STEVENSON, Wash. - The Secure Rural Schools Act has provided money to Washington's timber counties to make up for tax revenue they can't collect on their National Forest acreage. But the program expired last month, and the last county payments will be made in January unless it is reauthorized.
A new proposal is being introduced this week in the U.S. Senate to reinstate the county payments for five more years, reducing the payment amounts by five percent a year.
In places like Skamania County, where 90 percent of the land is federal, County Commission Chair Paul Pearce says the federal government is getting a great deal for its county payment dollars.
"We receive really pennies on the acre, when you think about it. I mean, the $5 million that my county was getting from that nearly million-acre forest, is $5 an acre. That's pennies."
Pearce says the payments to his county have fluctuated over the years from $8 million to less than $2 million. He says counties need to know what they can count on from the government, adding that the Senate bill would offer that stability as they try to diversify their economies.
Conservation groups are encouraged by the bill, which is co-sponsored by Washington's U.S. Senators, Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray, as well as the entire Oregon congressional delegation. Peter Dykstra, Pacific Northwest regional director for The Wilderness Society, says one hitch could be how quickly Congress can reach an agreement.
"The way the delegation in Oregon and the delegation in Washington are coming together across party lines, and the governors are starting to step up and support this concept, gives me a lot of hope that this will pass."
There may not be many people in rural counties, but Pearce says they still have schools, roads and public safety to pay for, and counties across the West face huge budget deficits if the program goes away.
"Certainly we're concerned with the gridlock you see right now, and we're also concerned that, in this climate of 'cut everything,' these 700 national forest counties could end up getting cut without anybody even noticing."
An alternate plan in the U.S. House takes a different approach. It would keep the program, but restructure it to ease environmental regulations and allow more logging and mining activity on public land.
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Crews have been ramping up wildfire resilience projects to thin out brush and dead wood in California's giant sequoia groves, clearing twice as many acres in 2023 compared with 2022.
The Giant Sequoia Lands Coalition is trying to avoid a repeat of the disastrous mega-fires of 2020 and 2021 - which killed about 20% of large mature trees in their native Sierra Nevada range.
Joanna Nelson, Ph.D. is the director of science and conservation planning with the nonprofit Save the Redwoods League.
"We remove fuel," said Nelson, "we get to a safe place to do prescribed burning and to do cultural burning - which is always led by Indigenous people, which is another practice of taking care of the forest and reducing wildfire risk."
Sequoia National Park is just one part of California's giant sequoia groves, which stretch over 26,000 acres.
A new report shows that in 2023, the program treated nearly 9,900 acres in 28 groves - and more than 14,000 since 2021.
Crews have also planted 542,000 native tree seedlings in severely burned areas over the past two years.
Nelson said the groves must be re-treated about every 8 to 10 years.
"The cost of inaction is loss of giant sequoias in their native range," said Nelson. "And big fires that spread because of the fuel continuity. We risk further loss of trees that are anywhere from 1,000 to 3,000 years old if we do nothing."
The groves have built up quite a bit of dead wood fuel because, until the last few decades, it had been national policy to suppress almost all fire - which led to intense firestorms that incinerated entire groves of old-growth trees.
It is now understood that judicious use of fire can clear out the understory and be beneficial to the forest.
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The Bureau of Land Management has proposed expanding the public land available for solar power production in 11 states, including Montana.
The BLM's Western Solar Plan builds on a version first released in 2012 and focuses on harnessing the potential in Western and Plains states most amenable to solar production.
Nick Fitzmaurice, energy transition engineer for the Montana Environmental Information Center, said the expanded plan reflects the country's growing demand for solar energy.
"It's projected that 700,000 acres of solar development are going to be needed to meet future clean goals, and in the range of about 5,000 of those acres are going to be in Montana," Fitzmaurice explained. "It's a small part of the picture but important that all our open land that is able to contribute to solar can do so."
The Wilderness Society released a statement supporting the proposed Western Solar Plan expansion. The BLM is taking public comment on it until April 18.
The BLM has already done an environmental impact statement, which can sometimes be a stumbling block for such projects.
Fitzmaurice pointed out Montana was not part of the first Western Solar Plan. He thinks adding the state and having the BLM involved in siting the facilities will be crucial as Montana takes advantage of its alternative energy opportunities.
"It's really important that BLM gets ahead of this," Fitzmaurice asserted. "As these applications for development come in, they are able to be sited and put in locations that will minimize the impact on this important public land resource that we have."
Fitzmaurice added the plan proposes solar facilities be built near existing power transmission lines but not near culturally sensitive areas of Montana. Critics of the proposal said additional solar development could threaten wildlife species and habitat.
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The remote landscape of southeastern Oregon is receiving additional protections.
The Bureau of Land Management has finalized its resource management plan for the southeast corner of the state and it includes protections for parts of the Owyhee and Malheur Rivers and canyon lands in the region.
Michael O'Casey, deputy director of forest policy and Northwest programs for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, said it's an exciting announcement, which will protect sensitive landscape from activities like surface development and road building.
"When that landscape is impacted, it's really hard to bring it back and restore it," O'Casey pointed out. "And so, it's really important to protect the places out there that are healthy and intact and resistant. And resilience is a term that we use, to stresses from climate change or whatever else."
O'Casey noted the plan still allows for traditional uses of the land like hunting and fishing. The BLM's final resource management plan for the district covers four-point-six million acres of public land.
O'Casey stressed the agency deliberated for years on this decision.
"This planning process was initiated in 2010 and so it's been 14 years in the making," O'Casey emphasized. "The good news is that, even though it's been a really long time, was that there was a really robust public comment process throughout this."
O'Casey added appointing the Southeast Oregon Resource Advisory Council in 2014 was an important part of public involvement. The council was made up of a wide variety of area people including grazing, energy and conservation interests, who made recommendations for management in the region.
Support for this reporting was provided by The Pew Charitable Trusts.
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