Timber industry representatives say they’re concerned that the Senate’s version of a forestry bill to increase timber harvests on federal land won’t provide enough timber in the long-run, especially in Southern Oregon.

During an informal gathering last week in Grants Pass that included Josephine County Commissioner Simon Hare, two local mill owners said they’re concerned Congress is taking too long to act.

“It’s a huge deal. Thousands of jobs are at stake,” said Steve Swanson, president of Swanson Group, which employs 350 people at two mills in Glendale, plus another 450 at plants in Roseburg and Springfield. “We need to talk about sustaining jobs. More of these jobs means less need for jails.”

Swanson noted the ripple effect of jobs that come from the family wage jobs offered at the mill, multiplied out to grocery stores, gas stations, restaurants and the many other businesses where mill workers spend their money. He also pointed to logging jobs in the woods, truck drivers and many others directly connected to the work done at the mill.

About a third of Swanson’s employees live in Josephine County, where voters in May are being asked to approve a public safety levy for the third year in a row, having rejected levies in 2012 and 2013. Swanson told of a burglary at his own home in Grants Pass.

The public safety funding woes began a few years back when federal subsidies for flagging timber receipts began phasing out. Josephine County has endured deep cuts in sheriff’s patrols, jail, district attorney and juvenile justice the past two years, joining other rural western Oregon counties.

The House approved a bill six months ago dividing so-called O&C lands into half for logging and half for conservation, putting the logging half into a trust and applying state forestry rules.

The House bill would generate a long-term, sustainable annual harvest of 565 million board feet in O&C counties, including 100 million board feet for the Medford District of the Bureau of Land Management. In the 1980s, harvests on O&C land in Oregon were as high as 1.5 billion board feet per year.

The Medford District has averaged harvests of just over 20 million board feet the past several years, well below the 57 mbf target set by the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan.

The Senate’s bill, which was introduced in December by Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, would keep the split lands concept but end the trust concept, leaving management to the feds.

Wyden’s bill would generate an estimated 300 to 350 million board feet annually from O&C lands, projected out 20 years, but an unclear amount for Southern Oregon, a fact which concerned everyone at last week’s gathering.

“It’s easy to cut plantations up north, but you get down here and it’s more dry,” said Cameron Krauss, vice president at Swanson Group, which spent $10 million over the winter for mill upgrades. “Certainty is critical, to make investments in sawmills.”

“Going from less than 20 million board feet to 100 million would create that certainty,” Swanson added.

“Wyden’s bill is scary to me,” added Jennifer Phillippi of Rough & Ready Lumber in Cave Junction, which recently announced it will reopen in the summer after a closure that began in April 2013, using grants and a loan to retool the mill. “We’ve told our delegation a thinning and restoration program isn’t going to work. Norm and Jerry admit it’s not a long-term plan.”

Her reference is to Norm Johnson and Jerry Franklin, scientists and foresters who are well-known in the region for their work on the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan, and who consulted on the Wyden bill.

“You have to get a bill that works down here,” added Heath Heikkila, lobbyist for the timber industry.

“We have the largest contiguous piece of O&C lands in the state,” said Hare, the Josephine County commissioner. “How do we advocate for cutting more trees? We have to have a base element of economy. I hope everyone agrees the status quo isn’t working. Wyden’s bill is the status quo.”

Keith Chu, a spokesman for Wyden’s office, said Tuesday that staffs for members of the Oregon delegation are working together to make a bill palatable for all. No more hearings are scheduled, but the next step would be a vote in the full Energy and Natural Resources Committee, then on to the Senate floor.

Heikkila noted that it’s an election year for the House as well as a third of the Senate, and something needs to get passed before the summer recess.

“We have a little over four months to get an effective O&C plan moved through Congress,” Heikkila said. “And we have a whole lot of questions.”

Wyden stood by his forestry bill at the February hearing, his last as chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

“It ends the stop-everything approach that has paralyzed forest management,” he said. “It also acknowledges that the days of billion board-feet clear cutting are not coming back. By doubling the harvest compared to the average of the last decade, these communities can save the jobs they have now and create more.”

Environmental groups are wary of both bills.

“We’d prefer to see a focus on fire resiliency and forest restoration,” said George Sexton of Klamath Siskiyou Wildlands Center. “In our opinion the proposals to increase riparian logging and regeneration logging are unlikely to produce the forests and watersheds that most Americans expect on their public lands.”

Reach reporter Jeff Duewel at 541-474-3720 or jduewel@thedailycourier.com