QUILCENE — A study commissioned by the Quilcene-based Wild Olympics Campaign says a congressional plan to set aside 132,000 acres in Olympic National Forest as wilderness, which would take the acreage out of forestry production, would have little impact on the timber industry.
The study, written by Vashon Island forestry consultant Derek Churchill and released Wednesday, said the timber industry already is restricted from harvesting most of the proposed area.
The study is an analysis of a proposal by Rep. Norm Dicks, a Democrat from Belfair whose 6th Congressional District includes the North Olympic Peninsula, and U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Bothell.
An economic analysis of the Murray-Dicks proposal and its impact on jobs in the four counties it covers — Clallam, Jefferson, Mason and Grays Harbor — will be released Tuesday by Headwater Economics of Bozeman, Mont., Headwater Executive Director Ray Rasker said Wednesday.
It, too, was commissioned by Wild Olympics, Rasker said.
Wild Olympics had proposed a forest protection plan prior to the one offered by Dicks and Murray.
“The analysis focused on the number of acres that would be affected and the resulting timber volume that would be coming off the forest,” said Churchill, who estimated the study would cost about $2,000.
Majority is roadless
“I basically concluded that it would not affect the current volume coming off the forest,” Churchill said Wednesday.
“The great majority of the wilderness proposal is roadless areas, old-growth forests, areas that will not be harvested under the current management of Olympic National Forest.”
About one-third of the forest’s 633,600 acres are available for thinning, by far the dominant harvesting activity in the national forest, Churchill said.
Of the harvestable acreage, 4,292 acres would be taken out of production under the Dicks-Murray plan while 183,300 acres would remain available for logging in the national forest, where 1,500 acres are harvested annually, he said.
“At that rate, they have plenty of acres to work with for the foreseeable future,” Churchill said.
“That’s really the message: that there is no impact to the forest.”
Objects to loss
But Carol Johnson, executive director of the North Olympic Timber Action Committee, a forestry industry group, said Wednesday after reviewing the report that the timber harvest in Olympic National Forest already has been hit hard by restrictions contained in the Northwest Forest Plan.
The industry continues to push for a loosening of those restrictions, she said.
“We are not disputing some of the things [Churchill] is saying,” Johnson said.
“We are saying any further loss is too much, so we are not willing to give up any more,” she said.
“We are not giving up an acre. We are still holding on to the concept of no net loss.
“Once we lose those acres [to a wilderness designation], we can never get them back.”
The wilderness designation prohibits logging, mining, motorized and mechanical activities.
It allows recreational activities such as hunting, fishing and camping.
Small effect
“The wilderness proposal’s effect on the Olympic National Forest timber base is so small that even at an accelerated harvest rate, the acreage left available would keep the Forest Service busy for more than half a century without any interruption whatsoever to the timber supply,” Wild Olympics Chairwoman Connie Gallant of Quilcene said Wednesday in a statement.
Under the Dicks-Murray plan announced Nov. 15, Olympic National Park would be allowed to buy and absorb into the park up to 20,000 acres of private land through willing seller-willing buyer arrangements compared with Wild Olympics’ 37,000 eligible acres.
The Dicks-Murray plan also would designate as wilderness 4,000 acres fewer than the Wild Olympics proposal.
According to a map supplied by Murray’s office, both plans appear to add the same 23 river systems that lie at least in part within Olympic National Park and Olympic National Forest to the federal Wild and Scenic Rivers System.
The designation prohibits dams “and other harmful water projects,” according to Wild Olympics’ website, www.wildolympics.org.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
