Welcome to the sixth issue of the Bureau of Land Management’s Western Oregon Plan Revisions Newsletter.We began to revise BLM’s resource management plans in western Oregon in September of 2005. Since then, we’ve worked with citizens, groups, and government agencies to determine issues to be addressed and alternatives to consider in the plan revisions.

Right now, BLM specialists, working with partner agencies and scientists are preparing an environmental impact statement to analyze the expected impacts of the management alternatives that we’ve identified.

Late this spring or early summer, you’ll have the opportunity to examine the analysis and provide us comments and suggestions on future management. Please use the postcard at the end of the document to choose an option for reviewing the draft plan materials. Thank you for being involved.

If you’re new to the project or need some background information, feel free to contact us in person, on the phone, through e-mail, or go to our web page where you’ll find past issues of the newsletter and other information.

Below, you will find the index of the sixth issue of a planning newsletter. Please click on the links below to navigate.

Meet Ed Shepard

BLM State Director, Washington & Oregon

I’m excited to be back in Oregon. Earlier in my career I was a silviculturist in BLM’s Medford District, an Area Manager in Roseburg, a District Manager in Coos Bay and a Deputy State Director here in the state office before my more recent tour in BLM’s Washington D.C Office. Oregon feels like home and I’m delighted to be back.

Revising the BLM’s Resource Management Plans in western Oregon is very important. In 1994, when our current plans were prepared, we sought to find a balance between timber production on the 2.1 million acres of O&C lands (as required by the O&C Land Act of 1937) and environmental protection. Over the past decade, scientific knowledge has improved and we have learned that many of the processes associated with the Northwest Forest Plan hindered implementation and prevented us from meeting many of the goals and objectives of the plans.

The BLM personnel in western Oregon have done some exemplary work in rehabilitating streams, protecting habitat for endangered species, and maintaining recreation opportunities. And, many of these efforts have occurred in close partnership with watershed associations, adjacent land managers, other agencies and private parties.

Unfortunately, we have not fully met our obligations to provide a sustainable flow of timber products to support local economies and provide necessary funding for the 18 counties in western Oregon as required by the O&C Lands Act. Our most experienced professional foresters, working closely with our other resource specialists, regulatory agencies and other partners, and using the standards and guidance from the Northwest Forest Plan, have prepared timber sales that are repeatedly challenged on technical and procedural questions.

We simply must find a better way to do business.

This plan revision process is a unique opportunity for all of us to reaffirm our commitment to sustainable management of these lands in western Oregon and find a better and more efficient way to meet our legal commitments. It is my goal in this process to help us reach long-term and sustainable decisions that make positive contributions to the environmental, social, and economic needs of western Oregon.

I invite you all to stay involved in the efforts. In late spring or early summer we’ll be coming to you again with three alternatives clearly explained, and their effects identified, in the draft plan and environmental impact statement. We’ll designate one of those alternatives as our “preferred” but we only do that to focus our discussions with you during the threemonth public comment period. We need your help to verify our assumptions, examine our analysis, suggest improvements, and help us craft a proposed action that makes sense for the management of these important lands. I’m confident we can find some common ground on these issues.

- Edward W. Shepard State Director

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County Funding and the BLM

Recently you may have heard concerns about the financial future of rural counties in western Oregon in light of the end of the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000. You may have asked, how is this county funding issue tied to federal timber receipts, and how are timber receipts tied to the BLM’s plan revision process.

There is a relationship. Because most of the BLM-administered lands in the plan revision area are managed under the O&C Act of 1937, western Oregon counties that contain O&C lands received one-half of the receipts form timbers sales on these lands. For many years, timber receipts from O&C lands enabled counties to fund basic county services such as libraries, public health services, law enforcement, and county road maintenance. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, timber sales on federal land (and the resulting revenue to counties) decreased sharply due to legal challenges and harvest adjustments to meet the habitat needs of the northern spotted owl, listed under the Endangered Species Act. Congress provided financial relief to counties containing federal timber land through the passage of the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000.

This legislation expired in September 2006 and, at the writing of this newsletter, Congress has not extended the legislation or provided another replacement for O&C timber receipts. If Congress does not provide a permanent funding alternative, western Oregon counties will once again rely on federal timber receipts which, under the BLM’s current management plans, will be only a small fraction of recent receipts. These plan revisions will explore alternative ways to maintain a sustainable and predictable flow of timber from these lands (as required by the O&C Act of 1937) while continuing to meet the requirements of other federal laws such as the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act.

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Plan Alternatives Refined and Expanded

In the October 2006 issue of the Western Oregon Plan Revisions newsletter, we outlined the four alternatives that would be analyzed in detail in the environmental impact statement, including:

• One alternative that would continue current management under the existing plans (the “no action” alternative) and,
• three new “action alternatives.”

As the analysis began, several important modifications were made to those alternatives. Those changes are summarized below. The description below is only a summary of changes to the planning alternatives. For an up-to-date summary of the alternatives being analyzed, see the enclosure to this newsletter. Details of the alternatives and their effects will be available in the Draft Resource Management Plan and EIS later this year.

Changes to Alternative 2

In the October newsletter, the description of Alternative 2 stated, “Late-successional management areas will align with critical habitat currently designated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for the northern spotted owl and marbled murrelet.”

The designation of critical habitat for these listed species is currently under review by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and existing designations may change in the future. The BLM continues to work very closely with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service with their process, but has decided to propose late-successional management areas in Alternative 2 based on rule sets developed in the “Report of the Interagency Scientific Committee to Address the Conservation of the Northern Spotted Owl (May 1990) coupled with new science and information available. Maps of these possible latesuccessional management areas will be available in the BLM’s Draft Plan and EIS.

