<p>From left: U.S. Rep. Greg Walden talks with former Harney County Judge Dale White, Harney County Judge Steve Grasty and Wallowa County Commissioner Mike Hayward at a timber roundtable in John Day.</p> <p> </p>

JOHN DAY – Calling for a new paradigm for managing the federal forests, U.S. Rep. Greg Walden told civic and industry leaders from several counties that it’s time for “big changes.”

“If we get back to using our resources, we can create jobs for the community and we can actually do it so that it makes money for the government,” he said.

Walden (R-Ore.) spoke about forest resources Thursday, Aug. 11, at the idled Grant Western Lumber sawmill in John Day. About 25 people, including representatives from Harney and Wallowa Counties, attended.

Walden also spoke later that day with Grant County residents at a lunch meeting in Long Creek.

Walden offered scant hope for the reauthorization of county payments, noting that the last reauthorization of the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act was difficult to pass. This time, the plea for reauthorization – estimated at a cost of $4-$6 billion in its current form – comes as federal leaders are struggling to deal with the nation’s deficit.

He said Congress’ so-called super committee needs to come up with $1.5 trillion in cuts by year end.

“We’re looking under every rock to find pretty big savings,” he said.

Walden said there’s growing bipartisan support to get the forest counties off “the federal dole” and instead restore a business model in the woods.

With the silent Grant Western mill behind him, Walden noted a wry comment that morning from John Redfield of DR Johnson: “Do you hear that sound … Yeah, I don’t, either.”

Walden decried the lack of active management on the forests in recent years.

“The forests don’t stay static, even when our management does,” he said, noting that the trees continue to mature, die and burn up.

Walden displayed charts showing the management of the federal lands lagging far behind that on private and state forests.

He said he and some like-minded colleagues are working to draft legislation that could reverse the trend by offering new ways to manage the federal lands, strengthen rural communities and put people back to work. The proposal, still in the formative stages, is focusing on concepts such as public lands trusts to take over forest management.

He noted the example of Washington state, where 2.9 million acres of public land is managed to benefit schools, producing gross revenues of nearly $300 million in 2005.

Walden said the House Natural Resources Committee is committed to work on a solution before the current county payments law expires this fall. He hopes to move a bill through Congress by the end of the year.

In the meantime, he is asking people in the forest communities and the forest industry to help him “think outside the box.”

Business and community leaders at the meeting vented their frustration about the Forest Service and the environmental litigation that has stalled out timber harvests locally.

“The Forest Service is broken,” said Grant County Commissioner Boyd Britton. He said the agency puts out fires and does National Environmental Policy Act reviews “pretty well, but on anything else, they’re not very efficient.”

He said when local officials push for a stronger timber program, they hear the same excuses: not enough staff and not enough money.

Walden floated the idea of letting the agency “sub out” management work.

“What if we had something like that here?” he asked.

“You’d have business here,” responded Valerie Johnson of DR Johnson Company.

State Sen. Ted Ferrioli asked if the trust concept would rely on the Forest Service to carry out the management of the forest, and Walden said that detail wasn’t “locked down yet.”

Ferrioli noted that there’s no way now to require the Forest Service to make and meet minimum harvest targets. He said the agency’s current 27 million board feet includes firewood and less merchantable material. Meanwhile, only one of the three remaining mills in Grant County – Malheur Lumber – is still operating; Grant Western and Prairie Wood Products are closed.

“We need $150 million board feet to run three mills,” he said. “They have the capacity to do three times that.”

“Do not let them near the forest trust administration,” he urged Walden.

Harney County Judge Steve Grasty cited a need to think about the infrastructure’s long-term needs, and Johnson agreed. He said it’s not possible to run a mill and keep people working with only a guarantee of three or four months of supply.

The Forest Service needs to start offering something beyond the small projects conjured up by “garden-party collaborative groups,” he said.

Walden noted that collaboratives have met with some success on a small scale, but there’s a need for broader solutions that extend across the landscapes of the West.

Mike Hayward, Wallowa County Commission chair, said he’s been on numerous resources tours with collaboratives and agencies, and they always seem to have plenty of biologists.

“But I’ve yet to see an economist,” he said. “We have to bring the economy back into every discussion of the forests.”

Given the extent of federal land in the counties of northeast Oregon, these “should be production forests,” Hayward said.

Walden agreed, and he said there should be a way to do that.

“Even in this downturn, in this awful housing market, there’s still more demand for timber than there is timber available,” Walden said.