WOPR Withdrawn

On July 16, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced the withdrawal of the BLM's Records of Decision for the Western Oregon Plan Revisions (WOPR). The primary reason given for the withdrawal was the Department's conclusion that BLM's decision not to go through formal consultation with the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) under Section 7 (a) of the Endangered Species Act rendered it legally indefensible.

The Department has pledged to keep selling timber from BLM lands under the Northwest Forest Plan while they prepare a revised management plan. Acting Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management Ned Farquhar noted that "timber harvest can increase the structural complexity of stands, provide better habitat for spotted owls and other wildlife, reduce the risk of catastrophic fire, provide revenue for Western Oregon counties, and generate a reliable and robust supply of timber for local mills and biomass plants." The withdrawal of the plan comes at a time when Oregon's rural communities are facing unemployment rates upwards of 20 percent. The plan was prepared using the best available science, could have harvested 502 million board feet annually, and created 1,200 new jobs and maintained at least 3,800 jobs. It is unfortunate that, despite five years of hard work by the BLM, whose employees made great efforts to comply with a court-imposed deadline, and the
cooperation of several federal and state agencies as well as local groups, tribes and counties, the WOPR is being mischaracterized as a last minute effort of the Bush Administration to short circuit environmental protections.

AFRC is urging the Department of Interior to work quickly to revise and reinstate the plan and to maintain a vigorous timber sale program during the interim period. /Tom Partin

Interior Won't Defend Owl Critical Habitat

On July 16, Secretary Salazar also announced that the agency will ask the D.C. District Court to vacate the 2008 revisions to the Northern Spotted Owl recovery plan. Salazar said the integrity
of the critical habitat designation had been called into question by an Inspector General's report issued on December 15, 2008, that expressed concern over the possibility that a former Interior
Department official "took actions that potentially jeopardized the decisional process" of the FWS in the spotted owl recovery plan. The official left the department in April 2007, eleven months
prior to issuance of the recovery plan and 16 months prior to publication of the critical habitat revisions. Nevertheless, the Secretary used the report as an opportunity to cast its failure to defend the critical habitat designation as a mark against the Bush Administration.

The case was filed last year by AFRC, Carpenters Industrial Council and others because the 2008 habitat designation ignores the role of forest management in the creation of habitat suitable for
the owl and perpetuates a mistaken system that has failed to stem the decline of the species. The suit alleges that the FWS failed to use best available science in designating critical habitat in fire-
prone areas on the Eastside of the Cascades; violated the Endangered Species Act by designating areas which do not qualify as critical habitat under the standards set out at the time the owl was
listed as an endangered species; did not properly assess the true economic impact of the designation; and abused its discretion by arbitrarily failing to exclude lands covered by the O&C
Act, thereby frustrating the ability of the BLM to perform its duties under that Act. We hope these shortcomings will be remedied by the FWS when it makes a new critical habitat determination. /Ann Forest Burns

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AFRC Newsletter: 7/24/09