A copy of the report listed above can be found at:
http://www.fws.gov/arcata/es/birds/reports/ConservationStrategyForTheNorthernSpottedOw_ May1990.pdf

Expanded use of Variations to Alternatives (Sub-Alternatives)

The analysis of each of the three action alternatives is broadened by the use of “sub-alternatives”. Sub-alternatives are used to expand or enrich the analysis of an alternative by answering important questions that are raised by managers or the public.

Sub-Alternatives to Alternative 1

• No harvest of forest stands over 80 years of age within the harvest land base.
• No harvest of forest stands over 200 years of age within the harvest land base.

These two sub-alternatives will help answer the question:

• What happens to wildlife habitat and allowable sale quantity if we would decide not to harvest older stands within the lands otherwise designated for intensive forest management?
• No regeneration harvest within the harvest land base
  until all thinning opportunities are exhausted.

This sub-alternative will help answer the question:

• Is thinning sustainable for meeting the annual allowable sale quantity?

• Enlarge the late-successional management areas by adding all currently designated critical habitat for northern spotted owls.

This sub-alternative will help answer the questions:

• How would this additional habitat improve the conditions for the northern spotted owl and marbled murrelet?
• How would the allowable sale quantity be affected?

Sub-Alternative to Alternative 2

• Practice intensive forestry through short rotations (no thinning) on the harvest land base.

This sub-alternative will help answer the questions:

• What is the economic gain of short rotation forestry?
• What impacts on other resources could be expected?

Sub-Alternative to Alternative 3

• Alternative 3 sets a standard of maintaining at least 50% of the BLM-managed lands in older forests. This sub-alternative would eliminate that standard in areas where BLM manages only a small percentage of the landscape.

This sub alternative will help answer the questions:

• How would following this prescription affect harvest level?
• How would following this prescription affect latesuccessional species?

Description of the Alternatives Being Analyzed

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Opportunities for Public Participation

Public participation continues to play a crucial role in the Western Oregon Plan Revisions because the BLM believes that the public possesses tremendous knowledge about local places and local resources. Without the public, the BLM just wouldn’t have the full ability to gauge the range of potential environmental, social, and economic effects that proposed actions can have on those places and resources. To assist with public involvement efforts, BLM has enlisted Daylight Decisions to help design and guide public participation activities.

The Daylight Decisions team consists of experienced mediators and facilitators who are residents of western Oregon. The team also contains technical specialists, skilled in designing simple-to-use web-based tools to facilitate participation in new and meaningful ways. More information about Daylight Decisions can be found on their website at: http://www.daylightdecisions. com/ddweb/.

Daylight Decisions works under contract with the U.S. Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution (http:// ecr.gov) and is working with the BLM to design an effective public participation strategy and serve as a neutral facilitator when appropriate. They have held conversations with BLM managers and representatives of stakeholder groups, including conservation organizations, industry, and local government. In early February 2007, two public workshops in Salem and Medford were held to collaboratively design webbased tools designed to answer two questions:

1. How can webbased tools be used to encourage and support public comments about the draft environmental impact statement
2. How can this information be communicated in a way that is of benefit to BLM decision makers?

Participants were introduced to a central concept of the Daylight Decisions strategy: the decision framework. Participants also focused on creating their own decision framework. This input, along with other comments heard at the workshops, are presently being applied to refine the design of web-based tools that will be used in the public comment period this summer.

Daylight Decisions is also responsible for collecting and summarizing public comments on the draft resource management plan and environmental impact statement.

Many outreach activities will occur this spring and summer, including more collaborative tools workshops in June and summer workshops and meetings after release of the draft EIS.

The second round of public workshops to help develop the web-based participation tools has been scheduled: June 1, Medford BLM office and June 5, Salem BLM office. Workshops will start at 9:00 a.m. and end around 3:30 p.m.

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Web Forum

In late March the Western Oregon Plan Revision Web Forum became available on the project web site (http:// www.blm.gov/or/plans/wopr). This website will help BLM and Daylight Decisions improve the web-based public comment tools and will serve as the hub for on-line participation when the draft plan and environmental impact statement are published later this summer. On this website, visitors are being invited to:

• Make comments on a map about the places that are important to where they live, work, and play, as well as provide input about how they would like to participate in local workshops and events.
• Make comments on the decision framework, and share their own interests and values in relation to it.
• Navigate background information on the project, the laws, and the O&C Act, and
• Review and comment on the draft plan and environmental impact statement during the public review period this summer.

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Review and Comments on the Draft Plan

Within the near future, the BLM must decide how many of the draft resource management plans and environmental impact statements to print. It is expected that the draft document will contain 1000 pages or more and contain a map packet with many large printed maps. You have several choices on how you would like to review and comment on the document, including:

• review the document at your local library or at your local BLM office in western Oregon;
• review the document on the Internet in a form similar to its printed format or through interestbased and map-based tools being developed for the web;
• request that only a summary document be mailed to you in-lieu of the complete document; or
• request that a complete document and a map packet be mailed to you.

Please use the attached postcard to indicate your preference. If a postcard is not available to you, please contact us at the postal or e-mail address below indicating how you would like to review the document.

Note: If you do not reply through the attached postcard and are already on our existing postal mailing list (you received this newsletter in the mail), we will print a complete document and a package of maps for you and send it to your postal address. If you do not want the complete document, please let us know through the attached postcard, by letter, or by e-mail to the BLM office.

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