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Forest Facts
Some 1.5 billion trees are planted in the U.S. every year, about 5 trees for every American.
Annually, U.S. forestland owners plant about 6 trees for every tree harvested.
About one-third of America's original forest - some 300 million acres - have been converted to other uses, principally agriculture.
There are 26 million more acres of forestland in the Northeast than there were in 1900.
Today, forests blanket about one-third of the U.S. land base and about half the U.S. East.
U.S. annual growth rates have exceeded harvest rates since the 1940's.
Timber harvesting is forbidden on 50% of all National Forest lands in the U.S.
National Forests account for 20% of the nation's forestlands and 19% of its timberlands.
National Forests hold 46% of the nation's softwood timber inventory but only provide 6% of the annual harvest.
Since 1986, the harvest of timber from America's national forests has declined 70%.
In the West, 34% of all forestland and 54% of all timberlands are in national forests.
National forests in the Pacific Coast and Intermountain West regions hold 68% of the nation's softwood timber inventory, but provide less than 28% of annual harvest.
Forest density has increased 40% in the U.S. over the last 50 years.
Flying Finns
Home->Mid-Spring 2006
Ring of Fire - Part One
By: Dave Skinner
Just the name conjures up visions: Blue Mountains.
What do you see? The Oregon Trail? Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce? The Grande Ronde Canyon? Nifty, prosperous small towns? Wide, handsome valleys with fine black cattle on a backdrop of emerald green? Mighty, snow-capped mountains flanked with magnificently sick forests?
Get the feeling you've been here before?
If you are a long time Evergreen reader, you have. In 1992, the non-profit Evergreen Foundation published an issue focusing on the "Iron Triangle" national forests of Northeast Oregon: the Wallowa-Whitman, Umatilla and Malheur, titled "Grey Ghosts in the Blue Mountains." Publisher Jim Petersen's essay described a "world-class scientific problem," six million acres of dead trees and what to do about them. Massive spruce budworm and mountain pine beetle infestations had both taken hold, thanks to a combination of drought, fire suppression, and way too many trees. Then-biologist and future Forest Service Chief Jack Ward Thomas told Evergreen, the situation was "the first time we've ever seen a forest ecosystem begin to unravel like this." With Thomas's prodding, a team of Forest Service and industry experts and community leaders was brought together under the umbrella of the Blue Mountains Natural Resources Institute (BMNRI) to, as Institute manager Tom Quigley stated, "explain the consequences, impacts and outcomes associated with every option." Once the options were explored, the hope was to get after it. As Wallowa-Whitman deputy supervisor Bill Gast presciently warned, "Unless we're given the opportunity to use the science we have available to us, we don't stand a chance."
Fourteen years later, millions more black, brown and red "ghosts" still haunt the Blue Mountains, and there has been no opportunity to use the science. Why not? Was it the courts, Congress, environmentalists, lousy lumber markets, the Clinton-Gore Administration, Bush I, Saddam, the weather? Whatever the cause, the fabric of the Iron Triangle forests continues to unravel, as it does in so many other national forests around the country.
Some scientists and politicians argue it is a good thing, the consequence of a convergence of natural forces and argue it is a bad thing, that management yields far more predictable outcomes than nature ever will. Amid the ensuing debate, another unraveling has gone on almost without notice: the social, cultural and economic fabric of once vibrant Northeast Oregon is in tattered shreds: a good thing or a bad thing?
The Forests
Taken together, the three national forests in the Iron Triangle embrace about 5.3 million acres in three states. The south leg of the Triangle is the Malheur, with about 1.4 million acres, plus another 240,000 acres of the Ochoco National Forest that the Malheur administers. The northwest leg is the 1.4 million Umatilla, and then back down the northeast leg is the combined (since 1954) Wallowa-Whitman. Most of the acres are in northeast Oregon, (4.8 million acres) with 311,000 acres in far southeast Washington and another 136,000 in Idaho. The supervisor headquarters are at John Day (Malheur), Pendleton (Umatilla) and Baker City (Wallowa-Whitman) with 15 ranger district offices scattered throughout.
Under current federal forest plans, about half of this 5.3 million acre landscape is set aside in wilderness, national recreation areas or is otherwise withdrawn from timber management, leaving roughly 2.4 million acres as "tentatively suitable," or theoretically open to vegetation management methods other than fire. Of that base, about 900,000 acres across the three forests forms the "suitable base," i.e., lands on which commercial timber harvest, production and management are, at least in theory, expected and encouraged.
