Commissioners push for timber sales, public access

Washington County commissioners asked Payette National Forest officials for a briefing on what the federal agency has  planned as far as timber sales for the next five years.

 They probably didn’t hear what they wanted to from the Forest Service officials who attended the commission meeting on Monday. 

 There is no commercial logging planned on public land in the county for at least the next five years. 

 Commission Chairman Kirk Chandler said traditional timber sales used to contribute 25 percent of proceeds to Idaho counties, boosting their budgets. 

 After talking to the county assessor, he said Washington County has not received any revenue from timber sales on Forest Service lands in many years.

 “Our county has not received any money from logging,” he said. “We’d like to have an idea of what you have planned for timber sales.”

 Chandler said there is a disconnect somewhere between Washington, D.C., and Idaho. 

 Under the current administration, things are supposed to be changing at the Forest Service, including a push to cut more timber and increase public access, but that is not happening locally.

 Weiser and Council district ranger Rhonda Bishop said the permitting and environmental studies that are done in advance of projects on the forest are going to get more streamlined in the future.

 The environmental NEPA studies for one project coming up on the Payette National Forest in the Mann Creek area may be contracted out to a private company, she said, and that could speed things up. The USFS personnel will still have to review the data.

 Bishop outlined several projects planned or in progress on Forest Service-managed public lands in Washington County. One collaborate landscape project coming up in Mann Creek drainage could allow some Good Neighbor Authority timber sales. She encouraged the county commission to get involved in the process that will guide the landscape project on the forest.

 Chandler said the collaborative forest projects on public lands don’t bring in any revenue from timber sales to the county. Any timber cutting is done as part of stewardship and any timber revenue goes back into the project. 

 Without the revenue from traditional timber sales, counties have to tax property owners more to compensate for the loss of money that used to come from public lands and logging. 

 About 40 percent of land in Washington County is public land managed by either the BLM or Forest Service, he said.

 Jeff Jones, a timber management assistant for the Forest Service, said since 2012 all the logging on the forest has been for stewardship projects and no revenue has been generated for counties.

 The Payette National Forest is planning a couple of traditional timber sales in the area burned by the Mesa fire that charred 34,000 acres last summer near Council. 

 Of the 34,000 acres that burned, about 14,000 acres are public forest lands. Before any trees can be removed, the Forest Service must do an environmental review under NEPA, Bishop said.

 The Mesa salvage sale is planned for early 2019. The Forest Service has identified 250 acres of timber to be salvaged. The sale will include an estimated 2.5 million board feet of timber and logging could start in January. 

 Valley County, where the timber is located, will see the 25 percent revenue from that traditional timber sale.

 The Bearclaw timber sale is larger at 400 acres and will not require an environmental review under NEPA. There is more acreage and more volume of timber involved in that sale. USFS personnel are already out marking trees for that sale, Bishop said.

 The discussion between commissioners and Forest Service officials also touched on public access and roads in the Payette National Forest.

 An outspoken advocate of more roads and more public access to public lands in the county, Chandler said members of the public are not going to hike 15 miles into the forest. 

 He said roads on public lands managed by the Forest Service are being closed, reducing access for recreation and fighting wildfires.

 “The public is being locked out of their lands,” he said.

 Both logging and grazing, Chandler said, can reduce the amount of forest that burns in fires. The absence of any logging on the forest has contributed to the big fires that burn, he said.