Government scientists critical of BLM logging increase in Oregon

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By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
March 28, 2008

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GRANTS PASS, Ore. - The Bush administration's plan to ramp up logging in Western Oregon has come under sharp criticism from the government's own scientists.

A team of federal scientists created to advise the U.S. Bureau of Land Management has issued a report saying the Western Oregon Plan Revision - known as the Whopper for its WOPR acronym - probably overestimates the habitat that will be left for fish and wildlife and underestimates the environmental impacts.

The computer models BLM used were overly simplistic, failed to take into account the loss of northern spotted owl habitat to wildfire in addition to losses to logging, and did not use population data on specific species known to inhabit the area, the report said.

Computer models may be overestimating timber production as well because they fail to take into account factors such as wildfire, and political, legal and budgetary limitations, the report said.

"The science is just one component that we consider in making the policy in land management decisions," BLM spokesman Michael Campbell said from Portland. "We obviously are legally compelled under the O&C Lands Act of 1937 to make other considerations, which are social and economic in nature."

BLM produced the logging plan to settle a lawsuit brought by the timber industry and timber-dependent counties demanding greater timber production from federal lands in the Coast Range and Klamath Mountains of Western Oregon.

The agency's plan would bring back clear-cut logging and nearly triple planned timber production while jettisoning the fish and wildlife habitat protections of the Northwest Forest Plan. The Northwest Forest Plan was created in 1994 to resolve a lawsuit demanding habitat for salmon and the northern spotted owl.

The demands of the Endangered Species Act, which requires protecting habitat for spotted owls and salmon, and the O&C Act, which requires BLM to focus on timber production on a checkerboard of forests in Western Oregon, are at the center of the battle over the plan.

It is due to be finished by the end of this year. Conservation groups are expected to challenge it in court.

George Sexton of the conservation group KS Wild said he would not expect BLM to try to meet the demands of scientists, even from fellow federal agencies.

"If one thing has been constant with BLM under the Bush administration, it is that science will not influence their plans and practices," he said.

U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio, who is developing legislation to protect old growth forests from logging, criticized BLM for being slow to post the report on its Web site.

"I have told the BLM and proponents of WOPR that continued reliance on this plan revision process to meet unrealistic timber harvest levels is ludicrous," DeFazio said in a statement. "If WOPR cannot stand under its own weight, it is time for Congress to step in and provide clear direction for these forests."