However, reality is quite different from theory. The current forest plans (all approved in the spring of 1990) for the three forests have a combined Allowable Sales Quantity, or ASQ, of 478 million board feet per year. In general, ASQ sets an upper annual limit on the wood volume that can be harvested from a national forest unit. This upper limit is generally determined by modeling silvicultural considerations, desired visual character, wildlife habitat needs, and physical access to timber resources. Setting limits is not exclusive to public forests. Tribes, states, and private owners of all types, from large commercial outfits to careful small holders, set limits and make plans on what to cut and when.
What do you see? The Oregon Trail? Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce? The Grande Ronde Canyon? Nifty, prosperous small towns? Wide, handsome valleys with fine black cattle on a backdrop of emerald green? Mighty, snow-capped mountains flanked with magnificently sick forests?
Get the feeling you've been here before?
If you are a long time Evergreen reader, you have. In 1992, the non-profit Evergreen Foundation published an issue focusing on the "Iron Triangle" national forests of Northeast Oregon: the Wallowa-Whitman, Umatilla and Malheur, titled "Grey Ghosts in the Blue Mountains." Publisher Jim Petersen's essay described a "world-class scientific problem," six million acres of dead trees and what to do about them. Massive spruce budworm and mountain pine beetle infestations had both taken hold, thanks to a combination of drought, fire suppression, and way too many trees. Then-biologist and future Forest Service Chief Jack Ward Thomas told Evergreen, the situation was "the first time we've ever seen a forest ecosystem begin to unravel like this." With Thomas's prodding, a team of Forest Service and industry experts and community leaders was brought together under the umbrella of the Blue Mountains Natural Resources Institute (BMNRI) to, as Institute manager Tom Quigley stated, "explain the consequences, impacts and outcomes associated with every option." Once the options were explored, the hope was to get after it. As Wallowa-Whitman deputy supervisor Bill Gast presciently warned, "Unless we're given the opportunity to use the science we have available to us, we don't stand a chance."
Fourteen years later, millions more black, brown and red "ghosts" still haunt the Blue Mountains, and there has been no opportunity to use the science. Why not? Was it the courts, Congress, environmentalists, lousy lumber markets, the Clinton-Gore Administration, Bush I, Saddam, the weather? Whatever the cause, the fabric of the Iron Triangle forests continues to unravel, as it does in so many other national forests around the country.
Some scientists and politicians argue it is a good thing, the consequence of a convergence of natural forces and argue it is a bad thing, that management yields far more predictable outcomes than nature ever will. Amid the ensuing debate, another unraveling has gone on almost without notice: the social, cultural and economic fabric of once vibrant Northeast Oregon is in tattered shreds: a good thing or a bad thing?
The Forests
Taken together, the three national forests in the Iron Triangle embrace about 5.3 million acres in three states. The south leg of the Triangle is the Malheur, with about 1.4 million acres, plus another 240,000 acres of the Ochoco National Forest that the Malheur administers. The northwest leg is the 1.4 million Umatilla, and then back down the northeast leg is the combined (since 1954) Wallowa-Whitman. Most of the acres are in northeast Oregon, (4.8 million acres) with 311,000 acres in far southeast Washington and another 136,000 in Idaho. The supervisor headquarters are at John Day (Malheur), Pendleton (Umatilla) and Baker City (Wallowa-Whitman) with 15 ranger district offices scattered throughout.
Under current federal forest plans, about half of this 5.3 million acre landscape is set aside in wilderness, national recreation areas or is otherwise withdrawn from timber management, leaving roughly 2.4 million acres as "tentatively suitable," or theoretically open to vegetation management methods other than fire. Of that base, about 900,000 acres across the three forests forms the "suitable base," i.e., lands on which commercial timber harvest, production and management are, at least in theory, expected and encouraged.
However, reality is quite different from theory. The current forest plans (all approved in the spring of 1990) for the three forests have a combined Allowable Sales Quantity, or ASQ, of 478 million board feet per year. In general, ASQ sets an upper annual limit on the wood volume that can be harvested from a national forest unit. This upper limit is generally determined by modeling silvicultural considerations, desired visual character, wildlife habitat needs, and physical access to timber resources. Setting limits is not exclusive to public forests. Tribes, states, and private owners of all types, from large commercial outfits to careful small holders, set limits and make plans on what to cut and when.
