way – creating green jobs and locally sourced material to rebuild our homes and communities after this tragedy. Thank you to our fellow Oregonians for the tremendous outpouring of support for communities destroyed, indeed some eviscerated, by fire.  As an industry, we’re committed to restoration and recovery of our forested landscapes. And we hope as a state, we reset the long-divisive public policy debates and unite around solutions for our collective social, environmental and economic futures.

Filed Under: New

Wood is essential to fighting coronavirus

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Originally posted on Oregon Forests Forever

The coronavirus pandemic has demonstrated the critical importance of paper products, even giving toilet paper its 15 minutes of fame. One thing has been made clear – wood is a key material supporting a number of important goods and services.

Angel Soft executive Andrew Noble told CNBC Make It, “Friends and family who know I work in toilet paper never wanted to talk about that before.” But when customers started finding shelves empty of the product this March, “suddenly everyone wanted to talk about [toilet paper] all the time,” Noble said. “Even my own mother wanted to know if I had any toilet paper I could get her.”

The Albany Democrat-Herald reported that Georgia-Pacific’s 14 tissue paper plants across the U.S. are, on average, producing 1.5 million more rolls of toilet paper per day than they were before the pandemic began, according to senior director of public affairs and communications Kelly Ferguson.

On March 19 the U.S. Department of Homeland Security recognized that “Workers who support the manufacture and distribution of forest products, including, but not limited to timber, paper, and other wood products” are part of the country’s essential infrastructure necessary to continue normal operations during the COVID-19.

In addition to toilet paper, wood is necessary for critical infrastructure projects, including emergency medical and lodging structures, and temporary buildings. For example, the Scotsman reported wood manufacturers are supplying oriented strand board for construction of the Nightingale temporary hospital, being built in London. Wood is also used for pallets to keep food and medicines moving, and serves as packaging for those vital supplies. According to the Washington Forest Protection Association, some sawmills and pulp and paper facilities also serve as co-generation plants, burning wood waste, the byproduct of sawmilling, to produce renewable biomass electricity and steam. Not only does this electricity and steam power the mills themselves, it gets sold to the larger grid, helping to supply additional green power to the general public.

And, as Mark Doumit, executive director of the Washington Forest Protection Association pointed out in a Seattle Times opinion, “Raw logs and lumber, as well as the paper products needed for sanitation and hygiene, do not exist in isolated industries. The sector needs demand from lumber users – such as home construction – to support the harvest of timber necessary to keep our sawmills open and producing their essential materials. Likewise, the pulp and paper manufacturers rely on chips and other residual products from the sawmills to power their mills and produce paper and hygiene products. No one element of this supply chain exists in isolation from the others.”

The good news is much of the forest products sector already work in socially-distanced locations and will be able to continue working safely and responsibly.

Oregon forest ‘habitat conservation plan’ worries counties

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By Mateusz Perkowski | Capital Press | Aug 18, 2020

**This story originally appeared in the Capital Press

A proposed “habitat conservation plan” for protected species in Oregon’s state-owned forests has alarmed some counties that receive logging revenues from those lands.

Since 2017, the Oregon Department of Forestry has been evaluating an HCP for threatened spotted owls and marbled murrelets, nine protected aquatic species and several wildlife species that may be listed under the Endangered Species Act.

State forestlands are currently managed to avoid killing or harming federally protected species, while an HCP would allow some “incidental take” as long as the plan’s mitigation and prevention strategies are followed.

As the Oregon Board of Forestry prepares to decide whether to proceed with the next phase of the HCP process, preliminary forecasts of timber harvest have caused consternation among some members of the Council of Forest Trust Land Counties.

“This HCP does not reflect any concern or understanding of counties’ financial condition or needs,” said David Yamamoto, chairman of the council and Tillamook County’s board of commissioners, during an Aug. 14 online meeting.

Based on ODF’s modeling data, logging on state-owned forestland in Western Oregon would decline steadily from recent levels of about 250 million to 300 million board-feet a year to roughly 175 million board-feet in 2080, after which harvests would begin rising again, according to the Mason, Bruce & Girard natural resources consulting firm.

About 60-62% of 640,000 acres of state-owned forestland would become unavailable for logging under the HCP, compared to 49% under current management, said Mark Rasmussen, a principal at the consulting firm.

To compare, only about 44% of state-owned forestlands in Western Washington are unavailable for logging under its HCP, Rasmussen said. “Is Oregon being asked to give up more than other landowners who’ve pursued and achieved an HCP?”

