FOREST HEALTH PROJECT

Pursuing central Oregon forest health objectives while protecting environment, economy.

By Dan Shell

JOHN DAY, Ore.

Forest health issues continue to dominate the concerns of Western U.S. forest managers, especially on huge expanses of public lands that are in dire need of management activities that reduce the potential for disastrous wildfires. With huge backlogs of forest health projects and traditional funding sources running thin, stewardship contracts offer national forest managers the opportunity to integrate revenue-producing timber harvests with landscape-scale forest health and restoration activities and accomplish goals that benefit a variety of forest interests and stakeholders.

The story of central Oregon’s largest stewardship contract on the Malheur National Forest surrounding John Day starts with forest health issues: Two key groups, the Blue Mountain Forest Partnership and the Harney County Restoration Collaborative, have worked to bring diverse interests together to address forest health issues and take a more cooperative approach, especially as ongoing drought conditions have persisted and wildfire danger has increased.

The groups’ goal was to come up with projects that wouldn’t get challenged in court and can actually make a difference on the ground—while also providing a level of commercial timber production. Iron Triangle Logging was an active member of both groups, as were other timber interests in the area, before the would soon close.

In a little 1,700-person town like John Day, the loss of a major employer like Malheur Lumber—not a large producer by any means but hugely important in such a community—can be an economic death blow. The mill was having trouble recovering from the 2008-2009 overall economic downturn as lumber markets remained sluggish, and few timber sales were moving in regional national forests. When owner John Shelk announced plans to close the mill in late 2012, the collaboratives’ members were able to act in concert with forest officials to develop thinning projects and a logging plan to help sustain the mill.

The groups were also involved in planning as Malheur National Forest personnel developed the 10-year stewardship contract. The contract called for between 180,000 and 500,000 acres of forest health treatments and a potential of up to 500MMBF in timber harvest during the life of the contract.

One big difference is that while on-theground decisions and projects are managed by local forest officials, as a federal Integrated Resource Service Contract (IRSC), the fine print in the contract and each task order is managed by personnel in the federal acquisitions management (AQM) office in Wenatchee, Wash.

Zach Williams, Iron Triangle Operations Manager, says when Iron Triangle bid and was awarded the contract in 2013, neither they nor the FS were exactly sure how well a 10-year contract some adjustments along the way. For example, plans were originally to work on one task order per year, but those proved unwieldy and too large. Instead, they’ve been working two to three smaller task orders per year, up to 13 so far, he says.

A task order contains a number of projects, each defined in size and scope of services that include many forest health treatments, plus timber harvest estimates. Iron Triangle is responsible for ensuring all work is completed within the timeline.

One of the key issues with executing the task orders are the considerably shorter timelines involved. Projects under the contract have mostly two-year deadlines with very little wiggle room, Williams says, compared to traditional timber sales with three- to five-year deadlines and a waiver system that can sometimes double that time. The shorter deadlines are by design under the contract’s goals to provide a consistent flow of timber into the local economy.

Depending on how complicated or sensitive logging operations are they might get a three-year deadline, “But the intention is to keep the wood flowing,” Williams says.

A key feature of the contract is the true “integrated resources” concept that allows for more productivity in forest health projects. For example, in a traditional timber sale a high bidder wins the right to harvest timber on a specific site. There may be credit for roadwork to access the site, but any other activities would be completely separate projects.

Instead, the IRSC enables landscape scale restoration projects by placing all activities across a larger area under a single contractor. In addition, the IRSC allows for the national forests to combine the value of the timber revenues with Congressional appropriations to get the work done. These are the activities like mastication, pre-commercial thinning and fuel removal that typically don’t provide any revenue while adding to budget costs.

“We receive stewardship credits for the service work that we do, which is applied against the stumpage owed for the product we removed,” Williams says.

By using the IRSC process and stewardship contracts to fund forest health work, federal forest managers are able to use stewardship contracts to make an immediate impact on forest health needs and infrastructure maintenance.

Reducing overall fuel loads is key, Williams says. “The goal is to take these stands back to a historic spacing, but also be mindful of how we need more drought tolerant species. Our intention is also to bring these stands back to more pine dominant because there’s been a lot of fir ingrowth over the years,” he says.

“We want to create conditions where a wildfire doesn’t create a high-intensity burn and instead burns through the understory,” Williams says.

Utilization

As usual, sawlogs, even in the smaller range, will find a home. It’s finding a value proposition for and marketing that mountain of material under 8 inches in diameter that’s being removed is key to making forest health operations more feasible.

Malheur Lumber Co., which was originally a large log pine cutting mill, has made investments to handle smaller logs and has converted to a multi species mill to match the output from the local forest, but at roughly 40MMBF capacity there’s only so much it can take.

Restoration Fuels, a torrefaction plant that’s located adjacent Malheur Lumber, is still working to optimize its processes and product mix, and may eventually provide a huge local market for biomass and chip material in the future. The facility takes some material each year, but not in the volumes that Williams (or Restoration Fuels, for that matter) would like to see so far.

Meanwhile, Iron Triangle has invested in two small material processing facilities in 2016: a sorting facility in John Day and a small post and pole mill in Seneca roughly 25 miles south. The John Day facility has expanded to include firewood processing and packaging as well.

Impact

A detailed report halfway through the life of the 10-year contract was released by the University of Oregon in 2018 that showed an average of 38MMBF were harvested each year during that time. In addition, the forest and restoration activities completed each year added up to an average of $1.2 million annually in forest health work.

Economic studies that accompanied the report showed that through its first five years, the Malheur NF 10-year stewardship contract directly supported 268 jobs in Grant and Harney counties each year, including 185 jobs in forest health work, logging, millprocessing and administrative employment and 83 multiplier effect indirect jobs.