 “By inaction, you’re losing the very thing the preservationist-type people say they want.” “We can’t give up. We’ve got to stay in the business. I’m 75 years old, getting a bit tired and a bit forgetful, so I’ve backed off a little. But if we don’t keep going, with the revision of this forest plan, it’s gonna be tough around here.” |
There are exceptions to this limit; for example, when catastrophic events, like fire or disease, force managers to consider salvaging dead trees to recapture costs associated with environmental recovery and replanting operations. Regular Evergreen readers will recall
reading “The Yakama’s Prescription for Sustainable Forestry” [Evergreen, Winter 2005-2006], in which Markarian Petruncio and Edwin Lewis describe the Yakama tribes decision to temporarily exceed their forest’s annual allowable cut for several years in order to properly address a western spruce budworm epidemic on reservation forest land. Why? Petruncio and Lewis put it succinctly: “The pathway to sustainable forestry requires proactive management.”
In 1992, in the wake of the spruce budworm blowout in eastern Oregon, the Forest Service was hoping to be proactive. Then-Regional Forester John Butruille told Evergreen his agency would “be lucky to harvest a third” of the dead trees in the two-to-three years left before all value would be lost, but that still would work out “to about 800 million feet a year.”
That didn’t happen. Ken Evans retired in 2004 from a 16-year Consulting Forester career, after a 37-year USFS career he completed in 1987 as Supervisor of the Malheur guiding the new forest plan. Today, Mr. Evans explains “in 1993, there was a 1.2 billion board foot harvest program on the eastern Oregon forests, across the Fremont, Winema, Ochoco, Deschutes, Malheur, Wallowa-Whitman, and Umatilla. By the end of the fiscal year [1994], the program was down to 458 million, the next year 396 million, and then down to 200 million by 2002—in all Eastern Oregon forests.”
Today, the Iron Triangle’s combined timber harvest targets for 2006 are 96 million board feet. In 2005, actual harvest amounted to 79 million board feet, roughly 17% of ASQ. Is this important? You bet it is, because when these plans were written in 1990, the Iron Triangle forests already had too many trees of the wrong species in the wrong places. It’s also important because simple logic dictates that if you want the right trees in the right places, you should remove enough “wrong” trees, so the “right” trees can grow. Easy, right?
According to Mr. Evans, the 1990 Malheur plan intended to do precisely that. ASQ and timber targets were based upon the idea that weak trees would be harvested and replaced with superior stock appropriate to the conditions. “To manage the land, the basic concept is to keep the vegetative base on it healthy and vigorous. Doing so forms the basis for wildlife, for water flows, for habitat
and forage.”
When Mr. Evans first came to the Malheur in 1979 and began working on the forest plan, “we were doing lots and lots of clearcuts in lodgepole because of mountain pine beetle. I said it is probably the last time you are going to see this in lodgepole stands, because they are going to be managed under the new plan, so they won’t get old and stagnant.”
At the time, all three forests participated in lodgepole management, an effort that centered on the Masonite Corporation’s now-closed plant in Pilot Rock. Masonite’s point man was Andy Munsey, now Resource Manager for Kinzua Resources in Pilot Rock: “We took a lot of dead lodgepole in the late 1970s and 1980s chipping operation, some of the best forestry I’ve ever been involved in.”
Almost everyone interviewed for this report mentioned the lodgepole effort as an example of needed proactive management. Larry Cribbs, a former log trucker, who was also interviewed for Evergreen’s 1992 report, and is now Branch Manager at Eagle Freightliner in LaGrande, was instrumental in the Blue Mountains Institute effort. As part of a list of successes, Mr. Cribbs specifically cited how “Andy Munsey took all that dead lodgepole on the Upper Grande Ronde and made something of it.”
Further unsolicited endorsement came from retired logger Melvern Bauck, caretaker at the mothballed North Powder mill. He “logged lodgepole for 15-18 years,” some for Mr. Munsey. With a chuckle, Mr. Bauck notes “we were buying USFS sales at 50 cents a thousand; the last one we bought was $101 a thousand.”