The HCP should not replicate economic hardship that occurred in Oregon due to logging curtailments on federal lands after the northern spotted owl was listing under the Endangered Species Act 30 years ago, said Steve Zika, CEO of Hampton Lumber.

“Any kind of reduction of the ODF’s state harvest will have a dramatic effect on many businesses in Northwest Oregon,” Zika said, noting that an HCP would be acceptable as a concept if it were less financially burdensome.

“In order for us to support this HCP, Oregon’s commitments need to be more balanced and in line with other landowner HCPs,” he said.

Yamamoto, the council’s chairman, pointed out that forestry and logging jobs pay an average annual salary of $54,400 in Oregon, while wood products and manufacturing jobs pay an average annual salary of about $51,600 — compared to about $22,750 for jobs in leisure and hospitality.

“These are not living-wage, fully benefited jobs,” Yamamoto said of the tourism industry. “Tillamook is never going to be home to a Nike or a Columbia Sportswear or a Google. Small rural counties really depend very much on natural resource-based jobs.”

The most recent models for how the HCP would affect the ODF’s finances haven’t yet been finished but will be ready by October, when the Board of Forestry is expected to decide whether to undertake a Nation Environmental Policy Act analysis of the plan, said Liz Dent, the agency’s state forests division chief.

When asked why Oregon’s HCP would restrict logging on a larger proportion of land than Washington’s plan, Dent said the conservation areas were designed based on surveys of marbled murrelets and spotted owls conducted over two decades.

There would still be the opportunity to manage forestland within these conservation areas, she said.

“Each HCP is going to be different based on forest conditions, the species we are seeking coverage for, their distribution, (and) it depends who the landowner is and what the landowner’s objectives are,” Dent said.

The HCP is intended to bring regulatory certainty that would allow Oregon to continue managing its forests as “working forests,” but the decision whether to adopt the plan won’t be made until mid-2022, said Peter Daugherty, Oregon’s state forester.

“I don’t consider myself an adversary to the counties but a partner to the counties,” he said.

Forestry utilizing the best science available

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Originally posted on Oregon Forests Forever

Hello my name is Brent Long. I recreate, work, and source food/water from forests that are managed for timber production. The same forests also produce many forest externalities including clean air, clean water, different wildlife habitats, and recreation opportunities.

I, like many other Oregonians, head to the forest to recreate. My main recreation activity in the forest since 2017 has been running with my two dogs. We have run 1,016 miles on logging roads since 2017. In that time span the forests around the logging roads have been logged, sprayed with herbicides, and re-planted with a native tree species mix. During that same time span I have seen elk, deer, bear, coyotes, bobcats, rabbits, and many birds of prey all utilizing the different age classes that the forest provides. We see elk and deer in the recently harvested areas eating grass, forbs, and planted trees. When they notice us they run to the 8-20 year old forest stands for protection. The birds of prey sit on stumps and snags within the recent harvests and scan the area for mice and rabbits that may come out. From a distance these recent harvests appear as bare land, but I can personally attest to the amount of use these forests get. I typically don’t wear headphones while I run because I enjoy listening to the songs from all of the songbirds. Or I hear thumps from the woodpeckers that throw off my running cadence. Songbirds flock to the recently logged areas in search of insects. The insects are out breaking down woody material and give nutrients back to the soil.

In addition to recreating out in the forest, I also work there. My dad started out as a timber cutter and ended up working as a diesel mechanic later on. He would bring me to work with him occasionally to see all of the big equipment that the loggers used. That introduction to working in the forest got me hooked. After High school I attended Oregon State University in the Forest Management program. After college I went to work for a private timber company on the Oregon Coast, where I have been for over 7 years. Our activities in the forest are guided by the Oregon Forest Practices Act (OFPA). The OFPA utilizes the best science available in order to protect resources, and is constantly updated as research is done. Various studies have been done to test the effectiveness of the OFPA and affirm its current version. It is imperative that we use science and research when we talk about protecting resources. Any changes that are made need to be based on good data and not driven by anecdotal evidence. If we propose changes to the existing protection measures we should ask two questions. First is there a real issue that needs to be addressed? Secondly if there is an issue will the proposed protection measures address the issue? Too many times when an issue is noticed a finger gets pointed without truly understanding the root of the problem. We get closer to understanding the root of the problem through research and data collection.

