<I>The Eagle/Scott Mallory</I><BR>Ted Williams, of Ukiah, a choker for Swaggart Brothers, works in a draw near Owens Creek.

UKIAH – A unique project here is putting people to work and reducing the fuel load in the Umatilla National Forest.

“That’s the message I want to get across,” Scott McDonald said. He’s a fire specialist for the Forest Service, who’s the leading force behind the “Umatilla Model,” as the stewardship contracting system has been dubbed.

McDonald’s job is to protect the forest from fire, and if he can do that and put people to work at the same time, it’s a win-win situation for the forest and the local economy, he said.

The Umatilla Model is logging, but the material is chip and hog fuel, with some logs suitable for fence posts and stays, which makes it unprofitable in a traditional timber sale.

The Forest Service pays an outfit to fall, process and yard the material, and then the material is bought by a company that hauls it away. The work is being done in the Wildland-Urban Interface area of the forest, the major area for fuel-reduction projects.

The chip and hog is heading to a co-gen plant in Umatilla County. D.R. Johnson has inquired about buying material for his co-gen plant in Prairie City. The fence material has also been bought.

With co-gen plants in the planning stage in La Grande and Heppner, and a mill for small-diameter logs under construction in Boardman, which will compete with the one in Pilot Rock, the market for the material is growing.

The model started in 2002, with a trial project in the Owens area. Sixty-six acres were divided into five treatment units to demonstrate the use of equipment not traditionally used for fuels reduction, including a skyline system to protect live trees, water quality and soil stability.

The trial showed it could work. The authority for the Umatilla to go ahead with the biomass disposal stewardship project was granted in 2004. It awarded contracts totaling $670,000, to three contractors, including Swaggart Brothers out of Ritter. Of that amount, it’s paid about $375,000 so far.

McDonald figures on about 60 percent return, but because all the money stays local and can be put back into more projects, the turnover could potentially last several years, he said.

About 1,400 acres have been treated, with about 20 tons of material per acre removed.

McDonald expects another 10,000 acres to be approved through the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process this year, and the Umatilla co-gen plant has proposed buying another 100,000 tons of material.

The projects cost per acre is more than standard underburning treatment, but the better measure is tons of fuel removed, McDonald said.

Other forest districts are beginning to take notice of Umatilla’s success, but it might be too late for the system to continue. A change in Forest Service policy dictates that Umatilla won’t be able to retain the receipts from the products generated by the fuels-reductions contracts. The money will go to the Treasury.

“That’ll kill the program,” McDonald said.

The crew working for Swaggart was Dave Bennet, the supervisor; Bill Fox, in the tower; Steve Kinder, in the yarder; John Lucas, choker; Ted Willaims, choker; and Chris Brusman, faller.