What about today? Mr. Munsey notes very good follow-ups on the Umatilla and Wallowa-Whitman, but according to Mr. Evans, some units on the Malheur haven’t been touched, “are now twenty feet high and you can’t walk through them.”
reading “The Yakama’s Prescription for Sustainable Forestry” [Evergreen, Winter 2005-2006], in which Markarian Petruncio and Edwin Lewis describe the Yakama tribes decision to temporarily exceed their forest’s annual allowable cut for several years in order to properly address a western spruce budworm epidemic on reservation forest land. Why? Petruncio and Lewis put it succinctly: “The pathway to sustainable forestry requires proactive management.”
In 1992, in the wake of the spruce budworm blowout in eastern Oregon, the Forest Service was hoping to be proactive. Then-Regional Forester John Butruille told Evergreen his agency would “be lucky to harvest a third” of the dead trees in the two-to-three years left before all value would be lost, but that still would work out “to about 800 million feet a year.”
That didn’t happen. Ken Evans retired in 2004 from a 16-year Consulting Forester career, after a 37-year USFS career he completed in 1987 as Supervisor of the Malheur guiding the new forest plan. Today, Mr. Evans explains “in 1993, there was a 1.2 billion board foot harvest program on the eastern Oregon forests, across the Fremont, Winema, Ochoco, Deschutes, Malheur, Wallowa-Whitman, and Umatilla. By the end of the fiscal year [1994], the program was down to 458 million, the next year 396 million, and then down to 200 million by 2002—in all Eastern Oregon forests.”
Today, the Iron Triangle’s combined timber harvest targets for 2006 are 96 million board feet. In 2005, actual harvest amounted to 79 million board feet, roughly 17% of ASQ. Is this important? You bet it is, because when these plans were written in 1990, the Iron Triangle forests already had too many trees of the wrong species in the wrong places. It’s also important because simple logic dictates that if you want the right trees in the right places, you should remove enough “wrong” trees, so the “right” trees can grow. Easy, right?
According to Mr. Evans, the 1990 Malheur plan intended to do precisely that. ASQ and timber targets were based upon the idea that weak trees would be harvested and replaced with superior stock appropriate to the conditions. “To manage the land, the basic concept is to keep the vegetative base on it healthy and vigorous. Doing so forms the basis for wildlife, for water flows, for habitat
and forage.”
When Mr. Evans first came to the Malheur in 1979 and began working on the forest plan, “we were doing lots and lots of clearcuts in lodgepole because of mountain pine beetle. I said it is probably the last time you are going to see this in lodgepole stands, because they are going to be managed under the new plan, so they won’t get old and stagnant.”
At the time, all three forests participated in lodgepole management, an effort that centered on the Masonite Corporation’s now-closed plant in Pilot Rock. Masonite’s point man was Andy Munsey, now Resource Manager for Kinzua Resources in Pilot Rock: “We took a lot of dead lodgepole in the late 1970s and 1980s chipping operation, some of the best forestry I’ve ever been involved in.”
Almost everyone interviewed for this report mentioned the lodgepole effort as an example of needed proactive management. Larry Cribbs, a former log trucker, who was also interviewed for Evergreen’s 1992 report, and is now Branch Manager at Eagle Freightliner in LaGrande, was instrumental in the Blue Mountains Institute effort. As part of a list of successes, Mr. Cribbs specifically cited how “Andy Munsey took all that dead lodgepole on the Upper Grande Ronde and made something of it.”
Further unsolicited endorsement came from retired logger Melvern Bauck, caretaker at the mothballed North Powder mill. He “logged lodgepole for 15-18 years,” some for Mr. Munsey. With a chuckle, Mr. Bauck notes “we were buying USFS sales at 50 cents a thousand; the last one we bought was $101 a thousand.”
What about today? Mr. Munsey notes very good follow-ups on the Umatilla and Wallowa-Whitman, but according to Mr. Evans, some units on the Malheur haven’t been touched, “are now twenty feet high and you can’t walk through them.”
"We must always consider the environment and people together, as though they are one, because the
human need to use natural resources is fundamental to our continued presence on earth."
P.O. Box 1290, Bigfork, MT. 59911 • Tel: (406) 837-0966 • Fax: (406) 258-0815 • Email:
human need to use natural resources is fundamental to our continued presence on earth."