As previously mentioned I have lived on the Oregon Coast for over 7 years. My wife and I source food and water from forestland that is actively managed for timber production. These forests are clearcut, treated with herbicides when necessary, and replanted with a native tree species mix. We hunt the deer and elk that are plentiful in these forests. We pick the numerous different kinds of berries that grow in these forests. A number of which are more plentiful in young forests that were recently harvested and planted. We pick the chanterelle mushrooms and chicken of the woods that are found within these forests. Most importantly we drink that water that flows through these forests. We get the yearly water quality reports and have always had high quality drinking water. I think it is great that technology has got us to the point where we are able to test for the presence of contaminants way before they pose a health risk. With these advanced detection capabilities we are continually reassured of high quality water coming from our tap.

I hope that these brief statements help to paint the picture that forests can be actively managed for timber production while still providing clean water, clean air, and habitat for different species of wildlife.

Sincerely,

Brent Long

Timber strongly supports rural counties

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OFIC’s members understand better than most the economic devastation that resulted from lawsuits a generation ago that shut down most of the local timber economy. Lost jobs. Poverty. Inadequate revenue for schools, hospitals, libraries and public safety. The counties where our members operate survived a 90% reduction in federal timber harvests – but our communities, our people and our families have never been the same.

It is from this lived experienced that we disagree with the premise of the recent story “Big Money Bought Oregon’s Forests” by Rob Davis and Tony Schick. These urban reporters and their sensationalized reporting fail to understand rural Oregon as we know it and are living it. Further, their reporting also fails to recognize or even mention dramatic changes in state tax policy – resulting from two voter-approved ballot initiatives – that fundamentally changed Oregon’s property tax systems for all property owners.

Any thoughtful discussion – or reporting – about how Oregon taxes forestlands must also look at how Ballot Measure 5, approved by voters in 1990 and Ballot Measure 50, approved by voters in 1997, dramatically altered Oregon’s property tax system and its unintended consequences for rural counties. These were policy decisions made by Oregon voters – not timber companies. Yet, remarkably, there is no mention of these measures in the four thousand word story.

In addition to paying personal income tax and corporate income and excise tax, just like other corporate entities in the state, forest landowners also pay property taxes and are treated exactly the same as all other landowners in the state. Their property is taxed at fair market value in its use as timberland – the price a knowledgeable purchaser would pay for land primarily use to grown and harvest timber. This approach prevents conversion of forestland to other uses and preserves working lands, just like with agriculture lands and open spaces. It’s effective: Oregon has maintained more forestland acres since 1900 than our West Coast neighbors.

Following passage of Ballot Measures 5 and 50, the legislature and then Governor John Kitzhaber went to work to fashion a new timber tax policy that was both constitutional and fair.  In addition to addressing the new voter-approved property tax constraints, they also considered the fact that severance taxes are generally paid on non-renewable resources like oil, minerals and coal that are extracted and not replaced. Trees, on the other hand, are a renewable resource – with four trees planted in Oregon for every one that is harvested. You can’t replant coal – but we do replant trees. Lots of them.  Governor Kitzhaber and overwhelming bipartisan majorities in the legislature agreed and approved a modern, fair and constitutional system for taxing forestlands. A system designed to support jobs but that also recognized that private forests also provide unique public benefits: clean air and water, wildlife habitat, recreation opportunities, beautiful scenery that draws tourists to our communities, carbon storage, and a source of more green, renewable building materials than any other state in the nation.

We understand that a story about big timber companies hurting small rural communities is easier to tell and more likely to generate social media clicks and likes than the ins and outs of complex state tax policy. But that doesn’t mean the story is accurate, relevant or complete.

The jobs and tax revenue generated from timber and forest products remain essential to Oregon’s economy – especially in rural areas. In fact, private timber companies provide some of the highest-paying jobs in many rural counties. In Douglas County almost a quarter of all jobs come from the forest sector. In some counties, like Clatsop, these jobs can pay twice the state average annual wage. In all, the forest sector employs more than 60,000 Oregonians to the tune of $3 billion in annual payroll, in mostly rural counties.

The real story about rural communities is that despite all that is thrown at us – from wildfires, to economic devastation from COVID-19 to policy decisions made by rural elites who don’t understand or appreciate our way of life – we remain resilient and hopeful. Our communities are tough and independent. And our people love the forests for all that they do and all that they mean for Oregon – jobs, recreation, wildlife and beauty.

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